Free background from VintageMadeForYou

Tuesday 11 September 2012

A Second Mishap Bearing Banana Passionfruit

I know that "they" keep telling us that change is inevitable so we better get used to it.
 Just as unavoidable.. mishaps & deviations, detours & stuff ups. 
How we react when things do not go according to plan, can, in effect, make all the difference in the world.
When you grow up with people that "fly off the handle" or "go to pieces" or get "hot under the collar" it an be quite can exercise to retrain our responses to accidents & incidents...one things for sure.. they are going to happen....to us all.
This morning for instance, we woke to the shrill sound of the smoke alarm going off in the kitchen...oh dear, oh dear our Chinese house guests (friends of No. 2 son) had managed a little toasting accident.
Abruptly, all doors & windows were flung open & the offending carbonized items thrown out the kitchen window.
Thing is, burnt toast happens...to the best of us.

 And some of us head off to Spring Fairs on a Saturday only to find that the apparently spartan crowd, is in fact, no crowd at all, as somebody had got the date rather wrong!
Well it was a MISTAKE & it did get us out and about, uncharacteristically bright & early.
Our journey was soon redeemed & no one was cranky...imagine that..by heading up the road to Tainui Reserve. I am glad that in Havelock North (only around 12 mins drive from home) there are still hilly, paddocky places & uncultivated green spaces to walk & explore.
They are the overgrown valleys & vistas of my childhood.
 Not parks but reserves, specially dedicated places that have not been built on.
 They are wild & free, yet looked out for & managed a little.
 Banana passionfruit scramble wildly through trees, reaching way up in to the land of the giants, beyond the reach & vision of the mere explorer. And some, kindly extend their spindly arms groundwards.
 Evidently not overly prised by the locals, we were able to find quite a few fruit within easy reach.
They have always fascinated me..their familiar yet strange flavour. I think the banana bit is just about the shape. They can only be foraged as they are never available to buy.
 I love stumbling upon the patches of naturalized forget-me-nots.
 I am always delighted to find flowers anywhere I go.
 Up & around the top...the view is wonderful on a clear day.
 You can see right across the Heretaunga Plains & through to Mount Ruapehu.
The flowers of spring can sometimes surprise us. 
I had almost forgotten the sulphur yellow of our native Kowhai.
 The tuis adore them.
Not usually seen until right on Christmas I was amazed to find these flowering Pohutukawa. 


We are having such fun collecting Duraware & my favourite "Gay Life Ware"
The melamine plates are part of the Greengate range & fit in perfectly with the vintagey picnic theme.
Look what we spotted the other day...and loaded with vintage vessels.
 Now how cute is this! Delivering groceries around the village on a Saturday morning, by donkey!
No wonder I love British Country Living..where else would you see such a thing!
 The other day we called into a cheap & nasty little secondhand shop...but you never know just what you might find...other than crap! I bought a little bit of linen very cheaply & tucked in the middle of it was this sweetie...oh I love it!
 I think I must have come across this on Pinterest...I just had to show you.
Isn't it so whimsical & delightful, don't you think?!
My dear friend Cheryl told me about some vintage blanket bunting that she had seen in a magazine quite a few months ago. I have kept the idea quite close since she mentioned it & finally begun to cut & shape my own blanket bunting yesterday. 
 Are you a "everything needs to be precise & even" sort of person? Or does it look right sort of free hand & random? I have hung my pieces up with pegs for ponderation just now, 'cos I can't quite make up my mind which camp I'm in.
Probably leaning to conformity on this one..
We'll see.
Every time I walk past them they make me smile..that's a good start at least.
 What's making you smile this week?
Lovely to see you. Thank so much for dropping in.
MUCH
 ♥♥♥♥♥

9 comments:

  1. I keep hoping to find some duraware in my travels... none yet. I might have to trademe a set for our camping trips and the toy kitchen when not needed.

    Love that banana passionfruit. I have never seen it before.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bonjour dear Catherine
    You've made my day just reading your lovely words.

    I've had what one would call a frustrating day, one way and another and your post has made me feel that really "all is right with the world"!
    I no longer feel stressed - thank you!

    How wonderful your mishap took you on such a joyful adventure! I've never seen a hillside of forget-me-nots like that. But I've always wanted to be in England in Spring to see the sheets of bluebells in the woods.

    Your blanket bunting is lovely - I wish I could cut them willy-nilly, but being me I have to measure - I suppose it's from years of being told "if a thing's worth doing - it's worth doing well!!
    Maybe you were told the same.

    Wishing you all a very happy week.
    love and hugs
    Shane

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautiful post Catherine, lovely to catch up with you. I remember having duraware when we used to go away camping etc... Lovely to see the countryside, and to imagine the taste of the banana passionfruit.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gorgeous little piece of embroidery! I'd never heard of banana passion fruit before.
    Liz @ Shortbread & Ginger

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love the blanket bunting! I can see why it makes you smile!
    Your outing looks wonderful. Your land is so sweet and good.
    I am preparing (well, thinking about it) for house guests, but when I get home from school I have lost most of my verve. I need a helper!
    Hooray for the picnic dishes! I hope everything is shaping up for the fairy tea parties/pixie picnics!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I do love your posts - they are like letters to an old friend! So interesting to see a glimpse of your world, the fruits and flowers. Yes, Country Living Mag does find such beautiful places, people and events in the UK to write about - they always seem to be about 100 miles from where i live! although my brother in Devon often comes across delights such as this - he has just spent a week in a very old, traditional gipsy caravan and been horseriding and foraging, all quite local to him as he is lucky to find all this at his friends place - wish they were my friend too! What is making me smile at the moment? this fabulous Autumn that is descending on us in the UK, swimming at a gym where we are lucky to be overlooked by a stables, so horses smile at you through the glass wall while you swim and their eyes follow you up and down. Betty x

    ReplyDelete
  7. You make me smile this week (and every week..) xxx

    ReplyDelete
  8. What a beautiful place that you live in! I adore that red volkswagon, a great capture! Also love the bunting. And that donkey delivering groceries in Shaftsbury, Dorset is wonderful, we visit there and have seen them making their way up the steep hill which featured in the famous (well in England anyway) Hovis bread adverts for so many years. x

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hello dear friend - at last I have my internet back!! Who wouldve thought I could miss it so!!!??? Your pictures are just beautiful - the colours in the flower pictures - you could reach into the screen and touch them. Just beautiful kowhai & Pohutukawa & forget-me-knots.
    I adore the blanket bunting - yes I am a bit too conformist myself and wish I could be more haphazard but unfortunately not. Look forward to seeing it finished Catherine - bunting never fails to make me smile.
    I also adore that teacup chandelier - what an amazing idea. Your posts always make me smile so. Have a lovely "rest of the week" - much love/friendship, Julie :-) wonderful here to see some sunshine today Xox

    ReplyDelete

So lovely of you to leave a comment. Thank you!! So sorry if you've tried to leave one & it hasn't worked. You are welcome to email me at catherine@sunshinevintage.nz instead, if you'd like to, much love Catherine♥

Related Posts with Thumbnails