Cameras

yesterday I took the boys down for a picnic at the river. We had a great time and they ended up stripping off and sliding down a muddy bank. What a mess!! Took heaps of photos and the camera has lost them all!!! This is the second time the camera has not retained the pictures. Now I have to test to see if it is the card or have a gotten a wonky camera? Aaron was going to take this camera to America next month but hmmm.

Saturday rugby

This morning was occupied in the normal way of saturday mornings. Jakob's rugby. As I had my new camera I thought I would take a few photos. After troubleshooting the camera because it would not keep a photo it had taken (and I noticed the photos from thursday were lost), I just merrily clicked away.

Kaiapoi Blues (Jakob's team) vs Ashley. Eli was the usual enthusiastic supporter - NOT!!! He puts his boots on, gets a team ball and goes and plays behind the field, and he will not allow anyone else to play with him.

Recession Busters

I am gutted. I took a whole pile of photos on Thursday night and somehow the camera has had a glitch and has not kept them. My new camera too!!! They were great photos of our knitting night - Steff's mum would have been pleased to see that Steff did not have a bottle of red wine in her hand (I think it might have only been a glass), it was Bailey's night. Jolly marvelous.
Penny provided a great simple pattern for slipper socks. So we all madly knitted. I finished my first foot today at rugby.

Steff and Paula - check the pattern when you are doing the end of the foot. It says knit 2 tog knit 1 - you do this for the whole row - just trying to figure out where else the pattern may not be obvious. Anyway next month there will be a great photo for all to see of our finished slipper socks!

The enormous pears

This year the pear tree has decided to outdo itself. I kept meaning to take a photo. This is the third to last pear on the tree and it weighed 456g. I did have one that weighed over 600g but ate it before I thought of taking a photo. The tree has been prolific, juicy, delicious and we have loved it.

Family cycling trip

Yes - we now can all ride a bike. Yes - we now all have a bike that is useable (albiet that Eli's bike is probably 50 years old and has a perpetual slow leak in the back tyre that no fixing will fix!!).

So off we went to the BMX. Via the park and the river so that we did not need to take Eli on the road.
Within 200 metres we had the first pile up. Eli at 4 was told to turn right but turned left. Heck - even I at 42 still sometimes get that wrong!!!
After a few tears and veiwing the camera photos of the crash, we were off again. I must say that cycling, keeping an eye on a 7 yr old learning the road rules, as well as taking photos where possible with my right hand, was rather taxing.

But we made it. Had a great time at the BMX track - Eli insisting that he was doing wheelies and spent the whole time trying to jerk the bike off the ground. (the photo is of one of those "wheelies"). It took a bit of convincing to get him to stop doing that when we were biking back home. He thought he was sooo cool.

What a lovely Sunday afternoon out.

Rosehip syrup.

A while ago we went to the Hurunui to a friends bach for the weekend. I took a great photo of all the rosehips I picked from the wild briar roses on the riverbed. But I have no idea where that has gone

Two weeks after I came home I finally made the syrup. I had no idea what it would taste like. I used the recipe from Little River Cottage. YUM. We all voted it fantastic on icecream

Acumulated cooking day.

Well the afternoon was meant to be about gardening today. But it turned into cooking.
I had said to Eli that we needed to do some backing so when he got back from Kindy that was obviously his mission. So cupcakes were made at his request. We put some mixture in the patty tin then a dollop of raspberry and then more mixture.
The oven was on and so I thought I should start processing all the quinces that I have. Quince paste and jelly needs to be made. Promptly these were chopped and put in the oven. But of course they take a lot longer to cook than cupcakes. So again not wanting to waste the oven being on I decided to finally get around to making another lot of muesli as my last lot ran out 2 weeks ago.
So in between changing beds and supervising Eli on the computer - it has been a cooking afternoon.

I like to ride my bicycle

This is an ode to my father-in-law. He is a retired engineer and a fantastic handy person. Able to fix anything, trouble shoot it, mend it, wire it, weld it. I spouted my desire to ride my bike again. ( the Doctors having limited the exercise I can do - but they did say I could still bike). So I had asked if Warwick would fix my old bike up as my birthday present.

Well my birthday came early. It arrived  back after a few weeks, new tires and rims from some other bike that was hanging around. And today I rode it!!! On I got and off I went - well almost. I really wanted Morris to sit in the basket and go with me. But he would not. the next dog I get will start riding in the basked from a puppy!. I also forgot about needing to re warn your bottom that you were getting on a bike.

In spite of all that I had a wonderful time and now cannot comprehend how it has taken so long for me to get back into biking.

Jakob and I rode down to Pines Beach and back. We met Aaron and Eli (with Eli's bike) and they madly rode the BMX track. Then home again. It was fantastic. 4/5 th's of the way is on a dedicated bike track so you do not need to compete with the traffic going 100km.

Fantastic - i want to join Frocks on Bikes now!!!

Hello to Alison

I have tried to think of something inspirational to put on my blog. I was talking to Alison on the phone yesterday and she is full of sinus - I know how horrible that makes you feel. I was trying to sort and clear crafty things in the garage, she said I needed to go and get my camera and put it on my blog as she was into reading blogs at the moment.
I did not do that and all day i have been thinking of her. So hello Alison, hope you are feeling better.

Recession busters

Well we had our next get together. Our sustenance as usual was up to scratch with Gorgeous spiced apple cake and cream a la Steff and Kylies mum supplied a gorgeous chocolate slice (with a copy of the recipe). So along with some wine and cups of tea we chatted and madly tried to produce something from all our scrapbooking supplies.

I just couldn't get into the swing of producing something and so made some tags. My cousin Alison bought a whole box of luggage tags and gave some to me the other week. I covered them in scrap paper, embelished, stamped and produced four tag with "made with love" and "handmade for you" on them. Not very inspirational but it was fantastic to see what others were doing and now I am inspired!! Today my boys spent a lot of time painting canvases. This was as a direct result of last month's recession busters doing painting. They had a great time and when the painting are dry I will take photos.

I am now inspired to get on with scrapbooking. Kylie, her mum and Penny produced gorgeous bookmarks. All very different in style which was fantastic to see. Paula and Steff were busy doing scrapbooking again in two very different ways. So I think I will have to get on with a whole pile of things now!! Next month it is knitting - so I will start Eli or Jakobs jerseys for this year.

The bargains I get

This is my latest bargain. A whole box of about 75 reels of cotton. A lot still with their wrappers on, for a mere $45 off trade me. I am absolutely stoked.