Christmas in July in August and a new apple tree 8 & 9 August 2015

I'm writing this weeks and weeks after the event (1 September to be precise).  I've been slack as I haven't been to Inglewood since this weekend that I'm about to describe, and still won't be going for a while.  However, Justin is there now, sanding the floors upstairs, and has also removed the contentious wall for the little room leading onto the veranda, and has taken possession  of a new shed, yet to be erected.  Hopefully more on that soon via a guest post from renovation man.)

But back to the 8 & 9th August...

A grey day, a muddy garden, and a new apple tree.

Justin and I went to dig out the apple tree that I was maybe going to get last week.

As it was, it didn't take as long as I thought, although we did have to hack around a bit with chopping off errant branches, and cutting back vigorous rosemary

cutting back the apple tree

chopped back a bit

Finally got it out after about 1/2 hour.  Was a bit unwieldy getting it to the ute.  I'm glad that I didn't do it by myself, as Justin tied it down well, with the tarp bit over the top of it, and I'm sure my effort would have been pretty hopeless.

not much of a root system

He's done a good job battening it down

Got it to Inglewood in one piece, and planted it in the "heritage" orchard.

x marks the spot

ta- da - and anchored by 2 x sturdy posts

looks good

Gave it a good water, and as you can see everything is very green.  Let's hope that it survives.

But, as everything is green, the weeds have also come up, so I obviously did some weeding

lots of weds around the vegie garden

Justin had some work to do, so I suggested that he set up a fire outside, rug up and read there, while I weeded

actually he's reading the paper and not working

So, it was cold, but not that cold, not like the last Christmas in July in August that we attended where we "froze" in the dining room waiting to leave for Kingower, and I got us both hot water bottles to put on our laps.  And then of course the next morning the pipes had frozen, and the next weekend we had a flooded cellar as the Bendigo plumber hadn't tightened the pipe properly....

Anyway, we drove up to Kingower around 6.30pm, as Terry had wanted us there a little bit early to help with serving up.

All the usual suspects were there.  And we sat with Maile & David, across from Damien & Nicole.

First course was avocado, prawns baby spinach & chives with a smear of thousand island dressing. All assembled to Terry's exacting standards.  We had quite an efficient production line going.

entree

Main was made up of 3 x meats - generous slices of turkey, beef and pork, forcemeat a jacket potato, peas, carrots, pumpkin, and crackling

main

Dessert was Terry's famous home made plum pudding, and Jan's equally famous trifle.  And all of this for a bargain $10 a head

2 x desserts

And yes, some musical instruments made an appearance, one of Terry's son's had a nice ukulele that Justin had a play of.  Maybe I should learn ukulele also.  Actually Justin tried to teach me a week or two later, and I didn't even know how to strum.  Not a good student.

looking very soulful

concentrating

Dougie and Damien hammed it up for me

boys will be boys #1

boys will be boys #2

All in all another good night, lots of good food, wine and conversation

Sunday and a slow start reading the ipad in bed;.  Hooked it up to Justin's phone and downloaded the digital Age on it.  My mobile doesn't get good enough data reception or whatever to use it as a hot spot in Inglewood.    

Another fire in the little shed - this time was had breakfast out there.  Very pleasant.

Add caption

Pottered around in the garden some more after breakfast.  Justin was starting to get serious about the possibility of a new garden shed on the other side of the vegie garden.  Did some measuring up, and lobbied me for support.  Obviously it worked, because as I said at the start the shed has now been delivered.

The almonds are in flower now, and they smell lovely

almond

Also moved the persimmon, as it's too close to the yuccas, and will make it hard to drive past with a car.  In fact Justin very nearly ran over it with the ute when we brought the apple tree in

yep, that stick is the persimmon

It was initially very hard to dig around the new spot for the persimmon as there was all of that bridal veil weed or whatever it's called - which has such dense matting for a root system

Also found some more jonquils in the grass, so dug them up and replanted them in flower beds

more jonquils

see how many there are