An adventurous weekend

Sorry for the break in updates. I've had Kath visiting so haven't been moping about the house at night updating the blog. She's gone home now, but I'm not moping about the house (actually...I'm at work). It was so lovely to have a visitor and to have someone else in the house. Somehow it has made me miss Jo more... perhaps it was realising how lovely it was to have another person in that space (which is a good thing!)

Kath's visit forced me to be adventurous, especially on the driving front. I only got turned around twice on the way to the airport to pick her up! Luckily I have the one way road system and 'turn-arounds' worked out. Kath is a good navigator (but that didn't help me getting to the airport).

We did lots of shopping, including taking a trip out to one of the outdoor malls called "La Cantera" that turns out to be very close to home. It's where the beautiful people shop and there are some great stores there. One in particular, called Anthropologie, I totally fell for. It was like a shop that had been designed specifically to please Jo and Jac. Clothes and home wares - all perfect! Jean and Alastair, it also had some books that you would like, including the one shown in the picture which is actually a box containing a whole lot of etchings - gorgeous! It's one of a set of three (maybe more) - including one on Algae that Kate would like ^_^





We went into a department store where we probably couldn't even have afforded to buy a hankie, but it was pretty inside. Above the escalators they had thousands of butterflies and bits of mirror hanging down. A dusting nightmare! Hil would have loved it though.



They also had the coolest chandelier (I don't even know how to spell that!) in the dining section made out of campari bottles. Neat idea and it looked great, although it doesn't really come out on the pic.



On Sunday we drove out to the "hill country" to a town called Fredericksburg. Heavy German influence overall, but the main part of town was very tourist oriented so lots of leather and cow boy stuff for sale. And a lot of the generic american tourist junk that I can't really describe but it's unique, usually ostentatious, and should be avoided! We found a few cool shops, including a kitchenwares place (still no sign of a humble egg cup or a good teapot - my quest continues) but I tend to like kitchenware places wherever they may be. Anyhow, we gave up on the main street and headed out to a herb farm for lunch, which was lovely, and it wasn't too hot to sit outside either, which was even better! Then we wandered the herb gardens and headed out to a wildflower farm where they grow plants for seed. They didn't have much in the fields at the time but they have a lovely nursery. They'd been hit pretty hard by the hail storm though. I bought some herbs for my deck (need a pot now) and we had some peach icecream made from local peaches (seems to be a big peach growing area so I must remember that next season). I also bought some chili pickled okra just because and it's yummy! This place also had a butterfly house so we wandered in there for a while. Two had just hatched (if that's the right word) and I can't remember what they were called but they were HUGE! It was pretty amazing and the chick who worked in there really knew her stuff (volunteered after she caught us complaining about how useless the guide brochure we'd been given was).

After we walked out of the butterfly house we spotted the coolest green lizard on the fence! The photos probably don't do him justice but he was like a mini iguana. Bright green and perhaps 15cm long. Amazing. The best thing was that when we got home I spotted one exactly the same in the tree off my deck. yay, another creature to look out for. His tail is seriously cropped in the pictire, it was longer than his body and very straight, like a skewer! He also had a strip of tiny white spots but I'm not sure if they show up in the pic.



That's probably enough blathering for now. Until next time!