Are you awake yet?

A little sensory overload to kickstart your Thursday! Get creative today!

Thank you for the kind advice offered from my last post. The pain my boy was suffering on Monday has passed. We returned to the doctor who is convinced there is no post-operative concern. No fevers, tenderness or risk of infection. We have a follow-up visit with the surgeon on Friday. So his pain is a bit of a mystery at this point. I am wondering if there is some secondary digestive oondition happening. Perhaps a food intolerance.

Wishing you a creative Thursday, Bloom x

Felt better ...

First day back at school and my boy lasted 3 hours. It seems recovery from appendictis is a slow process. He had his appendix removed three weeks ago, and is still occasionally doubled over in pain. The pain lasts for a half hour or so, and then subsides, after a dose of Panadol or Nurofen. Any advice?

Between times, I am sneaking in just a little bit of feltwork. This is a needlecase, purchased recently, and designed by Diane Leftwich. It is called 'Bluebirds in the Hedgerow'. The bluebirds are yet to make an appearance!

Our school holidays, in 10 photos or less

In a blink of my eye, the two weeks of school holidays have passed. But in the eye of my camera, much was accomplished.

There was time for long and relaxed strolls
 in our farm garden ... 

... the irises resplendent.

There was time to smell the first of these:

Beautiful weather for plenty of this:

And blow me down, even a little time for some of this:

And what would spring be without a wedding:

I have but two cousins, and the elder of them married his bride in a beautiful country garden in the Riverina.

The guests were transported 75km by bus, to a station homestead for the wedding. 

 Thankfully, the weather was perfect. An inclement day could have been disastrous, since the access road becomes impassible with rain! 

 And if that didn't make for a perfectly romantic day, there was even a piper. Awww, how I love a piper!

For the Aussie mums, I hope you have enjoyed a great holiday from school with your kids. Now surely fourth term will be quiet and uneventful ... won't it?!

At the bazaar

Yes, the bracelets from the last post made the deadline and the show went off without a hitch.

 

Well almost. My boy was supposed to perform, but his appendectomy put an end to that! An understudy was hastily sought, and lines quickly memorised. All was right on the night.

I have been helping to make costumes during Term 3, and it is always so special to sit back on the night and enjoy the spectacle.

This year's musical was a Moroccan-inspired extravaganza.

How is it that 11 and 12-year-olds seem to have so much more talent these days than they ever used to?! I'm sure we were never so clever at their age.

Late night stitching

Thirty two (!) glitzy bracelets for the dancers in our school's Moroccan-inspired musical ...

... By when? TOMORROW!

Bloom-a-day: Acacia floribunda

What would an Australian garden be without a wattle or two? 

This is Acacia floribunda (also known as the 'Gossamer wattle' or the 'Sally wattle') in full bloom.

Its branches gracefully droop to the ground, and are laden with pale yellow finger-like flower spikes. An extra bonus is its beautiful fruity scent that pervades the garden. 

An Austrian work colleague told be that the smallest slip of acacia costs a fortune in Europe. How we take them for granted here! Since roughly 1000 of the world's 1350 species of wattle are native to Australia, it is hardly surprising we consider them just part of the landscape.

However, we are immensely proud of our stunning national flora. This dress perhaps epitomises our pride!

Jan Taylor, Australia's representative at the Miss International beauty pageant in California, 1964, wore this dress as her 'national costume'. It was designed by Beryl Jents, a leading Sydney designer of the 1940s-60s, to promote Australia and Australian fashion to overseas audiences. The dress is embroidered with state floral emblems and wildflowers, including wattle. (Source: National Museum of Australia).

Today's wallpaper of Acacia floribunda can be found here.

Bloom-a-day: An uncommon beauty

Tonight, my 9-year-old daughter and I went to an amazing children's theatre production. Called 'The Grimstones', it is a gothic fairytale played out with beautifully crafted marionettes and giant books. The writer, creator and performer of the fairytale is deaf. 

The basic plot: A mother is inconsolably grieving the death of her husband. Her young daughter seeks to comfort her by magically creating a new baby for her mother to love and care for. The baby is born with three legs. The mother initially rejects the deformed child, while the daughter is smitten with the baby & confused by her mother's reaction. Eventually, the mother grows to love the baby too, and they all live happily ever after!



I asked my daughter what she thought the moral of the story was. She quickly replied, "Don't judge others by their differences". Yep, she got it!

Hence my bloom for today is unusual, and beautiful of itself.

These are the long pendulous flowers of Acer negundo var. violaceum.

The flowers are like giant tassels, which adorn bare branches in the Spring.

It is a spectacular sight, and heaven-sent for the bees.

You can download the last of these images for your desktop on the 'Wallpaper' page of my blog.

Bloom-a-day: Hellebores

Hellebores are surely the most demure of blooms. 

They hold their elegant heads discreetly downwards, with only the ants privileged enough to delight in their inner beauty ... or perhaps a photographer flat on her belly!

They are not so far removed from the ranunculus of my previous post. Hellebores are from the same family, Ranunculaceae. While hellebores are also known as 'lenten' or 'winter' roses, they share no heritage with roses.

I have always loved botanical illustration, and I found this wonderful hellebore image on the net. It was published in Germany in 1885. So beautiful!

I couldn't get this post over at Leanne's House out of my head. As a consequence, I have added to my hellebore collection this winter, courtesy of Post Office Farm Nursery in Victoria. So there will be more of these shy little blooms next year.

You can find two of these photos to use as your desktop image if you click on the 'Wallpapers' tab at the top of my blog. 

Bloom-a-day: Ranunculus

The landscape here in Australia is bursting forth with the fresh and hopeful signs of a new Spring. The country, in general, has had an especially wet Winter, so that much of the parched inland is now a lush green, and waterways that have not flowed in years are gushing with new life.

For each day of this week, I thought I would post images of some of my Spring blooms. And as a small gift, from my garden to you, I will load some in a large enough format for you to use as wallpaper on your computer if you so desire!


So let's start with a show-stopper for today's bloom - the brilliant cherry red of ranunculus.

I love to grow these flowers. I love that something so stunning and cheerful can emerge from such a weird and apparently barren little brown claw of a beginning:

I have posted instructions for using these images as desktop wallpaper on a new page on my blog. Just click on the 'Wallpapers' tab at the top of this post. Hopefully, it will work!

I will be back tomorrow with a another glimpse of Spring on this side of the world. 

And Spring arose on the garden fair,

Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast

rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"