More doorways from around Eltville

I had a very boring housework day today , and after all my gardening yesterday my hip and knee dont like me, so nothing of great interest to put up.
We had another foal this morning, the anglo arab had a chestnut colt by Penybank Domain the Cob stallion my other daughter owns. I thought he was quite nice but Sarah was not so sure and didnt want a chestnut!
The joys of breeding.
Poor Millie ended up in hospital today after eating a pill she found on the floor, it had fallen out of the medicine box when her sister was looking for a band aid. 5 hours of watching but all is ok, what with my mother in hospital having blood transfusions and now this what will be next?
I managed to make about 7 pairs of earrings today for stocking fillers so feel that with the ironing done, washing done only the dusting and vacuuming to go.
Remember to double click to see the detail on these doors.
The stone work as someone said is stunning too.

Doors and gates

As well as doing the man hole covers I took a series of doors and gates while we were away. For some reason I have a total fascination with both, there is always that what lives behind there, and there are so many different styles and types of decorations. These are all German ones, all done on our walks around Eltville.
If you click on them you should see them more easily, and if you double click I have discovered they enlarge even more.
I loved the wonderful iron hinges on the top one.
The decoration and the glimpse of the garden in the next.
The last three were all along the path by the Rhine and were the entrances to peoples gardens. Some very basic and one very ornate.
Who lives behind them? What stories could they tell.
Here we spent most of the day getting wet in our own garden, a walk to the beach was suggested early but the showers just kept on coming.
We had an unexpected foal too, very sweet and looking fine but mum again wasnt sure about it, another first foal and sometimes it takes a while before they accept the fact that they actually gave birth to this small insistent thing who want they know not what. It had fallen through the fence as we didnt expect her to foal for another few weeks, we thought, but she soon was at the milk bar when mother was held. I think our dates were out as it certainly wasnt a prem looking foal.
Never a dull moment here.

Across Inman Valley

We went to dinner the other night to friends who live near Parawa, and they have a lovely veranda that looks out over the Torrens Vale and to Inman Valley so we sat having pre dinner drinks and nibbles looking at this view, what you cant see are the 20 or so kangaroos who were grazing a bit to the left by the scrub.
Yesterday we had quite bad thunderstorms and the power went out for a while so no blog. We have had about 15mm of rain and more since it was measured at 9 am this morning, and a lot of quite damaging winds, still any rain at this time of the year is welcome and it adds a few more rungs to the storage in the rain water tanks.
The framed textile is one I did a while ago on the embellishing machine with hand stitching and I have framed a few of these to see what they look like. For some reason the scan is a bit fuzzy.
I have been planting some herbs I bought at the farmers market this morning, terribly windy in there and I felt sorry for the stall holders with their tents blowing down around them. Not a day to be outside at all really.
We are out to try the new Greek restaurant in town tonight, fun to try something new, I hope it is good the last Greek restaurant we went to was in of all places Germany!

Jacaranda time

Yesterday after I had visited my mother, who slept most of the time I was there, I went to get some watercolor paper at the art shop and stopped to take these photos. Always reminiscent of exam time I remember riding my bike to the exam center through streets like this, there are whole streets lined with these lovely trees.
Some people dont like them as they have a rather large seed pod but to see them in full flower is a glorious sight.
It has got muggy without any rain which is a pity.
I need to do heaps in the garden and came home with some very hardy seedlings yesterday, petunia and geranium and a couple of pots of dahlias. But today I have re done the curtains in the sitting room as John has put up the rods for me to hang them on and I had to re sew on the rings for one lot.
Tonight we are out to a friends 70th so I have been busy working out what to give her. I hope she likes it. We dont normally give each other presents but this is a special birthday although I dont think any of us are enjoying being 70!
I have been looking up quotes, couldnt find one that was appropriate but quite like this one by Arthur Ransome, whose Swallows and Amazon books I still have.
Grab a chance
and you won't be sorry for
a might-have-been.

Circles on the ground

I had a lovely time taking photos of various municipal man hole covers, although the one second along is actually a drain cover, John kept finding them for me, the first two are French and the last 3 are German.
Dont you like the cobbles around some of them?
I found them fascinating but was disappointed to find that a lot in the UK were square, not round.
I also seem to remember ones with the names of the towns on them from the last time we were in Europe, not so often found now. I think the best I ever saw were in Japan. I must find some of them and re scan them.
Any way they make quite good design resources.
I will be in Adelaide tomorrow so may not post, I will see how tired I am when I get home.
Warming up a bit and then some rain, I hope so.
A crow is calling and a blackbird is singing and the peacocks are tramping on the shed roof. The sounds of evening.
I have been playing with my sewing machines, more on my other blog if you want to look here.

A cool day

I have been in the garden pulling a few weeds and assessing the damage those very hot days made. But amazingly some things I didnt expect loved it.
My clematis has never flowered so well before and is almost smothering the flowering plum by the bedroom door.
The white epyphytic cactus has flowered madly as well. I moved it last year and after years and years of not flowering suddenly It has lots of flowers, these are only a few. I love it when something unexpected happens.
I have also been making hearts, lots and lots of little patchwork hearts, very raggedy shabby chic, easy to make and fun to be able to have on hand to give away. Not finished yet I am saving them to do while watching tv, not that there is much on tv but it is an excuse to be up.
So a few things done today and I feel a bit more relaxed, probably after tomorrow I will be back to being on edge!
John and I went over to Goolwa to have a quick look at the water around the town, at the expense of the lakes and others the area has been filled with water, ok I suppose as the tourist season is about to be on us, but at what cost to others? Sometimes I wonder about the decisions of our political leaders, no not sometimes, most of the time.

Walking this morning

We have had a lovely 20 mm of rain over the last day or so, wonderful after that terrible heat.
The girls have gone to a show and John has gone fishing so I had to do the rounds this morning checking on things, a much better day to do it although the flies have started.
First a bit of my garden I dont look at very often, this is from the paddock next to the side garden and the trees and things are doing well there, such a lot are self seeded and this silky oak or grevillia robusta came up in a tiny cactus pot I was given years ago and has turned into this wonderful tree. It is flowering at the moment and the lorikeets are having a field day in it.
Then the sky still with a hint of rain in it looking down the valley, those brown hills will be with us for months now.
No new foals in this paddock but the two who are came down to check me out. Arnt they gorgeous, the little filly who is closest to the camera has such big eyes.
Then as I headed around the race to the yard I thought I would take a couple of photos of the sheds, I always think farm sheds look so interesting, and I had a bit of a fossick around to see what I could find, a few treasures I didnt think any one would miss.
The shed in the last photo has had a long history, stables, milking shed, stables again and now a storage shed. The rose I planted many many years ago is still flowering.
Sarah has just rung to let me know that we did very well at Champion of Champions so that was good, this is a qualifier for the interstate Show in Sydney but I doubt they will go to that. We won the leading rein and the Show hunter and also runner up show hunter with the other pony. Nice to know that the ponies we bred are doing so well under saddle.

After the heat and the rain

You can see the orchard is still green but the hills behind have gone brown very quickly after the 42 degree C heat on Thursday.
One of the peacocks on the front terrace railing.
The sky that night was red, red and redder, the other two sky photos were before the sun set and then we had thunderstorms that rumbled and grumbled for half the night and set fires alight across parts of the State. Not here thank goodness.
I was so tired yesterday with the cooler weather I did hardly anything and today has not been much better although I had to shop as I hadnt yesterday and go and feed Tabby's dogs and chooks.
Perhaps tomorrow while John goes fishing I will feel like doing something and not feel so tired and washed out.

Hot and a beach walk

I am not capable of doing much today, it is so hot I have found some sewing to do.
We did get out early this morning and had a lovely walk along the beach, the first in months, but even there it was getting hot.
Yesterday I was in the op shop and found this lovely book for $2. I would never have bought it at the full money but it is a lovely book showing Laura Ashley designs, fabrics, a bit of historical stuff and lovely looking English country rooms, with others as well. Made me want to do a make over except I dont have the money to do it!
Then last week after months of waiting this lovely little quilt that I had in an exchange finally after touring the world for 3 months turned up. It is by Pippa Coombs and I am so glad we decided to wait and see if it did arrive before she had to make another. I really love it and the ammonites she has used are just what I wanted, I wandered all over the UK trying to find or buy some but although I saw some wonderful ones in the Natural History Museum in Paris not one could I get so these are the next best thing.
As you can see there was a lazy wave on the beach this morning, lovely for walking in.
The River is blocked again and not flowing into the sea, infact when it finally opened its mouth this winter we were all amazed and a bit miffed as we couldnt walk the beach.
Not a shell to be found, in fact hardly any sea weed either so a lovely clean beach to walk on.
Bushfires out there, 42 degree C temperatures, now hot north winds and the threat of thunderstorms, and that could mean fires started by lightening.
What a country we live in!
Off to feed the dogs and chooks and water pots, and finally us, calamari for dinner tonight as John caught some the other week.
We hope for cooler temperatures to morrow and there is some talk of rain, I hope so.

The Valley this morning

As I drove back from shopping this morning I stopped and took a few photos of the big bales still in the paddocks.
It has been so hot that a lot are still out there, and a lot were left a bit late, ours have been done for weeks but then we have to have high nutrition levels in ours and our neighbours who rear a few beef animals are not so worried about them.
We are being told we will have a very nasty day tomorrow but then we were told that today and it wasnt nearly as bad as I thought it might be.
So far no hot northerly winds thank heaven.
today I spent a lot of the time, when not moving hoses, painting little dolls and sewing strips of material together, you cant see what I am doing yet, its not really terribly exciting any way.
Sorry this is so brief but it is late, I meant to do this a lot earlier but then the phone rang and it was a friend and we chatted and then John came home from Adelaide where he had been to a meeting and so dinner was organised and we have only just finished.
The trouble with day light saving at this time of the year, animals to feed, pots to water, and then it is late and I am tired.

Allotments

On India Flint's blog here she has a competition about allotments, on my other blog here I have written about my ideal allotment but here are some photos I took of allotments at Berwick upon Tweed. Usually I see allotments from any train I am in and they flash past so fast there is no hope of a photo and even a sketch is only what is imprinted upon my brain, and usually that is not enough.
So when we were walking and I found these I had to take some photos. The quality isnt terribly good as the sun was in the wrong place.
These are going into winter and I have written about a summer garden, most of the vegetables have been gathered and I suppose a lot are left fallow until next year.
They have always interested me and I feel that they are so important and there are now many inner suburban gardens where people live in high rise flats. Here in Australia high rise is only really just beginning and we have always had 1/4 acre garden block with vegies and fruit trees, now alas the gardens are much smaller. Adelaide was begun on some of the most fertile and productive soil in the state, such a waste to put houses on it.
I believe very firmly that the young of today need to be educated in how to have a pretty and yet productive garden but alas it is too easy to go to the supermarket and buy instead of growing your own.

Whitby

I will be uploading odd photos of our trip when I am feeling tired or have not much to put up.
I loved Whitby and I hope I havent done these before.
I was most taken with this shop in the old town, then the Celtic cross at the top of Caedmon's stair, we walked up the stair and came down the plod.
These gorgeous beach huts were being dismantled while we were there, I think they must store them for winter but I loved the bright colours.
Then a distant view of the Abbey, it was getting a bit late and the sun was in the wrong direction but I love the way it was against the sky.
Tired and have been busy today as it is cool before another onslaught of heat so trying to get done things we cant do when it is hot.