lost in the little corners of the garden....

There are loads of wee areas of the garden that are gorgeous and encourage 

you to stay a while.  

Lots of trees to wander around and under.

I'm easily distracted as you well know. How am I ever going to cope?

Carole x

Another nice day in paradise

The great outdoors calls. Shame I have to go to work!

Carole x

I need a little nap now....

You'll be very pleased to hear that my sewing room is starting to look more user friendly now.

Welcome to my sewing room. Of course there are still boxes to unpack, but I'm feeling like ignoring them for a while :)  I found the one that had all my cottons packed in it and the one that had all my sewing notions, which is most important.

I also have the t.v. and a large sofa in here so it's very comfy. Maybe too comfy? Never mind. I think there are going to be way too many distractions. Out the large picture window is a beautiful wee garden nook.

And if I look out the double doors, I'm confronted with this view...

See what I mean?!

Back soon,
Carole x

A little tree love...

tree love

Isn't this tree just magnificent? My little cottage is slowly coming together. This weekend my project will be setting up my sewing space. How exciting is that!

Carole x

Okay, so I'm probably boring you now!

But honestly there is so much to discover. 

There are lots of lovely places to play if you were a child. Under the large plane trees where it's darker and there's lots of leaf litter, there are secret places. 

Where the light filters through the leaves.

Where the birds flick through the leaf litter and then sit amongst the branches somewhere above my head and fill the air with song.

And then in a patch of sunlight a pretty fuchsia blossoms with delicate crimson flowers.

Okay, enough already. 

Need to do some stitching!

Carole x

I feel like I live in a park!

Chestnut tree

I want to say thank you to all those who sent me emails and left comments wishing us well with our shift. It was lovely to read them and I was touched at the lovely comments. I am thankful to have such lovely blogging friends. We are now settled in our wee cottage. Although it's been exciting all the way, it's been a hard shift, physically. I think I broke every fingernail at least once, every bone in my body ached, why on earth do I have so many boxes of books and magazines? Slowly the boxes are being unpacked and homes found for most things. Although I had a 'pre-throwout' I may also have to have a 'post-throwout'. :)

wood stacked by the old wood shed

 Every time I sit down I see something that needs to find a home and since I'm very easily side-tracked, I'm up and down and doing a multitude of tasks at the same time! Since we've been here we haven't eaten one meal inside yet, it's so nice to sit out on the deck and listen to the cicadas, their summer songs are deafening!

the old weather station

Slowly my sewing things are being unpacked too, can't wait to sort through everything. But for now I'm going to share a few photos with you that I've taken around the property.

Carole x

Goodbye Palmerston North, Hello Levin!

Goodbye Palmerston North. 

I will remember the gorgeous strawberries, and the sheep with the lovely personalities, 

and the time it snowed and the party for my 50th birthday. 

And I'll remember the days I spent hours of back-breaking work planting bulbs, cried over the death of a newborn lamb who didn't make it, and cried over the death of a mother ewe. 

There are lots of memories I'll take with me. And lots of those memories I've shared with you all along the way. 

But now it's time to make new memories.

Hello Levin!

Here's the driveway to our new cottage and I know it will be the home of many exciting and wonderful memory moments!

When I next post here it will be from our new home.

See you soon!

Carole x

Checking out our local hot spots....

Thirty minutes walk from our new home is the Kimberly Reserve which has a gorgeous river running through it, freedom camping facilities, bush walks and a lovely dog walking area.

In the other direction, thirty minutes by car is this little beauty, Waitarere Beach.

Be still my sea-loving heart! :)

Carole x

trying to keep my sanity.....

stitching.....

a few snatched minutes here and there, need to get it finished as I'm going to need loads of lovely cushions in my 

new cottage and on chairs outside in the garden.

home made focaccia bread.....

because I just can't live on love alone!

Carole x

As you can imagine.....

Things have been a little hectic round here as we prepare to shift.

Honestly, I'm totally over this packing business. We have so much clutter, -very important can't live without clutter that I am sure that we will never find space for it all in our new cottage. (Mr M&M would roll his eyes at this point and claim that it is I who have the clutter!)

I have been ruthless (as much as a hoarder can be) and have thrown out boxes of "junk" I have even packed my car to overflowing and taken lots of goodies to the local Hospice Store. I know it feels like I'm having a personal purge, if one can have a personal purge? lol

This is all that's left of my sewing room. It took me 3 full days to get to this stage! The most traumatic event was finding a new home for the sheep. There were a couple of very naughty, trouble-making sheep, who went for a wee ride to visit the butcher. But my gorgeous sweet little twins and their friends were not to be eaten. We wanted to find a good home for them where they would be able to graze away the rest of their days.

Eventually we were relieved to find lovely lady who owned a large orchard and wanted some sheep to keep in it so that she never had to mow it. We bundled them into the trailer and took them on a road trip to discover their new home.

Here they are finding their way around, checking out their new paddock and the lovely lush green grass. They look as though they hardly even remember me. Which I must admit, didn't help matters. I bawled my eyes out all the way there, while they were unloaded and all the way home. Made an absolute total fool of myself.

I'm fine today. There are too many empty boxes waiting!

Carole x

Love at first sight!

At long last we have found a property! Today it officially became ours. It was love at first sight and ticked all the boxes. I just had to share it with you. And it is only 30 minutes drive from where we live now so I can still keep my job.

The house sits on 2 acres of lawn and gardens. It has lots of gorgeous trees and plenty of room for more daffodils, roses and fruit trees! It is surrounded by market gardens, garden centres, rose nurseries and there is a fabulous cafe five minutes down the road. And I thought I'd mention that there are two quilting stores in town! It is five minutes drive from a lovely river, 20kms from the beach and about one and a half hours drive north of Wellington.

The house feels like it reflects our personalities much more than the home we have sold. And the grounds are park-like. There is lots of history to the property too. In the early 1940's it used to be part of a RNZAF (Royal NZ Air Force) air field!

It has a spa pool which I think will be lovely to soak in during the winter months. I've never had a spa pool before and I have no idea how to look after it! However, the most exciting thing is that is has a self-contained flat which will make the perfect studio space for Mr M & M and I.
Can you tell I'm excited?

Carole x

A New Year has begun and where have I been?

You might well be asking this!

Martha Mine, Waihi, North Island

We have been on, what seems like, a never-ending search for the ideal property.  When we decided to sell our home we expected it to take forever to sell and that we'd be able to find another property without problem. Not the case.

Martha Mine, Waihi, North Island

We had a checklist of things we'd both like in a property, and knew that we'd have to make concessions, but we thought the perfect property was out there somewhere.
We started looking at Coromandel and worked our way down the coast, looking at properties around Waihi, Katikai, Opotiki and Whakatane.

Harbour at Whakatane, North Island

 If you are ever in Whakatane do stop at Wally's on the Wharf, they have the best fish and chips I have ever tried!
We made trip after trip away searching. Nothing.
So now we have resorted to Plan B, and we are searching locally, with 4 weeks until we have to move out. Every waking hour is spent searching the internet and visiting homes.
I'll keep you posted on our progress.

Carole x

Don't you hate it when....

... your very most favorite needle starts to get so bent from use that you have to toss it out?
Does anyone else use their needles until they look like this? (or is it just me?)

Oh well, all in the pursuit of happiness! lol

Carole x

Merry Christmas everyone!

The pohutukawa tree (Metrosideros excelsa) New Zealand's official Christmas tree

Merry Christmas to my lovely friends and visitors! Although it's not actually Christmas day here in New Zealand, it's the day after, abut in many places around the world it is Christmas! I hope your day is as lovely and relaxing as mine.

Neve and Nana

We had a lovely day celebrated with family, extended family, great food and our six month old grandchild. We consider we are truly spoilt. Yesterday was 29 degrees Celsius with a high humidity factor thrown in caused by the remnants of the cyclone which damaged Samoa and Fiji. I was thankful that we had cold meats and cold salads, followed by cold desserts, and a lovely slushy punch!

Neve and Grandad

 Now that Christmas is over, we are off on a house hunting expedition! Yes, the fabulous news is, that we sold our property! It was on the market for one whole week, it sold almost too quickly, I wasn't quite adjusted to the idea of moving yet.

So we will be moving in February, but as yet we can't find anywhere to buy that we like. I think we've been spoilt in that department too. We've searched all over the North Island and perhaps we have way too many boxes that need ticking? The search continues - I'll keep you posted!

I am going to miss my strawberry garden

With the holiday season here, please don't take risks if you're driving on the road, and I hope you get to enjoy time with your family and friends.

Thank you so much for all your comments and emails over the last year, I love hearing from you, you give me encouragement and motivation in my creative journey.

See you back here soon!

Carole x

Moving on...

We have decided to sell our lovely lifestyle property and move. Although we haven't decided where to as yet. Hopefully we'll be able to find somewhere with a paddock for my little twins but I'm going to miss my daffodils!
However, as you'd expect there's been a little madness -especially when the agent rings and says she would like to bring a client through the house! Eeeek! Just look at the state of my kitchen!

Of course I was right in the middle of making lemon honey and apricot jam, I'd made a beef and vege pie and a lemon meringue pie for pudding and I hadn't done the dishes!
I'm going to have to lift my game! lol

Carole x

Al fresco in the vegetable garden

Lettuce, peas and radish are ready right now in my vege garden. 

 And it's time to start picking strawberries again!

With a little help from a friend :)

Thanks Wednesday!
Do you have a helper in the garden?

Carole x

Anyone?

Carole x

nesting problems solved

Oh oh, problems in the hen house!
I've run out of bedding for the nest boxes. The lady who owns them, (I'm baby-sitting) says they don't like straw, she had the nest boxes filled with wood shavings!

They are very fussy hens, I've grown loads of silverbeet in my vege garden especially for Dianna Ross and The Supremes to eat, but oh no, they don't like silverbeet. I hunted through the strawberry patch and removed all the fat juicy snails for them to eat, not on your nelly!!

So I decided that I'd scrunch up some newspaper and put that in their nest boxes and see what happened. They were very curious at first, but they slowly got used to it. But then I found an old birds nest and I put that in too.

Wouldn't you know it! They love it!

Now I've just to find 3 more birds nests!

Have a great week,
Carole

thought you might like an update

Here she is! Five months old, sitting on her mum's knee. Is she cute or what?!

Carole