What a busy week...

We moved Kirby out of the room she has been renting all year and into this flat. She will share it with her friend Ash who is starting Uni this year.
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It was hot the day we moved all the furniture so the girls were quite pooped by the end of the day. We all were!
Kirby's room will come up quite good once she puts up her pictures and makes the bed, of course!

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Our unit has a car port which the other units don't have so they are lucky that they can hang laundry under there if it's wet and they can also put a table and chairs out there so they can sit out on warm nights. All the pots that are under the fold out clothesline are gone so that area is much tidier now. Angus bought 2 of the concrete pots home for me - I'll paint them a charcoal grey and will fill them with flower seedlings.
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The bathroom is a lovely, very dated 1970's style with blue tiles that really don't match and the grout is quite grotty. I gave it a cursory clean but next time I'm there I'll give it a deep clean (read...scrub floors with bleach) and Angus will do some more in there - remove old grout and re-caulk it. The toilet backed up the first day we were there and the plumber came on Thursday - $500 to repair a cracked pipe that is blocked with vines. Ouch!
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The kitchen is being gutted and will be fully replaced in early March. We will put down new vinyl flooring also.
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This is the lounge/living room, looking from the kitchen. The girls want to do a feature wall and put in cedar venetian blinds in here. The flooring is just vinyl so we'll get a nice floor rug to hide it a bit.
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Because our school term started back on Wednesday 27th, Brianna and I had to head for home on Tuesday. Angus and Kirby went to the cricket at Adelaide Oval. Once we were out of the city, Brianna took over the wheel. We headed off to drive the 400kms home - blue skies all the way.
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It was a long 400 kms of open road at 80 kms/hour!
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There were plenty of Aussie flags flying...
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This is the Big Lobster at Kingston SE. We like things BIG in Oz!
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Being Australia Day, I had to eat one of Australia's icons - a meat pie with sauce in a paper bag -
(or as some true-blue Aussies would call it - a dogs eye with dead horse - our own take on Cockney rhyming slang!). This one was a Stockmen's pie - full of big chunks of beef, lots of vegetables in a glossy, delicious gravy. Scrummy!
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Nearly home - my wide brown land. Mount Muirhead with a pine tree covered hill in the distance and freshly baled hay in the foreground.
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I hung an Australian flag in our front window for Australia Day - yep, that's me in the reflection...
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I have been out in the garden in the past few days, tidying things for the arrival of our guest, Chiara. She is on exchange from Turin in Italy and will stay with us for 12 days...
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I love my Black Magic agapanthus - it really stands out in the garden.
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The carpet roses are nearly in full bloom again...
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Fresh herbs from MY garden - rosemary, mint, oregano and basil.
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SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE

I made the sauce from 350gms minced beef, browned in 1 tblspn olive oil with 2 cloves of garlic. Add a 700gm bottle of tomato sugo, my chopped basil, oregano and rosemary, salt and pepper and a teaspoon of sugar. Let this cook down for half an hour.

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Spaghetti Bolognese with a sprinking of parmesan cheese.
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How exciting! This is my first baby tomato on our bushes.
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It is a month since I planted out our Topsy Turvey Tomato planter. It's going well and it loves the water. I have been watering it every other day because I don't want it to get water logged and go rotten. It's all trial and error as we go along.
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We are having a quiet day today, giving Chiara a rest then we are off to the beach tomorrow with some other families. The weather is warm but not too hot so it should be a lovely weekend. Enjoy yours won't you?
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Cheers - Joolz