My Special, Wonderful Mum

Yesterday at 6.20am my precious mother died.
My mother was a truly unique and wonderful person. She was a nurse who indulged her elderly patients and loved her work. She was an adoring Gramma, and to me she was simply and completely my very, very best friend.
I have so many wonderful memories of her and the fun we had together. The hours of chatting and the gallons of tea we drank together. The gardens and nurseries walked, recipes swapped, new dishes tried out on each other. She often brought me buckets full of hydrangeas, rhododendrons, roses, gladioli, daffodils, daphne or peonies.
I am too overcome just now to say as much as I would like except that; the first time she looked into my eyes 57 years ago she smiled at me and last week when she looked into my eyes for the last time she smiled at me, her sweet, innocent, pure smile. I will have that wonderful picture in my mind for the rest of my life.

I will love you always.
Annie Margaret Emma Henshaw, rest in eternal, blissful peace my darling.

Bugs and Flowers

 I have actually done some sewing!! Really - - - LOOK!

These blocks are to prove that I have been doing some sewing (amongst the gardening).
As you may or may not be able to see I have finished the snail block blanket stitch,am halfway through the caterpillar block and yet to start the butterfly and hearts.
My daughter has the mirror image blocks to do. These blocks are for a quilt I'm making with the help of my daughter for her BFF (Joh's) first baby. Joh is 37 and I have known her since she was a black and white sonograph picture on her grandma's mantlepiece.
We are so thrilled that she is going to be a mum at last. So this is for Joh's Bubba's Quilt
Bugs and Flowers
 Are, no doubt, amongst my favourite things. I love taking pictures of them and sewing them so I have joined up with Melody's Tuesday Treasures (sorry a bit late) and pre-empted my Floral Friday.

I know it's only Wednesday but goodness knows what I'll be doing on Friday so I thought it best to get these pics up now.

All of these shots were taken today.

One of the delicious pink daisies on my lovely plump daisy bush, below.

Above is Osteospermum fruticosum. The flowers open yellow and turn copper as they age.

My wee little Golden Delicious Tree covered in blossom.

A very busy little bee, bless her cotton socks.

Such delicate blooms.

This tiny flower looks like a paper rose, sorry I've lost it's tag.

Red Penstamon in bud, White Snapdragons and Maroon Pelargoniums

Another industrious little bee.

This tiny little spider waiting patiently for her lunch

Oops you have to be quick with the shutter.

 I hope you have enjoyed this little wander around my garden. I have loved showing them to you.

Happy Gardening and Sewing - of course!!!

Selling my Quilting Machine

After much thought I have finally decided to sell my Gammill Quilting Machine. I have a number of health issues which make it difficult for me to do the best that I can and the work is very slow (to say the least) since we moved.
I will be putting a link on this blog very soon for a PDF with the sale details for anyone who is interested.

Floral Friday

Spring Delights:

Hi Everyone,
Sorry I have been away for so long but I have been unwell and haven't really felt like doing much at all. I have a procedure tomorrow which should fix everything up so I'll be hale and hearty again and raring to go in my gorgeous spring garden.
Here are some of the flowers which have already popped up.

Firstly are my pink/white bells so pretty and delicate.

This is the tiny little Viburnum. It's flowers have opened even more now and it looks so beautiful. I can't wait until it's a small tree with those lovely horizontal flower bunches.

This one is my Dwarf Red Flowering Peach, tiny but stunning.

Now for my Waratah. This lovely little tree is only a year old and has grown so much AND has 27 flowers on it. I am so thrilled at it's success.

One of the Waratah flowers - WOW

Pretty little Strawberry flowers. This variety is called simply Pink and has these sweet little flowers and the most delicious strawberries I have ever tasted. The fruit is flatish but still quite big.

Here is my Alyogne again. She is even bigger now and is always covered in flowers.

Here is the Lavender 'Avonview' growing along Harry's fence. It has been flowering and growing this whole cold, wet winter and the bees just love it, as do I.

This is the Maroon and White varieties of the Luecospermum 'Daisy' which I planted at the base of my clothesline. It certainly makes hanging out the clothes a pleasure.

And lucky last is a closeup of my clothesline daisies. I just love them. They are so happy and flower for such a long time throughout the year.

Please share with me any floral photos you have of your Spring Garden.

Floral Friday

Let's warm up a bit!

I - am - cold!

So .....
I have scoured my photo album for some pictures to try to warm me up;
This first one is at Yeppoon in Qld. We were just a stone's throw from Great Keppel Island which can be seen through the coconut palms.
This picture always warms me up:Below: On the Golf Course at Yeppoon. There were beautiful old palms, bamboo forests, lakes full of waterlillies and wonderful lush tropical scrub all around this course. It was an absolute delight to zip around it in our buggy. There is DH down there striding across the green.Below: Here I am in the buggy on one of the beautiful fairways. Just take a squiz at all the bunkers on this hole. I lost count! I really wished that I had brought my "What tree is that?" book with me!Now over to the other side of the country and a little trip we did from Perth down to Albany and around Margaret River etc.
We were lucky enough to plan this trip when most of the wildflowers were still flowering.
Below: Here is the state's floral emblem - Stunning! Click on the pic for a closer look.Below: Look at this fabulous show lining one of the coastal roads. I wish my driveway looked this good.Below: Here I am in front of a Giant Tingle Tree. I wanted to pat them and hug them and tell them how magnificent they were!And some more flowers beside the road to Albany.And Grass Trees of course
I hope you have enjoyed this little look at some warm weather plants and vistas.
Please feel free to share with me anything floral, tropical or pictures that simply warm you too look at them:

Winter!

Mmmm ... yes ... Winter in Korumburra!
We have WAY more than our fair share of rain - which, incidentally is the reason I insisted that we move down here! Which, clearly means I should not complain!

BUT:

Every morning we have to greet Harry, our rather exuberant 6 month old Brittany pup. Now Harry has a lovely yard, well potentially lovely. There is plenty of grass in his yard, which surprises me as it is effectively underwater so the yard is rather like a rice paddy.
Harry, bless his little cotton socks, is so happy to see us in the morning and due to his aforementioned exuberance cannot help but jump. Somehow his long lunging legs remind me of a Funnel Web Spider raising her front legs ready to strike. The speed with which this happens always, ALWAYS, takes me by surprise. I try to turn my back but that just means that my back gets two lovely paw prints instead of my front. (Digressing a little, this is exactly what happened to my daughter the other morning. She had two very clear paw prints on the bottom of her t-shirt. I told her it clearly read "Good" on the left buttock and "Morning" on the right one.)
So as my reflexes ain't all they used to be I have resurrected my waterproof 'snow' overpants. It appears as though I was about a size 25 when I got these, perhaps it was the only size they had - you know, the one size fits all lie!
Anyway I just had to share this moment with you. So here I am about to greet young Harry.
One thing I just love about my sodden paddock is that as you walk on it you can hear the water moving through the ground, or along the ground. You can HEAR it trickling all the time. When you jump it sounds like a brush on a cymbal and you can hear the water sort of fizzing as it is radiating away from you like the rings on the surface of a pool when a stone in thrown into it. It never ceases to amaze me. So there I am out there in my soggy paddock just jumping every now and then. Haha the workers on next door's house must really wonder about me!
PS: I have to have a 'procedure' tomorrow so I won't be having Floral Friday this week.

Heather's Quilt

I thought you may like to see this gorgeous quilt that my husband's cousin, Heather, made for a family friend. The quilt is big enough for a single bed and has been hand appliqued with blanket stitch.

Heather asked me to quilt it for her and I was just thrilled with the result. She was happy for me to share the finished product on my blog.

All applique was either stippled or stitched. Borders and sashings were loop stippled. Jaxon block was diagonally stitched along the tiny white checkerboard squares (that was the bit that gave me RSI! and forearm cramping and you can't even see it!)

The aeroplane block is quilted with clouds, wind swirls and birds.The train block is quilted with smoke from the chimney, rail tracks, roadside plants, flowers and a water tower.The car block is quilted with clouds, plants and sun rays.The truck block is quilted with trees, hills and roadside plants.Finally the ship block is quilted with stars, calm water and fireworks. This is my favourite block.

Jaxon is a lucky little boy, don't you agree?