Under The Pear Tree

I've got plenty of crafty things to post, but there are more important things afoot. We knew when we first rented our little 1950s museum house that it would eventually be knocked down to make way for 34 soul-less townhouses and apartments. The time has come.

Before we move I want to write more about the garden and how important it is to me but for now I am going to write about afternoon tea under the pear tree.

About this time is the perfect time of year for doing pretty much anything (other than sun baking) under the pear tree. It's about 50 years old and enormous. So, when it finally bursts into bloom, after a cold winter, it provides the most glorious shade, perfect for sitting under. It's our favourite spot to go to when we're hanging out in the garden reading, eating, knitting, just sitting, drinking beer, whatever.

So, I invited some of my lovely friends who share my appreciation for my beautiful pear tree and treated them to afternoon tea. A last little hoorah for 'my' beautiful pear tree.

Homemade Neenish Tarts ( a Sadie specialty), Blueberry Honey Cakes, Bourke Street Bakery Pork and Fennel Sausage Rolls (complete with homemade puff pastry - bit excited by that) and (accidentally) Burnt Caramel Custard Puddings. And my lovely friends added scones and mini quiches to the mix.

After a couple of weeks of glorious spring weather, we were defeated by windchill and raindrops so we abandoned the pear tree and retreated inside to my very messy, cramped dining room.

We set up a sheltered workshop, hand sewing for G's kids' school fete. G is the Yoda of school fete crafting. We chatted. We ate the (accidentally) Burnt Caramel Custards. Accidental because I didn't mean to burn the caramel. Lucky I did though. 

All in all a very fitting last hoorah to a beautiful old tree, even if we only sat under it for fifteen minutes.

Get Your Garden On

It's high time I posted about the garden. I've been spending a lot of time out there, nurturing little green things and inspecting branches trying to work out what is growing. I've also been keeping a keen eye out for your garden related posts and feeling especially inspired by hers and hers.

This house is a typical old Canberra house. It's on a very typical, decent, Canberra sized block. And, like many typical old Canberra houses, it has a well established garden. One that was once someone's absolute pride and joy.



You see there are established garden beds (enormous! multiple!) beautiful old trees, a number of self sown veggies, a huge array of beautiful flowers and endless little surprises.



My interest in gardening has been going for quite some time and eagerly grows a little each year. So, it goes without saying that I am just a little bit excited and awfully honored to be able to take care of this beautiful place in the world for the time we live here.

The tragedy though, is that the house is now owned by developers and will be knocked down and the land cleared to make place for a bunch of souless townhouses. Good bye little 195os museum house. Good bye amazing garden. So, you see, I feel a duty to enjoy the garden and all it's beauty and endless surprises (like the asparagus patch!) while we live here.

We moved into the house in the middle of winter when the garden was bare - bar the weeds - and no surprises had revealed themselves yet. As spring approached the Smurf and I spent more and more time weeding and digging over the beds, and as I did the garden started to burst into action.

A pear tree! Apples! Peaches!



The most amazing dogwood tree - which I knew nothing about but soon learned after two lots of people stopped to photograph the tree on one day.





Rhododendron, very, very showy camellias, gorgeous clouds of colourful azaleas.



All manner of blulbs popping up at different times - daffodils, jonquils, Iris, tulips, bearded iris, grape hyacinths. A fence full of jasmine all topped off with the most beautiful, fully-fragrent old roses. Oh and the flowering surprises go on - the hydrangers are getting bigger and I can see a few other flowers although I have no idea what they are yet.

I've always wanted a flower garden!

Every day I go out into the garden and watch the magic unfold before my eyes. I've got quite a number of edibles growing too - but I think I'll have to leave that for another post now. Allthough suffice to say, the patch is providing endless yumminess for dinners lunches and snacks.

Oh and did I mention we have chooks?

Oh, there you are...

Whoops, dropped off a bit there what with the moving interstate (again), lack of internet access, work travel, guests and well....no craft to report in about. I also got my twitter on - much to my own surprise - and so have been hanging out over there instead of here (www.twitter.com/sadieandlance - come say hi?).

So understandably my interest in blogging is a little, well, blocked. So I'll just dump some random thoughts...

• I have been knitting the Smurf some mittens. It was an instant requirement after moving to a cold city during a ridiculous cold snap in the depths of winter. Obviously he requested pink, but with the stash in boxes he is making do with the burnt orange yarn found in the first box at hand.

• Thanks for all your kind words of support in this post. I do tend to be hyper concerned about giving my craft away and I know I should just let up on that a bit. I'm sure the gift was appeciated.

• Homemade bagels are the best ever homemade bread experience. I followed this recipe as recommended by 13 Mimosa, although I did have a different recipe with more ingredients book bookmarked for a while. I can't recommend homemade bagels highly enough. Please, try them soon.

• The Sunday CraftRoom was fabulous. Lots of lovely crafty women, inspiring craft, amazing food, great conversation as always.

• The house we're renting is full of gorgeous original features which we are so in love with.

• The house also comes with 2 enormous well established veggie patches. I've already started weeding and studying Stephanie's Kitchen Garden Companion and I'm ready to do some planting.

• I'm itching to craft but need to unpack the spare room (which includes my craft "room").

Hope to be back sooner next time with some actual craft.