winter seems to be....

...on his way out - but he (it?) left a lot of damage behind:(( it's still quite cool, but the weather forecast for this week gives hope for milder weather towards the end of the week. finally! though some of the spring flowers exploded into bloom during last week - crocus in all colours - apart from the white ones, which seem to have vanished. eranthis too - and daffodils, at least the smaller, early varieties! for me spring isn't spring without daffs - somehow they are so cheery with their nodding yellow trumpets.

here are some of the not so nice winter leftovers:(( our agave is in trouble - most of the leaves had to be cut off, because they were rotting, and the stem has cracked - don't know if it will survive - but at this stage I am not too keen on it anyway, because it looks pretty ugly like this. well, it's been the first time that temperatures went into double figures - minus! loads of victims, the NZ hollies look dead (might sprout out again from the base though), my escallonia hedge around the veggie area too.... the nz flax might be gone as well, as could be the nandina and a few other plants, which are not fully hardy:(( if the hedge around the veg area has to go, I am not going to replace it - it took several years to grow enough plants to do it all and I don't fancy planting a new hedge every time the winter is cold and everything dies off! box grows too slowly and if you buy all the plants for a long hedge, you could spend a fortune.

plant damage isn't the only trouble right now - we had several cracks in the plaster, which had to be opened up and redone - and two of the old walls in the front garden needed re-doing and recapping - or rather they are in the process of being redone... it has to be repaired fairly quickly - before "the rainy season" begins again and water can seep through! the concrete mixer has been busy during the last few days....

here are two victims - one gable wall with cracks, to be repaired tomorrow - and one eucalyptus with a lot of frost damage to some of its branches! I do hope that it will survive, but I suppose I have to wait a bit longer to see this for sure.
it's not all work though - we "celebrated" mother's day over here today - and of course, being the only female in the house, I had to make my own cake - what's new:))

this is called Donauwellen, "waves of the danube" translated. don't know why the danube, but the waves are made by cherries that sink through two layers of dough - and there are more waves on top - melted chocolate spread on vanilla butter cream. the cake tastes great - only, it's extremely filling, so I only had a small piece (no bother for the men though - 2 pieces each vanished within minutes:)) I suppose DS shouldn't have had any cake at all - he made me a mother's day card himself - with a gruesome terminator picture and the saying inside: you are terminated! I think I made a pretty good cake despite being terminated:)) well, at least the card wasn't one of those syrupy shop-bought things with "mummy deserves praise" etc.:)) I can't stand them - one of the reasons I tend to make cards myself is to avoid the awful texts inside most of them!

nothing new on the textile front - I am still knitting the vest (if I can find the time) and I am still fiddling about with a very old project that should have been done ages ago: a piece of jewelry in bobbin lace, made from handspun silk. the leaves aren't too bad really, but the tallies tend to pull out of shape and I have had to redo quite a few of them - several times:(( I have to finish it though, it's driving me insane, knowing that it's there.... I do work on my "teas" as well - whenever I have a short break, just good enough for a few cross stitches, but not enough to concentrate on 3 colour knitting or bobbin lace!