What Mr S and I have been up to!
I used to have regular contact with someone who would always ask, without fail, what I had done since we last met. I could never remember anything particularly interesting or noteworthy. Just stuff. It didn't matter, because the question was really only a ploy to enable them launch into a long list of really fab things they had done or were planning to do. The conversation always left me feeling dissatisfied and reflecting that I must be a really boring person... I don't really think I am boring. It just took me a while to work out that it's just that I don't treat my life like a 'to do list'.
I think of my life as something more organic. Continuous and evolving. I tend to live intensely in the moment, enjoying it for what it is. For instance, every work day morning Mr S runs to the car declaring at the top of his voice that he is 'running'. I love that moment. The photo above attempts to capture it. But by putting it into words, the moment seems some how diminished - smaller than when it happens. It's difficult to convey the feeling of intense pleasure experienced in that moment.
I think less about events and milestones. It's not that I don't reflect about the past or think about the future, it's just that when I do, I think less about the detail, and more about the overview. I'm more interested in the 'grand narrative', less about the individual events, which on the surface can appear disjointed and without particular meaning.
So I tend to push to the back of my mind quite quickly the granular specifics about 'what have I been doing'. That can make blogging (or diary writing for that matter), quite a test. These mediums tend to focus on events. An item that has been made, a meeting, an outing... It was only when I down uploaded a batch of photos this morning that I realised just how much I had done in the last month or so, which I hadn't shared on the blog. So here it is... What Mr S and I have been up to!...
I finally finished Mr S' textured cardigan to match the hat that I showed you a few posts ago. It's a Sirdar pattern. Gosh they do nice things for little boys. I have a stack of their patterns for 0 - 10 years that I am hoping to knit through in the future. Unfortunately the uploaded photo isn't as clear as it is on my computer. I don't know why. The buttons are wooden elephants, which come from Sunspun. My favorite yarn shop.
And the garden is chugging along into Spring. Roses Roses Roses. And a few other things too.
I love this rose (below) - Rosa chinensis mutabilis. I think Rix and Philips in their book on Roses, describe the flowers as butterfly like. I agree.
And lots of woodland plants - foxgloves, assorted apiaceae and the like. My dream garden would be a clearing carved out of a dense wood. Moist, shady.... mmmm. I think that's why I like Beatrix Potter so much.
A few weeks ago now, Mr S and I went to the Royal Melbourne Agricultural Show. It's an annual event. City meets country. Lots of animals; dog trials; craft displays; show bags; fair rides.
The biggest highlight for Mr S was sitting on a tractor that was on display.
Not sure how the salesman viewed it. As much as I love Mr S, I felt that buying one was a tad excessive! So we had to disappoint the poor salesman.
He still talks about it (Mr S, not the salesman). Whenever we see a tractor, he points to the cab / drivers seat and says "I sitting in there."
The second highlight was the train trip there and back. It was a long ride - over an hour each way. I wasn't sure how he would deal with it. But his fascination with trains kept him sustained. He loved it.
We also recently took him to his first theatre experience - The Wiggles' "Dorothy the Dinosaur Show". Again we weren't sure how he would deal with sitting in a theatre for about an hour, but he loved that too. He is very keen on their music, so he danced and jumped his way through an hour of singing.
Here he is with his grandmother.
In the last week I have pieced together the top for Mr S' new quilt. I haven't used my sewing machine in over 3 years, so I felt very virtuous! The quilt contains lots of Japanese fabric, which Superbuzzy sell online. Next step is putting on the borders.
Labels: cardigan, garden, Mr S, Royal Melbourne Show, Wiggles
posted by Susan at 11:53 AM
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Including some that were bred during WWII in the UK - called things like Bombardier and Spitfire! 
The soil is well drained and they are grown on quite a steep slope. Peter is a wealth of information about growing them. He told us that recent research indicates that one of the most critical factors in determining flowering is soil temperature at or above 25 dec C for at least 6 weeks.
