One year on

Twelve months ago, on the first day of Spring, Amy, Helen and Jack moved in to Marmalade House and went head first into making it home.

Six months later, Bill and I moved in to the little Cottage and made it our home.

We still pinch ourselves about living here in this green enclave of native trees and the neighbouring farmland that we  pretend is ours.

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None of us recall seeing any daffodils back then so we planted our own. 

All brought from Frogpond as bulbs that had been dug up and packaged in brown paper bags, some that had labels and some that were “ wouldn’t have a clue”.

Just by chance, we’ve discovered a patch of freesias growing wild across the road. 

A serendipitous find.

 Our own secret picking patch. 

Our living rooms smell divine.

Whilst daffodils are known as the yellow trumpets of Spring, the glorious fragrance of freesias also herald Spring for me. 

Another one is jasmine.  We have a couple of plants twining their way over some arbours here and they’ve just started to flower too.

 



We’ve since found some freesia escapees in the middle of the iris clumps.

The Fairy Garden has been a visual feast over the last few weeks with curtains of wattle cascading down each pathway. I’d love to know how many varieties we have. Researching and identifying our trees and shrubs will be an ongoing joy for me.

Sadly, the destructive winds of the last week have wreaked havoc in there and all around the property to be honest.  The cleanup will take some considerable time. We didn’t lose power at any stage so we were grateful for that. I’ve never known such damaging winds before. It was frightening at times.

Our beautiful big tree is still standing, thank goodness. 

The fruit trees in the orchard are starting to blossom. I’m looking forward to seeing what the unknown trees produce.

Amy and Helen have constructed a fence around their vegie patch using poles, timber, wire and gates mostly gathered from around the property.





We now have our very own Yarning Circle ( named by Amy ). Helen reclaimed some logs and rusty bits and placed them like this…..we can’t wait to have a fire in the fire pit.

It’s one of my favourite places.  










We find ourselves gathering there often during the day. 

Amy replaced the rocks that edged the front garden beds with some reclaimed sleepers that Helen was able to rescue. 

Helen repaved the front path. We didn’t know that masonry was part of her skill set ( and neither did she apparently). Her first go at path making and it won’t be her last if we can persuade her to fix our skewy path in front of the Cottage.

The Cottage extension plans are currently with the urban planning and land management people. We are hoping they see our extension as one of the more simple reviews to consider. 

Our septic system has been relocated. I was horrified to see what that entailed after completion. I’m sure the grass will grow back eventually though. At the moment it looks very much like a construction site.

Helen and Brenda sowed some flower seeds a couple of weeks ago. They went straight into our little hothouse and proceeded to germinate within days, much to our delight. Strawflowers, ageratum, cerinthe major, snapdragons, aquilegias, forget me nots and zinnias.

Everyday, Bill is the first one out there working away at whatever needs to be done. 

But he’s always up for a play with Jack.

Some photos of what we’ve been up to….






























Books I’ve been getting my teeth into….





Have a great week everyone.

Hope you can find some joy in the simplest of things…..

This’ll be me over the next few weeks…..