Along the Sylvan Road

We were driving towards Lilydale the other day. It was a beautiful sunny morning, but after a very cold night, there was mist everywhere. Looking across to the hills from the front of Tesselaars, this is the view. The hills floating above the mist.
 It turned out a cracker of a day. Needless to say....no camera in the car, so this is from my phone.

Laundry Liquid

Here it is folks. My first attempt at home-made laundry liquid. I shall put in the recipe for anyone who is interested.
 Once you have bought the ingredients, it is ridiculously cheap to make, and, as you can see, makes about 9 litres approx. I had my doubts at first...there really isn't much in it, and when told it would cool to a gel, it looked as if it would stay like mucky water.
 However, the next day I checked, prepared to ditch the lot, and lo and behold, it did exactly as promised. It is a thick gel, and you use 1/4 cup for a wash. You could add something to make it smell, but the Lux flakes are pleasant anyway.
 This is what you do. First, I should say, you will have to have enough containers at hand. I have been saving these for a while now. A wide mouth is a good idea.

1 cup Lux Flakes
1/2 cup Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax

Add these ingredients to a large saucepan with 1 1/2 litres of water.
Boil until dissolved.
In a large bucket or container, put 8 litres of cold water.
Add hot soapy liquid and stir.
Pour into bottles and leave to cool.
Once cold, and gel-like, use 1/4 cup in the wash.

Cinnamon Buns

Latest attempt at Cinnamon buns

So here is my latest attempt. Found the recipe in The Guardian, through a link from the "Down to earth" blog. I have a recipe already, but gave this a try. I must say they look OK, but haven't tasted them yet. When I was trying to knead the dough, they warn that it is a bit wet!!! I got thoroughly glued up, but wasn't to add any more flour, so I was a bit unhappy about things. However, we shall see how they taste. No doubt Jim will be the guinea pig for this!!
 Makes the house smell nice though!!.

Cutting pinching

This is a plant we spied when we stopped for breakfast at Seymour MacDonald's. We were on our way to Albury, and saw this plant in the car park. We always keep a plastic container with wet paper towel in, for just this occasion. So we put a few sprigs in the jar, and when we got home, Jim potted up several cuttings. So we shall see how they turn out.
  Don't know what it is!!

Mother's Day Eve!

Summie popped over yesterday afternoon. It was so lovely to see her back to a more healthy state. We had a lovely chat, and, as usual, she brought me a wonderful mother's day present. Thank you so much Summie, it was really appreciated.
 I know she won't mind me saying that she has had a horrendous time, coping with her reaction to the medication, but thankfully things seem to be getting back on track for her, and she now has to live with a fairly restricting diet, but one that will keep her healthy.

I got Jim to take some photos, so here is one with the flash. The first was without.

Needless to say, one of the photos he took came out all blurry! This seems to be a speciality of his. Maybe it's excitement!!
So all in all it was a very enjoyable afternoon, despite the horrible wet weather, and Summie took some plants back with her to start off their small garden.