Easter Saturday

As the weather cools down, days that are sunny are great to get out of the house. These photos are all taken in Mount Macedon, which is a beautiful area, about 45 minutes North West of Melbourne. There are lots of open gardens, and some great cafes & nurseries to spend some time (and money!). Today we visited 'Dicksonia', a rare plant nursery run by Stephen Ryan, the presenter from Gardening Australia.... and he is more than happy to talk about plants and gardening (as we found out!). Lachie had a great time in the nursery, rearranging the pots & wandering through the overgrown paths. I wish we had a garden as big as this to create this same overgrown, forest feel - I can remember as a kid also loving this sort of garden.

If you do head up this way, the little town of Woodend is very close by. 'The Village Larder' is a cafe that's worth checking out - it's run by a husband and wife who are fantastic (sorry, don't know their names), and they have good food & coffee, & a beautiful open fire for the cold days you get in this part of the world. Woodend also has a fairly new playground, which is fantastic. Lachie has only played there once, but it's enormous & has beautiful parklands all around for picnics. This is such a beautiful part of the world, I could happily live here!

Happy Easter Everyone!

:: This Moment ::

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by SouleMama

:: Photos from this Week ::

This week has been busy but good ... Brent has been away & so Lachie & I have been on lots of drives (always good for a midday sleep)
We went to Sanitorium Lake, which is in Mount Macedon. We used to take our dog here for walks & it's a great spot for kids too!
Lots of fun things to play with that are hard to find in a city back-yard, plus a huge lake to throw them into ...
It's such a beautiful, quiet spot. And great fun for practicing your 'coooeee...'
I think some gum-boots will be added to the birthday list for this little man, who is turning 2 in three weeks!



And this beautiful house & garden are a little bit of Paris, right in the middle of Melbourne. I can almost pretend I've been to France this week with photos like this!

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by SouleMama

:: Garden Stew ::

One of my favourite things to do when I was little was making 'stews' - going out into the garden & mixing up dirt, water & any seeds, pods, flowers or petals I could scavenge
Today, Lachie and I did a bit of 'stewing' in the garden, & I think it kept us both amused for about 2 hours!
The beauty of making a stew is you can talk about each thing you put in, touch and smell the petals or seeds or bits of bark and leaves, or just be quiet and enjoy the peace and sunshine without the need for filling in the silence ...
and then slosh it all about with some water and dirt and see what it turns into ...
Lachie was so absorbed in this that we passed almost the whole morning together, quietly absorbed in the fun that can be had with dirt and water and sunshine...

:: Botanical Gardens ::

The weather this week has been absolutely beautiful - days where you just want to be outside as much as possible, because soon it's going to be cold...
Lachie and I spent most of today at the Botanical Gardens - the image below is from the Ian Potter Children's Garden, which is such an amazing place - definitely worth going to if you live in Melbourne...

Brent knows the garden designer who designed this section of the Botanic Gardens, and it is so well planned ( and given it cost $1.5 million dollars to build, I suppose it should be pretty fantastic!)
Lachie has spent lots of time here already (we visit atleast once a week), and I imagine it will only become more special as he gets older and can really 'play' in the garden. One day I'll take some more photos of each section, as it's got some great ideas for things you could do in a home garden that would be great for kids.

::Sunny Melbourne::

Today was an amazing, spring-like day in Melbourne - so for some reason, we ended up spending most of it at the Melbourne Museum... probably should've saved it for a wet, windy day, but it was fun nonetheless....
There were plenty of stuffed animals, which of-course, Lachie thought were hilarious and a bit scary all at the same time...
We stayed for almost 4 hours, which in Lachie-timing, is like spending the entire day there (this is evidence of how much fun it was!)
But, a piece of advice, don't get yourself stuck in the 'human body' exhibition when a gaggle of teenage boys turn up - it was like being suppressed by a room of testosterone laced rexona spray...

We hightailed it out of there pretty quickly at that point!

::Things from my retro Granny::

My parents recently had to clear up a holiday house where they had stored lots of things from my granny's house after she died. My mum keeps lots of things and I have told her off a lot (in my lovely, daughterly way!) for keeping things that I thought were old rubbish. Well, as I'm getting a bit older, I'm now so glad that she's kept so many things that I can remember from when I was a kid. This flour sifter is a recent find and I can remember my granny using it when she cooked her 'french scone' or mixed up her 'nutties'. She was always one to follow a recipe down to the last word (she always sifted her flour - something I rarely do...)

I can also remember these beaters, which I used to love playing with as a kid. They are really heavy and old, and I can remember making 'concoctions' with water and leaves and toothpaste and other stuff I found around the kitchen and bathroom, and then whizzing them up so they went all bubbly and weird looking...

And Lachie loves them too - check out that look of concentration...

::Today at home::

Today was a quiet day at home - at the moment I am working night shift on Sunday&Monday nights, which means not a lot of sleep for the start of the week. So Monday's and Tuesday's, Lachie and I lay fairly low. Fortunately, Lachie is very keen to potter with cars, people figurines and cups or bowls of water - and give me a chance to doze on the couch!
These are some flowers grown and picked by Brent from the garden - it's great to come home to fresh flowers at 8.30 in the morning after a night at work!
And this huge bowl of limes is from our great neighbours who love to share their excess fruit and veg...which of-course, we don't ever turn down! I've just got to work out what recipes I have that involve about 30 limes!

And you know what they say about beware when things go very quiet when there's a toddler in the house? Well, this is what I found when I hadn't heard a peep from Lachie for about 10 minutes! He climbs everything and anything (including screen doors which are waiting to have the fly-screen replaced!). You can also see evidence of the game played before the climbing occurred - unravelling the toilet rolls & pulling the towel off the rack so it can be swung from!

:: More from our Weekend ::

Saturday

Today, we headed to the Melbourne Garden Show. Because Brent's studying Garden Design this year, lots of our weekends are spent going to open gardens or botanic gardens around Melbourne. Fortunately, Lachie loves being outside and running around (especially if there is water and ponds and steps to climb too!)
Lachie loved this truck - definitely the highlight of the day for him...
I loved the autumn colours in this garden ...
There was a man dressed up as an alien - Lachie was not impressed! Here he is looking very confused and surprised - he couldn't take his eyes off him...