A Story About My Garden

You might have expected this to be a post about Christmas.  Fair enough!  It was indeed Christmas and there were some very lovely Christmassy things.

But mostly this is going to be a post about my garden.

Not my front garden, which is very civilised, parklike, and good for playing swingball in.  (Oh Seb loves his Christmas swingball!)

And not my back garden, which is rapidly approaching civilisation, and is full of lovely fruit trees, and vege beds, and good sunshine.

No, this is a post about my side garden.  The paddock.  The field.  The meadow.

I've convinced Liam that mowing it is futile, as well as being bloody hard work.  It's not really grass.  Mowing it just produces a lot of very short weeds.  So we've let it go feral.

But in the wildness... just here and there, amongst the many many weeds, I admit... the most amazing little bits of beauty are emerging, and I am so besotted with them.  Look. Just look at these.

My wilderness is my new favourite place.

Those pre-Christmas, summer days...

Of course, the most important thing that's happened in the last couple of weeks is this.  Hurray for Liam B. Hegarty, BPA, Dip.Aq!  (I don't know what it's really abbreviated to, but that'll do.)

His two year history of straight A's was blemished only by one A+.  I'm very proud of that man and how hard he's worked, and how well he's done!

Meanwhile, summer has marched on, bringing with it all the usual summery things.  A gigantic moth corpse!

Carols in the park, and mini paparazzi!

Ice cream!

A helicopter bearing Santa!

The Man.  Yup, that's my boy right there in the front.  Any close and he'd actually be in Santa's boot.  And no we didn't put him there, it was all his own fast work.  Can he REALLY be related to me?

Last but not least,  the Peanut T ball squad.  BEYOND CUTE.

If you don't see much of Miss M... nor do we :( Girl is working seriously hard and I only see her to wake her up, take her into work, and pick her up again.  Two sleeps to go till she gets a couple of days off, YAY!

My little schoolgirl that was

Thanks to Susanne, half a world away, here are the pictures that were really needed in the last post... my girl in her first years of school.

Her dear little smile still breaks my heart in pieces.  Oh, how well you have done, you brave little flower.

Thank you Susanne :)

School's Out for....Ever!

I wanted to start this off with a picture of Miss M on her first day of school, but tbh I have no idea where they might be... I suspect in a box in the spare room, but it's half past eight on a Sunday night and it's just not going to happen.  You'll just have to remember what a dear little dot she was, swimming in her tiny uniform.  More importantly, here she is on her last day of school... ever.

My darling girl, we are so proud of you.  I wish we had known thirteen years ago what a wonderful, happy, hardworking, friendly, gorgeous girl you'd turn into; I spent so much time worrying about you and all along there was nothing to worry about at all.  You are fantastic.  Every single year, you were chosen for a recognition award: friendliness, or honesty, or this year, trustworthiness.  It's so good when other people notice what a great person you are and I am proud, proud, proud.

We went out for dinner to celebrate.  I tried to take a picture of my two children.

Yeah, it worked better with just one.

Congratulations, Molls.  You've done us proud.