Storms, a cooked modem and belated Christmas greetings.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with your families. We had a lightning storm the night before Christmas Eve and our internet modem and back up battery were cooked when lightning hit close to the house so I didn't get a chance to wish everyone a Happy Christmas.

A good friend of mine had painted a lovely Christmas card that I wanted to feature in a Christmas post but, by the time we received a new modem, we were already into 2024 so I was a bit late with my greetings.

Never mind, while the internet was off I experimented again with rebatching soap as I wasn't happy with the last lot of rebatching I did when I added activated charcoal to the soap so wondered if I could rebatch the grey soap and add some pink mica powder. Well, the mica wouldn't mix in so I now doubt that you can rebatch soap twice successfully. You never know till you try though and it still foams up nicely like 'normal' soap even though it looks dreadful. 

The recent rain has been good for the garden although I was nervous during storms in case we had hail or any damage done to our house but thankfully all was well. The Day Lillies have nearly finished flowering....

... and we have had quite a few bunches of Hydrangeas picked for the house. We didn't seem to get as many hydrangea flowers as last year but we had a lot more rain then and these plants really love the water. Don't you love my blue container I picked up at an Op Shop?

The pansies have been pulled out and replaced by petunias which are doing okay. We bought quite a few double petunias which are more stunning than the single ones. 

A friend has been very generous with her lillies and now I have purple and yellow ones plus a Eucharis Lily and a Blood Lily which hasn't flowered as yet. You can never have too many plants can you?

I was positive I had planted some red hollyhock seeds and sure enough one appeared recently just after the others had finished flowering. If you grow hollyhocks be sure to save the seeds for next year. They are a lovely plant. 

This Hoya grows in the shade of our camellia tree and I rarely take much notice of it but thankfully I was able to see the long awaited flowers last week so have started propagating more plants to give to friends. I have had success with cutting off lengths of the vine and putting them into a jar of water until roots grow. It is always nice to have some plants to give to gardening friends. 

Anyway, that is a bit of an update. I hope 2024 turns out well for you but, as we all know, life is predictably unpredictable and we cope with issues as they come along. I don't worry anymore like I did when I was younger as worry never gets us anywhere and doesn't change the circumstances anyway. We do learn a lot as we get older and wiser don't we?

Have a great weekend everyone.