Starting to stress a tiny bit,............

.............this Friday night is my turn to host our Gourmet Girls monthly dinner party! I was OK a couple of days ago, I hadn't really given it much thought, but since then things have been turning against me and I've had a couple of wakeful periods over the last couple of nights. We renovated our kitchen about 5 years ago and we installed our fist dishwasher and a giant new refrigerator, both made by Fisher & Paykel and two weeks ago the fridge started to go beep in the night, a fault warning that requires someone to leap out of bed and manually shut if off only for it to recur later in the night!!! Next while eating dinner on the veranda one night last week our dishwasher ceased to operate...............apparently you need a surge protector on these, we would have protected it if the manual had told us to!! Anyway after much ringing around I am sitting here waiting for the appliance repair guy to arrive for $85 and then he will be $25/15min once he gets to work..............I don't really care so long as he fixes the dishwasher which is jammed closed and the fridge that has rotting and defrosting food in it!

No opportunity for this hostess to do any food prep on her days off and I'm working for the next 3 days and won't arrive home until an hour before the dinner..................I'm not stressing too much just yet!

Anyway I headed into town today to do some banking, bill paying, Christmas shopping and general bits and pieces. I decided I just don't have enough of anything to make our table look great on Friday.............I'm not worrying about the food yet, so long as the table looks great............first impressions are important, right! We don't have any great home wares stores around this little coastal area so I decided to check out the thrift stores and the thrift gods were with me today. I found 6 matching Bohemia made in Czechoslovakia wine glasses, and the best of all some 1953 Noritake two handles soup bowls and under plates which I can utilise for dessert on Friday. I love the pale dove grey band and everyone knows I'm a pink girl so pink roses are just perfect in my eyes. Also picked up another 6 Japanese side plates which will co-ordinate well with the Noritake and my white dinner set. Picked up some hot pink serviettes and a new white tablecloth at Hellmart so the table is just about sorted.

Now my motto for the week is one of my sisters favourites.

"KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON"

Down my garden path..................

....you will find Agapanthus just about to bloom ready for Christmas.

Gorgeous Gazania blooms in the back garden that open every day for the sun.

Rhubarb is sprouting ready to make rhubarb crumble in the pizza oven, yummy! Dill and rocket will be handy for pizza's too.

Pretty plumbago is looking good in the blue garden.

Thyme, lettuce and beans are all growing so well now Miss Ruby is fenced out of the vege patch!


Magnolia Little Gem has the most beautiful blooms, the size of a dinner plate.

I've always loved gardening but the spring/summer garden is the best, plenty of produce and fabulous flowers to feed all the senses.

Egg entrepreneur

How cute is this carton of eggs! They are the best eggs and we love it when they arrive at our house so beautifully packaged. I think this little business girl is doing a great job...................she needs to be paid! Jemima's girls are very happy in their purpose built chook house, it's so comfy that a little Brushtail Possum moved into one of the nest boxes one day and he couldn't be persuaded to move on. Keep up the great work Mima!

"Not happy Jan"..............

...................now you'd think I'd been spending way too much time blogging lately! Miss Ruby is less than impressed that I have found time to let my blog readers know that I am well and haven't fallen off the planet. This is the little disappointed face that I can see out of the corner of my eye, she either wants a walk or she wants in! Normal blogging will resume asap! I promise!