Tulips

Floriade is a garden event that happens every spring in Canberra. Fabulous, I thought, it’ll be like the Chelsea Garden Show! A myriad of garden designers and landscape artists competing to take the prize for most fabulously sustainable living breathing gorgeous creation possible within a 10x8m plot!

But no. There are lots of entertainers doing shows, and ferris wheels, and lots of food and free wine tasting, and a petting zoo, and umbrellas in trees full of sleeping fruit bats. And even a big fat kookaburra watching proceedings. But there was no garden competition. Just beds and beds of wonderful tulips, and pansies, and other flora whose names I am unfamiliar with; scarlets and lavendars and dusky purples and bright gorgeous fuschias.

We took a picnic of marinated anchovies, marinated artichoke hearts, wafer thin slices of proscuitto, pitted kalamata olives, green olive ciabatta, crackers, comte cheese, old telegraph (a ridiculously pungent (and yummy) melting brie), some crumbly, nutty merseyside and a tasty bottle of reisen and whiled away the bright, sunny, warm afternoon. And after a studied bout of wine tasting, finished off our time at Floriade with a coffee and a beautiful lemon tart.

Sakura

It’s spring! The sky is blue, the sun is out, everyone’s coats are off and Canberra has exploded into a veritable riot of pinks and whites.

This little beauty burst into blossom this week in our back garden.

Song o’the Week #36

Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) by Arcade Fire.

Living in the sprawl
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
And there’s no end in sight
I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights

God bless the Arcade Fire and their environmental, urban design concerns. Not so pertinent in this tiny Australian city with a population of around 340,000, with its wide, green verges, lovely old trees and minimal street lighting (though the curse of the large shopping mall is well and truly alive).

I’m still trying to decide whether being able to see a multitude of stars from your back garden is worth stumbling (and occasionally tripping) over tree roots and uneven ground while trying to get from the street to my front door at night-time.

Wooden Box

I recently picked up this crusty, damp wooden box for a steal. I dried it out, treated it with wood cleaner and then stained it with some lovely Danish timber oil.

Now it houses some odds and ends, some bits and bobs.