Trying to catch up

John has gone fishing today and although we had some lovely rain last night and it is cooler and I should be outside pulling weeds I am trying to catch up on a few things that need to be done.
The bread is baking, the dishes are done and the inside is relatively clean but not tidy. Oh no not in the least tidy as I am trying to get stuff done for Christmas presents.
John informed me that if I wanted to go to Kangaroo Island for Christmas we had no money for presents.
Now that is 2 sisters, one mother, 4 children 4 partners and 11 grand children and 1 great grand child.
Plus friends.
What a head ache, we dont give each other presents as the trip away is that.
So I am trying to think of things that dont look too home made and might be appreciated.
I am making a few of these little frames stitcherys for some, I have other things as well and need to get these done so I can make some earrings and necklaces etc for the others.
I will just have to buy for the boys, a bottle of wine each will have to do.
Time is going fast and I know that as well I have 4 birthdays just before Christmas.
Sometimes I feel like saying, this is it, no more presents but then they will be disappointed and I The sandals were sitting by the ramp down to the beach the other day, I think they belonged to the lady in black with the large dog. I had to sketch them, if nothing else.
Basho's Haiku today
Oh that summer moon!
It made me go
wandering
round the pond all night.

New Sketchbook page

I should have a painted sketch up but it is over 40degrees C here and my sun room where I usually paint is shut up and hot hot, I do not want to venture in there.
I am thinking of joining a group who sketch daily, but am still making up my mind, so I sat last night fiddling with a few thoughts about textiles that were going through my mind, not very deep thoughts I might add and this was the page that some how emerged.
I am doing Christmas presents and things and have just sewn up a bunch of hearts and forgot to put ribbon or lace on the material before I sew, and I am doing a bunch of painted dolls who are such fun but you cant see them either.
We did go walking on the beach this morning, the first since before I did the ligament in my knee back in July? August? It was hot even at 9 am which should have been 8 am but with daylight saving isnt. A lovely walk but a forgotten coffee order afterwards left me fuming. If people want to run efficient places that people especially locals will come back to they need to watch what is going on and not forget orders.
Enough of my rant.
Perhaps it is the heat, there is a fire out there on York Peninsular where my daughter and son in law and grand daughter are and where all their girls will be going tomorrow. Not actually near them but the forcast of very high winds and lightening strikes is a worry. We will probably be up most of the night watching if the thunderstorms start.
So far all we have to look forward to is Schoolies weekend getting old and grumpy? well yes I suppose so.
This Haiku by Soseski might do the trick!
The mightiest Gods
loom naked
in a black wind
laughing at demons.

The fun things you find

In the narrow back streets of towns.
This is a sketch I did in Berwick upon Tweed, the houses with rooms over the street. This little lane was blocked off as there were painters closer this end but I did manage a quick sketch and a photo and this is a slightly better pen and wash of the room jutting out over the street.
I have no idea what or why but I do know the where.
The scan hasnt done the colors justice.
My Biscotti recipe,
1 3/4 cups plain flour
3/4 tspoon bicarb soda
3/4 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn salt
1 dessertspoon instant coffee
80 gms toasted whole hazelnuts, I use what I can get straight from the packet.
120 gms dark chocolate dots or dark cooking chocolate in small chunks
125 gm unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
11/2 tspn vanilla essence
Preheat oven to 180 degree C
Put flour, bi carb soda, baking powder, salt and coffee in bowl and whisk well . Stir in nuts and chocolate to coat and set aside.
In mixer beat butter and sugar untill light and fluffy, about 6 mins, add eggs one at a time beating well and then add vanilla.
On low speed add the dry ingredients until combined.
Divide dough into two, in your hands roll out into two log shapes and put on baking tray covered in baking paper about an inch or so apart as they will flatten and spread.
Bake until golden about 35 minutes. Remove from oven to cool.
Reduce oven heat to 160 degrees C
When the logs are barely warn carefully cut them cross ways about 1/2 inch across. Lay biscuits on baking sheets with cut side down return to oven and bake until crisp and golden brown about 15 minutes.
Remove and cool on trays, bisuits will be fragile at first but then ok. Put in an air tight tin when cold.
Tip. I keep my nuts in the freezer to stop them developing a rancid taste before I use them.
I hope you like them, they do take time but are worth it, or at leasty John thinks they are!
No Haiku tonight, I am late and tomorrow sounds like a nast hot day.

My Ideal Garden allotment

India Flint, a fellow South Australian and dyer extraordinaire has a give away on her blog relating to garden allotments, here.
I love garden allotments and whenever, if ever we are away I love looking out of train windows looking at them.
This is my ideal and has in it what I know we can grow here. Our soil is very light deep sand and can get non wetting if we are not careful with it. Using the stable manure from the ponies in the stable is a help, when I can get someone to cart some for me.
I dont know if you can see or read what I have done, click on the photo to see it larger.
I have laid out a very traditional garden with fruit trees that I love, apples, pears, apricot, nectarine, fig, peach, plum, loquat, and of course a lemon on the right root stock and a navel orange. No cherries as they dont grow here, apricots I have to say are a bit iffy too.
I have a garden shed and an area of shade with a seat to rest on after a hard days work, with a grape vine over it and a few table grapes on the back fence.
IN my garden plots are all the vegetables that I can grow and that we eat. Poles with beans, peas, tomatoes, and a passion fruit.
Beds for strawberries, asparagus (that is growing well at the moment and so are the strawberries!) Potatoes and onions, oh gosh I forgot the garlic, that is always tucked in in odd corners. The broad beans are just surviving the heat at the moment and the bush beans well, I am having a few problems with salt in the water but there should be a reasonable crop.
Beetroot and radishes, a must for summer salads, as are the lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber.
The herbs, some in some places, others like the basil around the tomatoes, the chives and parsley can run a little wild and the couple of artichoke plants are doing well, just not too much heat please.
Then the pumpkins who tend to get very rampant, the lebanese zuccini is my favorite and I must have something lovely to look at so a few roses over the entrance and beside them and some marigolds to keep the white fly at bay. Talking of Bay, there is a bay tree in a huge pot by the shed but I forgot to put that in as well. Visually the Jerusalem artichokes are lovely in late summer, huge sunflowers and very nice tubers to make into a rather embarrassing soup.
I dont bother too much with mid winter vegetables, too cold and the rabbits have a field day.
I hope you like my garden allotment.
As I live on a farm, there is no water barrel, all that would do would be to breed mosquitoes, and in our heat there would be nothing left in it very quickly, our water comes from the dams.
In reality I do have to battle with the peacocks eating everything so anything I get is a bonus.
What would I wear? Oh jeans and a shirt with long sleeves and a collar and sensible shoes, but then sometimes shorts and t shirt and sandals and a hat and sunscreen.
To eat for my elevenses, well normally I dont have elevenses as I am always trying to lose weight but I suppose I could have a mug of green tea and a biscuit, one of my gorgeously naughty biscotti with chocolate. Would you like the recipe? well leave a comment and I will put it up.

Only time for a couple of doodles

This is what you do when you have a sort of cool change but you know it will only last for 2 days and then it is back into the 40's, well over 100 degrees in the old money.
So the house is sort of clean and tidied, I have washed, I have been watering the garden and pulling a few weeds and then its flop in a chair in front of the fan and doodle.
Lovely and relaxing.
Haiku by Basho
He who climbs this hill
of flowers
finds there a shrine
to the kind Goddess.

The wedding

Yesterday was my lovely youngest daughter's wedding. This was a second wedding for both and if you go to my other blog here you will see more photos and a bit more of an explanation.
The first photo she was explaining in her speech that she had actually asked him to marry her as it was a leap year!
The next is of their small daughter Millie gathering rose petals during the ceremony, and then both of them cutting the cake with a meat clever!
It was a terribly hot day, most uncomfortable but we were all dressed to be comfortable, it was a Scottish wedding of some tradition with a lot of Australian flavor mixed in. The bride looked stunning, and the groom was pretty good too and the others in the family did very well and I was proud to be the mother, grandmother, great grandmother of those who could get there ( and those who for other reasons couldnt).
The caterer (me) didnt fall in too much of a heap and there was certainly more than enough food, and even though it was a hot day the oysters my John had to open in the morning were almost all consumed, about 14 dozen of them!
Record breaking number of over 35 degree days, I dont want to count them, and more to come.
We are off to a 90th birthday in a few minutes.
Back to sketching in a day or two!

House by Berwick upon Tweed

This house is right down by the Tweed, I loved its many gables, I did wonder if it was liable to flooding being below the town walls.
We had a lovely night last night sitting on friends balcony by the sea and eating and drinking and chatting until about 10.30, catching up with the friends we met in Paris and talking about our trips, probably boring for others but fun for us.
I had forgotten I was to meet Tabby at 8 am in Woolworths this morning so there was a mad scramble to get off, and as I was going realised that Sarah was in the paddock with the young mare who had foaled, of course it was a filly and it hadnt drunk and the mare was very good but the foal was so dumb, happens sometimes and had no intention of finding her mothers udder. I had the vet out at 12.30 as it was 37 degrees by then giving it electrolytes, at 3.30. after we had moved it it suddenly got up and had a huge drink from both sides of its mother. Whew was all I could say but I didnot need this!!
I now have the airconditioner flat out, the oven on and am cooking 8 chickens, I think that will do for 40 people with all the other stuff we have and as it may well be 39 degrees by then they probably wont eat much any way.
Tomorrow I make the cooked salads, I think we are sort of under control.
Tonights Haiku is by Kubonta and sometimes I feel like this.
When the tight string
snapped, the kite fell
fluttering...then...
It lost its spirit.