I love unexpected mornings

I was having a lovely morning cleaning the house...you know!  How one loves to clean!  when a lovely friend called to tell us about a garage sale she was going to, an events company doing a mini clean out.  Well it was a tough decision, clean or catch up with a friend! so we decided to meet her there.  We love her dearly but we live on opposite ends of the city and don't manage to meet as often as we'd like.  I often think it is sad that everyones lives are so busy it makes pleasant things like catching up with friends difficult sometimes.  I know you understand as it's an increasingly common predicament these days - so I always take the opportunity when it presents itself!  No matter how odd.  I've found myself 'helping out' with the birthing of a cow, sitting in the ER, pitching in with planting of a tree farm, helping a friend stack library book shelves...so catching up at a garage sale sounded great!  No intent to buy anything but solely for the opportunity to see her. 


But as these things go...I did end up walking away with a carboot full of things - all for $20!!  A bunch of bright blue branches for another friend of mine who is doing a trade show in Sydney next weekend and I thought she might like them!  Also a bamboo screen, a soccer ball, a few paper lanterns, two parasols and fake grass covered mounds which I thought my daughter would love for her 'Enchanted Wood' themed bedroom and play (she is 6 and very much in love with those old Enid Blyton books).  Oh!  And the colourful thing is actually a Llama pinata!!  Yes very random I know.  But as I was telling Mr Bok...they are usefull!  All of them!  When he isn't calling me a hippy he is calling me quirky kooky but he married me and he knew what he was in for so he can't complain or so I keep telling him  :)

Afterwards we all went to one of my favourite places, CERES.  They have a fabulous organic market with live music and much of the produce comes from their own gardens, a great little cafe, an interesting nursery with lots of edible plants and a huge flock of chickens!  I always come away feeling so inspired and full of renewed enthusiasm for our backyard - and usually an empty purse too - but this time I resisted the urge to get that orange tamarillo I've been after or the book on permaculture.  Probably because I was thinking about the things in the boot of the car  :)   


http://www.ceres.org.au/about

I'm definitely planting an abundance of sunflowers this year!

After seeing the enormous flocks of chooks at Ceres, Mr Bok doesn't think our small flock is that bad after all.  That's good because I'm bringing home an araucana in a week or so which he doesn't know yet  :)

On the way home we dropped off the blue branches.  My friend loved them so I was very happy.  Two of the shorter blue branches got left behind so have ended up in my daughter's room too. 

See?  That mound of fake grass was perfect as a rest point for the enchanted toadstool! 


The book there is my daughter's favourite and was my favourite at her age when I was tiny.  She hasn't yet giggled at the names in them but I refuse to get her a 'politically correct' copy, so Jo, Bessie, Dick, Fanny, Connie and Dame Slap it is!  Sometimes modern culture goes too far in fear of leading its citizens astray I think and we really lose the innocence of childhood.  I'm waiting for the day she realises what those terms mean in the school yard.  Maybe she won't love the books so much then but until then take us up the Faraway Tree!