A Rookie Mistake ~ Hello/Bonjour how is everyone? It’s so good to be back and before I fill you in on what’s been happening I have to say a big hello to my new followers as well as a big sorry as I’ve made the worst mistake you can make for a new blog and that’s not being consistent and to let it just sit in cyberspace-limbo doing nothing. As an experienced blogger, that was a very big rookie mistake for me and completely unintentional.

The start to this year has been very challenging and not how I thought it would go at all and if I’m being completely honest I’m not ready to dive into it just yet as this is such a new space from my old blog and I feel like I’ve rehashed it so many times that I’ll go mad if I rehash it again at this point. So maybe somewhere down the track I’ll give you some details. Lets just say we’ve had some major family challenges and changes that we’re all dealing with as best we can.

So in my last post I left you with Part 1 about why I love my Saint Belford Curation Journal and later this week I’ll have part two up to share with you because it really is so much more than a journal and there’s so many reasons to love it. For now though, I thought I’d share a bit of what we’ve been up to over the last month and a bit.

At the start of Feb we took Master 8 down to our fave beach in Busselton for a train ride along the jetty as this is one of his favourite things to do. This was also the day that we in W.A went into sudden lockdown and we had no idea until we got to Busselton, so we still did our train ride, had a swim, something to eat, headed home, stocked up on a few essentials to get us through the week and made sure we were home by 6pm. With everyone being home already or at the supermarket we pretty much had the beach to ourselves and the water was absolutely beautiful for a swim.

We also set up Master 8’s veggie beds out the front so he can garden in peace without freaking out about the chickens. Master 8 has a few conditions which cause him to be fearful of pretty much all animals but he loves gardening so we allocated two spots in my french garden so he has his own space. He’s got carrots, spring onion and eggplant growing, all of which are doing exceptionally well. Not to mention the 25 seedlings from Woolies there are to plant up over the weekend providing the weather is cool enough.

I made a trip out to my favourite little French shop in Boyanup to stock up on a few necessary vintage French items all the way from Paris. I plan to do a post soon on this little shop as it really is a favourite so stay tuned for it. It was also our 10th wedding anniversary this month and we just spent a quiet day together reflecting on the last ten years and looking forward to the next ten.

We went bushwalking in Crooked Brook Forrest and enjoyed a bbq lunch cooked by hubby and Master 8 once we’d made it back from an amazing walk. Crooked Brook Forrest is such a beautiful place and surprisingly it’s only 25 minutes from home yet feels as if you’re a million miles away. I need that once in a while, to feel like I’m in another land, to escape the drudge of the every day and get into nature and stay there as long as possible.

Speaking of nature, we had amazing cucumbers from the veggie patch this summer and enough basil I could’ve bottled my own pesto!! Blueberries were everywhere and very few made it into the house as I snacked on them while watering the garden. Come to think of it, not much fruit made it inside at all as it usually ended up being part of my early morning breakfast, though I did bring blueberries in for Master 8 as they’re his favourite and I did buy the blueberry bush for him.

Our girls are still laying, though we did have one very exceptionally hot week and they were off the lay for a few days but once things cooled down a bit they picked back up again as regular as clock work. I’m also still getting amazingly big figs off my fig tree and they are soooo delicious. I happened to be walking back in the house late last week with the girls eggs and out of the corner of my eye I noticed one of the figs was ripe and ready so naturally I had to pick it and bought it inside for an afternoon snack. Honestly, there is nothing better than home grown organic figs and this is only the second summer I’e had the tree and the second time it’s produced fruit but it’s grown so much and I’ve had tripe the amount of figs than this time last year and it’s a dwarf variety!! If you love figs then I highly recommend getting a dwarf variety and putting it in a good size pot and enjoying your own home grown figs that won’t cost you $20 a kilo!

Well that really is about it, I’m sure there’s more I’ve forgotten but if I have you can catch it over on Instagram. Simply check out my feed below. Well I hope you’re all having an amazing start to the week and your year has kicked off relatively smooth and lets hope this year isn’t quite as crazy as last year! Take care and I’ll catch you very soon.

A bientot…Michelle x