WALKING IN A WEDNESDAY WONDERLAND

My life is so predictable. It is Wednesday and that means gardening day with my garden group. Today it was at Sally's. We just did some weeding and then some more weeding and then some more weeding...so I went off and took some photos of some pretty stuff in Sally's garden for a few minutes. We did have other, grander plans to do with the chook run but it all needed more time and thought.

Not even a photo of the vegetable garden extension, I now realise! But Sally did have the skulls of 2 cows and a koala under her lemon tree!

Now, don't ask me why Sally has these...she has some sheep on her 10 acres and there are a few sheep skulls around, but cows? I didn't ask - my friends seem to do strange things!

In the photo at right, you can see the top jaw of a koala that died at her back door during that extreme heat we had in March. Very sad but very interesting - I have never seen one of these before either! They only eat the leaves of a few different gum trees, and nothing else, so their mouth structure is adapted especially for that.

Sally made an absolutely outstanding hazelnut syrup cake - I have put this recipe on the Gardeners Gastronomy . It is one of the best cakes I have ever eaten! And I can tell you that this garden group has made some pretty amazing cakes, every Wednesday, over the 11 or so years I have been a part of it....we should write a book, maybe.

Then I drove over to Glenys',which is only about 10 minutes from Sally's, as I am supposed to be looking after her garden at the moment!

Now, Glenys is the queen of the red cabbage! I love going to her place and drifting around the garden when she is not there and checking out all the little things that are happening that I don't always see when we are there for gardening as a group.
I thought of Ian's beautiful post where he talked about all the friends he chatted with, in his head, while weeding and as I started to weed Glenys' vegie patch, in the welcome warmth of the winter sunshine, I felt she was there with me and it was really pretty special.

On my way down to the berry patch I managed to tease Glenys a bit, as I tend to do because she is so gullible, until she laughed and realised I was at it again! Poor Glenys!

...One Wednesday we made this pond for Glenys and it is looking pretty good, I think....

As I stood there alone, surrounded by all the plants and trees and projects that we have helped Glenys with over the last couple of years, I felt again a close connection with these friends and their gardens and with the essence of life itself.

These types of friendships are rare. If you are lucky enough to have some, take time to envelope yourself in them and treasure them with all your heart.

On the way home I passed this field of leeks, in the Piccadilly Valley, growing almost right up to the edge of the road