Our garden, as I think I’ve mentioned before, is almost as arrid as a desert! The sun beats down on it almost full time and thus even our flower bed struggles to keep plants alive within its soil. A while back M and I bought a half wine barrel for R150 (bargin!) and we sanded it, varnished it and thats pretty much where its ended.

I’ve been desperately looking out for a Dwarf Citrus tree of sorts (the dwarf variety is propegated off a full grown tree vs a sapling thats stunted as a bonsai) but there is nowhere that I can find that sells this elusive tree. Thus our barrel has sat empty, void of all soil and roots (ok my mom borrowed it for her avo tree for a bit) and I recently (read: earlier today) found an article in The Gardener magazine which spoke of “Designer Trees: Local winners for small gardens” which turned out to be a pretty cool article. It basically outlined 5 or 6 trees to consider for a small garden.

Two of which caught my eye and are available fairly easily:

Heteropyxis natalensis – Lavender Tree (pictured above)
Searsia pendulina (formerly Rhus pendulina) – Wild Pear

Both are sized 4-10m tall (obv pruned to stay at 4m) and are great with full sun, and dry conditions. So I found a place that sells em, and I was verbally quoted R1500 for a tree of 4m in height (the largest which can be handled by hand without machinery assistance) which is too big anyway, so I’m hoping the price will come down for a smaller (2m) tree.

Yay! I cant wait! I’d like any thoughts you have on which tree you prefer, and why!

And some more good news, possibly even better, Iso’s biopsy results came back. She has (had?) a benign tumour which my vet removed in its entirety vs just a small biopsy and all looks good for it not to bother her again! They suspect it was a saliva gland gone awry but they said it looked like the vet had removed it all so happy days all around!

Then, the Kenaf rat bedding I ordered should be here by now, so I’ll be collecting that at the post office tomorrow. Then its off to drop off the photos from my latest wedding for print, and then to Tygervalley to get my sister’s Christmas gift. Cant tell you what it is, as I’m not sure if she follows my blog, but I can tell you its super cute, and I ordered one for myself as well! If it wasnt so expensive, I’d order more, but they’re limited edition so the price is a little steep.

Then, lastly, its off to see my best friend who I havent seen in AGES! Could almost be months, easily. Her work hours and mine dont match up, so we rarely get to see each other. It’ll be nice to see her again, and her rats, and fish, and kitty. We also decided to do Thanksgiving again next year, for the first time since her sister’s death, which is nice. Even though I’m not American, I miss celebrating Thanksgiving. I’ll handle the turkey side, since she’s vegetarian of course. It’ll be nice, myself and her and our respective partners. And by Thanksgiving next year, it’ll be 4 months until my wedding!

On the wedding front, nothing really has been done, but I have booked an appointment to view Zevenwacht, which looks like a pretty stunning venue. They’re on the higher side of our budget, but if they’re worth it, we’ll make a plan.

Going to PE this Christmas, so going to miss my family, but at least M will be able to see his family, which is just as important to me. Going to try and also pop through to EL as well to see some friends of mine who I havent seen in ages, but they’ll also be in CT early this Dec so all is not lost if we dont see them during Christmas. They recently bought a house, so it would have been nice to see it along with them, but we’d have to borrow the in laws’ car to drive the 3 hr drive, and they dont really seem keen to lend it to us, which sucks, but I guess its their call.

So, thats about it from my side. Will check in probably next week.

Oh, one last thing. One of my hard drives crashed. Yes, its horrible to even type it. All my design items were on there. I am one sad puppy and I literally mourned for a day. Didnt get out of bed and I just slept. M is going to try and work some magic, but for now, I’m screwed.

Hmm, I cant end on that bad note, so I’ll mention I’m going to a girls night with some colleagues in a fortnight. We’re doing all you can eat sushi and chinese. I think its going to be fun, and it’ll be the third time we’re trying to organise it, so here’s hoping it actually pans out this time haha.

Hmm. Anyway.

I’m thinking of baking more cookies this weekend. Chocolate cookies, mmm. But I cant decide how I’m going to decorate them. Any thoughts and ideas would be appreciated, nudge nudge. I was thinking Angry Birds, but I need to find a wider array of tips to use to do any details.

Had to delete a bit of this post as I typed this up yesterday (or was it the day before that?) but never got around to finishing it. So where to continue? Fiance bought MW3 and played it all of the night before last, and he seems to like it which is great. I was doing a website for my dad’s friend and its finally finished, along with photos I was editing for the wedding I shot in Oct, so I finally have free time in the evenings again to relax. Its wearing me out working all day and then still having to focus and work in the evenings as well as make dinner etc.

Got home this evening and what did I see? A gardened garden!! Turns out, my mother came in during the day with her gardener and cleaned out our garden so its looking lovely now!!! A little sparce, but nothing really grows in my garden anyway, but its all weed free and trimmed!! And my tomato plant that sprouted itself has been propped up with a twig (taken from the cuttings of the overgrown hedge haha) and there are SO many tomatoes growing!!

(pics taken with my cellphone)

So many full bags!

My tomato plant in the front

So awesome! Of course we’ll reimburse her for the gardener, and I’ll buy her something really nice or give her a voucher to buy herself something of her choice. It was such a lovely surprise to come home to after a long day at work. <3

I really have learnt so much from my mother during my years, and really, without the amazing and strong woman she is, I wouldnt be half the woman I am today. I’m so blessed to have her in my life to guide and love me, no matter what.

Mmm French coffee!