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The table




If the table isn't the heart of a kitchen then it's certainly the heart of the home.  Our kitchen table is not only where we eat, but it's the epicentre of our home. Where we share meals with loved ones, drink tea with friends, cool cakes, paint pictures, cut and paste, roll out play dough, blog and numerous other tasks during the day.

We've always coveted those very long, old refectory style tables. Showing their age with beautiful marks and dents as testament to a lifetime of use by previous owners.  But these tables were never quite right :: too short, too narrow, too wobbly or too pricey.

But this week we were very excited to finally bring our own whopping dinning table home.  It's simple, sturdy, two metres long and should easily seat ten adults, ahem, once we find some more chairs.  We had it on lay-by for ages at one of my favourite local stores.  The store owner Stef made it from some aged celery top pine that was in his stash :: I love how blokes have a timber stash :: so it is pretty special.

The table is a bit newish looking for me. Brand new. And is yet to earn its patina of a well used family table. But then, I like the idea of a fresh starting point that will, in time, develop a patina made by us.

And our old table?  Made by a very dear friend years ago, it came with two sets of legs, one set at dining table height, and one set at coffee table height.  So now we have a gorgeous massive big coffee table that you can just see in the top photo.  It is used for stacking library books, painting pictures, cut and pasting etc etc...

Now the hunt for chairs begins.  So tell me, are you for all matching or mismatched dinning chairs?

Sleepy in the teepee




Summer days on the lawn in the teepee.
Toys, snacks and a sleepy pup. 

Works on paper

gnome house 

desert night sky

rocket shoes

fast blue car

work space

At the start of the school holidays I stocked up on new art supplies for the peeps. The best value school holiday entertainment program ever.  Total cost $15. One box of pastels, some black paper and a ream of coloured paper, kept within easy reach on our new giant coffee table, has kept them busy for so many hours creating a gallery's worth of drawings and collages. I think they're so beautiful. We stick them on the walls and we love to look them.

In the hay meadow

Last week we spent three lovely nights camping at our friends farm, in a fresh mown hay meadow next to the river. It's not exactly wilderness camping but so beautiful and quiet, and you can always duck home if you forget anything. Or need to use the loo for that matter.  

We made damper and cooked it on sticks and filled them with butter and golden syrup, something I loved doing as a little one.  But the peeps thought it took too long to cook, spoilt perhaps by the instant toasting of marshmallows we usually do. We picked more berries, fished for salmon, swam in the river and ate delicious food in the camp oven. And as an added bonus, there was enough hay stuck to our clothes when we got home to mulch a garden bed!   Hooray! 






Berry nice


After one hour's picking, ahem




Sometimes, especially during these long summer days, I have to pinch myself to prove that life isn't a dream.  Yesterday was one of those dreamy days, with an invitation to a friend's farm to pick raspberries and red currants.  The peeps ran around the massive berry patch, well a berry field really, with ruby stained lips playing with their friends, whilst mama picked kilo after kilo of sweet juicy fruit.

For me, a kitchen full of freshly picked berries is my idea heaven. I've made red currant jelly, raspberry muffins, raspberry ice cream and still there is more fruit left.

This afternoon we're going back to the farm to camp by the riverside. More good times.  Hope you're having an excellent summer too.