Harvest on a mild winter day

It must have been a mild winter, because there are still five capsicums on the bush,  happily ripening slowly.

How to learn to knit

Put on pyjamas, and then a dressing gown and big socks. Prepare the knitting instruments. Find the printout of the pattern. Get the ipad so that I can watch the helpful video that comes with the pattern.

Get a glass of sherry (ran out of port). Hop into bed.

Read Facebook updates. Sip sherry. Check on the AMBA forum. Sip sherry. Realise that sherry is mostly gone.

Notice that it is 7:57pm and acknowledge that I might as well just go to sleep. Realise that sherry is not entirely gone, and perk up.

Re-commit to trying the flippan knitting.

Wish me luck. I'm trying to make this (dire name, but a nice shawl): http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-dummy-clap-shawl

New shoes

Ivy made them for me.

On our way to Bright

In the car with Kath and Craig and baby Jaslyn,  on our way to Bright for Fred's memorial.

Post-sweep sweepings

After making themselves breakfast, Ivy and Hazel swept the dining room to deal with the carpet of rice bubbles and nutri-grain pellets.

After they left the room, I swept the room again and came up with this:

P.S. That is not a sultana; it is a rabbit poo.

Hot crossless buns

Just couldn't be bothered piping this morning. I think I know what we will be having for morning tea today.

In other news, the kids have been doing utterly self-directed Easter-based craft and narrative games this morning. Ivy is the Easter bunny (of course) and Hazel is seventeen-year-old named Less, which is short for Allessatif. Less has been a long-term member of Hazel's pantheon of alternative identities.

So far the bunny and Less have cut out and decorated about twenty paper Easter eggs, then paraded around doing unfathomable but allegedly necessary Easter jobs for an hour. Now they are drawing together in Hazel's room.

This is sounding a lot like one of those "my life is perfect and here are the pics to prove it" posts. In the interests of balance, know this:

This morning I threw out my latest fermenting effort. It was dill pickles, and I have a feeling that using dill from the freezer is a bad idea. The cucumbers and the oak leaves were fresh and so was the garlic, but the frozen dill made the pickling liquid go milky coloured and there was mold starting too. Luckily, the pickles I served to my family yesterday were from the FIRST batch.

What happens when goldfish are given cooked broccoli

They nibble it until it looks like coral.