Sewing pinks and blues

All of a sudden I've pulled out all the pastel colours I can find on my shelves.

I don't really see myself as a lover of pastels, so where did this passionate desire to play with pale pinks and blues come from?

Maybe it's because I'm surrounded by masses of joyful pink and white spring blossom.

And the beautiful new produce on the Farmers' market stalls.

Duck eggs in palest cream and palest blue. The blue eggs are from Indian Runner ducks and are a soft celadon-tinted blue. Duck-egg blue.

And last week I found a old plate of quince-jelly-pink glass in the Op shop in Sturt Street.

How pretty the Pink Lady apples from Harcourt orchards look on it.

The perfect plate for my croissant and quince jelly.

No wonder I'm sewing pinks and blues.

Talbot market last weekend

It's been too cold to grow much in my garden, but I am getting lovely spring vegies from the local farmers' markets. There are three markets we go to each month - Buninyong, Ballarat Lakeside and Talbot.

While I can walk or take the bus to the Lakeside & Buninyong markets, Talbot is an hour's drive away. But look at what I brought back last Sunday. Asparagus, lettuce picked from the garden and sold the same morning and crunchy, aniseedy fennel.




I always stop by Fanny's Flat and look at the vintage gear. This time I found crimson material for a curtain.

And I always check the book stalls and the bookshop at Talbot. While I've never much liked D H Lawrence's novels I love his poetry and this old Penguin is a very nice book. It replaces a much more worn one that I left on a train a while ago.

If you want to see what the Talbot market is like, I've made this post title a link to Talbot Market's website - just click on it and you'll see what I saw.

Rain and flowers

The last of my fruit trees to blossom are celebrating the spring sun and rain.

Greengage and blood plum,

and the two quince trees are thick with white flowers.





The vegetable patch is flowering in blue. Bright blue borage is pushing up among the artichokes.




The rosemary bushes are a haze of pale blue by the straw bale bed of beans and peas.

Spring fire warnings

Spring arrived with a sudden gust of hot wind, hot and dry enough for a fire warning in north- west Victoria. Here in Ballarat it came with a milder warmth and lots of rain, so that my garden is full of flowers.

Yesterday lightning flashed out of a hot sunny sky, ominous thunder rumbling right by the window. The dogs hid. It seemed a long time before clouds came over with a downpour of rain.

I've been rewatching the excellent ABC documentaries on the Grampians bushfires of three years ago, when the fire in the mountain forests was so immense it created its own lightning storms just ahead of the fire front.

With forecasts of extreme fires like that one flaring up after Christmas, and the fires of just this summer past I am not looking forward to the hot weather.

In the mist

In the mist this morning you can't see the busy road at the end of the street

the gate into the golfcourse behind the school could lead anywhere

and you find a place where ducks are sitting in the gum trees

a place where the trees are being cut down to make room for more houses

Today's rainbow

I've been seeing so many rainbows this winter. Here is yet another absolutely ordinary rainbow, shining above the absolutely ordinary houses in my street and glowing through the plum blossom above my gate.

I found Les Murray's poem, An absolutely ordinary rainbow and read it again. If you haven't read it yourself yet you can find it on this website http://www.lesmurray.org/ .