Polka dot Picnic

After quite a subdued fortnight with us confined to home, this week is really starting to take it's toll on me. I am looking forward to a more relaxing weekend and am happy to stay at home for once. We trekked into the big smoke this morning to visit Daddy at his work. Something we try and do each holiday because they seem to love it.

The girls like to see where Daddy sits, check that he is using his birthday cup, admire the view over the harbour and say hello to the rest of the floor. This involves a couple of hours preparation, about an hour's worth of travelling and parking, a steep walk pushing two small but extremely heavy children, for about 10 minutes at his workplace. And they love it!

I decided to make the outing a little more special today and packed a picnic for the five of us. Well, it was such a sunny morning and it seemed a shame to come home early. The Domain is the perfect spot for picnicking. Do you like the polka dot picnic blanket? Last Christmas' table cloth! I love the brightness of it, it's such happy fabric. You can never have too much red around.

Check out the pile of gingham on top of the basket. It's something I made a couple of weeks ago when I was at a loose end. My Great-grandmother once stitched and embroidered a beautiful apron from red gingham - I just realised, it could be in the blood this gingham obsession! How wonderful to have inherited this from her.

Anyway getting back to the story, an idea came to me to turn the apron, which I never used, into a very useful bag to take shopping. I think it's a nifty idea and now others can ogle at her handiwork too. My Gran (her daughter) saw it and promptly pulled out her gingham table cloth and ordered a bag for herself. It also had Great-grandmother's embroidery embelishing the black and white checks with a striking red cotton crocheted edge. My dear husband A finds it frightful that I would take such a hideous bag out. Of course I now purposefully take it whenever I am with him!

We had the pretty flowers, the ducks to feed, fish to enjoy and loads of grass to run around on and lovely Autumn leaves to throw in the air. They had a ball and came home happy and exhausted. Mission accomplished. Quite a few photos taken too for the blog!

My favourite place at the Domain is the Winter Gardens with the goldfish ponds and the water lilies. They were just perfect today, in full bloom, shades of mauve, pink and white. Quite spectacular to view. Daughter no. 4 couldn't keep her fingers out of the ponds and terrified us all by racing close to the edge of the border less pool. She just loved the fish.

The ducks were well stuffed by the time we caught up with them. It was a blessing really as we only had two slices of bread to go around! End of the week and supplies are getting low at home. They had fun anyway feeding the birds and racing up onto the bench when things got a bit scary.

I loved the mosaic fountain, the greens and blues are just stunning in the water. I appreciate how much work must have gone into it as I crafted a mosaic mirror once upon a time. Very long process and hard on your hands, but very rewarding indeed. Unfortunately I don't have it any more as we left it behind in our previous bathroom. Well, the flowers on it matched those in the blind so it seemed sensible to keep them together. I loved that blind fabric, it was very me.

I just thought I would leave you with a photo of the gingham bag in its full glory, so you too can appreciate the beauty of it.