Success at last!

Gosh, not really sure where to start today. I suppose I should start with the good news - the retic is fixed!! Of course, from what you've seen of me so far, I'm sure you can guess that it didn't all go smoothly. This is how it went down..

Saturday morning I opted for a lie in - I felt physically ill every blinking day last week, so I'm darn tooting well going to try to relax and kick back on the weekend, even if the garden is still crying out for attention. Eventually, Mr Bon and I headed out on a mission - retic shop, then a visit to Environment House to pick up some essentials and Christmas gifts, and then grocery shopping before coming home.

The retic shop was a lovely experience - we walked in, a bloke instantly came up to help us, and they had exactly what we needed. It was much easier than going to Bunnings so we will definitely go there again next time we need supplies.

The only problem was, when we got home with all our purchases and started unpacking the car, I picked up the 2m of tubing we'd bought.. and it was the wrong freaking size!! We'd found the coil of 25mm pipe, told the guy we'd like 2m of 25mm pipe.. and he'd given us 19mm pipe :( Can't believe we didn't notice at the time. So after being mightily impressed with ourselves for getting all this done before 12pm, we got back in the car and headed back to the retic shop. Luckily it didn't take too long, and on Saturday afternoon Mr Bon set to and got the leaks fixed.

WOOHOO!! That's good news - the weather's just starting to warm up, and being able to use the retic on our two watering days a week will make life so much easier. I will still hand-water to distribute things like worm wee and bokashi juice.

So, what else... oh!! On Saturday, I had the best lunch - a sandwich!! I LOVE salad sandwiches, and I missed them so badly while I was gluten-free. Salads just can't compare with salad sandwiches. So I present to you, Saturday's sandwich:

From bottom to top:

• lebanese cucumber
• mushroom
• cherry tomato
• Nando's perinaise
• onion
• radish
• lettuce
• alfafa sprouts
• coriander
• delicious soft gluteny Outback Spice multigrain bread

Nom nom nom. It was really, really good.

We had dog training on Saturday afternoon too, and that went really well! Tess was much more obedient this week, and more social than usual :) She still had to be told off a few times for trying it on with a few dogs, but I'm getting better at pre-empting her outbursts by recognising the tell-tale way her ears go up, her body tenses and everything just goes still - that's the time for a reprimand, rather than once the growling starts.

Anyway, she even played with one of the other dogs :):) Which is awesome, except the dog she picked to play with is the one dog who's not allowed to play! Samuel has had a few problems with one of his legs and is still building up his muscles after surgery a while ago, so he's not supposed to leap about too much.

Had some good times in the garden this week too. One of the tomato plants needed staking, so I thought I'd have a go at that. Not sure if I've done it in the best way but we'll see.

The vegies are looking pretty good too, but I am still losing the odd plant to slater nibbling.

We had an absolutely magical moment in the garden on Saturday :) Mr Bon and I had gone out to start fixing the retic, when all of a sudden a New Holland Honeyeater landed on the bird bath for a swim. I should just say, much as I love rats and dogs and all kinds of critters, New Hollands are my absolute favourite animal. I don't know why, I just find them so beautiful and special. So we stood still for a while and watched him jump in and out of the bath, and it was so awesome. I wish I could've gotten a photo, but I didn't want to risk scaring him off. He was pretty unfazed by us (and the dog) standing nearby, so maybe I'll have another chance later.

And the final magic moment in the garden - when I was helping Mr Bon with the retic repairs, I found these little eggshells on the ground :) One piece was under the lemon tree, and two under the jacaranda. I'm not quite sure if they're a bit big for honeyeaters, it's been a while since I saw honeyeater eggs. But a good sign regardless :)

That's all for this weekend! I really should get in to the habit of doing smaller posts more often, I think.