Canberra Trip

Last Tuesday my mother, Thelma Rieper, arrived for a week's visit.  On Saturday we went to Canberra to visit Scarlett, who, even though she had a rotten cold was smiling and happy.

After a quick lunch Mum and I headed off to Griffith for the main reason for her visit - her brother George's 90th birthday party.  Her brother John was also at the party - the 3 siblings don't often get together and they all enjoyed a long chat :)  L to R, George, Thelma, John.

Mum left on Wednesday, a safe journey home on the train.

Garden News and Old News

The old news is that Mum's visit came to an end over a week ago, and she journeyed home on the train, now safely back in the wilds of Templestowe!  No baggage handling on a Sunday, even if you've got a first class ticket!!

Also in the old news category is my trip to the Charles Ledger Show at Moss Vale where Mark from Alabaster Alpacas kindly took the time to explain the difference between a good suri alpaca, and lesser one.  I saw lots of lovely animals and had a good time chatting, but when I got home found the only photos I'd taken were of some camels that were sharing the show grounds that day!

The flowering quince is looking speccy again this year, and I'm pleased to say that the crimson rosellas have so far left it alone!!

It has however had some pruning thanks to Ruby, who fancies herself as a bit of gardener, her favourite job is pruning... wish she'd do the fruit trees!!  LOL!!  Both ears up now, and looking a lot like her mum Minto :)

Botanic Gardens - Canberra

Yesterday we visited the Botanic Gardens in Canberra.  Before we set off I made my first attempts to get a good 4 generations pic!!  Hard to get Scarlett to look at the camera when its on timer!!

More pics and chatting:

Got the hat... must be ready to go!!

Then we set out and once there found a nice spot to have our picnic - delicious egg sandwiches, expertly made by GG from farm fresh eggs :)

Another go at 4 generations pic in the gorgeous Canberra sunshine :)

The gardens were lovely, lots of 'stuff' in flower.  We enjoyed a lovely walk around the rainforest area and then up to 'mallee' garden, good view across the carpark to parliament house.

Lots of very showy wattles:

Several different banksias:

Beautifully scented boronia:

Ferns, ferns and more ferns in the rainforest area:

Grass trees in full swing:

The hardenbergias were going off!!

Even the spent flowers were looking arty:

Paper daisies doing a good job of hiding the rubbish bin:

Silver Princess:

Saved the name of this plant, but having looked it up since its not the right one... will have to go back!!

Even the white heath looked good :)

Canberra Quilt Show

Last Saturday we (Freya, Mum, Scarlett Rose and I) visited the Canberra Quilt Show, some of the quilts that caught my eye, either for their design or their quilting (and there were many examples of extremely intricate quilting!!) shown here:

Winner - and a worthy one - of the '10' challenge:

Details:

Fractured blocks (for some reason my auto focus deserted me for a few shots in the middle of the day!! so apologies for the poor quality, but still worth seeing!!):

Kaleidoscope Quilt and details:

Shattered Glass quilt and details (made by Jenny Bowker):

After the quilt show we went for a late lunch at Mecca Bah in Manuka... not a suburb my sat nav is familiar with... apparently!!  Delicious lunch, thanks Mum :)  Scarlett sporting the jumper and matching hat that her GG knitted for her:

 Afterwards and back at the ranch we wanted to get the 4 generations shot that Dianne suggested... but couldn't find anyone to take it... next week I'll set up the tripod and remote shutter to get the job down... meantime, GG enjoyed a cuddle with Scarlett Rose:

Scarlett has a new activity centre courtesy of Alan and Aleisha, she is very taken with it :)