Domestic matters

I had a lovely afternoon in the garden yesterday. I’m still pulling out spider plant tubers & it’s become a personal challenge to destroy these horrible things wherever possible. I thought I would never be able to dig up this latest specimen but after digging around and under for what seemed like ages, it finally came up. It’s very satisfying to toss a big mass of ugly tubers into the green bin & contemplate what to put in its place. In this case, lavender.

I visited my favourite nursery & bought more plants. Two lavenders, a French lavender & one called Winter Lace which I haven’t heard of before. They’ve both gone in along the front fence where the pesky spider plant was. I also tucked in a pink geranium because I love them. I planted a White Star daphne under my bedroom window where it will get morning sun but still be a little sheltered. I love daphne, it’s one of my favourite scents & it’s so lovely to have a plant with such striking dark green leaves that flowers in winter & has such a glorious scent. My father had a pink daphne in his garden & he would always pick some for me to take home on winter afternoons after one of his delicious roast dinners. I have a pink daphne odorata in the herb garden but I thought White Star daphne which is apparently lemon scented just sounded gorgeous.

I wanted some colour inside the house so I bought a mixed bunch of flowers on my shopping trip as well. They look beautiful in my favourite green Bendigo Pottery vase. I also picked up some mascarpone for the almond cupcakes with coffee mascarpone topping I’m making tomorrow. This is a recipe from Kate Shirazi’s terrific book, Cupcake Magic. I was given some beautiful blue floral cupcake cases for my birthday in a little baking basket from my friends at work & I’ve been trying my hand at cupcakes from Kate’s book ever since. These use almond meal instead of flour & as I can’t eat wheat, I’m looking forward to trying this recipe. If they turn out well, I’ll post a photo before I take them into work for Monday’s morning tea.