SPRING CLEANING 35

The first shot in today's piccies is of my windowsill. It demonstrates how large my geraniums re growing, despite having just come through a British winter. I seem to have a flare for growing these plants. Back in Australia, my son picked up 2-3 broken discarded stems of geranium and we placed them in soil. When we moved to Wollongong, these THREE STEMS populated the entire front and back garden edges with strong shrubs of bright red year-round flowering plants within 2-3 years. The plants were so good, we had 3-4 passer-bys and neighbors ask for cuttings or rooted pieces over the next 4-5 years.

In this country, geraniums are rarely left outside over winter and are generally considered to be a pot plant suited to indoors, or indoors winter and outdoors summer. My dad had a couple of plants he had bought and took cuttings. A few of the discarded stumps of shoot that he wanted to throw away, considering them to be of 'no use' ended up in pots on my windowsill - and the above photo is evidence that what a professional gardener discards as useless, can be grown by those of us with the geranium flare!

On to more serious matters - via the turned out wine closet and pantry. You will see that along with wine, I have a few beers and oddities along with some Indian Tonic Water which doubles as a mixer for the vodka and on its own as a medicinal fluid for sinus-caused fevers.

This time, the pantry turn out has resulted in my ordering it with jarred dry stuff at the base - flours, beans, grains, dried fruits etc. Next are two stages with similar items stacked in best before date order with spices at the sides, with drinks and sugar/rice milk/salt at the top shelf - or at least the next to top shelf - I cannot reach the very top one without a stool.

Finally, back to the task of the upper hallway. As June arrived amidst a burst of energy, it began to get tackled - finally. I began by polyfilling the 3 large cracks.