January 3: around and around and around

That's how most of today felt. Before Christmas I'd promised Luke I would do the mowing next time. We'd noticed it had grown really quickly and poor Luke felt like he'd only just done it. He usually enjoys the task, but I think he relished the idea of a break from it. Time is running out before Luke goes back to work on Monday, and there's a windy day forecast tomorrow, so this was my last chance (I had no plans of using Sunday for it).

So after we were breakfasted, and I'd hung a load of washing and seen Josie off for her nap, out I went. It wasn't long before I was mesmerised by the monotony of it and enjoying some time alone with my thoughts. I won't bore anyone with those (even myself) but they mostly revolved around attempting to return some kind of order to everyday life. With any luck, this blog will have a part to play in that.

Around and around I went, stopping only occasionally to move large branches out of the way, until the kids ran out to call me in for lunch. As I was cleaning up ready to eat, I noticed two things. First, I'd missed putting sunscreen on my forearms. Oops. Second, I'd collected a hitchhiker in my travels. A fuzzy little caterpillar. As I showed him to the kids before putting him outside, Pascal commented that he looked like he was wearing sunglasses. Luke had pulled together (from our very bare fridge and pantry) a very serviceable lunch and there was the temptation to take more of a break then and threre to watch some cricket, but I knew my motivation to head back out would be lower with each passing minute, so I headed out to finish it off. After I finished all the after-mowing cleaning, Luke asked if I had any dinner plans (um, no) then he took me around to the back patio and showed me where he'd spent some time cleaning up our sadly neglected BBQ. Yum, BBQ for dinner!

We headed inside for a coffee (and a peanut butter Lindt ball, mmmm) and finally sat down with the cricket, the first day of the final Ashes Test from the SCG. As I watched, I finished sewing in the ends and adding buttons to the Tiny Tea Leaves cardi I've been knitting for Josie. I knit it in Bendigo Woollen Mills cotton in a delicious red called Pomegranate. I'm really happy with how it turned out, though if I were to knit another I think I'd start with less stitches at the neckline. It's been a fun little knit. I might make her another with long sleeves in something woolly for winter (this one has cap sleeves for layering across the rest of summer and autumn).

After this it was just about dinner time so Luke headed out to fire up the barbie. While things cooked, we had a try at twisting together old soaked leaves from our NZ flax plant to form ropes to use in the garden. We'd seen a feature on this on Gardening Australia during the year and wanted to try it out. We couldn't make their technique work for us, so ended up plaiting them. Possibly a stronger end result. Pascal and Rohan had a tug-of-war to test them out.....

All good!

While we were plaiting, the kids also found some chalk on the patio and set about doing some new chalk drawings. This is Pascal decorating near the new worm farm (old freezer).

And wouldn't you know it, it always rains after you mow the grass. Here at 9.45pm, the rain is pitter pattering down on the roof.