While cooking supper we noticed a rainbow outside the house. My short lens couldn’t capture the full majesty but this is a snippet of what it looked like. So bright and beautiful. So strong and clean. With a reflected double above it.
She was so excited. Happy. Sharing her ‘find’ with me.
A couple of other finds this week
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty – great film, a unexpected surprise. Go watch it.
Banana Bread – the way to start in the morning
I want to read this book by the lovely blogger Olive and Owl.
This blog post has helped motivated me to get back on the diet and exercise wagon.
The 3rd of May marked the 5th anniversary of our arriving here. Packing up our possessions and getting on a plane with 2 suitcases and a lot of enthusiasm. It was the start of a big adventure and what turned into a our new life. So this weekend we drove up to Castle Hill for a walk and a picnic. We haven’t been up for a couple of years and had thought that it was further than it actually is. On 40 min from our house. It was a perfect autumn day, cool but sunny and we had a great time walking, climbing and chilling out in the sun. Madam ran and played and announced a number of times she wanted to come back ‘again and again and again’.
Its a high country hill station, still a working farm. The area has been used for films such as LoTR and Narnia. Its also a big climbing area, fixed ropes and bouldering. It’s also close to the ski field we use in the winter. Some days life just ticks on, but there are moments where we look around and go. Wow, we made it.
Rock climbing in the hills.
Joining Soulemama in a Moment from this week that I want to pause, savour and remember. A special moment.No words. One picture.
My autumn garden is looking a little ropey, but its still producing pretty well. Carrots, onions, spinach, beets, squash and courgettes are all coming into the kitchen every few days.
Newly planted spinach and kohl rabi plants, my slightly eaten brassicas in a party dug over bed (they will get moved I think). The back gardens, a slightly more healthy selection of broccoli, cauliflower and kale. Onion bed – nearly finished now. Carrot bed with its courgette plant. Squash still coming through. My helper. Flowers and the Monarch butterfly who visited us.
A number of the beds have been turned over and are ready for fertiliser and mulch and setting a side for winter. So its looking kind of messy!
This weekend I’m hoping to get the resting beds properly sorted and covered and the back tidied up, poles sorted. Trampoline moved out onto the concrete.
Over winter we will do more planning and getting some new new beds in.
Saturday morning dawned bright and clear and crisp so with hubby working; madam and I headed off to the woods for a nature walk and a chance to run off some steam. As always the bike came to. These woods are our ‘go to’ as they are our closest natural area. They are not large or flashy, just a small plantation at the end of our road. Its exactly that that makes them so perfect in so many ways. They also provide shelter from both wind and rain and are accessible in most weathers.
It was cool and damp in the woods to start. So many types of fungi to look at – but not photograph for some reason – who know why I totally failed to take any pictures – probably trying to stop madam from ‘trying’ any of them. Mushrooms in little clusters. Big red ‘elf house’ ones. Huge tree fungi. Tiny little white ones reaching up from the forest floor like fairy sized celery. Next time I will take a little stick fairy and take hilariously posed stick fairy pictures. May be.
A fantail followed us and chirped happily all the while and the sun pinged through the trees creating beautiful beams. Wood pigeons coo’d and the dog chased ‘stuff’ through the undergrowth. Predictably he caught nothing but a few burrs in his coat.
Once out we discovered the sun had broken through completely and it was warm. Thermal layer off. Racing the dog along the track. Watching a train shunt past us. The many faces that I get when I ask for a picture.
I am so lucky to get to hang out with this little person, she makes me laugh out loud so much.
When we got home the smelly messy dog got a bath and trim. He looks lopsided and silly now, but he smells so much better!
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