October round up! Part the second.

Lucky there is a long Bachelorette finale to have on while I blog.

I had an opportunity to do something nice for my colleagues, which was a bee themed morning tea to congratulate some team members on the native bee book. I bought in my whopper teapot and helped with food and picked a big bunch of native flowers and painted some cards the boss could write in and present to my colleagues. 

That’s not all, the next week I put together a Bachelorette themed morning tea with some colleagues for the campus social club. It was cheesy and amazing. Chocolate dipped strawberries, fairy lights, everyone had to pick a bachelor for the raffle.

I scored the decoration roses for my desk afterwards!!!!!!!!! I can't have roses in my tiny garden I think, so enjoying them was a treat. And garden roses are so different to florist roses. So generous, and showy and scented, not just perfect uniform rosebuds.

Can't stay away from my garden for long. I've been looking online at Wallgarden and other types of vertical garden system. I had rigged wire mesh to the fence. A friend cancelled her plan to visit from Sydney so I consoled myself with a trip to Poppys garden centre in newcastle to buy multi hang pots. They are pretty well designed to hang easily and be moved around. It was a few hours work in the rain on Saturday to dig up plants from the garden and plant them in the pots and hang them on the fence. I'm pleased with the results, I think the plants will cover a lot of fence if they don't die, and I can add more pots later!

Then there is the annual ED workshop, my work team from around NSW meets together for a couple of days with bosses and does seminars and things. I had nothing to present this time except a get to know you game, which was pretty fun and easy. So I was just looking forward to a trip down to the Riverina, learning some stuff and seeing new things, and my office hosted the Togies. I might blog a report of that separately.

We flew to Nerrandra in  Rex. Sydney always looks amazing from above. And then I noticed all the sort of agriculture we flew over. A lot of greenhouse horticulture on the outskirts of the city, then green green flat fields, a bit puddly and flood ruined in some areas.

I had the biggest pub meal of my life, a lamb shank. This is me on the home straight. I took the opportunity to stock up on red meat.

We stayed in a old, faded, historic hotel in Leeton. Charming.

Glen from Trangie and I played a duet, cello and viola. It was great for me to have something like that to work towards, my first string duet. Some of my colleagues said they really loved it. Looking at the video one of them took I was smiling the whole time so I must have enjoyed it too. It went well, notes-wise, no mistakes.

I ate a lot, but I went for a walk each morning. The area is amazing for flowers. Roses, and irises and things.

On our last afternoon we visited an iris farm run by our college in Wagga. I've bought a few and they've grown this year but haven't flowered yet. When it's time I will dig them up and plant them in pots in a sunnier spot. Then it was a flight to Sydney and a long mini-bus ride back to Tocal, arriving painfully travel-weary at 9pm. It was a really successful trip and workshop.

And finally, Mum re-taught me how to knit so I can knit myself a new pair of wrist warmers.

October roundup! Part the first.

I know I've got to much to catch up on, it's been a lovely full month. It's so nice to go through the last month of photos and see the things that I've got to do. It's been a triumphant month, in a quiet way.

I thought it has been a really long time since I saw a concert or play or anything in Sydney, and I plan to see something big each year. I have seen local things like Earnest this year, but I want to maintain some touch with the big experiences you get in Sydney. I really like My Fair Lady so decided to jump on that. Providentially I asked G to come with me and randomly picked her birthday! 

Monday was a public holiday so I drove to Cronulla and saw Julia which was lovely. The area was packed because of the grand final win but luckily we got a seat at a cafe and had a good brunch and a little walk to the bay. It was a lovely day.

In the arvo I drove to Birkenhead point. I’ve been trying to replace my really old sneakers for years, and BP has a Ziera outlet. They don’t have a huge range and it’s not the coolest left overs, but amazingly I got a pair of brown sneakers basically what I was looking for. New for old!

I checked out all the other shops too. Some shops were too crowded and I’m no longer keen on crowded shops. The only thing that caught my eye was this doona cover on sale at Laura Ashley. I went away and thought about it while I looked at the other shops, and it was the only thing I wanted. I went back, and the queen size was sold! But I bought the display off the bed :) I don’t regret buying it. It’s not something I needed to look for, but whenever I see my bed it looks so pretty, even when it’s not made.

I told George that Ziera had big shoe sizes and was worth checking out and that led to shopping joy for her the next weekend :)

G had dinner with her mum for her birthday but Denise was free! So we had dumplings in Ashfield and it was a lovely catchup. I wasn’t planning to see a different friend for every meal this visit, but I’m thankful to have been able to line up with Denise at the last minute. 

On Tuesday we went to the zoo in the morning, with Karen and her girls. We didn't have very long but its not a big zoo so we saw some good things quickly. The seal show was really good, and the baby gorilla was cute/weird.

G and I had our lunch at the ferry station thing, and got the ferry to CQ. It was really perfect to be catching the ferry across the harbour with a view of the opera house, to go to the opera house!

Couldn't take photos of the show but the sets were beautiful (from the back row) and the singing was perfect.

Did some useful shopping quickly up in the CBD, like a saucepan lid and a bottle of shampoo and I forget what else. Had birthday dinner with G, then I did PT back over the harbour to the zoo carpark and drove home.

Ahh, what a diversion. Back to my day to day life! Which is... GARDEN!

The snow peas finished, I've planted new seeds and tomatoes.

I felt my new camellia was going to be better in a different place to where I planted it.

  
So I straight away started digging up grass. As in straight away after work on Thursday until it got dark, and then I went to Bunnings for timber on Friday night and dug up trenches, and put my garden edging level in the trenches on Saturday morning. 

I used Eddie’s heavy tools and level, and asked DB to come around on Sunday and drill the pieces together after I had them in place. I reckon I built 95% of it myself, I knew what I was doing, and it was great to have someone do the drilling for me at the end. I moved the camellia in place and voila! Actually a couple of weeks later I decided to put some star posts and wire in behind the camellia so as it grows I can encourage it sideways.

Mulberry season!

Sweet peas season! I keep a bunch on my kitchen table and on my bedside table. Lovely to see them around and get a whiff of their perfume.

I've done a desk makeover. I tidied up. Then I realised that a piece of material I bought from Spotlight for the house was the right size for my cubicle wall so I tape it up. It looks fabulous and designy, because the cubicle walls are a bit drab and shabby it's really given my cubby a lift.

End part the first.