Books by my bedside

The first book I read this week was Heart's Blood. Juliet Marillier writes historical fantasy with some novels based on the fairy tales I grew up loving as a child. Heart's Blood is one of these and is based on the tale Beauty and the Beast. Other fairy tale based books by Juliet include the Sevenwaters Forest series (based on my favourite, The Swan Princess); Wildwood series (based on The 12 dancing Princesses and the Frog Prince, and myths with Ottoman and Greek roots). I love the fact that Juliet is a local author too. She writes beautifully and I recommend her books to anyone looking for a good but gentle read.
My second book for the week is a travel memoir written by a journalist from New Zealand. Bruce and his wife spent a year travelling through Holland, Belgium and France on a canal boat. I'm not far into it yet but of course my feet are itchy for the chance to do something so wonderfully exciting myself. For those of you who aren't aware......I have a deep, all consuming travel addiction. Luckily I am able to slake it's thirst somewhat by reading travel books and shopping (virtually) for real estate all over the world. Sad but true.
Elixir came in the mail today and I'm very excited. Janella Purcell featured in this years Biggest Loser and her segment on food preparation and the benefits of nutrition was brilliant. Using food as medicine is something I am very interested in as a result of my own health issues and the experiences of friends with cancer. So far it looks brilliant and in the first 20 pages or so I've picked up some really good ideas for my particular needs. Will give you a bit of a review when I've finished it.

Miss R's visit

Miss R popped over from Sunshine Smiles for a change of scenery and a sleep-over this week. She rather took to this palm stump and spent quite a lot of time sitting happily and chattering away. It's amazing how kids make us see the world in a different way. We walked down to the creek together for a bit of an adventure and I saw things that I'd never noticed before. Now I walk this particular path most days, and suddenly I was looking closely at the different bark on all of the trees and filling my pockets with leaves, gumnuts and other natural treasures. I think the slower pace and the eyes of a child helped me to see my familiar world in a new way and it was a pleasant surprise. I'm going to try to look at the world with the eyes and heart of a child a bit more often.


We made a contact picture with the treasures we brought home from the walk and added some bling in the form of glitter. Everything becomes a masterpiece with glitter! Sorry about the rubbish photo. This was the best of a bad bunch.

To make contact pictures simply cut 2 pieces of contact the same size. Place the first one down on the table adhesive side up and cover with leaves, cellophane, glitter etc. When done cover with the second piece of contact and sandwich your masterpiece between. Finito!

Overly enthusiastic garden

We've had a rather wet start to the year which has been wonderful. Both our tank and dam are full and we've not had to water. Not that I water much, just things that need establishing or that provide us with food. The above is an out of the way section of our garden that nestles in between the orchard, garage and pool fencing. It's not usually this overrun and tangled. It got away from us during the rain and high humidity. The chook shed (seen peeking out amongst the greenery at left), was retired of it's original purpose long before we moved here. Too many carpet snakes with a taste for chicken!
Another sad result of such a positive thing (rain). The citrus trees have been completely loaded this year. I've been all a-twitter with the anticipated joy of picking my own fruit and eating it right there, produce runs to the neighbours and making curds and jams. We found that the rain caused much of the fruit to split before ripening and the fruit fly got the rest. Fruit fly has been particularly bad this year and we got no fruit, none, zip from this mandarin. I'm hoping we get more from the other trees.
The rest of the garden has thrived in the rain and humidity however. These two photos are taken under a giant poinciana where a swing chair and sandpit also make their home. It's one of my favourite spots in the garden.
It's very green with little other colour at present unfortunately. Aren't the Crow's Nest ferns magnificent? Right hand side about midway up image for those non-botanicals among us. The staghorn fern on the trunk above them is putting on a nice show at present too.

Green, green, green. I think I'll have to do a colour hunt in my garden.

Scribbly Gum

I pass this tree each day that I go for a walk and it takes me back to my childhood. I remember walking with my Grandma in the bush around our farm and seeing these trees. Grandma would tell me it is the bush newspaper and this idea took further root when I read "Snugglepot and Cuddlepie" by May Gibbs.
Here you see the bush newspaper being updated and little Snugglepot and Cuddlepie riding on Mr Lizard's back in the background. Gorgeous illustrations, cruddy photo.


The scribbly gum is an attractive eucalyptus with the most enchantingly smooth and pale bark (I always have to touch it and say hello). Upon this lovely surface intriguing brown squiggles or 'scribbles' meander haphazardly over the trunk. May Gibbs wrote of the scribbles being messages left by the bush creatures and gumnut babies. Science however says it is the work of none other than this native moth. I prefer the thought of gumnuts, flower fairies and Mr Lizard meeting there at the tree daily to catch up on the news. I wonder what things have happened in their world as I slept and rather like the fanciful thought of them being out there living in my garden and in the bush beyond my fence. Happy thought.

Doggie mind power

I'm sure they think if they stare hard enough I'll suddenly sprout Scooby Snacks from my ears and they'll be in doggie snack heaven. I'd just sat myself down for a nice warm cuppa and this is what I had to contend with. These are my girls. Sophie at left who is 4 and Jessica (Jess) who is 6. They've been good company all this time I've been home trying to get healthy. Sorry the photo is a bit rubbish. Got the shakes today. Off to hospital for overnight testing tonight so might not post for a couple of days. Nothing to worry about, just looking for more answers.

Until then....travel lightly!

Sandy

Not my tree house but I wish it was

I must confess that I became quite giddy with excitement upon seeing this glorious construction. This is another back-in-time post from our trip to the UK. I came across the photos whilst trawling my pictures and it was just too exciting and wonderful not to share. Don't you think? I enjoyed a very happy scamper here during our visit. The tree house can be found at the Alnwick Garden, in England which I'll tell you more about in another post. No time tonight unfortunately.

This was far higher than it looked and it wobbled a bit when J jumped up and down in an effort to scare me as I crossed. Not being overly fond of wobbly heights, he was mildly successful.
Don't these look like ridiculously good fun!! You have to love a child friendly venue. They make me feel quite at home! :)


Click here if you'd like to take a further peep at this lovely garden.

Title Image

The image accompanying my blog name was taken on my last trip to the UK in 2007 when J and I travelled over for the wedding of my dear friend Liz to her Paul. It was taken on a day trip from our little flat in Invermoriston near Loch Ness to the West Coast. We travelled along the A87 (for those of you who like to look at things on maps as I do) to Eilean Donan Castle. It was a misty, cold day but quite lovely for it. Eilean Donan Castle is rather an iconic place in Scotland and has stood and been inhabited in various forms since the 6th century which is rather impressive. Inside you have good access to most of the castle and they've left it set up and decorated as if a family is in residence, so beds are made, kitchen is a hive of busyness with birds hanging, cookbooks and menus open to be perused etc. The title image was taken looking over the Loch from the castle.
You may have guessed that not much is happening here at present, hence the post-from-the-past. I had been asked about the title image so wanted to blog about it and it just evolved into a wee snapshot of Eilean Donan as well. Have I stirred up a case of wanderlust in anyone?