The last of the summer snaps

Well, summer is done.  Yes, ok, it officially ended several weeks ago but our autumn break only arrived last week, so now it's really over.  That's the last truly hot summer we'll have for some time and I can't say I'll miss it.

That being said, I think the New Zealand winter that we'll head straight into might be a bit of a shock to my system.  I'm from the Adelaide Hills originally and winters there can certainly get very cold - with frosts and everything - but it's been a long time since I've lived through one.  I've really been spoiled in Perth where we have about 2.5 months of winter TOPS, and the sun still shines most of those days.

One person who I think will really relish the cooler climate is the poor cat.  Poor black cat living in Perth.

This is pretty much how he spends October to March

The garden has come through this summer amazingly well.  B kept up the watering with gay abandon, knowing that we had to get things properly established before we leave.  It's all responded in kind and even plants we thought were d.o.n.e have marshalled themselves for a comeback.

Exhibit A below being this bromeliad which was a gift ages ago from an old colleague of mine.  It's been various states of miserable until we transplanted it into this spot and behold!  A flower!  A pretty cool looking flower too.

Exhibit B is my fiddle-leaf fig, the hipster's plant of choice circa 2015.  Longterm readers with elephantine memories will recall from my old blog that I found this plant as a very sad specimen squashed amongst the $7 flowers at the local supermarket.  It had about four very dusty leaves.  I watered it and wiped its leaves and it grew and grew!  

But then we had a few days' hot windy weather a couple of months ago and its leaves started to droop and die back.  I cut off the dead and dying foliage and B was insistent that it should be re-potted.  It looked like it was on the way out anyway so I reluctantly agreed to give it a go and see what happened.

And behold!  New leaves!  I never doubted you, B!

Because I am super on-trend at all times (see: fiddle-leaf fig above), I also recently started a succulent pot.  Not entirely sure why as we won't be here to see it to fruition but the pot was sitting there empty so hey.  Taa-daa.

My kids generally keep me indoors during sunset doing fun things like bath time and reading Spot books, so I usually only see the best sunsets on Facebook and Instagram.  Somehow the other day, though, I happened to be outside while this was going on.  This was actually taken looking east.

One day my girls will be able to take care of their own ablutions and think how many sunsets I'll soak in then!

Found a recipe for brioche bread in Gourmet Traveller magazine.  If we're friends on Instagram you will have already seen this.  Six eggs and 300g butter.  It smells like a croissant.  I'm pretty happy with how it came out considering that I have about zero bread-baking experience.  It was slightly underdone but totally delicious.

Baby A turns six months old next week this week today.  She's had a very cranky and dribbly phase recently so might be teething but really who knows.  Luckily she's chubby and delicious or I might have been tempted to put her out for the rubbish collection once or twice.

Less than one month until we're in New Zealand!!