Goodbye Welwel

Closing the back door for the last time on 25 years of wonderful memories. Goodbye WelWel.

The Next Chapter

 It's au revoir to Galston and G'day to Carey Bay.

The next chapter

On the move

Stage 1 of the move is underway. Stage 2 Thursday next week.

Quick Sale

Busily packing up our goods and chattels.  It only took two days to sell our house.

Have to get it all sorted before our next overseas jaunt!

Wardrobes

 One thing we are going to miss when we move are our walk-in wardrobes.

My wardrobe

NB It's usually overflowing with clothes - I cleaned it out for the pending Open for Inspections for our house sale. 

The Table Setting

As I ramp up my preparations for Christmas I must reread this article from 2015.

Setting the Table for Christmas without a Maid.

Guess I need to add a few more bits.

Cliveas

While we have quite a number of orange cliveas in garden beds I was unaware that we had a few yellow cliveas in pots hidden away in a corner of the garden until Mr GeniAus dragged me along to view them.

They are beautiful.

When these have finished flowering we'll split them and use them in a border in some shady spot.

Swimming season

Our pool is open for the season.

Blossom Time

It's Crabapple time in our garden. where we have two magnificent trees.

Lake Dryzabone

Although the sky was filled with menacing clouds this morning the weather report tells us that there's not much chance of rain this afternoon.

Today's forecast from http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/forecasts/sydney.shtml

We haven't had rain here at Welwel for many a day. The grass is brown, the eucalypts are shedding leaves and the drought- hardy plants are struggling. The water tanks under our house are empty too.

As I came down our drive this morning I thought of the iconic Australian clothing range Driza-bone (Dry as a bone) because that would be a good name for our dam. As I don't want to breach copyright I am naming our dam Lake Dryzabone. The following snaps will show you why.

I wonder where the frogs and fish have gone

Dry dam bed

Some plants are still green

A Little Tart

We have a mini orchard containing a couple of dozen fruit trees at our house. We have citrus, stone fruit, apples and pears. It's always a battle to get to the fruit before the bats, birds and possums rip them off the trees.
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Orchard at Welwel

Mr GeniAus is getting smart in his old age so he now nets a few of the trees before the fruit ripens up. This week he netted a mandarin tree that is an early ripener. He just delivered one of the mandos to my desk, it was juicy with a bright orange skin but it was still a bit tart. It will benefit from more time on the tree.

Not quite sweet yet

I just wandered down to the orchard with my phone and took some snaps of what's in store for us in the next couple of months. Hopefully the local wildlife will leave some for us.

46 Degrees

 It's warm in the car. NB that's not Fahrenheit.

A Tiny White Centre

I've long been a fan of Bougainvillea but only realised today when I was examining our plant that the blooms have a tiny white centre.

Our Bougainvillea

A Great Invention

Fellow Australian, Hugh Jackman, said "To me, the smell of fresh-made coffee is one of the greatest inventions." I would add that drinking it is pretty darned special too.

 It is coincidental but most appropriate that, on International Coffee Day, we welcomed a new coffee machine into our home.

The first cup was hot and delicious and the machine behaved better then the one it replaced.  Thanks to Barista Bob for getting the new gadget up and running.

New in our kitchen

Today's Harvest

Last citrus of the seadon

Spring has sprung

A glorious first day of spring. Time to get back in the swim.

Blossoms in our garden

Sticky work

 Our little grandson is helping his BobBob find sticks for Daddy's fire.

Child labour

BobBob is putting our little houseguest to work.... and they are both loving it.

Fab Fungi

Pretty fungi has appeared one of our trees.

Floored

The sledgehammerers are disturbing the peace here today. Roll on new kitchen.