Knock, knock ...

Since my last confession, winter has been and gone, and the most beautiful spring is here, with warm sunny days and nights that are still cold enough to snuggle into sleep.(I dream of a climate mild enough to create and enjoy a colourful, shady alfresco spot like this ... right down to the fireplace, cushions and rug. Love it. From Desire to Inspire, which is one of my now daily reads. )

Will is back from California and Lily is in Japan with Nick. My elder son is in Spain.
For just one day, we were all home here together and it was magic, like heaven on a stick!This was taken on that day - Will, jet-lagged, SoCal-tanned and just off the plane, Lily about to get on hers the next day.
For a brief few weeks, while Will was away and before Lily returned from Melbourne en route to Osaka, David and I had no kids at home, and while we prefer to the house to be full of young people, we did actually enjoy ourselves.
Since my last confession, work has moved up a gear or two, so it takes a good chunk out of my week, and apart from the loss of time to droob about and be otherwise creative, it has been fantastic.
But since my last confession, I have been doing plenty of other stuff. Lily and I made her three or four shirts from one of those lovely Japanese pattern books, and I have made a couple of things for Harper. I've made a couple of small quilts, painted, drawn, crocheted and knitted, and done lots of cooking.
I'm still loving my kindle, and playing words with friends on my iPod (give me a game - I'm Lesleyzed).
I've started digging over the front garden and planted a few bits and bobs, with a few cuttings gleaned from here and there: frangipani branches from a verge pick-up, now a year old and thriving; fuchsia-pink geraniums from my best friend Laura's husband's garden two years ago and thriving; new daisy cuttings from my best friend Shelley's garden, already showing minuscule green shoots; pelargoniums, scented-leaf geraniums, a few herbs, cosmos, violas. I have missed gardening a little bit. In California we had nothing in the back garden but a pool, and the small front yard was looked after every fortnight by a team of hard-working Mexicans sent by the landlord with mower, trimmer and blower, so there was nothing to do.
So this year, I'm getting into it again.
The backyard here is way too big to contemplate doing too much to, but I've borrowed Simon's whipper-snipper while he's away and I may start the battle with a tiny bit of it soon.
There are three kaffir lime trees and a regular one along the side fence that I really feel I ought to be nurturing as the hostility of a Perth summer approaches.
I'm off now to trace a pattern for a shirt from this book, another of the wonderful Japanese pattern books but this time, praise be, it's a translation, and with Australian sizing. Hooray!