Halfway through winter

Here we are halfway through winter already. We have had a couple of really freezing days when I actually had to search for my beanie and gloves which I rarely wear but today the forecast is for a 20C day and the sun is shining. 

It is lovely out in the garden on days when the westerly winds aren't blowing. I have been keeping a record of what is flowering at present, especially the bulbs, as I am going to move them later on. There must be hundreds of bulbs that my hubby has planted over the last forty five years and I don't think he even remembers where a lot of them are. I do like the snowdrops in the above photo though. 

 

This daisy bush was a freebie from our local council as we receive a voucher once a year for two plants from the council nursery. 

Many of the bromeliads are flowering and, even though their flowers aren't stunning, they are beautiful in their own way. 

As a lot of ladies my age do I have been going through my kitchen cupboards to see what I actually use or don't use these days now that I don't have children to cook for. I bought a breadmaker from ALDI a few years ago when I was an enthusiastic about baking bread and I used it a couple of times before experimenting with sourdough.

I came across a YouTube tutorial from Elly's Everyday about using a breadmaker to bake sourdough so gave it a try before deciding whether or not to get rid of my breadmaker. Well, it was a cold day so probably not a good day to experiment with sourdough and I probably didn't feed my sourdough starter, Gertrude, enough beforehand but it turned out alright if a little flat and chewy but my breadmaker would only bake for one hour and wouldn't turn back on for an extra 15 minutes as Elly did in her tutorial 

Elly is a Queenslander so there is a lot of information in her tutorials which Aussies would appreciate as most tutorials seem to be produced overseas and often the names of the ingredients are a bit foreign to us. I will give this method one more try before donating the breadmaker and might see how long it needs to cool down before it can be turned on again for the extra 15 minutes which it obviously needs to produce a better loaf. Elly also has soapmaking tutorials which I am sure a lot of readers would appreciate. 

I had a less than impressive soapmaking session recently and tried to do a swirl which I hadn't done for quite a while as I need to use up the rice bran oil which my hubby bought three bottles of last year. 

It looks like there is a lot of soda ash on the soap but there isn't so I am not sure why it looks so mottled. Anyway, it will still clean I am sure. I might go back to making the 100% coconut oil soap as it is fairly foolproof and I bought the coconut oil in bulk.  

I just realised today that I have been blogging for just over ten years. I must say I was much more enthusiastic in 2013 as were a lot of other bloggers but I think that Instagram is more popular these days as it is quicker to do a post on there. I rarely post there although I do check it most days. I find that my blog reminds me of events etc. that I have forgotten so will continue plodding on even though comments are rare these days as Blogger has made it difficult to comment on some blogs. When using my iPad I can't even comment on my own blog oddly enough even though I am signed in. Oh well! That's technology. 

Enjoy the rest of the week everyone!

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