Sunflowers and Paint Pots...

...minus the paint pot part!

Although this week I was supposed to be getting on with painting, I have to confess I haven't done a single bit! (The Boss will not be happy)! I have had loads on this week, photo days and prep information night at school, morning tea with the kindy mums, shopping trips to find all the extra art equipment Sasha needs for this terms art workshops, (jeez they don't want much!?) appointments with tradies to come and look at different jobs we have pending, an electrician visit to re-route our pool pump supply, Poppy beginning back with her Reef Kids education program (which incidentally was cancelled the night before she was due to start Term 3, so I had a few hours notice to put together a 5 week program of our own - there was no way I was gonna let the kid down she loves Reef School sooooo much.) Not to mention the 5 phone calls, of 4 or more hours collectively, that I have spent on the phone to our ISP this week with connectivity issues, oh and the return and subsequent re-purchase of our new printer which has never worked properly.  

In all honesty every time I began to think about prepping for painting, it was always too close to the school run, or Poppy needed help with something or I had to get lunch or I needed to be somewhere!   So it took a back seat to the rest of 'life' this week and that means not only am I waaaay behind, it also means I will need to crack on and do double next week!  I have no idea how I am going to achieve that as we have loads of 'on site' work starting on Tuesday...but I will have to.. somehow!

So why am I telling you about all the stuff I didn't get done??  Well basically all of the above means that I have nothing 'reno-specific' to write a post about this week.  But because I promised Col (and myself) that I would keep at least one post a week going I had to think of something.  Then, I was sitting at the PC yesterday trying to sort out our printer issues and I heard a little voice (no, not in my head...read on) at the gate.  And there, just like that, my inspiration for a mini fill-in post literally walked by..

...it was a little boy and his Dad leaning over our front gate with an iPhone taking pictures of, and admiring, our HUGE sunflower.  (In fact our sunflower is probably trending on Instagram right.this.minute!) They stood there for about 10 minutes talking all about it, his dad (who was British) was telling him about the fields in England that are full of them as far as the eye can see.  And it made me realise that as this little lad had found such wonder and amazement in this flower, we shouldn't keep it's beauty strictly to visitors to our little street...you should all be able to see our Poppy Mae's fantastic effort too!!  (She will be chuffed that it's on the blog)

A few months ago Poppy planted 4 little sunflower seeds (I thought we had photos of the planting session but can't find any) gradually they poked their little shoots through the soil and she was ecstatic to see them begin to grow.  Unfortunately some birds ate three and she was left with one teensy, tiny plant.  She was so sad and cried for ages when she noticed her cute little plants were gone.  She watered the remaining seedling every.single.day.  On the days she was at kindy, the first thing she would ask when she got home was whether I had watered her sunflower yet.  If I hadn't, off she'd go to do it.  She was so proud of it.  Due to the fact that the others were eaten, we never really thought this one would come to anything (we thought it would succumb to birds too) and so didn't take any shots of it growing.   I wish I had now, but anyway before we knew it, literally, there stands this 10 foot high gorgeous flower, with a stem on it that would rival any Jack and his Beanstalk efforts!!

Last week the flower, still green, bent over toward the afternoon sun, and a tiny bit of yellow began to poke through

 

A day later it was fully open, and still it grew, and grew!

 

Here is the flower today in all its glory, it's HUGE!

 

 

The leaves are bigger than her head, and it towers over her at nearly 3 times her height

  

 

The plant is the talk of the neighbourhood and we have one extremely proud and happy little sunflower farmer!!

 

K xx

 

PS -to our Pommy readers - it reminded me of the Blue Peter tallest sunflower competition that they used to run every year.  Do they still do that?  Is Blue Peter even still running?? We sooooo would have won!