A Salmon dinner

The last week of the school holidays Aidan came to stay, I thought he might like a change of scenery before returning to school. He attended an activity at our local library and he was booked into a star wars thing at another library. A movie another day plus ten pin bowling and a day at home plus doing park run with Grampy and that filled the week.

He had told me that he was cooking one night a week at home and asked if he could cook for us one night.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I said of course, followed by what will you cook.

He tells me salmon mashed potatoes and green beans, luckily I had all of that in the fridge or freezer. I had bought the salmon a few weeks earlier but as I had not cooked salmon before, I wasn't keen to prepare it so it was still there.

Warren did go to the kitchen to assist the cook and help ,locate things that he may have needed. I had dinner delivered to me once it was done.

No mash for me and I had a spoon of sour cream on top, it was very nice. Then even better between they packed the dishwasher and put it on.

Garden flowers

I would have said that we don't have flowers in our garden however I was outside the other day hanging out some washing and actually looked around the garden.

Four of our trees or shrubs had flowers.
First one is what we call Max's tree. When we came back to Queensland to live we bought our little dog with us. I had been out with a group of brownies doing some community work and they found a small dog who had been dumped. She was in a cane basket between a railway line and a busy road. Poor thing looked half starved and scared. We took her home put notices around and when no one claimed her, she stayed with us.

She spent fifteen years with us and of course she moved with us but the heat was too much for her and we had to make the decision to have her put down. Warren brought her home from the vets and we had bought a tree with no name on it and that is where Max is, hence Max's tree. It is a lovely tree and has yellow flowers each year. The parrots love it.

Then I noticed that there were some others out in flower.

This was the first tree we planted in our garden seventeen years ago, my how time flies. It has been flowering for some weeks and is coming to the last. Funny that we put another one of these trees in the front yard about three years after this one but it never did any good, think it was a drought by then and we ended up taking it out.

Finally there is this one with the Bougainvilla flowering behind it. 

We built a vegetable patch but veggies never did any good there. Before they built the house, apparently there was a huge tree in that area and it was poisioned. We assume that there is still some residue there as plants seemed to be doing well and then suddenly died, now it is in too much shade to try to grow anything. Lucy likes to lay in it when it's hot.

Quilts

My latest round of quilts. I do like a target and I decided to do two quilts a month.

I was ironing them to pack away and realised there were five that I have made since Christmas. I had one to make for a grandsons birthday at the end of the year, got it finished just before his birthday and then I started on these.

I like the triangles but they do take up more time.

 The pink one is only cot sized, I don't usually have a lot of pink in my stash and these were pieces that came from the opp shop, with a nursery print for the back.

Mainly greens and pinks this time in strips, I think all fabric from opp shop.

Last time I was there at opp shop, I picked up a big bolt of fabric that has some rust marks on it. They only wanted a dollar for it. I am sure that the marks will either wash out or I will be able to cut around them. It will be suitable for the backs, I am soaking some now ready for the next lot of quilts.

Finished!

I set myself a target of completing my crocheted blanket by the end of the tennis. It involved 20 squares of approx 30cms x 30 cms. Then when asked Warren's opinion he thought I should do a border of cream around all of them. I was only going to do one strip across to make it a little longer but now that its done, I think it does pull it all together.
Some of the edges are just a bit wonky so I may even put a other row right around it. I will ponder for a couple of days.

Tennis grand final tonight and it is done!

My Spy

I took Aidan to see this movie earlier in the week. I had seen the shorts and thought that it looked good. Sometimes the only best bits are in the shorts but not this one, it was a really good and funny movie.

Mainly about a nine year old girl who turned the tables on a couple of spies. I know some kids who can do deals but this kid was good, real good!

Great colour names

Shopping for wool two or three months ago, I bought some large 200gm balls of wool. At the time I had no plan but at the start of the tennis, I decided to crochet 30cm by 30cms squares and eventually make them into a blanket. I used the first ball and got two squares and almost a third.

If I wanted to make a blanket, I would need more wool as I only had one ball of each.  I took the band's down to Spotlight with the dye number and name of the colour. This was a first for me to go with an actual plan in  mind.

The colours are called Aqua, Mint, Royal and Peacock, so blues and greens.

I started with the Aqua, I need five squares from each colour which will make the end result about 120 x 160 or 4 x 5 squares. I may do a strip of cream between each and around the outside.

I am on to the last ball now, peacock which is on the left. I will have it finished by the time the Aussie Open (tennis) finishes next week. I do get a lot of crocheting done while watching or at least listening to the tennis.

I am also making slippers and set myself a task of 25 pairs, I think I am on to pair 15.

Rain!

Such a lovely noise to hear. It started raining last Saturday and while it hasn't rained all week, we had had milder weather with several days being overcast.
The rain has helped with the fires and also the drought areas although the effect won't be felt for several months yet.
Last night after we went to bed, the rain was quite loud and we had Lucy come into our bedroom, I guess she had not heard rain that loud before and as she is frightened of storms, it stands to reason to think she was scared of the noisy rain.
Again we have been lucky where we live as the rain is welcome but down south only a hundred or so mms away they have had floods!