Gardening.

Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. ~Lou Erickson

Liddy is home sick. The problem with Liddy is she's got to be very sick indeed before she is happy lying around twiddling her toes so she promptly looked around for something to do. What she found was my garden.

Now I am old enough to really appreciate strong young muscles doing much of the heavy spade work for me but having weeded & dug & fertilized & mulched Liddy then decided what she really needed was a trip to the nursery. Now we do have a nursery on the island but it should never be used for vegetable seedlings as no~one involved in the nursery seems to know an awful lot about plants so the poor little seedling are left to outgrow their pots, flower & fruit & do all manner of things that are extremely unhealthy for any good little seedling.

I looked at the child in complete disbelief. Cyclone Hamish might have spun eastward over the Pacific Ocean to dissolve harmlessly but we are still getting the residue of squally showers & wind. Travelling was not something I really wanted to do ~ especially as I had cancelled out all Ditz's outside commitments. Liddy pleaded. She begged. She promised to pay for my ticket & take me out to lunch. I'm easily bought. Ditz, who has had enough of home confinement but really can't be let loose on her choir, decided to come too. Besides Liddy is anxiously trying to accumulate the last of her driving hours.

So we bundled up & headed out. Liddy, anxious to make the most of her time took a longish trip out to a nearby nursery which wasn't much help in the vegetable line. While we were there we spotted a Botanix ~ which was absolutely huge but useless & expensive so we backtracked to Bunnings where we got everything our little hearts desired except the cauliflower.

Liddy then took us to Toscanis for lunch. We like Toscanis. We've never had a dud meal there & their salads are exquisite. Liddy had Moroccan Chicken with a yogurt & mustard dressing on her salad. Very nice. Ditz opted for Penne Spumante ~ trust Ditz. It tasted hugely alcoholic & I thought she mightn't like it but spumante is one wine I don't mind & it seems Ditz doesn't either. I just had the Chicken Toscani which came with a mustard sauce & vinaigrette dressing on the salad. Mine also came with chips. I'm not a big chip fan so I shared them out between the girls. And yes, mum, we did dessert. Liddy had orange cake, Ditz did a double chocolate bomb & I had tiramisu. On the way back to the car we picked up some Chinese for Dearest who always misses out on these little excursions.

Liddy & I went straight to work planting everything out when we got home. The showery weather is perfect for getting everything well established though I suspect once this wet spell passes we will find the worst of the heat has gone & we are truly in autumn. Liddy thinks she might have got a little carried away. It will be a compact planting but I think we have room for everything: a double lot of celery & beans; cabbage, tomatoes, cucumber, snow peas, & a mixed mesculine planter plus another lot of strawberries.

The price of fruit & veg at the moment it pays to garden on the side to help stretch the budget & I am blessed to live in a climate where many things will grow through the winter months. I do like a happy garden A happy gardener isn't half bad either.