Wishing you a Very Merry Christmas for 2025!

 

It's only 5 more sleeps until Christmas. Where did the year go? I have never known time to fly by so fast!

I am all prepared for Christmas now. Presents are wrapped, done while listening to my favourite Christmas music sung by the Rat Pack, and cards are all written. Advent calendars are on display, and the ingredients have been bought for a pre-Christmas Eve morning tea.

Christmas is going to be simpler this year as I suffered from 2 strokes over a month ago. I have recovered fully now, thank goodness, but it has left me even more tired. We aren't putting up the Christmas tree this year as it is too much for me to manage. But I have decorated the house with my collection of old Christmas cards which look lovely.

My sister-in-law did most of my Christmas present shopping for me, which was so kind and thoughtful of her. And I have been having all the groceries delivered to the house. I have simplified our Christmas meals so there will be no cooking, which also suits the very hot weather that we've been having this year.

On Monday I am doing a pre-Christmas Eve morning tea instead of our large Christmas Eve lunch. I will be serving blinis with smoked salmon and dill, a variety of 4 cheeses (double cream brie, havarti, gouda and a New Zealand blue cheese) with quince paste and dried fruit crackers. Followed by pfeffernusse, cinnamon star biscuits, marzipan potatoes (candy), chocolate dominoes, panettone and stollen. Served with Twining's English breakfast tea and coffee.

Then on Christmas Eve it will be just mum, dad and I for lunch. Dad is going to help by making shrimp cocktail, potato salad and a green salad. With this we will be having cold smoked salmon and hot smoked salmon, plus any cheeses left over from the pre-Christmas Eve morning tea. Followed by sweet treats left over from the morning tea.

As always, my sister will be making the Christmas Dinner for the whole family. I am really looking forward to it. She will be making roast stuffed turkey and a roast ham this year. I usually make the entree, but this year my sister will be making it herself with money we gave to help towards the meal. Needs must. There will be a limoncello and berry trifle, brought by my sister's friends, and I think my brother and sister-in-law will be bringing a pavlova.

Lots to look forward to. We will be sharing Christmas presents after the Christmas dinner while we eat sweet treats including Christmas mince pies which my sister bakes.

I hope that your holiday preparations are going well and that you have plenty of time and good health to enjoy this wonderful time of year.

Looking forward to hearing all about your celebrations. Have a lovely time!

Lots of hugs, from Rose xxx

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! 

I have been busy preparing for Fright Night for the children of our village. It is going to be on this Saturday, to give parents time to get their children ready for the event, instead of the 31st of October. My house will be a Safe House again, so nothing really scary here. Some of our neighbours will be setting up their houses as Scare Houses for the teenagers.

My last order of bags of sweets for Fright Night has just arrived. I think that there will be more than enough to go around. I chose Halloween-themed sweets: marshmallow ghosts and eyeballs, skull lollipops, sour spiders, chewy tarantulas, sour fizzy worms, little bags of bones and pumpkin shaped sweets and many more.

Otto decided to help me with Halloween preparations. He is now fast asleep in the basket that I want to put the sweets in. I don't have the heart to move him. His own basket is much more comfortable with a sheepskin rug in, or so I thought!

Mum said that she isn't going to try to count how many children come trick-or-treating this year. Over 160 children came to our house last year! Sometimes large groups at a time.

Here's hoping that the weather will clear up in time for Fright Night. It has been terribly windy and stormy this past week, but we have had no rain so far today. I may just have to decorate the front door and then spread my plastic spiders and bats around the doorstep and leave the paper ghosts, pumpkins and bats for next year. We shall see. Fingers crossed.

I hope that you have a fun time if you are doing anything for Halloween.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Lots of hugs, Rose xxx

A warm winters day in the garden, plus new dahlias and amaryllises

After experiencing three frosty mornings in a row, it was a surprise yesterday when the temperature rose to a warm 15 degrees C. Today the temperature was the same, so I took advantage of it and spent half an hour walking around the garden taking photos. I didn't even need to wear a coat.

Some of the camelia bushes are in full flower now. They seem to think it is spring already. The red flowered camelia in the photo above has flowers that are larger than my hand. I picked one and put it in a vase to bring more colour into the house.

The white arum lilies are putting on a good show in the shade under the trees. 

There are so many trees and shrubs that I love, but I am finding it hard to find other plants that will survive underneath them. I found some real estate agent photos showing what our garden used to look like many years ago, before we moved here. The flower beds, which are 2 metres-wide, used to be full of perennial flowers, roses and small shrubs. The alder tree, which is now massive, was just a small sapling and the weeping pear (not-an-olive-tree) was about shoulder height.

The shrubs and trees now take up the whole flower bed space and cast shadows across the garden. However, they give us a lot of privacy from the neighbours as six properties overlook our garden. Without the trees it would make me feel rather exposed, especially since we used to live in the middle of 10 acres of land. Another advantage of the trees is that the shade cast by them gives us some respite from the heat of the sun in summer.

 

The viburnum is coming into flower now. Dad trimmed it back a bit earlier on in the year and he removed all the dead branches from the bottom. The growth is now a bit scraggy after its "haircut", so I think I will trim the bush harder to neaten it up once the flowers have faded. I am not sure when the best time would be to trim the viburnum, but I won't do it until all threat of frost has gone.

Two out of the four purple tibouchina cuttings, that we brought from our last house, are well established now and are flowering their hearts out. They are in sheltered positions and luckily didn't get hit by the wind and frosts.

The Chinese primulas, that we bought in spring last year, self-seeded and have started to flower which I am really pleased about. The slugs are pleased about it too by the look of the holes in their leaves! I may transplant the smallest of the seedlings into pots and grow them on until they are big enough to survive the slugs.

The orange abutilon (Chinese lantern tree) has grown massive since I planted it out. I need to stake it as it is on a sideways lean due to the strong winds we have had, and the soil being wet and soft in that corner hasn't helped either. 

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The neighbour's flowering quince is flowering, even better than last year, over the top of our fence, and the golden arctotis plants are starting to flower.

I have also been busy ordering more amaryllis bulbs and dahlia tubers online from the NZ Bulbs website. I bought 2 amaryllises and 6 dahlias which will be arriving late next month or early September. It is so exciting. 

The photos below of the amaryllises and dahlias are from the NZ Bulbs website.  

The amaryllises that I chose are:

- Dancing Queen  

- and Nymph 

The dahlias that I chose are:

- Cafe au Lait

- French Can Can

- Kenora Macop B

- Labyrinth

- Peaches and Cream

- and Tsuki-Yuri-No-Shisha

While I am waiting for these to arrive, I will be buying planters, stakes, potting mix and compost, ready for planting them. I will be putting all of these around the edge of the deck where they will get the most sunlight. I can't wait 😊.

                               

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Hugs, Rose xxx

Afternoon tea at my new desk

Today my new desk arrived! 

I have needed a new desk for a few years now because my 50-year-old formica-topped table was starting to fall to pieces. The back extending flap was beginning to fail, and I was in danger of losing my computer monitor which was sitting precariously on it.

Over 2 years ago I saw this desk online and fell in love with it. I dreamed of owning it and put a picture of it in my One Notes dream list app.  At the time the price was too high, for me, and I didn't think any more about it. Then at the beginning of this month, while I was browsing online, I saw that the desk was on sale with 40% off the original price. I couldn't believe my luck. 

The desk is made of solid oak and has 3 drawers. It is not as deep as my formica table, but it is much wider. 

I have also pre-ordered an oak floating shelf, for the back of the desk, to sit my monitor and speakers on. This will enable me to store my keyboard and mouse underneath the monitor when I want to do paperwork or crafting. The floating shelf should arrive mid-to-late August. Something else to look forward to 😊

After the delivery men assembled my desk and placed it in my room, I couldn't wait to set it up with my ornaments and computer monitor. There is plenty of room in the drawers for my A4 folders, notebooks, pens and anything else I am not using at the moment. 

The desk is a little bit high, so I added a cushion to my chair, and it is very comfortable.

Once everything was set up on my desk, I decided to have my afternoon tea there. I had English Breakfast tea in my Redoute Roses teacup, which my sister-in-law gave to me. And with it I had a couple of pieces of Ginger Slice which were yummy. It was lovely and I am so happy. 

I hope that you have kept well since my last post in April. My chest infection and collapsed lung cleared up after a couple of months and the x-rays came back normal. No more patches on my lung which is a big relief. As a result, things have been rather quiet here.

Winter is here now, and we have been experiencing some really nice days in-between the rainy squalls. The plants in the garden seem to think that it is Spring and we have had daffodils (Earlicheer) already flowering. And anemones, freesias, ranunculi and bluebells are poking their way through the ground.

I have been yearning to start gardening again due to the warmish weather. But the frosts are still to come (if we get any). A few days ago, I took some fuchsia cuttings from unusually early, new growth. The cuttings are keeping warm inside the house. I used rooting hormone to help them along. At least it has satisfied my gardening urge. 😊 On the next sunny day, I plan to take more cuttings of different shrubs to see what happens.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Lots of hugs, Rose xxx

Happy Easter 2025

 

Wishing you a very happy Easter and that you have lots of fun with friends and family. And don't forget the chocolate!

Lots of hugs, Rose xxx 

Happy New Year 2025!

Happy New Year to you and all visitors to my blog! 

I will catch up with you soon.

Lots of hugs, Rose xxx