June 9: Catch-ups and temptations

Today I went to the city for the first time in weeks. Weeks! It felt odd walking to the bus – everything’s growing and changing.

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The honesty barrel at the new self-pick flower field. There’s no moving that thing in a hurry!

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What’s growing and how much they cost

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Orderly rows. I don’t feel an affinity with it like the old flower field

It was a social day – I had lunch with Leonie and then Claudia invited me to dessert for her birthday. It’s such a strange custom in Switzerland and Germany, and maybe in other places too. When it’s YOUR birthday, you invite people and YOU pay, and YOU take the cake to work for the celebrations. In Australia, if it’s your birthday, YOU’RE invited out, someone else brings the cake and you DON’T pay. Do you live in a country where the birthday person is responsible for bringing the cake and paying the bill too? I’d love to hear more!

I felt strange watching Claudia pay for our treats but it was lovely to spend the afternoon with her. (I was good and had a bowl of fresh strawberries – high in natural sugar but a lot less than the yummy desserts I passed on! It was so darn tempting! Willpower!) We haven’t seen each other for a month. Afterwards, we went window shopping and strolled around the city.

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Claudia, the birthday girl, with her hot berry and ice cream dessert

My 30-Day Challenge (learning three to four new plant names each day) needs your help! There’s a small crop of black and white flowering plants growing near our house, which I saw for the first time today. I’ve searched the internet but come up with a blank.

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Do you know what this tall crop/plant with black and white flowers is called?

While I’m asking questions, do you know what this one is too? It’s in my garden under the hydrangea (which is getting flowers – it didn’t flower at all last year so I’m pretty darn excited to see what colour it will be!)

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Tiny purple perennial. Any ideas?

The third new plant is Dianthus amurensis ‘Siberian Blues’ (it’s more a purple than blue to me!) and the fourth (yes, today there’s a fourth!) is Lithodora diffusa ‘Grace Ward’. Both are growing in my garden. I love the blue colour of the latter and five-petalled flowers are a signature thing for me. I used to draw them non-stop.

The I Quit Sugar 8-Week Program is going along nicely. Leo liked the dinner tonight, so that’s good. I had a mixture of buffet salads for lunch with Leonia, without dressing, and the strawberries with Claudia. It was a bit of a shock to realise I was ‘under pressure’ to find alternative options to the program menu after only two days. You’re not ‘allowed’ to eat fruit in the middle part of this program, so I figured some berries on day two wasn’t too bad an idea for a celebration. Fruit is re-introduced into the plan slowly in the final few weeks, to see how fructose affects you too.

Here are some other photos from today. It was nice to be out and about. Time for a run again soon, I think!

Wishing you a wonderful day.

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A flash of poppies, wheat and my favourite farmhouse in the distance

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Corn, doing its thing

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I started the 30-Day Challenge with one campunala in bloom. It’s going great guns now

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A cold and windy day today in our ‘hood

June 8: Kärcher Queen

“I am the Kärcher Queen … Wrinkled and sweet … more than 43 … Oooh yeah!”

I should make a workout video with the Kärcher high pressure water hose. It’s great for your arms! Today, in 3.5 hours, this section behind the main farmhouse (I love a good before and after photo) …

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Green and slimy …

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Reverse angle

Became this …

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Pristine clean …

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Patches still drying

I quite enjoyed doing that. Much more than the lawn!

Today is also the first day of a personal challenge to do the I Quit Sugar 8-Week Program. This is a fitfor15in15 new addition, to break what could be a bit of a sugar addiction and possibly feel a bit fresher.

A nutritional challenge, with only naturally occurring sugars, following set recipes, for eight weeks. I wonder if I’ll feel like a Berliner doughnut by the end of the program? (Must stop talking about doughnuts … it’s only day one!)

Breakfast was yum, lunch was fine and dinner was yum. Happy with that!

We watched the first two episodes of Liev Schreiber’s television drama series Ray Donovan. I’m intrigued. Jon Voigt also stars. Thanks again to Netflix for providing something different.

On to the 30-Day Challenge – more plant names!

In between the two geraniums in the pot near the front door, I planted a selection of coloured snapdragons (Antirrhirum majus). Not sure if they’re going to last as long as the geraniums though – they look a bit sad already.

I have a large, low growing patch of sea campion (Silene maritima) in my garden. The flowers seem to have had their best run, but hopefully it will continue to flower until August? Can only hope!

And last but not least for today … I mentioned a reddish brown succulent in a previous post and have now discovered its name – common houseleek or St Patrick’s cabbage (Sempervivum tectorum). We have random, small clumps of it growing between the fir/pine trees (must find out what their names are too!)

I’ve run out of time to do the As You Wish book review – hopefully tomorrow!

Wishing you a wonderful day.