Tomatoes

We bought four plants back in Sept and we realised that the bushes were healthy and big but no fruit. Bugger that I'm not watering flipping bushes, so I pulled them,luckily the one we put in our new vegetable bed is doing well and does have fruit and flowers on it although won't be picking for another few weeks yet.

Saturday we bought two more tomato bushes, one is black and the other small yellow ones, planted them out yesterday and they are standing tall this morning so it seems they like where they are, we also bought some strawberry plants, never been very successful with them before so we will see how they go.

Last night I wanted to make a light dinner as we had been out for lunch. I made salsa to go on turkish bread and we had some steamed seafood yum cha, different to our usual fare but light and filling.

Christmas lights

Last week Aidan stayed over for a night and he wanted to go out and see Christmas lights. Years ago when he was about three, there was a house not far from us who had a magnificent display and he wanted to check it out. They moved but he still wants to be sure so we drove around and we did find some but not many.

This particular house that he remembers had a Santa with a gift box on one hand and the lid slowly opened and closed. When we got back from our drive he noticed that we did not have any lights up. "Come on Grampy, I'll help" so at 7.15pm they were out putting lights around the front of the house.

The next morning as we were driving away on our way to work and school, he called out to Grampy, "You need to put more lights up Grampy, make sure you do it today okay?" When I got home that night sure enough Grampy had put more up, the ones around the gutters and out the back.

So far we are the only ones in our street to have any lights and tey are on a timer so on at seven and off at ten, it does look very festive.

Cuckoo clocks

How has one these days? My neighbours that's who! During the day with other noises around I dont hear it but it goes regularly at night every hour on the hour. Don't know where it is in their house but our bedroom is about one and  half metres from our fence line and their is about the same distance away. Our house is more forward than theirs and our bedroom is in the front of the house.

Its possibly new as I have only heard it in the last few months, seems quite loud at eleven o'clock, midnight or whatever. I don't know how they can stand it being in their house but maybe they are used to it or deaf. At least I know what the time is when I cant sleep but I do wonder if that is why I wake after a short sleep, maybe I should wear ear plugs.

Tiredness

I know I know, its gets to all of us sometimes. I had not slept that well on Thursday night, something had woken me after about 40 minutes of sleep and then of course the body thinks "Hey, you're been asleep, wakey wakey" and I couldnt get back to sleep. Finally at 1am I took a sleeping tablet but that didnt do any good, I last remember looking at the clock at 3.30am I must have gone to sleep after that. The alarm woke me at 6.15 (I have a second one at 6.23) and I got up then, it did seem a long day luckily there was cloud cover for most of the day so not as hot as it had been.

On the first leg on the trip home it rained and looked like hail again so I stayed for a coffee until the rain had passed. Note on the table when i got home "I'm out, cooking dinner"in code that meant that house husband was out buying take away for our evening meal and ten minutes he turned up with a very nice Lamb Korma and naan bread.

I was watching Bargain hunters on TV and decided that the couch looking rather inviting and unfortunately I missed the end of the show  to see if they made a profit or not.Bummer!

Went to bed at 8pm and slept til 5.30am this morning, hopefully I have caught up.

nano no 2

It was the last day of Nano yesterday being the 30th of Nov and Nano being National Novel writing Month. I wrote 3k words of Saturday afternoon leaving me just under a thousand to make the deadline of 50K but I had come to a standstill. Sunday morning I was up early (for me anyway) as on waking i knew how I was going to finish. In an hour I had done the required amount to become a winner but my story wasn't finished so I did another 800 or so to tie  the ends together and finish where I wanted to be. 50,764 words in the end.

I don't intend to look at my novel until Jan giving me a month away from it. Although the organizers advise not to edit as you go, I do a little but there will be a lot more editing that needs to be done.

This is the third book in a trilogy and I want to get them published as one book, making around 160K words over the last three years.

Perfumes in the garden

Around about this time of the year as we walk through gardens or car parks a pleasant smell wafts past.

This is a gardenia flower from our front garden, I brought this one inside and it lasted several days and gave a pleasant smell in the kitchen far better than any air freshener that can be bought. Unfortunately the sun is too hot for them at times as can be seen in the next photo.

They burn in the sun.

Yay,The tennis is coming!

Warren and I are volunteering at the tennis again this year, that's the Brisbane International. We have been in this morning leaving home at 6.30am for a induction morning of three hours. The uniforms have been done by a different group this year and they feel good.

Instead of unisex shirts and men's shorts I was able to get women's sizes, the women's are fitted but I was quite comfy in it. We get two shirts and two shorts plus a hat.

Five weeks until it starts 2015 will not be going over New year but starting on Fri 2nd Jan, We have our passes and our rosters plus our timings, we are both in the same group as last year so its nice that we know them already.