The mock oranges (Murraya paniculata ‘Exotica’ or orange jessamine) in the front yard and all across Brisbane bloomed in the last few days.
On Sunday, there were no flowers, just thousands of swollen buds ready to burst with the off white petals and that scent which just screams Brisbane.
On Monday, the trees had started to open up the flower buds. Â The scent started to spread in the air.
On Tuesday, the trees were covered in a mass of flowers and the white carpet was starting to form on the patio and lawn.
This morning, as I opened the front door at 6:30 to welcome the day into the house I was hit with that mock orange perfume, it spread through the kitchen and said “autumn is here”. I watched as petals gently danced in the breeze to the patio and lawn below to form that white carpet which we all know so well.
I’m an accountant now and as people at work love to say, we get two times a year we can make new year resolutions.
Instagram has most certainly taken over as the place where I post the random photos that actually once formed what was \random life. My long defunct photo log. Â Still this little corner of the web means so much to me. Â It has been part of my life for over eight years. So, so, so, so much has changed in those eight plus years.
Friday night we had the EOFY party at Cloudland and it was actually the first time that I have ever been to Cloudland. Three has been many failed connections and aborted plans over the years but on Friday night it finally happened.
What am I planning for FY 2014?
Biting the bullet and getting chooks for my backyard.
Doing a big clean out of stuff that has accumulated round the house.
Fix the record player.
Create more.
oh and eating a lot of pumpkins.
It is resolved that for the year ending 30 June 2014, Helen will not be concerned about trying to catch up with all those photos she has never posted or the drafts that never got finished. It was further resolved that Helen will blog the present.
Well I must say I hadn’t planned on it to be over two months between posts but such it is.
In that time uni has been well uni. It’s my last semester and and the two subjects I’m doing are ones that require a lot of brain wrangling.
I had a birthday. I’m now 27. Gosh, it’s hard to think that this time ten years ago  I was busy decorating my formal dress, having fun and looking forward the two and a half months I was having going round the world instead of going to schoolies.
The girls at work made my desk into a “winter wonderland” aka filling my drawers and covering my desk with very finely shredded paper and then wrapping it all up in bubble wrap and presenting the above tim-tam wrapped berry and cream pikelet stack to me as my cake.
Mum sent me a bunch of flowers to work which was very nice.
My birthday presents to myself was a tablet (Google Nexus 7) which I love and would be more handy that I imagined in the past few weeks, a pair of new shoes and nose surgery.
For the last couple of years I’ve pumped drugs up nose on and off in a bid to clear it. I’ve not really smelt or tasted things very well. One reason, why I’m always slightly paranoid about people’s response to the food that I make; does it taste ok? That all came to head earlier this year when I got sinus pain whilst flying. A change of nose drugs didn’t really do much so it was time to consider other options. I had a septoplasty and turbinectomy at the start of the uni mid-semester break.
Gosh, I’m still in recovery and if it wasn’t for those who I’ve spoken to who’ve had the the surgery previously I would seriously be questioning why I undertook it. Imagine a tap on your nose that you can’t turn off and splurts out rubbish down your nasal passage and your throat all day long.  I work in the medical field, I’ve seen, read and heard enough gory surgical tales that 99.9% of it is water off my back. Facial surgery though is that .1% that makes me go argh. I do though get a kick out of the fact though that I can now say I’ve legally used cocaine.  Yep, it’s commonly used during nasal surgery as a local anesthetic.
Work sent me these lovely pink roses (I can sort of smell them) and no, they didn’t see the irony in sending me roses as they came from head office and not my office. We got a laugh out of it though. I also finally picked up the Figgjo Flint Lotte water jug that I’ve had my eye on for some time.
Now it’s time to have a little nap before I venture off to uni this afternoon. I’m not using four pillows anymore but am down to two pillows. The blanket came from the farm, the pillow and sæng cover are from Ikea, love those dots.
And here is another photo from the garden to sign off with. I’m so happy it’s finally raining! Not only to settle the dust so it doesn’t irritate my nose but to water the garden and to give the tank a good fill. Not sure about you but my water tank has been empty for almost two months. A Pale-headed Rosella (Platycercus adscitus) enjoying the Grevillea.
The birds reappeared in the Silky Oak this morning. I woke up, looked out the window and there they were; preening their feathers in the early morning light. As per usual it has been about a week since they were last in the garden.
What else have I been up to since then?
Making use of one of my Christmas presents – a jam funnel, thanks Mum!
Using the above leads to this. Mulberry Jam, yummo.
Stocking up on mangoes, then slicing and freezing so there will be golden mango goodness way past the mango season. A whole tray of mangoes for $8 <– that’s my kind of bargain.
Look at all those bags of goodness.
After a few years of umming and ahhing over different digital radios, I finally picked one up. A Pure Elan II, whilst I dearly loved the OrlaKieley and the look of the other Mio radios they didn’t offer a pause feature. If I was getting a new kitchen radio I wanted to be able to press pause and come back to the radio when I’m off the phone/finished shooing away the sales person/bible promoter at the door etc.
I’m loving it, it’s great having ABC Jazz in the kitchen without either having to have the TV on or having my laptop on the kitchen table.
The house currently looks like a cross between a bomb site and a warehouse as Mum packs up as the ticker counts downs the days till she departs, we are almost in the single digits!
I leave you with this.
That’s my attempt at making a Mango Juice Bali style -> mango, ice, sugar syrup. Blend it together and drink up the sweetness.
Yep, it seems my request to the trees for the Tawny Frogmouths to return worked. I went out to garden this morning before work and did my usual scan of the trees and there they were. Perched in the Silky Oak, just hanging out. Even better, they were still there when I got home, there is hope it seems that they will hang out in the back yard for some time to come.
