Wonderful day!

I had a shocker of a day yesterday, but handled it fine. I wasn't sure how today would go, but I went in to school and decided to spread a bit of joy around, hoping some would come back. And it did. You never know in my job. I work with an incredibly diverse and unpredictable group of young people, and I see the best and the worst of them. Today they were a delight. Tomorrow is Friday, and some of my students can tell me that the weekend is coming (we're learning about the days of the week). Yay!

I thought I'd share these gorgeous tulips from my lovely Mummy's garden. I adore tulips. I thought I loved the double ones the most, but this year I've changed my mind. I'm fascinated by peering into the deeply cupped blooms to study the colours and shapes inside. The stripy ones please me very much.

Mauve spikes:

Feathered edges:

Hand painted:

Glorious sunset colours:

Other things to report. Hmmm...

• Miss Dog is trimming her toenails with her teeth. Lucky Daddy isn't home, he always grumps when she does that.
• Johnny is at the junior concert at his school. Fun.
• One of Emily Butcher's horses had a foal. I will get to visit it soon. Fantastic.
• Tuna in cans is highly over-rated. Let the dolphins, whales, giant squid and sharks have the tuna.
• My front garden looks fantastic!!!!!!!!!
• Ronan Keating just said the girl on X-Factor "nailed the vocals." I beg to differ. Actually I beg to differ with all of the judges. She was out of tune.
• I wouldn't be watching X-Factor if Johnny was home. We would have Motorway Patrol on.
• I'm very sorry to hear that Cam's friend lost her battle with cancer. Terribly sad.
• I haven't seen a photo of my gorgeous niece, Lucy, in a while. Hint, hint.
• We got a lovely card from the vet clinic today. It made me want to cry, but I resisted after my great day.
• We had a cracker of an aftershock yesterday, and a smaller, but very noisy one not too long ago. Miss Dog barked in indignation and fright. We seem to be having about 3 earthquakes a day.

Have a brilliant day tomorrow!

Birthday Boy

We decided to make an unscheduled visit to Nelson for the very special birthday of our wee treasured nephew, Henry. His first birthday is tomorrow. We had a family gathering on Saturday at his house, with balloons, presents and lots of delicious food. We had whitebait fritters - yum! Plus Mum's famous meringues. We also had the birthday cake, which was a cosmetically enhanced bought one and was delicious. Much appreciated by the birthday boy himself. Although there were many lovely presents, the highlight was the three piece tool kit with interchangeable sander, circular saw and reciprocating saw, all in classy matte plastic, with noisy sound effects and lights. Uncy Jim decided that every baby needs to start building his tool collection.

We are missing dearest Monty. I'm learning to sleep without him. I planted a pretty garden for him, and he is among the roses. It was hard to water the garden with him in it, because he didn't like getting wet. Horrible to think about him in the ground.

I finished "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" on the way back home in the car today. What a great read- and a great movie. I'm going to start "The Girl who Played with Fire" tonight. Excellent. Must go to sleep early though, because it is back to school tomorrow. I've got to remember why I go to school - to fund my craft habit.

Happy Birthday dearest little man Henry! Stay as sweet as you are forever! XXXXXXX

Goodbye Darling

My heart is broken. The cat love of my life is gone.

Flat at the wrong moment

Yes, I'm talking about the camera. Just when I was about to show you my homemade ice cream in the middle of the process, nothing happened at the critical moment. Of course, with cream and egg whites whipped and looking super frothy, I didn't want to dally. Let's just say that it turned out brilliantly, and the teaspoon of golden syrup and Crunchie bar I added in little chocolatey and hokey pokey hunks were a taste sensation. Thanks to Miss S for the tutorial! I'll have to make it again to take photos before I provide the recipe.

What have I been up to since my last post? I made some excellent progress on the bright quilt. I've been working on the runner for the top of the sideboard Johnny made (with the TV in it- I hate to call it an "entertainment unit"). So far no paint has been chosen for that. However Johnny made me another bookcase to go in the bedroom which will be a soft blue - very pretty. Johnny has also been busy painting the fence with his noisy sprayer. It looks brilliant!!!! I had fun pottering in the garden while I supervised the painting. I moved a few things around, including some teeny tiny lettuces that have come up in the raised bed No.1. I'm thinning them out. I also planted some corn seeds and discovered why my first lot of basil didn't germinate- old seed. I remedied the situation and am expecting a more enthusiastic response from the virile young seeds I sowed today.

Monty is very quiet today. He got up, snacked, vomited, then went back to bed until the afternoon. The got up moved to the sunny couch and slept. When it cooled down he got inside John's sleeping bag (don't ask- when Johnny had the flu he got it out and has been enjoying snuggling in it in the evening) and slept. He is now on Johnny, who is inside the sleeping bag.

I've got to get onto doing some work for school tomorrow. Sigh. Plus some more sewing. Yay!!!

Shopping, sewing and prowling around

What a lovely day I've had. We got up early today so that we could zip into Riccarton to purchase a new couch and two chairs in the Farmers half price on furniture sale. They are chocolate leather and very like our existing couches. After the earthquake Johnny sat on the old pull out couch and the bottom dropped out of it. He is calling it an "arsequake". We decided that it was time to update. The chairs will give us some more seating in the living room, where we like to sit around with visitors during the day time. Plus we can move them into the lounge as required. Unfortunately we have to wait until January for delivery, but at half price, we're not complaining.

Johnny had business to attend to at work, so I took a drive over to the wonderful new quilt/craft shop "Stitch" on Colombo Street. It is a treasure trove of gorgeous bright fabrics, and some in softer tones as well. It is very modern and fresh with lovely trims, books, a small selection of lovely knitting yarns and a space for classes. The owner, Fenella, is lovely and was so helpful when I was choosing fabric to finish off my (mostly) Kaffe Fassett quilt that I started about 18 months ago. The green fabric is an alarmingly acid green with tiny cerise dots. It is for the inner border and the binding. The cerise fabric behind it is called "Venetian Glass" and is for the larger outer border. I've been busy piecing it all together this afternoon as Fenella worked out all of the measurements (in metric- thank goodness) so I just needed to whip out the rotary cutter and sew it together. It is extraordinarily bright- not everyone's cup of tea (more like a glowing glass of Midori), that's for sure. I can think of several of my loyal readers who would be horrified if it entered their more subtly decorated abodes. However I can still remember the first moment I caught a glimpse of Kaffe Fassett's home in one of his magnificent books. I wanted to move in immediately. I so admire and enjoy the elegance of more restricted colour schemes, but I am so drawn to colour that I can't help myself.

On the embroidery front, I immortalised a pansy that caught my eye in the garden. I am making it into a brooch. Here it is before I removed the marking pen.

This daffodil caught my eye, so I picked it and photographed it for Mum. It is even lovelier in real life.

My tulips were looking happy in the pots on the deck outside the Poppy Black Studio.

Miss Dog and I took a walk break in the middle of crafting this afternoon. I wanted to prowl past the hellebore border down the road to check whether there are babies to be stealthily collected with a spoon and doggy poo bag. Yes indeed, there are plenty to be harvested if I get up early at the weekend when there are not many people around. I also wanted to visit the old cemetery at the other end of the village.

I enjoy checking out the inscriptions on the gravestones. The creation of beautiful monuments seems to be a disappearing art. You can see that there is damage to some of the graves from the earthquakes. By the way we had a 4.5 quake today which gave the house a bit of a shake. On the way back from our walk Miss Dog and I got caught in the rain. We never get caught in the rain! Was it because of my immoral thoughts about "acquiring" baby hellebores from a public garden? Or was it because Miss Dog and I ignored the dog ban and walked through the domain? As soon as we emerged from the domain the rain started. Slowly at first, then pelting down. Just as I started to run who did I hear coming up the road to rescue me? My lovely Johnny. When I asked him how he thought we was going to find me out and about, he said he was just going to drive the streets until he spotted me. Now that is how wonderful he is.

Making the most of Monty

Today has been a celebration of Monty time. He is looking surprisingly well today, and we had some fun with him out in the garden. He visited our wonderful vet, and we've got some more powerful painkillers to give him, so hopefully we can keep him as comfy as possible over the next few days. He has lost a lot of weight. But having lots of cuddles, sleeping in the sun and being smothered in love is the best way to spend your last few days. Look at my lovely boys (and the black crocodile) out in the sun.

No flowers are safe when Monty is around! I've always had to put bunches of flowers out of his reach.

It is so lovely in the sun. He looks deceptively well.

I've very pleased with myself in the crafty department. Here is my latest passion.

These are the first three pansies I have stitched out of Diana Lampe's Embroidered Pansies. I am utterly fascinated by the delightful faces of pansies. I've got hundreds that have self-sown, so there are so many different shapes, colours, patterns and sizes. They are promiscuous breeders. These embroidered poppets are the size of a standard cotton reel, as I drew around one as a stitching guide. I think I did a pretty good job for my first go. You know you are onto a good thing when you wake up in the night and want to get up to do some more sewing! I do have a bit of trouble seeing to do such detailed stitching under artificial light. I feel a bit guilty sitting around doing embroidery in the daytime though. I won't be feeling guilty when I've got a collection of these made into brooches to choose from.

Tomorrow is going to be another lovely fine day. Sun for basking in. Monty will be happy. So will Miss Dog. And I'll be pleased to do another couple of loads of washing. Johnny is going to help Mrs CT make a ramp to get her elderly German shepherd up into the back of her car. Then we're going to Thyme Cafe for lunch. I'm glad Johnny is feeling better. The earth has been rumbling quietly today, so far, so we've hardly felt the aftershocks. You never know what will happen in the next five minutes.

XXXXMontyXXXXX

Holiday...

I'm as cheerful as this happy gang of pansies!

Who wouldn't be, with two glorious spring weeks ahead of me to craft, garden, get out and about and relax. Today I started the day with a walk over to the nature reserve. Miss Dog discovered she could scramble down the steep bank into the huge pond that only forms over a very wet winter. The pond is deep at the moment, and she looked like a furry black crocodile cruising around. We returned home to our sickly Johnny. I plucked some eucalyptus leaves from over the back fence and made a brew with them. I added a few herbs for good measure, and poured boiling water over them. Then I enticed the sickly critter to breathe in the steam while huddling under a towel. It seemed to help a bit. He has been up and about a little today, and is now in his sleeping bag on the couch.

Meanwhile, after I did a bit of school work, I headed outside and started playing around with my tiny seedlings, pricking out a rather large collection of tomatoes into individual pots so that they can grow into big, healthy specimens (well that's the idea). I planted nasturtiums, cabbage, broccoli, baby bear pumpkins and mixed squash seeds as well. The jalapeños have made an excellent effort to grow, and the very first capsicums and hot peppers are just peeping out. The basil looks like it is going to be a disaster.

Johnny got the macro lens out on the camera and I did some experimenting. The poets are just starting to appear.

Somehow the yellow poppies managed to self-seed the best and I've got a big mass of them. I love their crepey petals and hairy stems.

This is one of Mum's seedlings, I think. It is quite a peachy tone.

And look at the silver pear flowers. Gorgeous!

I planted quite a few anemones this year. Their flowers fascinate me. It is a shame they don't cross breed well and make a big assortment of colours.

And most precious of all, our darling Monty. Relaxing on the couch.

After the outside fun, I got two panels of fabric ready for hand quilting. I iron them, then sandwich a thin layer of batting between the feature fabric and a piece of boring/hideous fabric (which won't show when complete). I use a spray fabric adhesive to keep them together, and also use quilting pins around the edge to keep everything in place while I hand stitch. They are destined to become cushions, or possibly a fabulous piece of art on the wall. We shall see. I promise I will show you!

Tonight we are having a roast. I had better go and get it out of the oven so that I can feed the poor critter on the couch.

Lots of love to Dad, who has a horrible bout of the flu and couldn't go down to Te Anau for the daffodil show. So disappointing. XXXXX