1000 Fields of Roses

Sadly, no whiskers on kittens.
(Not that we make a habit of de-whiskering kittens).
A storm is grumbling and blustering outside, and I am happy to be sitting snugly in my room.

I can’t say that this has been the most productive of weeks, but I did manage to fix my little boudoir chair.

It’s been sitting, cushionless, downstairs – waiting for me to wrestle with padding and not-quite-big-enough material.
I think it’s turned out OK.

My roses are busily budding.

It’s not that long since the bushes were bare sticks. This little bud appeared a few days ago.
Speaking of sticks…
my frangipanis were each basically one sad looking stick in a pot.
The rain has cheered them up.

I have been told these geraniums are native to Australia.

They’ve been popping up in various places, peeking out from beneath their bigger cousins.
Just to think bigger still…
here are some of the patterns on the bark of the huge tree in the back corner.

So pretty!

The rain seems to be calming down a bit.
We’ll see what the garden says tomorrow.

And – back to my roses.
Here’s what happened to that sweet little rosebud a day or so later.

❤

It seems like summer has just been peeking round the corner, then darting back in again.
I washed the quilts a couple of weeks ago, but we had to drag out some blankets the other night. Today was meant to be very hot, but didn’t seem as bad as expected.
Still, there’s too many fires across the state, and not enough rain.

Mondays are my biggest laundry and cleaning days. Yesterday was cool enough to get all that done (and dry!) within a few hours, and still leave a bit of energy for pulling out some weeds and organising the big wrought iron rack for my plant pots.

Little bits and pieces, adding up to big bits of sweetness…

I enjoyed some intrumental music recently, while sorting through stuff and inhaling a mixture of frankincense and rose oil. Very soothing, although most of the house picked up the scent, which lasted for the next couple of days. I also had a soak in a warm(ish) bath with magnesium flakes and a few drops of rose oil.
It’s amazing how strong roses can be.

I’m still finding little things I’d forgotten I had.
My little wooden cat is quite light, but seems able to handle a couple of rings.

A couple of tiny photo frames from when I was young…

My face seems to be cracking.

A sweet little teddy, to grace the CD tower.

Part of tidying has been tearing out some weeds that have been trying to take over.
The asparagus fern in the front was almost smothering part of the hedge. A fair bit of it has gone – there’s still remnants lurking in the undergrowth, but they’ll be sorted soon.
One of the nicest things about getting rid of it has been finding two more rose bushes, sadly lost for a while, but now able to spread out into the sunlight.
I was happy to see them, but they were scrawny and leafless. I didn’t have high hopes for them, and hadn’t thought much about them.
Until – a splash of pink amongst the foliage!

🙂

Wanna see a close up?

Such a beautiful thing.
Growing, and blooming, regardless of whether I noticed it or not.

Sometimes, the heat gets too much.
The small things seem too inconsequential.

And then, a rose just reaches for the light, and does its best to live.
❤

I hadn’t planned to get into the gardening just yet…
Yesterday I looked out the kitchen window. We have two rose bushes in the back corner garden, but they’ve been let go and were looking straggly. I had thought they were possibly dying – most of the branches were dry and brown, and there were hardly any leaves. It’s apparently a bit late for pruning, although I was going to do it anyway…sometime.
Yesterday, when I looked out the kitchen window, I saw a beautiful pale pink rose, dancing above the dry sticks and brown foliage, waving over the height of the back fence and into the bright sky.
And I hadn’t even noticed a bud!

Here it is!
🙂

As I was already down there, it seemed like the best time to prune.
The bigger bush would have been something around 6-7 foot tall, so I took a lot off that one.
Of course, I had the pruners out, so it just made sense to take down the overgrowth on the geranium near the house. There were a few florets on the branches I chopped off, so I now have a bit of a flower display.

I can still see my lovely (fragrant) rose from the kitchen.
Just a bit closer than before.

Four weeks into living in the house, and everything’s…coming up roses – and geraniums!
They even supplied my random heart for the day ❤

Just over two weeks ago we were still wondering where we would end up, and thinking about just choosing a place to move to that would be a compromise for all our needs.
And then – we were offered this house.

There’s plenty of room for all we were looking for…
although we’ll have to look at getting a mower again!

(That’s a nice washing line! 🙂 )

It’s a mixture of old and new – the house has a few years on it, but there’s some upgrades inside.

New paint, new kitchen…

Is this what they call a rain shower?

Downstairs has a waterfall tap with a colour changing light.
Why?
No one seems to know…

The garden is a bit weedy, and there are various figurines dotted about.
Including a possible pet cemetery?

A gnome under the stairs…

There’s plenty of mint.

Some asparagus!

Even the weeds are pretty 🙂

It’s so quiet!
We can hear the birds singing.
And the weekend song of the lawn mower…

We’re still organising furniture, boxes…working out the new routines.
But –
we’re home!
😀