Manicured Courtyard Garden

When I was at one of my sister's places the other week, I asked her if I could take some pictures to put on my blog of her lovely garden. She agreed!

 

I hope she doesn't mind me having a photo of her in the picture!!

It was the only one I had of the garden from that angle!

 Isn't her garden lovely?  While I had my camera out I also took a snap of one of her chairs and ottoman, that I just LOVE!!  I could sit there anyday and read a good book!!

The below photo came through via email during the week. I don't know who it is or who it was taken by but don't you just feel for the poor Kangaroos, who, if not for some kind hearted person may have not survived the Queensland floods. Must have been quite an adventure for them as I'm sure they wouldn't have been in a tinny before!!

Today we have had temps of over 41°C. It didn't stop me from cooking some crumbed chops and veggies for tea, after all our house is nice and cool.

 

I pulled out the Breville Crazy Shake, the milk, iced coffee mix and ice cream and made some delicious Iced Coffees to go with it. Went down well!

 

Hope you have a great week.

Finally...some more holiday pictures

We're back from a lovely 8 days away in Perth. While we had our laptop and phones with internet access it was taking ages to load photos into my blog, so thought I'd wait until we were settled back home. Well that's well and truly happened as it was back to work Monday with loads of follow ups and work to catch up on.

Anyway here are a few snapshots of our time away.

After a few days our apartment was strewn with these.

 

I love the fact that on holidays I get to read during the day instead of just before I go to bed at night. I also buy the 'goss' magazines instead of the home and lifestyle ones, so I find out about celebrities and what they are up to and get the chance to do the big crosswords. We nearly finished two of them!!

On the 'Getaway' TV program a few months back they had a special on half price car rentals, so we took the offer up and had this little Mini Cooper to zip around in.

The last 3 nights we spent staying in an apartment at Fremantle overlooking the Swan river. These were the views from our balcony.

When we got back to our apartment on Saturday afternoon after a day out, I sat out on the balcony with a coffee and people who were all dressed up started arriving in the gardens below. We realised there was a wedding going to take place. We had a good view of it all and could check out the fashions!!

One night we drove around taking night shots, but none of them really turned out!! But in one of the fancy homes there was this amazing chandelier twinkling away giving light to passers by. I got hubby to turn around so I could take a pic!!!

In our apartment's garden there was this very unusual palm.
Hadr to explain so here is a picture.

 I had fun roaming around the garden taking photos...this was one I particularly liked.

 

In Fremantle there is such a contrast of 'eyesore' sights and 'picturesque' sights.

On the cruise we saw the drastic contrast very clearly. 

On one side of the bridges you saw all these commercial shipping yards

and on the other side of the bridges was this!

 The best meal we had while away was at Outback Jacks Bar and Grill.

I had the Bushranger Salad Basket, which was full of fresh salad and grilled spicy chicken, all contained within an edible basket of very tasty crunchy tortilla. It was delicious!!

 

Anyway that's probably enough of our holidays!  Happy Australia Day to all you Aussies!

I plan to catch up on blog visiting today as it's been a while!!!

 

Holiday Pictures

Yes we are on holidays in Perth, Western Australia. We have been having a very relaxing tme, doing the touristy things.
We have just come back from a river lunch cruise.
This is a quick post with a few pics of the past couple of days.

This picture was taken across the road from a restaurant where we had breakfast with some friends overlooking the very picturesque Swan River.

We visited York, a rural town which still uses these old phone boxes...very quaint!

York's lovely lolly shop

We went on a lunch cruise on the Swan River. It was a lovely way to spend a few hours.

AAAHH, Im having lots of trouble uploading photos from the laptop etc. Might have to leave it for now and try again another day.

A clever little 3 seater

We had a lovely day yesterday, travelling with friends to Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills to have lunch with other friends for a birthday. We had a beautiful smorgasbord lunch at The Old Mill and then wandered along the very busy tourist town before heading back for coffee at our friends at Woodside.
We visited Handorf only a couple of months back and was amazed at how this quaint pretty town is so alive with loads of people enjoying the many eateries and shops.

Under our pergola area there has been a corner that I've never been happy with but didn't know how to change it. Before Christmas I had an idea of taking out what was there and replacing it with a bench seat. We went on the search for a 3 seater that would fit into that spot and found one that was just right!  Here are the pics.

Before...just had some plants in pots.

 

After...removed the pots, covered the dirt over with pebbles, placed a couple of my ficus plants behind the 3 seater.

 

The middle part of the 3 seater turns into a little table if just 2 people were sitting there. How clever!

A couple of shots of the other part of our outdoor area that gets well used during the warmer months.

And a few pictures of the swollen Murray River at Loxton that is nearly at road level.

 

Catching up and some renovations

Wow, what a last few weeks...We had a lovely couple of days hosting my family over Christmas (25 all up). As they all travelled a couple of hours they made a mini holiday of it and stayed a couple of nights. Some stayed with us, others at the caravan park (wretched mossies by the river!!). I didn't actually take many photos over that time.

Before Christmas I made these easy little treats. They are made with Marshmallow biscuits. Just drizzle over some white chocolate, place a Jaffa on top to represent the cherry and cut up some green lolly snakes for the holly. I got the idea from someone's blog but can't remember who..sorry!

 

On one of the days with my family we had a picnic by the river. Once we protected ourselves from the mozzies it was very pleasant! Here are 3 of my sisters with the swollen River Murray in the background.

 

We decided this year not to do the Christmas present thing between all the families, but one of my sisters (naughty Wendy!! on the left in the above photo), made an identical bracelet for each of us sisters. It was a lovely idea and they are beautiful. My new favourite piece of jewellery! 

One of my nephews was keen to make scones on one of the mornings. He did a great job...they didn't last long!!

 

A couple of days after everyone left, we received these lovely flowers as a 'thankyou' from the family. A very unexpected surprise.

On a different subject....our son's Music Shop which sells musical instruments and accessories has been in business in Loxton for 7 years and over that time has expanded a couple of times at the same premises to include extra shop space and music tuition rooms. However his original premises was overflowing so in early December we took over the lease of an old unused Petrol station and take away food complex which needed lots of cleaning, painting, renovating etc. BUT most of that is behind us now and Adrian opened at the new premises on Tuesday.

This is a before photo of the shop part. The tuition rooms will be located upstairs.

 

And how it looks now.

 

This is just part of the complex. His music and party hire equipment is setup to the left but we haven't started on renovations for that yet...so we still have more work to do. That has been part of the reason my blogs have also been a bit sparce over the past month!

A couple of inside shots.

And a photo of some petunias that have been putting on a lovely show by our front door. Pink of course!