ATC swap and gardening matters

This is an ATC I am swapping with one of the other ladies doing Dale's Embellishing course, she doesn't have a blog as far as I know. this is about the only creative piece I have done for several weeks, but hopefully everything will be back to normal and I can get started on trying to finish the embellishing course in the next three weeks before Dale closes the site down! there is always hope.
I have posted these photos of the Dracaena fragrans (Happy Plant) in my back yard. It got too big for the back verandah so I moved the pot outside and it has continued to grow and grow and grow..................then a couple of weeks ago these lovely flower buds appeared on it.

I was very surprised the next day when I came out to find lovely white flowers popping out all over the stems - and discovered why it is called fragrans, they have a very strong but delightful perfume, especially early in the evening. According to one of the books I consulted the flowers will be followed by attractive small fruits, but I am not sure that is going to happen on my plants, I think everything is dropping off. This is the first time I have ever had flowers on the plant, it has been in the garden for quite a few years now.

I am still recovering my energy after the onslaught last week. Stuart arrived from Canberra on the Saturday to stay here with his daughter Hannah, aged 7. He looked at the photos of the house our other son Dougal and his family were to move in to and suggested he should install ceiling fans in the rooms before they moved in ( he is an electrician). What a drama that turned out to be - turned out he couldn't get into the ceiling so had to borrow an extension ladder from a mate, then lift every roof panel in succession to do all the wiring - six fans and 14 downlights later........with his father up and down the ladder installing bits inside the house and Hannah and I running around with the vacuum cleaner, the house looked really good about 1 minute before the family arrived!!!!! They of course had only seen photos up till that point so there was a deal of exploring with all the kids claiming their space!

The neighbours certainly knew everyone was here the next day as 5 grandkids in the backyard which is normally dead quiet, was surely a bit different! There was much tooing and froing over the next couple of days, but school started today, so a routine is being established. We are just loving the idea of having all the grandkids in town so that we can continually catch up on their doings.

I particularly like the idea I can see them all without having to pull my sewing room apart to accommodate them!! I always manage to mislay something whenever I put it back together again. I had made the base fabric for another pair of fairy shoes and I know I put it somewhere safe, but do you think I can find it - no way. Mind you, I have found a few other pieces I had 'lost' along the way, so that is a bonus. I am waiting to see now how good Hamish (not quite three) will be about not touching all my ornaments around the house. I have moved them on previous occasions when the family has only been staying for a few days, but I don't want to have to lift everything up high if I can avoid it..................we will see. Dougal was very good at not touching anything when he was little but Stuart was quite another story - every chair in the house which could be moved was locked away in a room till he went to bed! That way we all stayed sane.

Time for bed. Cheers.