Miles of Flowers

Who doesn't love bunches of flowers? I do, but they make me uneasy. Flowers accrue carbon miles just like food does, and most of them are flown around the world, acquiring frequent flyer miles like nobody's business. But why this lust for flowers out of season? A local tulip farm exports tulips to Holland in our spring, their autumn. But do the Dutch really require tulips in Autumn? Could they not acquire a taste for chrysanthemums and rosehips instead? And isn't it rather unimaginative to need to decorate with say, roses, all year round?

However, when a dear friend turns up at the door with a bunch of flowers, do I rant madly at them? Hardly. I thank them profusely, and then husband the precious things to eke out their pretty lives as long as possible. First, I add a teaspoon of sugar to the slightly lukewarm water in their vase, to keep them fed. I trim all the lower leaves, so there are none in the water to go slimy. I cut an inch from the bottom of their stems to give them a fresh, uncalloused surface to drink from.

Every few days I change the water, and remove the spent blooms. Eventually, I have to take out a number of stems, recut those that are left, and put them in a smaller vase. I even remove individual brown petals if the rest of the flower is still nice. The flowers in the photos are the very last remnants of a lovely autumn bunch brought by a friend when my grandpa died, so they have lasted 22 days now, and they are still making me happy, albeit much reduced in number, and in much shorter vases!

And, excellent news - one of the greengrocers I go to is stocking bunches of local flowers. I can have any colour I want - as long as it is a chrysanthemum!

Skeleton in the Closet

For some time now I have been hunting for a tallboy to tuck into the corner of our bedroom, to take on some extra storage for bits and pieces, some overflow clothes storage (not mine, you understand!). We can fit everything in the cupboards we now have, but it is all a bit congested. So I have been trudging around shops (my absolute favourite and my best... not) with my measuring tape. I did find a simply darling antique cedar chest of drawers... but it was a little too long. The problem is, it is a very small corner we are trying to squeeze a largish piece of furniture into.. and I was very bored with shopping. I stood in our dressing room hoping for a solution.

Our dressing room used to be the walk in pantry, back in the day when our bedroom was the kitchen (a lot of our rooms have a history like that..). We have lined it with wardrobes, and the double wardrobe on this wall is our linen cupboard. I was staring at it vaguely, thinking about my mother's linen closet in the house I grew up in. Which was the size of a single wardrobe. Sure we have two more people in our family, but I don't store the towels in mine.. I decided to downsize the sheets.

Here is what I had to start with..

All the sheets, all the mess. The only reason there is a tiny gap on the right there is because I just recently passed on Posy's cot sheets. Yes, Posy who is eight. I can't believe I actually transferred them into the new linen closet last year..

Why is it so hard to get rid of sheets? I think I have manchester anxieties. I appear to have an excessive number of duvet covers, and slightly too many sheets. I took a deep breath and filled up a box for the Refugee Welcome Group.

I just kept going until what was left fit in the single cupboard.

Girls' sheets up the top. Everything in shades of blue and pink, so they can choose pink, or blue, or go mad with mix and match, and it all still looks OK for their control freak mother.

Master bed sheets. All white. So easy. The Boy has brown. And yes, he now only has one pair of sheets other than the one on his bed. In truth, that's all he has been using for a couple of years, because he didn't like the other two sets I had in the cupboard for him. So now they have gone to a better home.

And now The Man can arrange his clothes elegantly in the double wardrobe (as you can see, like me, he doesn't do colours!), and we don't need a chest of drawers in the bedroom any more. So I am thinking of one of those ducky little Edwardian glass-fronted book cases, the ones with the leadlight panes....

You see, there are so many benefits to decluttering, and not shopping!

Exploiting the Suburbs

There is one downside to growing in pots under deciduous trees...

And that would be going out each morning to disinter the baby garlic, and lettuce and spinach seedlings from their blanket of butter yellow apricot leaves. At least in a couple of weeks they will be getting a whole lot more sunshine than they do now..

I know that planting seeds now is a bit pointless going into winter, but I am doing it anyway. This weekend, between many child-related social engagements I will finish planting garlic and broad beans. Yesterday I planted more lettuce, spinach, Chinese cabbage, and some cute little red chard seedlings from a friend. I have a little sun trap at the northern corner of the house, on a patch of concrete between the black asphalt driveway, and the white reflective house walls. It is very warm, and I ripened a number of capsicums here this summer, so hoping the winter veg will do well, despite being planted late.

That is another advantage of being a suburban gardener. There are so many microclimates created by hard landscaping that we can exploit for our own greedy (and lazy) ends. I've mentioned before that citrus is not a viable commercial crop here in Tasmania, because it is too cold. But almost every suburban garden can grow a lemon tree against a wall, or in a sheltered sunny corner. I have a little moan quite frequently about the lack of space here for vegetable gardening, but there are many ways to extend the season, and make the most of frost-free pockets in a small garden in a built-up landscape that would be very hard on two acres of exposed paddock.

So here's to the little pockets and corners of our tiny gardens that work hard to feed us and make us happy gardeners.

Autumn Skeleton Wardrobe

It's nearly the end of Autumn, so before we descend into the winter chill and start pulling out coats and boots, I thought I would share my skeleton wardrobe (ie, all the clothes I possess) for that awkward shoulder season, where it is a little chilly, and you need layers, but not coats. Again, I don't have many individual pieces of clothing, but they cover all my stay-at-home mum needs, and make quite a lot of different outfits. My rule for buying clothes is always buy the first (and mostly the second) piece in a neutral, then your whole wardrobe always goes together. Eventually, by the third or fourth piece, I sometimes add colour, but clearly, not always.

First of all, the basic layer, long sleeve tops (well, actually, the first layer, here in Tasmania, is the singlets, shown here in the summer wardrobe, but I haven't shown them, because in winter, you don't ever see them, so they count as underwear). These tops go with every other piece I own. I wear the blacks with the skirts. The top on the right is more 'dressy', ruched and a bit fitted, with a lovely draped neck.

And the pants. There are four pairs, and yes, you can count, I'm wearing one pair. Last year I only had two pairs, a boot cut, and a skinny jean, but then the lovely Lucinda gifted me with two pairs, and doubled my pants collection. Even better, one of them is a soft black moleskin pair, so that gives me a whole different look. So exciting!

The two rib knit turtlenecks I wear with all the pants, and often with my snuggy padded vest, which hardly makes me feels like I am going snipe shooting at all...

I do have a number of cardigans, because a Tasmanian autumn is all about layers. Very chilly mornings and evenings, sunny afternoons. Yes, it is divine, and you should all move here right away.

Look! A colour that is not black! The cardi on the right is my favourite of all time: merino with pearl buttons. It must be about ten years old, and has a number of darns. At my grandpa's funeral recently, my brother, who was standing behind me, informed me that what I fondly believed to be invisible darning, actually isn't. Thanks hon! I need a new one.. but where is there another perfect black cardigan? The stripey sweater in the middle is a recent experiment. I am not keen on sweaters, but this is a thin one, and has so far been acceptable.

And look.. more cardies. My thoughts are that a cardigan can change the whole look of what you are wearing, and if you swap a couple of scarves around as well, you look like you have a lot more outfits than is actually the case. The black one is quite long, with a dippy-down front (technical term). I wear it with canvas sneakers for casual, or high heel ankle boots and a silk scarf for formal. The other cardi is a thicker, moss stitched number, which looks especially yummy with red shoes and my one red necklace.

Three jackets. The one on the left is a light linen, that I also wear in summer, and it goes with everything, including the skirts. The denim I only wear with the skirts, to avoid that awkward double denim thing.. and the middle jacket is a heavier drill that I wear all winter.

Here are the scarves that I wear with nearly everything. There is also a lighter grey, which is featured in the summer wardrobe... I think it may be in the washing basket..

Two posh frocks, from summer. I wear them all year round, with the lovely black cardigan in winter, and sometimes a pashmina as well with the dark green. Because really, I have never been to a very formal event in winter that isn't indoors and heated.

And shoes.. what can say? They are shoes..

But, oops, I just realised I forgot the skirts. I distinctly remember getting them out of the wardrobe and photographing them... but I must have deleted that one... Well, if you want to see the skirts, there are two, in the summer wardrobe, and in autumn I wear them with black footless tights and ballet flats.

Again, I have a pair of trackpants and tops for, you know running walking reasonably fast in (inflexible clothing rule - trackpants are only for exercising in. Or, at a stretch, picking up milk from the corner shop on the way to, or on the way home from, exercising. No other public outing of trackpants will be permitted). So excluding trackpants and pyjamas, and including shoes, scarves and tights, I have 34 pieces of clothing for autumn.

Things I would maybe add one day if they magically present themselves to my attention within about five minutes of walking into a shop - a classic trench coat. A white linen shirt. A thin charcoal V-neck sweater. Some formal black pants. One day they will come. Until then, I will get by with what I have.

Are there any autumn classics that you love that I don't have? What are your super versatile pieces that you can't live without?

Pretty Funny

Recently my four year old neighbour popped his blonde, curly head over the fence.
'Hello, Jo!' he said, radiating happiness as only four year olds can, 'I'm going to my grandma's house!'
Then he thought for a moment, and his eyes widened.
'My grandma's name is Grandma, and she is a grandma. THAT'S pretty funny!'
And he laughed immoderately and went off to hop in the car.

And so... to everyone out there whose name is Mum, and who coincidentally is a mum...

Happy Mother's Day for tomorrow...

Sunshine on Front Porch

Wednesday. Remember the housekeeping routine? On Wednesdays I do some deep cleaning (often very little, to tell the truth), starting at the front door and working my way around the house. It sometimes takes months to get all the way around, not because the house is that big, but because I am that slow. Today, as it happens, we are back to the beginning. A quick sweep of cobwebs from the walls, and then I realise that for the last couple of months everything on the porch has been festooned with dead leaves and dust bunnies. Funny how you don't notice what you walk past every day. Well, I don't. Other people surely do, and have no doubt been wondering when I am finally going to sweep the porch.

This is our shoe box. When I tipped it out it contained several pairs of out-grown shoes, some slightly mildewed socks, lots of dust and a big, black spider. Now it is remarkably clean and insect-free, and only contains Posy's gumboots.

I rather like the box. The people over the road were throwing it out a few years ago, and I rescued it. Once it held kerosene cans, now gumboots. I can't decide whether it has gone up in the world or not. As you can see from the photo at the top, our porch is kind of...rustic. Three years ago we stripped the front door, but haven't decided what colour to paint it. Thankfully we had the yellow bottle glass replaced with nice frosted glass.

We still need to decide what to do to to the flaky pink concrete stairs. I like the cowbell door bell that my sister-in-law sent me.

And the wattle bird made by a local craftsman. Wattlebirds like our front garden, and perch in our bottle brush tree. This is my favourite part of the front porch.

The girls made the bead string to hang it. Down below, though, is the empty plant pot, that, until six weeks or so ago, held a mostly dead plant. For, oh, six weeks now, I have been meaning to refill it, and plant daffodil bulbs. At least it isn't full of dead leaves and spiders' webs any more.

The driftwood was a birthday present from The Girl one year. She rescued it from the local river. She's very good at presents.

So, Wednesday, sit in sunshine on clean front porch. DONE.

The Good Life

What a joy to be back home in my own dear house on a sparkling autumn day. Posy was up half the night deciding whether to be sick or not, so she spent her first day of the school term at home, sleeping in (nice for some), pottering about with her lego and her drawing, and having me read to her. When I was allowed off duty I went to visit my garden. There was an enormous storm the afternoon that I left for the funeral, and I was told in awed tones about the hail that was so thick that the kids in the street rolled it into hail balls to throw, and made hailmen. Luckily by that time I was in Melbourne, where it was raining, not hailing, otherwise I may have refused to set foot in another plane, and never got to the funeral at all.

Anyway, upon inspection, all my large leaved plants - the brassicas, the rhubarb - looked like they had been slashed with shards of glass. Some of the lettuce seedlings didn't survive. And, like the Whomping Willow in the Harry Potter movie, the big pear tree and my golden silver birch had lost all their leaves in one fell swoop. So I had a lovely afternoon raking the leaves off the lawn and onto the garden beds, and sniffing in lungfuls of essence of damp-autumn-leaf., which is very restorative after plane travel.

One of the nice moments of being away was meeting the darling new baby of my very dear cousin. He was Grandpa Ken's tenth great-grandchild, and only five weeks old. I know I don't really do craft, but I do occasionally knit, and I had made him a wee hat. Unfortunately, it was one of those patterns that requires a particular yarn, without specifying the ply, and I also don't really do tension squares, so the hat turned out a bit large, but I am hoping his little head will fatten up before the end of winter.

There is also a slightly bigger sister, and a brother, slightly bigger again. We all know how annoying it is when other people get presents and we don't, so I did a little more knitting. The cousins have real chickens in their backyard, but I made some inside chickens, for when it's raining.

These are seriously the easiest knitting projects ever. A square of plain knitting, folded over in a triangle, stuffed and sewn up. A little embroidery for beak and comb, a button for her to stand on. My children have a number of these in their farm set, because they are easier to knit than sheep and donkeys..

So having celebrated the end of a life, and the beginning of one, I am back in the garden, enjoying the middle (I hope) of a very nice life indeed.