Blown To Kingdom Come!

My goodness we've had some stormy weather, the wind has been relentless with day after day of severe weather warnings.  Apart from losing power for 10 hours which was a bit of a pain, we got off very lightly.  There is tons of mess, loads of little branches to pick up, but thankfully no whole trees down.  We lost a big branch from the big old jarrah in the back garden, but it very neatly fell onto the grass between the two garden beds, so it didn't squash any plants.

My lovely Melaleuca incana blew over though, that's the one that the butterflies and blue wrens spend a lot of time in, right outside the back door.  Thankfully it blew onto a lavender bush that stopped it from being completely blown over.

 I managed to haul it back up and tie it securely to a star picket.  I also gave it a big haircut to reduce the weight, so now I will cross my fingers and hope the roots weren't ripped apart and that it will start growing again.

 I am rather fond of this plant, called Loropetalum chinensis.  The photo doesn't show it very well but those frilly little flowers are in fact a bright hot pink colour.  It's a very flamboyant plant with its maroon leaves and hot pink flowers, it makes me smile.

 This plant is called candytuft, virtually an annual, but it drops its seeds readily and therefore comes back every year without any effort on my part.  They are slowly spreading in the garden bed outside the kitchen window, they are very pretty enmasse.

 I spent some time tidying in my sewing room.  Steve very kindly cut back an old cupboard we weren't using any more, to give me some shelves for my yarn stash.  I could never see what I had when it was tucked away in the bowels of a low down cupboard.  Now I can admire it and easily see where the gaps are that require a bit of shopping.  One can never have too much yarn, or patchwork fabric, or embroidery threads.... :-)

 This is what I'm working on at embroidery. It's canvaswork and I'm trying to invent a small street of quirky houses.  It will end up square shaped and the plan is to stitch it the front of a patchwork, rice-filled cube, to use as a door stop.

 This weekend was the finale of the annual Southern Art and Craft Trail.  We waited til the last day as we knew the crowds would be thinning out as its the end of the school holidays.

 We toddled off into Denmark this morning and wandered through four of the venues, admiring the talents of many local artists.  Since we moved into our house down here, we have bought one piece of original, local art per year, and this is what we bought today.  My photo isn't very good, the watercolour has a lot more depth that I can show.  We love it, it's called Flying Free by artist Sarah Bondini, who we met today and had a lovely chat with.  It's so nice meeting the artist of a piece of art that you absolutely love.  It has pride of place in the living room now. :-)