Garden flowering!

Just in case you miss seeing and hearing all about how my garden grows, here's another update before we leave for holiday!

Look at all the roses!! They're growing over the fence
from our neighbor. Not complaining! They're beautiful!

Hydrangea flowering at the front door.

Same as your's Ma?

Bit of garden at front door with Clematis
and sweet peas too.

Veggie patch coming along. The squash while strong in
their pots have not shown much promise since in the ground.
Peas to the right doing well, even tasted the first one this
week. Radishes standing tall and actually should have
been lifted out the ground and eaten already. Would have to
become compost when we get back. Lettuce happy as always.
Fennel just starting to sprout and raspberries turning pink!

Cousins in Regensburg

On Sunday (last weekend) we drove to Regensburg. Minus Andre. He stayed in bed as by then he felt really ill... Again it was very hot. Me not being used to having hot weather for more than one day at a time only packed one t-shirt and a selection of long sleeves!

It's a beautiful town next to the Donau river (Danube river- Blue Danube waltz ring any bells for you? This is the river.)

We strolled through the town past a huge cathedral. Had ice cream next to a fountain. (So European in the summer time!) And then strolled back along the river.

Love you Mom! xx

Family photo before having to leave for the airport.

Cousins in Munich

Last weekend Andre and I flew to Germany to see Mom and Jürgen, but really especially to see my two cousins who were visiting from South Africa. It's been over three years since we've seen each other. It was great to spend time together again and we had a fantastic weekend. Unfortunately Andre got really ill and spent half the weekend in bed... We think it might have been the delicious chicken burger he had on the airport.

Lots of photos following below!

Waiting for the train (underground) in to the city.

Love the city hall. I take a photo of it every time I'm there.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of it!

Before Andre started feeling ill. Still his usual self here.

Fruit and veg at the Viktualien Markt.

This is where the October fest was held.

Looks a bit different to when we were here in September...

My lovely cousins!

A Paulaner horse. There was a festival and free beer was
handed out.

Making sure you won't be nibbled on as you pass by!

Walking the streets of Munich.

Andre still in top form!

Back down to the train.

Olympia Park (where the olympic games were held in 1972)

From the top (nearly) of the Olympic tower looking over
the olympic park. This was where Andre gave in and had
a nap under a tree while we went up the tower.

And ending the day with a braai!

Yoghurt maker

I've been making my own yoghurt for well over a year now. I've been doing it by boiling milk, then letting it cool, mixing with live yoghurt and milk powder and then wrapping it in a warm towel and leaving it in the airing cupboard next to the hot water tank for 10 hours.

Now we've got a yoghurt maker! My mom had one when we were younger and as I recall it didn't make very thick yoghurt. (The yoghurt I've been making up to now has been really thick and creamy and silky.) So I wasn't all that convinced this was going to work.

But it did!

I learnt that you should use UHT milk, which I didn't know stands for Ultra Heat Treated milk and is the long life milk. It worked perfectly! I didn't even add the milk powder I usually do to make it extra creamy. I always add a bit of vanilla though which makes it taste really good.

The yoghurt maker takes 7 pots and it took 1 liter of milk to fill with 2 teaspoons yoghurt per pot. Each pot is a perfect portion size for breakfast. Plug it in and leave for 9 hours. It also comes with an extra 7 pots so I don't have to wait for the first batch to be emptied before making the next lot. This way we can always have yoghurt. And reserve the last pot to make your next batch.

Garden time

Just enough sunshine today for a little bit of garden time!

Garden Update

I just finished mowing the lawn, Andre did the edges as I still haven't mastered the weedeater. This weekend I've also spent some time tidying up the veggie patch while Andre tidied the front garden area. We've moved one of the pots with sweat peas to the front too which should be nice and colourful soon.

In the veggie patch we now have lettuce which is getting really big. We need to start eating more salad now. The peas are coming on well and some have reached the second wire it's climbing on. I've planted out the courgettes, or squash. Not sure anymore what it was I planted! There were a few seeds left over from last year and they're looking good so hoping we'll have more luck this year with them being started in the green house. Then there's also radish and I've just planted fennel and rocket this morning too. You can also see the raspberries on the right in the photo above.

The tomatoes, peppers and chillies will stay in the greenhouse where they'll be keep nice and warm. I have two tomato plants outside in pots to see how they get on. Herbs I've planted are parsley, basil and coriander as they're my favorite and the ones I like using fresh.

In seed trays in the greenhouse are also lavender seeds and I still have some cucumber seeds which I really should plant before it gets too late.

So the garden is coming on well and I'm really enjoying spending time working on it now that I can see my efforts starting to pay off.

*As always you can click on the pictures if you want to have a better look.

Jubilee Party

We celebrated this Queens Diamond Jubilee this weekend. She's been reigning over England for 60 years now. That's a long time, as the children at nursery said! We had a party with the children on Friday at nursery and you can see some photos if you go to our Facebook page. The children (and staff) dressed as kings and queens or in the colors of the Union Jack. We painted our own bunting, made crowns and baked red and blue fairy cakes. The older children also made their own pinwheels (puff pastry rolled up with cheese, ham and tomato inside) for the party. The whole nursery then had tea together on the decking outside and the tables were decorated in blue, red and white. We even had face painting too.

The older children wrote letters to the queen and drew pictures of her which we sent off to Buckingham Palace together with some photos of our party. We're now hoping for a reply from the Queen!

We had Monday and Tuesday off to celebrate with the Queen and here in our village we had a picnic on the field (which happens to be right behind our house so we could walk there which was very exciting as we aren't able to walk anywhere for a night out!) Andre and I decided to have a braai (BBQ) at home instead so went over there afterwards with our camping chairs and a couple of ciders. A jazz band was playing and the atmosphere was great. There were lots of people, some dressed up for the festivities, and at 10.15pm a beacon was lit which formed part of over 4200 beacons lit across the UK, the last one lit by the Queen herself.

I was very excited that for the first time I also got to sing the national anthem, God save the Queen, although I didn't know many of the words. I'll have to learn it! Here are some pictures of our evening spent with our fellow villagers!

*Click on the pictures to enlarge.

I dressed up in blue, red and white too!

Doing "The Locomotion"!!

more dancing!

The lighting of the beacon.