The plums will be ready to eat in about a week. I ate a few early ones last night and they were delicious and soft already. The tree is absolutely loaded this year...

 I was inspired yesterday to do something about my horrible mouldy, dirty looking outdoor chairs...

 So, out came sewing machine (which prompty died, and meant I needed to locate and try and set up another little one that I've not used before), large stash of heavy cotton fabric I've had sitting around for YEARS (yay for a bit of stash busting, and especially considering how much space the fabric took up) and whipped up these seat covers and slips. Very happy with them. They won't stay outside on the chairs, but will be put on as required.

 I decided to gather a bunch of lovely flowers from my cottage/kitchen garden this afternoon. Just love all those bright contrasting colours.

My fruit trees really seem to be coming into their own this year. Most of them are onto their 2nd year and finally big enough to produce...both apple trees are loaded with little apples, the tamarillo tree also has an abundance of teeny weeny fruit growing, we've been enjoying strawberries every day for the past few weeks, the blackberry is loaded with flowers, and the feijoa tree (which is actually 3 years old) is finally going to have more than a handful of fruit ready to eat next year. Not sure what's happening with our grape vine, but it sure is growing still - just no sign of any grapes growing yet.