R.I.P. Paul Bullen

Earlier this week I woke to the news that we had lost my Uncle Paul, suddenly and unexpectedly.

He was a husband, father, pop, brother, brother-in-law, uncle, great mate and all round good guy. He went to school with my dad, right from kindy so my aunt, who is my dad's little sister, doesn't know a time without him. He was MC at our wedding 17 years ago. He was so important to me both now and growing up, a safe harbour in a sometimes crazy world. His daughter was and is, to this day still, my best friend. He was such an integral part of our family I can't imagine us without him. So much so that even at his funeral yesterday, I looked around for my aunt and, for just a fraction of a second, my brain forgot and I looked for him because I knew if I found him my aunt wouldn't be too far away.

I don't usually name names on my little corner of the web, but this time it's different. I want the whole world to know, forever, how proud I was to call him my uncle.

We love and miss you, Uncle Paul.

xx

Compost Bays

A couple of weeks ago Mr Homespun and I spent a few days building our new compost bays. And they were free! Made completely with scrap materials from around the property (there was a lot of junk left here).

We are incredibly chuffed with them, they are exactly what we have had in mind for many years, we just didn't have the room or the need for them until moving out here. Now we need to add more because we have already filled them up!

They are each approximately 1 cubic metre in size, big enough to get the high temperatures required in the centres to make compost quickly.

Do you compost?

xx

Miss 15

So yesterday it was all about Miss 11 so it's only fair I fill you in on what's been happening with Miss 15.

Not much.

Except for one important thing...

Netball champions!!!!!!!!!!

Miss 15 has the most incredible team. Almost all of them have been together for the past 5 years, several even longer that that, and have finally had a much earned win. The first two years she played the team made the grand finals, only to lose (to the same team) in both. This was followed by two years where they were graded very badly and I don't think they won even a single game in the whole two seasons.

But this year their resilience finally paid off.

They finished 3rd at the end of the regular rounds so had to get to the finals the long way. Firstly a semi that was washed out after three quarters of the game had been played (they were leading by over 20 goals so it was very frustrating). So we had to come back on the Tuesday night to play the entire game again. But Tuesday night came and it was raining so it was put back until Wednesday night.

But it was raining on Wednesday too (can you tell we have had a lot of rain?).

So Thursday night finally came and the girls scraped in, winning by just 1 goal. I have a few extra grey hairs from that one.

Two days later they backed up, a convincing win over a team they hadn't beaten all year. Followed by a week of rest and then the big game.

And now they wear the much deserved crown.

Go, Jets, Go!

xx

Time flies...

...when you are busy?

I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted. Terribly slack of me don't you think? That means lots to catch up on, so let's get started.

Miss 11 has been to camp - twice! Once to the Bathurst region as part of learning about the Goldrush. This one was for 3 days (2 nights), followed by a whole week at Creative Arts Camp, and this one was waaayy to long for her mumma. In fact, it was the longest we have ever been separated.

Squished in between the two camps we had the annual Book Week Parade, can you guess who she was dressed as?

I whipped up the cloak from two sheets I purchased a Kmart (the pattern can be found here) and I started knitting up the scarf but thankfully I didn't get far until my mum took over.

She has also ridden a bit of a roller coaster with her health, the usual cold/sore throat as well as an infection on her leg that kept her home for almost a week. And the day after returning from Bathurst she played in her netball semi-final and crashed heavily to the ground, luckily just grazing her knees (you can see the dressing on one of them in the photo). They won the semi but went on to lose in the final a week later.

And now, just when everything is starting to get back to normal we have school holidays is just over a week. Isn't life a crazy roller coaster at times?

xx

Afternoon tea - Blueberry Clafoutis

Our little blueberry bush is starting to get flower buds all over it and I am determined to actually get some off it this year, unlike last year.

But whilst impatiently waiting for it to fruit I purchased a punnet this week and made a Blueberry Clafoutis, yum!

Clafoutis is ridiculously easy to make and can be used with a variety of fruits, plums, berries and traditionally, cherries.  It is heavy on the eggs and light on the flour so it ends up something like a baked custard.

Blueberry Clafoutis

Ingredients
1 punnet blueberries (or fruit of your choice)
1/2 cup plain flour
1/3 cup sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup milk
25g unsalted butter, melted
Additional melted butter for greasing
icing sugar to dust

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Brush shallow pie plate with additional melted butter.

Spread blueberries onto pie plate.

Sift the flour, add sugar and make a well. Gradually add combined milk, eggs and butter, whisking constantly to ensure it is smooth and free of lumps.

Pour batter over berries. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until risen and golden. Remove from oven and dust with icing sugar when cool.

Serve immediately and enjoy!

The baby house is sold

The baby house is what my cousin calls the house you bring your babies home to, and today the cooling off period closed for the sale of our baby house. Definitely mixed emotions here.

Sad, because we bought the land as an engaged couple, built our dream house on it, making every decision on what the house would look like, colour of the bricks and roof tiles, kitchen cupboards and countertops, paint colours, light fightings, everything. And we had it just about perfect, having finally bought all the furniture to fill it and to have it looking like we wanted it to. But unfortunately we outgrew the backyard some years ago, our yearning for big vegie gardens and orchards meant we were destined to move at some point.

And this year was the year it happened. We went from a 735 square metre block to a 19 980 one. And we love it. And even though we know we can and will make this place just as lovely, we miss our beautiful house.

But we are also happy, because now we can get one with making this place our home. Build the big shed, extend the house, start the vegie patch and orchard. Whilst dreaming of making it just as perfect for us as our baby house was.

xx

The first frost

Yesterday we woke to a frost, our first ever!

And I mean ever. Despite living only 10 minutes from here for the past 15 or so years, we never experienced a frost at our old place. No doubt because it was an area of predominantly brick homes with lots of asphalt road, all adding up to create it's own little microclimate.

But out here, this is real weather!

Sadly the spot we are starting to work over for the vege patch was also affected. We had originally decided to put the vege patch down the bottom of the property but changed our minds as we knew the bottom section would be affected by frost and so moved it to the highest point. Grrr.

We are now battening down the hatches as we are experiencing some very high winds. We haven't had many big winds since being out here so fingers crossed everything will be ok.