In a Sea of Yellow

I just had to share with you the vibrant yellow flowers on our front lawn on this beautiful sunny day.

It seems such a shame to mow the lawn, but that is going to happen very soon.

Garage Sale Artwork

We had a garage sale on the weekend and to advertise it Salem did some lovely artwork to catch the passing traffics' eye.  And it worked very well.

Salem had so many people stop to talk to him about his artwork and the garage sale.

We even had the bus drivers mentioning it too.

He used the jumbo chalks we had and it kept him amused for hours.

It was just a pity the weather packed in and it was horrible and rainy.

The weather forecast said it was going to be fine and sunny.

They lied!!!!!!!

But never mind, we did get a few people and made a few sales.

We are raising money for Salem's dance lessons and getting rid of stuff we don't really need.

We are having another garage sale on the 30th.

Salem's art is still up on the fence, it survived the rain and I have changed the date of the garage sale.

Two Cross-Stitch Kits Finished This Week

I'm continuing my lucky-dip challenge to get through may huge stack of Discovering NeedleCraft series, it actually looks like I have close to 100 issues, so that is nearly 100 kits to do.

The first this week is from Issue 2, the Baby's Wall Hanging.  It uses 18 count aida fabric.
I had to cover some rust marks from the needle which was in the kit and added a few of my own touches.
I will have to put a backing on it and actually make it into a 'hanging' soon.

I don't have any babies in my life, so I made it for Salem as I had never made him one when he was a baby.
He had to wait 13 years!!!!!

The next one I did was from Issue 86, a gorgeous Woodland Fox.
It is on 14 count cream aida fabric and was nice and quick to do.
I have to find a nice frame for it.

The colours are lovely and the black outline really makes this little fox come to life.
It says in the magazine that this is part of a set which includes a badger, a squirrel and a fawn.

I will have to wait to see if those ones come up soon in my lucky-dip.
I have now started on a Robin Pincushion.

Beautiful Blackberries

My finished x-stitch blackberries

I was a very lucky gal and was given at least 75 issues of the Discovering NeedleCraft magazine series from 1993
....... for free!!!!!!!
Each issue has a kit to do so I have decided I am going to do every single one, and so the other day I had a lucky dip and pulled out issue 4.

The pattern

The kit was for a cross-stitch jam pot cover with wild blackberries on 27-count evenweave fabric.
It took me an evening to do and looks very lovely but I didn't have a jam jar wide enough for it to go on.
I'll have to look for a jar wide enough at the supermarket with something yummy in it.

The kit came from this magazine.

So I have started on my next kit which is from issue 2, which is a baby's wall hanging.
I'm doing each kit regardless of what it is.

Since the kits are so old, some of the needles have gone rusty which isn't very nice when the needles are kept in the fabric.  I like it when the needles are in their own wrapper.
But never mind, I can live with a rust mark .....especially when these are free.

Just Foal'n Around

This gorgeous wee foal lives in a paddock a few minutes walk from our house.
We walk past every day and have been watching this beautiful creature grow up.

We don't know if it is a boy or a girl yet, haven't really attempted to find out.
It has been so lovely watching it grow from a tiny wee thing that suddenly appeared in the paddock, to now when he/she is starting to spend more time away from Mum, but still keeping Mum in sight.

Salem loves to feed this little rascal, and always picks some nice juicy long grass.
Mum started wandering off into the next paddock so little one decided to follow, slowly, munching grass on the way.

Cool Old Cars

On a walk down Kapiti Road on a beautiful warm sunny day, we happened to spy these wonderful old cars.

Salem was so excited, especially when I said that we should take some photo's of them.

So out with the camera, keeping my fingers crossed that it would still work, it's been very sick lately making funny noises.

Salem loves older cars especially pre-war and from the 50's.  This little truck really impressed him.

Let's hop in and go for a drive!!!!!

Very intrigued with the very old fire extinguisher attached at the front by the engine.

"Can I have one, Mum?"

At the Botanic Gardens While the Earth Moves In Wellington

A lone flowering Tulip

On Friday we had decided it was about time that we went into Wellington again.
We needed a fix of city hustle and bustle and then our usual wander through the Wellington Botanic Gardens.
Little did we know it would turn out to be a bit of an adventure.

One of the tulip beds

The tulip beds were devoid of flowers, all except one lone tulip, but growing well in preparation for the Spring Tulip Festival later on.  But there was plenty of magnolias in bloom along with other pretty little flowers and the spring bulbs doing their thing rather early, it is still winter.

Relaxing on the grass while Wellington shakes

I found myself a nice possie next to the Joy Fountain on the grass and sat down while Salem went running about.  I felt the ground move under me and thought that it was either a small earthquake or a truck or bus going by. I didn't see either.  I mentioned it to Salem but he didn't feel anything.  He was too busy running around and exploring in the trees.

This was taken just after a large earthquake

Soon after heaps of people started walking through the gardens and I thought it must have been the usual after work crowd of people walking home........Little did we know!!!!!
Wellington had been rattled by some rather large earthquakes.
I have written about our adventure on our Ballet Boy NZ blog so check out our story at http://balletboynz.blogspot.co.nz/2013/08/dancing-on-shaky-ground-and-costume.html.
We were totally oblivious to the earthquakes and had a really nice afternoon at the gardens.

Stylish Electric Cars

More stylish than a Prius.

We checked out these very cool vintage cars at the recent Kapiti Sustainable Home and Garden Show.

Salem loves vintage cars and it didn't take him long to find these beauties.

Check out the batteries!!!!

As you can see, electric cars are not a new idea.

Imagine driving this home.

I think this next car was a hydrogen powered car.  Or it could have been another electric one.
I can't remember, it was a very hot afternoon.

Both these cars are in working order.
Much more stylish than the modern hybrid and electric cars.

Autumn is Finally Here!!!!

After a long, hot and very dry Summer, Autumn has finally arrived.
The leaves are finally changing colour and falling to the ground.

We love Autumn!!!!!!!!

And what is more fun than playing in all the leaves.
We couldn't resist when we found this large mass of leaves on our walk home after dance classes.

The temperature has dropped a lot over the last few days but we still haven't had any rain, just two days in the last week or so that had about 5 to 10 minutes of a very light drizzle.
Nothing to break the drought.....yet......

Playing in the Autumn Leaves

It's nice to be able to layer on the clothes and to wrap up warm in one of the many blankets that we have made over the years.
In the evening, when the boys have gone off to bed, I snuggle up on the couch wrapped up in a blanket to watch a bit of telly, with Sugar, our big fat white cat curled up next to me on the blanket and Misty, our clueless black cat purring away sitting on my knee.
What could be better...........

Getting Ready For Easter At Kirks

Clucky, the Easter egg laying chicken

It was off to Kirkcaldie & Stains for our traditional visit to see Clucky the Hen who lays chocolate covered marshmallow Easter eggs.
We visit Clucky every year, the build up to Easter would just not be the same without her.

Clucky has just laid an egg

Kircaldie and Stains department store has been around since 1863 but of course Clucky hasn't been around that long.  My Nana and Grandad used to take me to visit Clucky and that was many, many moons ago.

As you can see from the video above, Clucky really put's a smile on your face and it's amazing how many adults still come to see Clucky and put in their 50 cent piece to have an egg laid for them.
I still do..!!!!!

After our visit to Kirk's (Kirkcaldie & Stains) we had a quick visit to the botanic gardens to see what was in flower now.  It's been a little while since we were last there.

There were some lovely vibrant colours so I had a bit of a sit down and just enjoyed the sights while Salem went and did some fort building.  It keeps him busy for ages.
I had to call out for him when it was time to leave.
We ended up missing our bus anyway so had to wait for the next one.

It's going to be interesting to see what the gardeners are going to plant for the autumn displays.

Coronation Cafe

Arise Sir Salem!!!!

The Crown Jewels are at the Coronation Café

There was no need for us to travel all the way to London to see the crown jewels as the City and Sea Museum has replicas with all the glamour of the originals on display at the Coronation Cafe.

On a wet, windy and very humid day we popped in for a look around and just loved everything there.

Salem was even knighted by the Queen.

Come on in to the Coronation Cafe

There was bunting and Union flags all around the cafe and the Union flag was painted on the floor.
The tables and chairs were all painted gold so it looked very regal.

Have a seat and look at the Union Flag painted
on the floor.

The cafe was closing soon but we managed to get a hot drink each.
There wasn't a lot of choice so I got a latte and Salem had a fluffy which was very small for $2.
So I ended up giving him some of my coffee.

Replicas of the Crown Jewels

The crown jewels that were on display were made for the Centennial Exhibition in 1939.

Under one of the many creative crowns

There were lots of very quirky crowns around the cafe, my favourite was made out of pencils.
Very clever.

Colouring in his crown

There was coloured pencils and pictures of crowns to colour in so Salem did that while I thumbed through a couple of the books on the table.

They were all about the Queen and some were of her coronation.

Every table has books about the Queen

This was a "pop-up" cafe so apparently there wasn't much in the way of food earlier on.

There was no food at all when we came in.

But it is such a great idea and makes good use of this space.

It would be great if they did some Devonshire teas.

Bye for now.