Catching up...

It takes a bit of time to catch on on life when you have been away for a while. We had 4 weeks away on holidays to the UK and Europe (all of October) and I am only just now getting caught up on laundry, housework and the garden now. I have spent the past week finding places for all the things that came home with me in my suitcase. I hate unpacking!

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Yesterday, I had a lovely lunch out with two friends. We sat at a small cafe, enjoyed a nice lunch and chatted for 3 hours. The cafe is attached to a plant nursery so afterwards, I bought a few things for the garden.

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When I went home, I decided to paint a few cement pots that I salvaged from our unit in Adelaide. They are really old and Angus would have thrown them out but I wanted to save them. I have painted them 'Ironstone' which is the same colour as our colourbond roof and garage door on our house. One of the pots had a price written on the inside of it - $6.75 ! I think it must be about 40 years old. Anyway, they had paint peeling off them and had cracks so I just painted over the lot of it. Voila - new pots!

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This one has been planted with a pink geranium.
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This one is bright red. The pots came up good, didn't they?
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My little tomato patch...
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My garden is still full of weeds but the roses are healthy and just starting to pop with colour.
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Bonnie likes to join me in the garden...
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This geranium will be stunning when it gets a grow on and flowers all over.
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First roses of the season ...
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Hot pink carpet rose...
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I have a love of geraniums at the moment, we saw a lot while we were away. Londoners have a habit of displaying window boxes outside their apartments with geraniums, cyclamen and impatiens. Geraniums are very hardy and don't need a lot of water so I have potted out three different colours to brighten our pergola area and front porch. I also bought petunias which do well in my area and some impatiens for the shady areas.

My oven has blown an element at the moment so there is no baking going on at my house. I am having baking withdrawals! Everything I thought of having on the weekend involved using an oven so I coudn't do anything. Hopefully it will be fixed by the end of this week. I want to try a Monkey Bread recipe for Brianna.
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The weather is still very changeable here - we had sunshine this morning, followed by a quick shower of rain and now it is really overcast. I wish it would make up it's mind.
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I have lots of photos from our wonderful trip - I have put them on facebook - but I think I'll just choose 6 from each place we visited to put on my blog. I came home with 1495 pictures on my camera - and that was after deleting any blurry ones or duplicates! Never let it be said that I miss a photo opportunity! I took some wonderful food shots too so I'll share them with you down the track.
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I guess everyone is gearing up for Christmas. I'm not sure where we will have Christmas lunch - probably at my sister's house. I hope to keep it simple and quiet this year. After our holiday, I don't really have a Christmas wish-list.
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Each year, my sisters and I work out a gift criterior for our presents to one another. My sister Leanne deemed that this years present would be 'garden' themed. It can be bought or hand made and to the value of $15-$20. Any ideas, folks?
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Finally, it's nice to see Daisymum back on her blog - Notes from Daisy Mountain. She's been busy in the past year with a new job. She's been on facebook but I really miss her blog so Welcome Back, Daisymum!
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I'm off to make dinner now - you'll never guess what it is? You'd think after spending time in Italy, the last thing we'd want is pasta... I'm making Rigatoni Bolognese, a very simple meat sauce, pasta and parmesan cheese with bread rolls to go with it. Quick and comforting.
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Cheers for now, Joolz
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