My mother has come to stay with us for a couple of weeks.

This will allow us to spend Mother’s day with both my & SK’s mum on Sunday.

My mum turned 70 in February & if you haven’t had a chance to see her Birthday Album, you can check it out here.

Mum lives in Batemans Bay on the NSW south coast & back in 1996 she suffered a stroke during a Triple By-Pass surgery. It was a mere 8 months after the loss of my father in which Mum & Dad spent 38 married years together (I am most proud of my Dad being 57 & mum 38 when I was born).

The stroke affected mum’s short term memory & to this day she still has her good & bad days. I was 19 at the time of her stroke & we lived alone in BB. My eldest Brother D lived in Sydney & next Brother K lived in Nowra. It was a long process & we went through hell & back during mum’s recovery, however we are lucky to still have mum with us today.

Not only is Mother’s Day special for all mum’s around the world, but every Mother’s Day is a blessing. In fact, every day is a blessing. It could have been worse.

So mum is here to spend a couple of weeks with us yet again. She loves coming to visit & we love having her. Sure it can be hard work at times getting the simple tasks done. And by the end of her visit I am looking for the break myself! But Mum is Mum. I am honoured to get to spend the time with her.

So if I do not blog over the next few days, I’m sure you will all understand.

Happy Mother’s Day to all Mum’s out there in Blogland, the Internet & the World. Enjoy your own special day on Sunday xxxx

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Last night we went for a bowl in preparation for our Wednesday Warriors League starting this week. Whilst in the middle of our 2nd game, one of the girls came to have a chat to us. Cutting a long story short, there was not enough people committed to playing the 8.30pm Wednesday Warriors, even though they had their name down to join. Therefore it has been cancelled. We have been invited however to join the Tuesday night League which also runs at 8.30pm. This is fine with us to join up, however what does upset us is that we will be joining into week 6.

We enquired originally about League & were informed that Tuesday nights had just started the week prior & that the W.W would be starting a week or 2 after our enquiry. When we fronted on the night, we were informed that in fact it wasn’t to start until May 7 as the current League was bowling it’s 2nd last week before the 3rd & final week, for them being a presentation night. However it was still preferred that we stay as scheduled to join the W.W.

Therefore we could have in fact actually been bowling League since the beginning of our enquiries, with having only missed 1 week. Now we are joining 6 weeks into the league! EEEEEEEEEEK! This league runs for 25 weeks & SK believes we have a good chance of being able to bring ourselves up the ladder. I am basing this league as a mere “practice run” if you will. Being my first league, I want to get used to the feeling of playing against others (being total strangers) & learning more about Me, the bowler.

I believe I have already found my bowling position, taking 5 steps instead of 4 & starting out on my left foot, starting my swing on my second step before releasing the ball off my right foot. This may sound weird to some but hey, for me it seems to work best. I am using a 10lb House Ball but have my own pair of AMF Sprint shoes, which SK bought for me for my recent Birthday.

We have been bowling twice a week being Wednesday & Sundays. This has been great practice for both of us as SK has found a new nemesis being the 10 pin & I am working on my strike. I hit the 1-3 pocket when i’m on it & know when it hits as the whole flow of the bowl from dot-to-line feels just right. I just don’t have enough of them yet! Hehe. I have however since the beginning of my bowling brought my average up from 82 to now being 104. My main goal was to bowl at least a 100 game each game. Since I have been doing that over the last 2 trips, I am now setting my goal to be 110 each game. I am actually quite suprised & very chuffed with myself as the last 3 games we played I bowled 133-129-113…… all with a sore back! I must have pulled a muscle the last time we played as I was in excruciating pain later that night & for the following 3 nights every time I moved. It started picking up on Saturday until I did a little “Garage Cleaning” with SK & had the pains coming back. I rested it for the arvo so I could still go bowling that evening. I am realy enjoying it & do not want to give it up for anything! Luckily enough the back held up & I bowled my best set of 3 to date!

We are trying to come up with a Team name for SK & myself. We have tossed around many names & ideas & still can’t agree upon 1. So I will offer you 2 names that I like from SK’s selections & hope to get some feedback from you to which you prefer.

Split Happens or

Channel Surfers

My back is now almost it’s old self again & I am looking forward to Tuesday night no matter what. So Shellharbour Bowl… here we come!

Will keep you updated.

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Our home garden is being tendered to by mere amateurs, being ShadowKnight & myself. However as each day spent in the Garden goes by we:

*sow & germinate new seedlings
*transplant seedlings into permanent homes
*introduce established plants bought from elsewhere
*add or remove plants as needed
*become educated on how individual plants copes under their own & current management structures
*impliment new or old techniques depending on how the plant is or is not surviving
*plan new methods for future plantings
*water & feed the plants
*enjoy the “fruits” of our labour by harvesting vegetables when ready

Our Garden is mostly Container grown due to the fact we moved from Sydney to here in the Illawarra & we are also renting the property. We don’t have any formal management system except for the typical sow/germinate/transplant/water/fertilize/harvest method.

We germinate our seeds in propagating trays inside small 2-shelved hothouses (or greenhouses). Once germinated, we tend to them inside the hothouses until they have their set of first strong leaves. From here they are normally strong enough to come into the Outside World so we transplant them into small individual pots. However, we have had problems with birds so I have been experimenting with keeping them in small pots inside the houses. So far so good. From here we fertilize them & nurture them as best as possible.

Currently I have a few flowering plants which have made it to the Outside World & are growing well indeed. These were our first seed germinated plants mainly to attract Bees. Grown simply to pollinate our future plants. Also introducing ready-established plants to the garden has helped attract the Bees. Not only do they look nice nice flowering, they work hard for us as well.

 Balsam - from seed                    

 Nasturtium - from seed             

 Geisha Girl - bought established

Sadly, it’s the Outside World that tends to create more issues for the plants in which we have to actively assist in. Bugs of all kinds invade the new plants & feast on their young & tender leaves & stalks. This is where we are still learning & experimenting. We seem to have a LOT of cabbage moth down here which are enjoying our Asian Greens & Lettuces. Also Ants are busily eating away our Lebanese Cucumbers as they almost get to harvesting size. We have managed to harvest a couple! At the same time, I believe these Ants are helping with the Pollination of the very same plant. Almost a Catch 22 situation here. The flowering plants are encouraging Bees but these have been spotted sparingly. I believe due to the weather we have been having.

I am working on implementing a new page to this site where I will post solely regarding Our Garden. Keep an eye on news to come once it is up & running.

So, here are some of my resources for the garden:

Mr Fothergill’s Australia
I have purchased Mr Fothergill’s Seed packets from the online store. I used to find myself wanting to buy seeds from Bunnings Warehouse & supermarkets each time I was in the stores, but could never stop at only buying 1 or 2 packs at a time. So I decided to go on a spending spree on the site & was not disapointed! The order arrived to me within 2 days of my purchase & I began “playing” in the garden with them almost immediately.

The Lost Seed
Here I purchased plenty of vegetable seeds. The price is kept as low as possible by the company providing simple Black & White envelopes in which the seeds are supplied. Again I received these within a handful of days & I was very satisfied with my purchase.

Garden Express
This we came across as it is the official site linked to channel 9’s The Garden Gurus. I don’t believe they have as much stock as I first expected, however they are fantastic to deal with. I receive a newsletter/catalogue 5 times a year. The website also offer specials & discounts on a large range of stock. We have purchased twice from Garden Express. Both times our plants arrived in tip-top condition & all have survived in the garden without any problems arrising! We purchased 8 Polygala ‘Fairy Lights’ & 12 Dwarf Lavender Munstead plants in November 2007, which have been growing far better than we expected! Over the New Year we purchased 2 Hibiscus of different varieties & 2 Agapanthus Tinkerbell which are absolutely adorable & nothing like the more common adult version (which SK detests)!

I do hope you find these links informational if anything. I have had success with these 3 personally & won’t mention the sites I have come across that seem to have stock or delivery issues, amongst other things. Once I have dealt with some other sites successfully, I will add those links to the site as well.

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