This Week & Happy Mother's Day

This week, we visited the Cranbourne Royal Botanic Gardens ...

It is a dry-zone garden with parts designed to look just like the Australian Outback. It's quite beautiful, but you definitely need your sunglasses!
There are lots of things for kids to do, like a great play-ground ...
And this fantastic water-play area where they have recreated a fast-flowing creek. It's only about ankle depth, but lots of fun. We probably played here for an hour or so, and Lachie would have happily stayed longer ...

Yesterday, we headed to a garden called Lamberley near Creswick in Western Victoria. It was pretty cold and bleak, but fortunately the weather got better while we were there, so we could have a walk around ...



I love this plant - I don't know what it is, but the yellow and blue flowers look so beautiful together.


We have also had a few visits to our local park which has a community vegie patch, a great place to wander around and smell the herbs and look at all the vegies ...





Here's Lachie sorting through some found leaves and flowers and bits of bark at home. This is something Lachie will play with for a couple of hours, especially if we put it all in a bucket and make stew!

{This Moment} - Tickles with a special Little Lady

{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

Where we've been

For the last week, we've been on holidays in Adelaide, my home-town.
We did lots of hanging out with my mum and dad, drinking lots of teas and coffees ...
and did some exploring in the city, finding some beautiful old buildings that look very european

Lachie and dad played lots of cars together ... the fantastic garage pictured here was made by my grandpa for my brother - Lachie adored playing with it!


We had a few beach trips & enjoyed both the heat & watching the storms ...

and then some more sunsets ...

This is my parents street - I grew up on this street and didn't leave until I was 20! So I have lots of great memories of playing on this street - lots of street tennis, bike riding and general running about.

Having a few more cups of tea with Granny Di (Lachie's supposed to be sitting on the bucket, but didn't quite get his aim right and ended up on his bottom - probably why he's looking a bit glum!)

And we visited some lovely friends ...
Look at Lachie's face - he loves hanging out with Annie ...


We also checked out the Train Museum at Woodville - both Lachie and my dad had a great day

It was a good week, and it's always nice to be home. Looking forward to a lovely, mother's day weekend!

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...