Why are plants so rude looking? I can’t look at this borlotti bean sprout without my mind plummeting into the gutter. It’s not just me, is it??
My Mum on Her Soap Box
I come from a long line of awesome, strong gorgeous women. The triumvirate of awesome is my mum, my sister and my maternal grandmother. They are (and were in the case of my Nanna) seriously fabulous women who I love and admire. They are survivors – we all are – and they survive with a smile on their face, grace in their dance through life and a practicality and backbone of steel that is truly formidable when it needs to be.
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A Wilful, Lavish Land
This time last year Crazy Car Man and I were on our mad, some say ill-fated but we say adventurous, birthday road trip to the centre of the universe. Actually, Australia, but I have a feeling the centre of the universe wouldn’t be all that different in alien atmosphere to where we went.
We packed up our 23 year old LandCruiser, disregarded the exploding oil filter (faulty part we scoffed), and drove west.
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The Garden Nerd Taught Me Stuff
I like nerds. I like talking to them. They tend to have an awesomely intricate knowledge of a subject reinforced by copious amounts of passion and enthusiasm. I like to wallow in the nerdery, feeding vampire-like on their enthusiasm, sucking up whatever knowledge my little brain can compute, tucking away those useless pieces of information for the next trivia night.
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The England Files: Part VI – Ode To A Thistle
I have a penchant for the weird looking (excepting Crazy Car Man who is exceptionally good looking – successful back pedal there) so it’s no wonder I fell in love with this thistle on first sight.
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That Smelly Plant Gets a Home and a Name
The house where I grew up had an awesome backyard and garden, all my Dad’s work – it was green and lush and private, with secret plants hidden away under other plants, most of which had a story attached. I spent many a day (and sleepless night) sitting on the back deck, watching the garden grow.
There is one plant in particular that brings back those lazy days in the backyard – its scent packs a nostalgia wallop like no other, and I’ve been known to lapse into a happy, almost catatonic state when I get a whiff of it, as my brain goes into childhood memory overload.
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The England Files: Part IIIa – Harewood House
That title is starting to look like the sort of chapter heading you get in a textbook, but the next (seriously awesome) part of England I’m covering is so huge I only got to see about one sixteenth of it, and that one sixteenth will take four postings to cover.
Harewood House. It’s big. And in Australian vernacular, rilly rilly old.
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The Holiday Is Over
After two weeks in England – hereby renamed the Land Of Heat and Garden Glory – I’m back and in the process of recovering from jetlag and building up my cold tolerance. I honestly thought there had been a mistake when the pilot said the ground temperature in Sydney was 6 degrees. Surely he meant 26. Or at least 16. Please can I go back to England?
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Containers of Earthly Delights
My garden is not much like Hieronymus Bosch’s painting – clearly there are not masses of naked people frolicking amidst the containers – or at least not when I’m around and I’d assume not right now either, it’s winter and not the most flattering season for naked frolicking. Unless, of course, goosebumps and purple mottled skin are the accessories du jour – note to self, check Vogue.
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Légume d’art
I had a very specific plan when I ordered seed for my current vegie plot. Anything that sounded interesting that I had not seen for sale in the supermarket or greengrocer was going to have a chance in my little garden.
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