Courgette fritter stack

My sister -in- law started a blog. All about being dairy free. Her daughter is allergic to milk protein. Anyway in the constant drive to get more veges into us and to use the huge volume of courgette (zuchini)  from the garden, I made her Courgette fritters last night. YUM

We had it with potatoes, green beans, broccoli - all from the garden and a little bit of chicken in between the fritters.

Definitely will make again.

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It's a secret - What I am working on

The start of the skirt

The builders in. Newly painted walls.

Well I have not been able to show what I am working on. Two reasons - 1. I am not working on anything much in the craft world. It is all about a rampaging garden that needs controlling and planting for winter and a big paint job. 2. What I am working on has to be secret.

No 1.  Yes I am trying to upcycle a skirt from an old set of jeans and various men's shirts. Not sure if it will look ok on me, not sure if I have gathered the material enough. etc etc.. all those doubts creeping in but it does not stop me from freehanding (ie not using a pattern).

Also we have just had to paint the lounge. Thankfully the job was super quick. I got a call yesterday to say the builders will be in to do the new skirting boards. OOPPPS my procrastination is evident - I had not yet gotten around to painting the lounge in preparation. So yesterday I sanded, puttied, cleaned and the painted. My gorgeous husband came home from work and did the grunt work on the painting - he rolled the walls, I just did the fiddly cutting in. With his help it was all done in a day (and I washed the curtains that I took down!!!) (not to mention I made dinner for a friend who is moving today and tomorrow - very plain. Meatballs, rice and some chocolate brownie for dessert.)

A sneak peak at the pouch before posting

No 2. I am giving you a sneak peak. But for the first time ever I am involved in a mystery swap with someone in the blogging / crafting world. This swap is organised by Ros from Sew Delicious and is all about sewing a pouch and stuffing it with your favourite chocolate. It has to be sent by 14th Feb. So mine is winging it's way over to Julia at Blue Jay Cottage. She is not blogging much at the moment as she has a new baby - so definitely needs chocolate!! I don't know who has me yet..... watch this space.

I am linking up to some of these places

An accidental breakfast

We had a very very hot weekend camping at Balmoral Forrest. Whew this summer is long and hot. It was not only hot outside the caravan but inside!

On Saturday morning I was cooking brunch for everyone (American pancakes with maple syrup) and I cooked more than the pancakes. I was leaning against the stove opening the window to the kitchen area and I saw a bit of smoke. Nope the pancakes were not burning. Then I looked down and thought - my top is smoking!! The time it took me to register that, my top was flaming - literally!!

I must have sqwarked pretty loudly as Aaron came running over saying "what's wrong". But man I was quick. I had that top off and thrown out onto the grass before he could even get near me.

Morris had a great time

The photo shows a really large part burnt but in actual fact a lot of that happened outside before everyone stomped and threw water on it. I was more worried that with the extreme fire danger at the moment that I would set the camping area on fire.

Being a cotton top the flames just went up the material and not on me. I did not even feel any warmth or anything. No marks or red. Just imagine if it had been polyester.

Sigh. Sadly that had been my favourite top all this summer.

The boys spent heaps of time together being pals.

Apart from that we just swam and sat in the shade and swam some more. Bliss.

The gorgeous swimming hole

Things that caught my eye

On my trip home from Dunedin and my uncles funeral I took the long way to everywhere. All the old places I used to go to, basically I went down memory lane. So many of the off the road small towns are run down and shops empty. It was sad to see. Other things, like the gorgeous floral baskets that adorn all the shop frontages in Oamaru, were amazing.

I woke in the morning in Dunedin and from the door where I was sleeping this was my view - misty morning. What the mist did was accentuate the colours of the flowers.

View from the door

the flowers looked like they were glowing

Then on my travels around Warrington, Seacliff and Karitane I spotted lots of old signs. I had read about a man doing photos of these kinds of signs, calling them ghost signs, as he said they were part of our history that tells quite a social tale and will soon be lost. 

Then on to Oamaru where I am always so taken by the hanging baskets. What a progressive city council to organise this. It really beautifies the town.

 A stop at Riverstone Kitchen where I wandered through the most amazing garden. Broccoli the size of my handbag, oh I was so envious. I need a big garden too!!! I could not partake of anything there as they were getting ready for dinner service. But I wandered the amazing vege garden for about 30 minutes. Unfortunately a lot of my photos there went weird so I can't show you the magnificence of the place.

The last place that amazed me for the change that has occured was at Hands Ashford in Asburton. One of the staff has bought the shop out and the shop and cafe have been modernised, re equiped and was amazing.

I bought a hank of baby alpaca wool to make a scarf. It is superfine, spun at lace weight. So should be gorgeous.

Work in Progress

Well I am a bit late joining the hexagon craze that started a few years ago. But over the holidays the stitching I took with me was 1" hexagons. What I will do with it and how many I will make, I do not know. I would like some sort of modern setting or quilt but will have to fossik through pinterest etc for that.

Eli's great work

While I started stitching Eli also started. He made one flower. Chose the colours, stitched the material on, sewed the seams. Well done to him. He wanted something to put his MP3 player on by his bed. He is now talking of making another one so that it will quilt together to form a mat.

I have been thinking of my stitching as I am packing it again, so soon after coming home. This time unfortunately it is going with me to Dunedin for my uncle's funeral. See you after the weekend.

Linking in to WIP Wednesday and other parties here.

Relaxing summer holidays

Yes we had a fantastic summer holiday. We feel that this summer has been great as we have had two big camping trips away, both by rivers and with lots of sun.
We all managed to get some walks in - the boys and Aaron went up to the Trig but the hill was out for me so I did all the flat walks around finishing at the coffee shop.

Lots of lying around in bed in the mornings.

Some tramping

Ready to go (Eli took a while to get into it)

the game turned into other lego!!

Minatours 

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Gourmet camping food

Blissful bush camping

We have come back from another gorgeous eight days away. We stayed at Pelorus Bridge DOC camping ground. This was our relax and do nothing holiday. Lazy lazy mornings, Lots of yummy food, heaps of swimming and a bit of walking. I read 2 books and five magazines and did a bit of stitching. It was great.

We always say that with the caravan we are "glamping" and our food this time certainly followed that. Here are some food photos. I even made some English Muffins for brunch one day ( I have the recipe on my blog here). Yes excuse the photo - but I was still in my nighty. (With a very naughty Aaron in the background pulling faces. I told him that if he was not careful I would put the picture on the blog!!)    I link into these places sometimes.

Of course there was wine

Olives, pastrami, blue cheese, cumin gouda, gooseberry jam and brie

Put the egg with the flour

knead the dough

Use the Milk frother to melt the butter into the milk

Let it sit to rise while we all have a shower

Cook!! on the griddle

Eat

and eat some more