You guessed it – after a couple of hot days, the showers came back with the added bonus of summer storms. Still, life went on.
Monday 31 January
My Monday mornings always start by reading Grace Alexander’s email newsletter. Grace is a gardener in the UK and her thoughts are always valuable to me, though the dark aesthetic of her photos isn’t my taste. If you sign up for her newsletter now, Grace offers a download of her Journal of Deepest Winter. It is a true delight.
It was too hot for me to be outside in the garden, so today was filled with indoor activities. I added the finishing touches to my quilt group’s newsletter and emailed it to members. All done now until I start compiling March’s one.
Tuesday 1 February
Still hot outside, so I continued to cut and sew my Liberty fabrics into blocks. Hand piecing is always slow but progress is being made.
The rainfall totals I’ve recorded (we have a rain gauge and a spreadsheet – with graphs!) show that we had 70 mm more rain in January than the same month in 2021 and double December’s total. Told you it was wet.
The warmth of the sun has encouraged more dahlias to open their flowers so I dashed out and cut several bunches. They have given me pleasure all week.
Wednesday 2 February
A southerly change blew through last night and more showers came with it, along with the ridiculously low top temperature for the day of 16.1 degrees. In February, in Australia – not that I’m complaining about the cool.
I keep second-guessing the fabrics I am using in my Liberty quilt. Today, I dumped the background fabric.
Thursday 3 February
We finished watching series 3 of Succession tonight. So good. Cannot imagine where the writers will take the storyline next.
Friday 4 February
I decided I did want more tulips but simple ones. Ordered 20 mixed tulips from Van Diemen Quality Bulbs in Tasmania so I don’t have control over what they send me. Very unlike me. Oh, and snuck in an order for some Dutch Irises as well.
Read A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari. My review is on Goodreads but I’ll post it here in due course.
Saturday 5 February
The Liberty quilt is troubling me but I don’t know why. Is it the new background fabric? I packed it all away and I’ll move onto another project. My subconscious can work out a solution.
Kikuyu in my dahlia bed is an ongoing challenge. I’ve covered a lot of it with old sheets of cardboard so I hope that will cause at least part of the runners to yellow and die. The cardboard will rot into the soil and I’ll build on it with sugar cane straw and compost. We’ll see how that helps.
Have a lovely weekend.