Adjusting days.

My Aloe vera has set flower.

More seeds, hopefully to attract some beneficial insects and add pretty colour.

New growth on our passionfruit that is waiting for a home.

Cauliflower about to flower and set to seed hopefully.

Lots of strawberries coming on.

Baby broccoli.

Our puss Daisy hanging out in the garden with me.

New shoots on the fig tree, hopefully we get some fruit of it this year - 5th year.

Watermelon radish about to got to flower and seed.

I am trying some new adjustments to my days. At the end of the month day light savings will start here and I am looking forward to it. It really does feel like there is more time in the day and now that the wee ones are getting older too the time change might not bother me as much. Plus with our renovations we replaced all the windows - which now have no curtains or blinds and guess what, the youngest still manages to fall asleep with all the light of day pouring in. I used to think they would only fall asleep if it was dark in their rooms. That's how it was for the last 6 years. Anyway, as I was saying, my days. I spend most of the day running around like a chook with its head cut off trying to get as much as I can get done, just like most mums I am sure. But something needed to change. Firstly, of course there is this blog I love to write, but it was certainly not feeling enough love and then also catching up on all the other blogs I love to read and throw in a little web surfing too. I used to try and write when my youngest was having her day sleep, but now I find I have lots of nagging jobs that fill that time with ease. So I have set the challenge to get out of bed in the morning earlier. Hello day at 5am! Now the trick is to make sure I am super duper quiet as I really don't want to wake the kidlets up. I swear that if they hear a single peep its all over and the day begins for us all. So I get up and tip toe out to pop the kettle on then continue my tip toe down my beautiful new internal stairs to go to the loo - the toilet upstairs is just outside their room and while its not necessarily a noisily affair, the flushing can often be a risk factor! TMI? Then its back up to make a cuppa and settle in on the couch for an hour or so to enjoy some screen time! And so this is day 2 and here I am managing to fit a snappy blog chat it! (Spoke too soon, my buddy boy has now joined me, 5.38am - thankful for abc iview and peter rabbit!) Better make this quick now..... I am now extremely motivated to get our room downstairs finished. I really just need to clean all the stuff we have stored (stuffed!) down there to allow us to tile the floor. Give the place a paint and then it would be pretty good to go. I can already see my little tea station setup down there and hopefully the quiet sounds of sleeping will continue for a little longer! Not today though, the demands have started and first breakky is requested. Talk soon, C x.

Yay, Spring is here!

I am so glad winter is over and Spring is here again. It feels like I have been waiting for 3 months for the 1^st of September to come around just to get back into the garden good and proper! I did plant a few sneaky seeds about a week ago and have kept them nice and snug inside and today a few more joined them. I got stuck into turning over the beds that have been resting and adding some home grown compost for a boost, the perfect home for our next round of spring beauties. I ordered some flowering plants online yesterday too – I know, not exactly inline with my idea of an ‘edible’ garden, but I chose flowering plants that are suited to being cut and add that life and freshness to a home. My Nana used to always have fresh cut flowers everywhere – especially in her fridge! I think a lot of what I imagine from my garden in some way or another is stemmed from a memory of my Nan or a way for me to connect with her, she was an amazing gardener! I have missed her everyday since her passing over 4 years ago. Love you Nan x

The renovations are still happening! We have had a bit of a break from all the contractors, enough time to tidy up all of their mess! We are getting the engineer in next week to talk about our new balcony - the bit I am most looking forward to. I am so glad because it looks like it will be up before summer holidays! I have pretty much written the rest of the year off as too stressful and as such I am spending less time here writing about it all. I must say though, that spring time finally coming around has invigorated me so you might be lucky and hear more from me more than I expect ;) .

I am still trying to do as much as I can from scratch and have managed to make a new batch of soap - this time I remembered to put the essential oils in so it smells lovely. I still make Kombucha and a new one - Milk Kefir. All our food is still cooked from scratch and surprisingly still gathering something from the garden for every meal. Our rainbow chard is still going from last spring, it just keeps on keeping on! I also mixed up a batch of Tumeric tea for hubby to take to work - using our own home grown tumeric and ginger. Time to shoot, one of my fave tv shows is about to start - Selling Houses Australia. Talk soon xx.