Tag Archives: patio sessions

Smelling the roses

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I am not really a gardener. I love a neat and tidy bit of greenery to admire and in the past, have even turned my hand to some moderately successful veggie growing but a green thumb I am not. So when I moved into my current pad several years ago, I did not really understand what I had and the delights that my new garden would provide.

I headed out for a little patio session today and was greeted by this…

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I’m not a rose person but every year, I’m absolutely thrilled by this profusion of roses in my garden.

And they smell. Really smell. So while they are freshly open, I try to get up close and personal to have a sniff. These peach ones have a sweetish delicate perfume, nice enough but not entirely to my taste.

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These yellow ones (yes I have two rose bushes), with their deeper muskier scent, are more my thing.

As I have a bit of a penchant for yellow flowers – they are so happy and really lift my spirits – these are the ones that win me over.

In any case, they are too beautiful to pick and it seems that they are happily proliferating in earnest on the bush. So that’s where they will stay and if the number of buds is anything to go by…

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…I may have a few more weeks of smelling the roses ahead of me.

Lucky lucky me.

A dinkum daughter

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My name is Kym Hamer, I am 46 years old and I have just cooked my first BBQ.

Yes yes I know. As a dinkum Aussie sheila, I ought to be ashamed of myself for not mastering this patriotic part of my culinary repertoire before now.

It’s not that I’ve been blind to the art of BBQ – I have actually been around BBQs most of my life but it has always been someone else pricking the snags and flipping the burgers.

23KYM

My introduction to BBQ-ed vittels started early in life – but Opa (back middle) was in charge of the cooking.

And quite frankly these BBQ bastions have been happy for me to do my part by plonking a few salad leaves artfully in a bowl and scattering a few condiments around, so who am I to argue (with glass of wine in hand)?

But the weather was looking good…

Phone temp

…my outdoor setting had been re-oiled after a long and rather exposed Winter…

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…so Aussie-K came over for a barbie.

Of sorts…

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To be honest, my turkey and chilli burgers stuck a little and would probably have been better served by a hotplate…

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…but they tasted delicious alongside the lime and chilli mayo, salad and warm ciabatta straight from the oven. And wine of course.

(I would not want you to think I was some sort of kitchen maestro or anything so I must confess again, this time to not making the ciabatta myself.)

And we topped it all off with a slice of shop-bought (just keepin’ it real here peeps) lemon tart, fresh berries and cream.

So on this Mother’s Day, with our respective Mums on the other side of the world, chatting in the sunshine and eating good food together was a perfect way to spend the afternoon.

As was ticking my long overdue BBQ baptism off the list.

Mum would be so proud…5KYM

Happy Mother’s Day Mum from your fair dinkum Aussie daughter.