Weekend lunch and long sleeves

This afternoon's harvest - four zucchinis (three different types); three cucumbers (including a super long one!), some tomatoes (three different types), dwarf green beans, oh and there was also a couple of eggs (not in the photo).

We picked some more corn on Saturday for lunch - yum!  There were a few missing kernels but the slugs eating the silk didn't do too much damage. 

Yesterday I picked the last of the boysenberries, but the strawberries are just starting to get into full swing so we should have another month of berry-joy.

And last, but not least - I managed to get into some solid knitting yesterday afternoon and finished off the first sleeve for my husbands stripey jumper (started about 9 months ago).  Then I attached it and sewed up the side seam.  I don't seem to have great curved seam technique, so the sleeve seam is a little bit lumpy.  Oh, and despite checking measurements about 20 times the sleeve still managed to be about 5cms too long!  Never mind.  I can't face undoing the seams and frogging back half the sleeve, so it will stay a long armed jumper.  Only one more sleeve to go and then the neckband and then it's done.  Hooray!  I think I can finish it in a couple of weeks.  So it is definitely time to decide what yarn to buy next.  Does anyone have any tips on how to prioritise potential projects?  There are so many projects I'd like to make and I just can't decide what to do next.

We're going to Melbourne!

Today we booked flights to visit Melbourne later this year.  Canberra is less than 3 hours drive from Sydney, so when many Canberrans visit a big city they usually go there, but I think it is worth the effort to go to Melbourne.  I know lots of people won't agree with me but I don't like Sydney anywhere near as much as I adore Melbourne.  (Though maybe I am biased because I lived in Melbourne for a few years when I was in my early 20s).

I love the different neighbourhoods of Melbourne - that Richmond (my old stomping ground) is nothing like St Kilda or Carlton or Fitzroy or any of the other neighbourhoods.  They all have their own identity and unique voice.  I love that in the city centre you can walk off the main streets into lane ways and then into alleyways.  You never know what exciting shops or places are hidden from view - the karaoke place friends and I went to one night that was off an alleyway, down a smaller alley, past the skip bins, through a small door and up an elevator.  Or the wonderful bar that was down an alley and behind an unmarked door.  Places you never find unless you explore.  I love the old arcades that are tended with such care and have become tourist attractions in their own right. 

I've travelled a bit and lived in a number of different cities (both in Australia and overseas), and I still rate Melbourne as one of the best places to live or visit.  If you've never been there, try and get there soon, and if you live there now - I am extremely envious and please tell me the current best places to go!

Here are a couple of photos from our 2009 visit to Melbourne.

 Star Wars exhibit at Scienceworks.

Penguins at the Melbourne Aquarium.

If you can't get to Melbourne, but would like to know more, you can savour the highs and lows of 1920s Melbourne in the fabulous Phryne Fisher books by Kerry Greenwood.  They are short, fun and have historical accuracy.

Relaxing after the hard work

The hard work we put in during spring is over and our garden is now established for the summer.  It's good that now the weather has warmed up there isn't much for us to do in the garden except keep an eye out for pests and harvest the tasty goodness the plants are providing.  (Oh, and to start thinking about what seeds to plant for autumn and winter!)

We picked our first corn of the season last weekend - sweet and tasty, but it needed a few more days, so we left the rest, but will pick some more tonight.  We planted about 40 corn seeds over 5 different plantings so we could have a reasonably regular harvest over the summer.  Sadly slugs ate the silk off the cobs of the first planting.  I'm hoping enough silk tips remained to fertilise the kernels, otherwise it will be a poor harvest.  The two cobs we picked on the weekend weren't too bad, but definitely missing some kernels.

We have been picking a couple of tomatoes each day - they seem to be attracting pests like magnets so we are picking them just as they start to change colour and ripening them inside the house in an effort to thwart some of the bugs.  We pick chillis, capsicums, herbs and rocket as we need it.  Ripe strawberries rarely make it into the house!

Last night we made a nice side salad of tomatoes, basil and rocket to go with some fritters we made using zucchini, onion and herbs from the garden.  It is so nice to be able to create a meal using ingredients we grew using no chemicals and watered with mostly rain water.

The traditional Aussie backyard of an expanse of lawn has been replaced with raised garden beds.  Thankfully the tomatoes calmed down after their initial booming growth and they have been concentrating on producing fruit, not sending more branches ever upwards!  If you look closely at the back of the photo you might be able to spot the lemon tree, apricot tree and nectarine tree.  Lost in the morning shadows are the cherry tree, fig tree and apple tree.

Our herb garden, but we also have a lot of other herbs in pots.

This morning, for the first time this season, I harvested more zucchini's than cucumbers, but this is probably because my husband picked a heap of small cucumbers a few days ago to pickle them.  And an egg from each of the chooks.

Surprise scarf

Here is the vine lace scarf I started knitting as a swatch to get an idea of tension, but kept on knitting.  It used up the leftover BWM luxury 8ply from the horizontal scarf I knit last month.

It is quite pretty, but very simple (so right at my skill level!).  Now I just have to decide what colour yarn to order so I can start on the cardigan I want to knit.

Sending happy thoughts

2011 is having a busy start to the year in our corner of the world with a mix of happy, disappointing and unwanted news. 

First the happy - my sister-in-law and her partner got engaged a few days ago.  No specific wedding date yet.  We wish them all the best and hope that the joy, respect and fun they have together continues for all the years to come.

Next the disappointing - a lovely friend of mine was due to go to Penguinland for work before Christmas.  Sadly the departure date keeps getting pushed back as the plane hasn't been able to fly, so now she is back doing normal office work (not nearly as exciting as frolicking with penguins!).

Finally the unwanted - I developed a cold on Sunday, which has blossomed into a rather yucky throat infection.  The doctor sent me home with instructions to rest and take antibiotics.  I'm feeling too dizzy to knit or anything else constructive so I'm left with not much to do but watch the final Ashes cricket test on TV (come'on Aussie, we've lost the Ashes already, but maybe we can still win this game...), oh and maybe write a couple of blog posts..!

No matter where you are, or what 2011 has already brought you, I'm sending you happy thoughts to help celebrate the good news and commiserate with the bad.

2011 - A year in knits

Healthwise 2010 was a pretty rough year for me and I found I wasn't able to knit as much as I would have liked.  I am hoping 2011 will be a different story. 

In preparation for a super knitting year I have tidied up my downstairs stash.  Most of my knitting 'stuff' used to be upstairs neatly stored in a cupboard, but then, somehow, it started migrating downstairs.  Each time I started a new project different sized needles would end up downstairs in the living room.  Then new yarn would arrive and it would stay downstairs as well.  Homemade markers and lengths of yarn for stitch holders started multiplying and really it was becoming quite an unmanageable mess!  So now an old magazine holder has (some) of my patterns and books and a plastic box has all needles and 'current, and soon to be, projects' yarn in it.  I also put my markers and stitch holders into a little ziplock bag so I can find them when I need them and can stop making more!  The tidying was a relief (though I wonder how long that box will hold everything I need it to...!).  I also bought a notebook so I could write down pattern notes and stitch tension and other useful knitting things in one place.  No longer will I rely on the backs of old envelopes or other odd bits of paper that were close to hand at the time I needed them (and that of course would always disappear right when I needed to go back them!).

So with the tidying done I could start on new projects.  A couple of days ago I started knitting a tension square in vine lace for a cardigan I'm hoping to make.  I was using the remains of the BWM 8ply luxury yarn from the horizontal scarf to see if I needed 8ply or 10ply.  Anyway, I thought the pattern was so lovely I just kept knitting and now I have almost finished a scarf!  I am still going to make the cardigan, I just have to decide which colour yarn to order from BWM.

So, in addition to that surprise scarf, I promise that 2011 will see me finish my husbands stripey jumper, knit myself the vine lace cardigan and a turtleneck jumper, and a gift for a friend.  They are the only definites this year and I wonder what else the knitting year will bring (2010 had several baby jumpers).

Happy New Year!

I hope you are all having a wonderful start to 2011 and have been able to start the year with something lovely.  I started the year baking (and a bit of knitting).  

A friend had her birthday back in October, but she was overseas at the time and later lamented that she didn't get a cake.  I think there is something very special about someone taking the time to make you a birthday cake, and it is that time spent rather than the cake itself that makes birthday cakes special.  I knew my friend would appreciate a beautiful cake, so this time I went for elegance over theme.  Here is the Chocolate, Meringue and Strawberry Gateau...

The two cakes before final assembly.

The finished product.  From the bottom up, the layers are:  chocolate cake, meringue, chocolate cream, strawberries, whipped cream, chocolate cake, meringue.  With almond flakes around the sides and on top of the meringue layers.  This cake made the birthday girl feel very spoilt and 9 other people very happy!