Another Girl

joins the gang hanging out in my etsy shop.

Nasty or Nice?

In consideration of anyone who may have a certain phobia starting with "a" - please feel free to look away.

We have a lot of spiders at our place, in the garden, in the house. Thankfully I'm not afraid of spiders, although I don't like them. My fear, although I don't know the latin term, is of the smaller four legged creatures with long tails - they, they paralyse me with fear. Actually no, that's not true, they send me running for the hills. If I even saw any tiny, tiny evidence that one had been in our house, I would not return until it had left the house in a plastic bag.

Back to the sssssspiders though. We have a lot, as I've mentioned, but recently two have taken up residence in our front garden, where the girls and I spend most of our time playing. The first one spun its web between two rose bushes right next to the front tap. The second one, that I only found this afternoon, has spun its web between two of my tomato plants. I wanted Geoff to get rid of it for me. They're very striking, with an unusual web, quite active and also BIG. He assured me they're harmless - I asked him how he knew that. He said that the nasty ones aren't so colourful. Hmmm. Anyway, we decided to look it up on the internet and our spider is harmless (at most a bite will cause a weak local reaction - that's okay then) and is called a St Andrew's Cross spider.

They can stay, for now, I'll exercise less reckless abandon in picking my tomatoes and won't be diving into the zucchinis as much as I have. Ella isn't enthused though - she wants them to go - she dislikes all insects, despite buying her a bug catcher to try and help with her nervousness. She has only had sunny boys (slaters) in her bug catcher, butterflies are "too beautiful", grass hoppers "too scary", bees "too dangerous". She doesn't want to go outside until they're gone ..... oh dear, spiders days may be numbered - can we perhaps successfully relocate them via the bug catcher??

Etsy Update

I've added a new line to my shop. I've been making tops for our girls and friends for the last few years and given what lovely things people say I thought I'd see how they've received in the shop. Have a look and let me know what you think - I'd love some feedback.

Eggplant, Aubergine, Melanzana

Afternoon Play

"The postman's been"!

Laundry not my forte

I like the girls to be able to play unrestrained, getting muddy, dirty, wet. I also like my girls to look nice. I don't usually remember to change them out of their nice clothes into those which have already received harsh treatment until it's too late. What results is a lot of tops like this which I'm having to constantly suds up with Wonder Soap in a vain attempt to get the stains out.

Yesterday after the girls had pulled up carrots from the garden and Leila had started chomping on one before I'd had a chance to wash it I did think perhaps I should take it off her, but she was so happy, slobbering all that fresh carroty goodness I didn't have the heart. This afternoon, I'll be Wonder soaping yet again.

Last Night's Dinner

came from a recipe in my birthday cookbook. They were delicious, although I tweaked adding more seasoning to the meatballs (including s&p, garlic and lemon zest) as well as altering the sauce which I made with chicken stock rather than plain old water. Well worth a try.