Little Wandering Wren …. chats!

Like some perverse sort of warm-up for my new Bangkok life, Melbourne has gone crazy hot. It's fine down at the beach but not when we're back in town. I've jobs to do! Luckily one of those was sorting out the pond. You may have seen all the baby fish we found if you follow my Instagram @LWWren.  Still, for those of you sitting amidst minus temperatures or staring down the barrel of a gloomy, grey January it might appear a bit churlish to be complaining about the weather but hey that's in my British DNA. Luckily not too many of my friends dare to call me a whinging Pom! Well, not to my face! No everyone is being terribly nice to us at the moment. They hardly get the words out of their mouths about how sad they are to see us go, before the phone calendars are open and a Thai holiday being planned! Of course, that makes me super pleased it won't be so hard to leave if we get loads of visitors. What am I on? Of course it will be hard to lea...

Dear Sally I'm sending you some Aussie flowers and I know you are looking down and smiling. I've chosen these beautiful and tough plants that adorn many a Melbourne driveways and paths for you today and I know you'd approve of their blue colour. These are the perfect Aussie flowers and I have just realised that I do not have enough of them in my garden. In your honour, I shall plant some for you. They tell me they are low maintenance whilst making a flamboyant statement with their bird attracting flowers - perfect! Agapanthus: Australian Blue perennial flower Blue Monday was one of the first memes I joined as Little Wandering Wren and I enjoyed my regular visits. Australia with its rich blue skies offered many opportunities to participate and Sally was always quick to respond with her lovely encouraging comments. Many of my favourite blogs have been found through Blue Monday and I was very sad to read Sally's final post. You can find it here ...

We've had our last glorious day of summer.    As the nights draw into winter,  we welcome our Aussie autumn! Whilst we are all into the current ICC Cricket World Cup, our sporting ovals, now full with kids playing cricket in the sunshine,  will begin to make way for the season of muddy soccer players. Anderson Park, Hawthorn East with Melbourne city view. Despite the feeling,  that we'd had a terrible summer, our summer was spot on average. The past few years have been above well average  global warming heatwave summers. We've come to expect many days above 40 degrees C and all, except the drought tolerant gardens, suffer. Royal Botanical Gardens Melbourne Feb 2015 This summer  was a perfect Aussie summer  for this Sweaty Betty Brit  used to calling any day, that is not freezing cold, "lovely weather" In February, we had several heavy downpours,  the rain is always  welcomed by our...

Autumn?! You'd have thought that came weeks ago in Melbourne That’s it, all over! The fifteenth hottest Australian summer on record in the past 100 years is behind us. The garden has struggled, leaves are frazzled and burnt. There is hardly a flower in sight and we are hoping for rain. The world’s weather is topsy turvy. Whilst the East coast of America is well over their endless icy winter, and the British are wading through muddy flooded waters, NSW and Queensland are enduring a terrible drought. This year our sun was so strong and the heat intense, we had six week of a summer garden and straight into an early autumn! If you watched the Australian Open tennis you will  remember tennis players suffering from heat exhaustion? That was when our garden suffered the most, but we can’t complain. Around Victoria bush fires raged, houses, crops and animals were lost.  We went from a gorgeous garden to autumn orange cinders within two days of extreme heat. Th...