Just outside the back door is a trough which I planted with parsley, coriander and mint last year. They all died (a combination of too much sun and no water while I was away cruising) but the mint has sprung back to life this year. Just looking at it makes me want to make couscous tabbouleh...Here's a photo of my zucchini plants:
They got eaten, and not by me. It was quite funny really. The one on the left went first. One evening it was there, all 10 cm of it and the next morning *poof* it was gone! The one on the right lasted almost a week longer. I was confident it was safe and then, again, one morning I looked outside and it had disappeared overnight...The silverbeet's doing much better than the poor old zucchini:
The tomato plants are growing slowly but there are no sign of any tomatoes so far.
My back-from-the-dead rhubarb has 5 stems to it.
Whatever was eating the herbs when they were first planted appears to have stopped (I'm guessing they discovered the zucchini plants) but the coriander obviously couldn't cope with the stress and has bolted before I could pick any. I must check to see if that's normal for this time of the year...
Also spotted in the garden:
I finally read the back of the packet that my labels come in today. Bugger. I obviously should have bought the other "Full of jam" pack when I was at Officeworks...
Also in the parcel were some beautiful vintage trims (black and white, of course!), all wrapped in a piece of groovy retro cow print fabric.
The first laundry tub full of apricots were an adventure. I somehow (deludedly) thought we'd all be done and dusted in no time at all.
The first batch of apricots went into the ginormous pot Taph had brought along. Water and sugar were added.
Jam was boiled. I learnt about scumming. We got adventurous and started a batch of apricot and passionfruit jam in the other pot.
Jam jammed. And was poured into jars (sorry 
Other apricots were cut, stewed and decanted for the freezer.
.And then we repeated. And repeated with variations (Apricot and ginger jam. Apricot and vanilla jam. More plain apricot jam. Stewed apricots by themselves. Stewed apricots and peaches and nectarines. More stewed apricots)
Tested too many batches of jam. Had jammy sugar induced tantrums.
Got overwhelmed with dishes.
And madness set in...
But the freezer's looking good
and the tasting platter we arranged went down a treat (more sugar! Yeeeehaaar!)
The only problem is, after a day's worth of hard graft, we still have at least 8 kilos worth of apricots to deal with... 
it
pretty much
bare.
It was quite fun. I haven't picked apricots since I was a young thing living in Christchurch (where it was my job to climb to the top of the tree we had at the back of our yard and pick the ones the grown-ups couldn't reach with their ladders and rakes) I think that was the same summer I was being paid paltry amounts of money to pick raspberries at a farm up the road a way. Realising what we were picking to go into the jam (blue fluffy berries) put me off raspberry jam for quite some years...
No blue fluff tonight. Just buckets and buckets of apricoty goodness
plus a few that got sidetracked mouth-wards on the way to the buckets!
There's just one little problem. I turned my back for a moment during the photo shoot and turned back to find this...
I spent the day counting. I felt like I was on 
Christmas music so cheesy it makes me giggle out loud
and 
and the Rude Olf one:
and back:
I didn't need to create any replacement window panes as I discovered I had them all tucked safely away. And I decided to remove the lights completely. I've popped them up in the attic in case I (or the next owner) decide to put them back in place.
Secondly, having furniture printed onto the walls is cute but makes placement of actual furniture quite challenging (see basin above which doesn't quite cover the picture of the basin on the wall...)
Thirdly, the Triang furniture seems a bit small for the house:
I'm missing a few vital bits from the house at the moment. My Triang fridge is currently in the kitchen of my 
and will stay that way until 