Grow your blog party January 2015

Hello!  Come on in   ... dont be shy!

I am once again joining with Vicki at Grow your blog to discover more wonderful blogs to read and follow and also to expose my blog to more readers.  thanks so much for hosting this, Vicki,
 I did it in 2013  and it was such fun!

Firstly, an introduction:
My dear hubby and I (my name is Gillian) live in the tropical north- east of Australia.  We both grew up in South Africa, lived our separate lives for 20 years, and then "found" each other 10 years ago.
7 years ago we moved in to a unit with a very small backyard, which was dominated by a huge lychee tree, and nothing else.  Slowly I have added more and more small fruit trees, anything that flowers, and a food forest.  I am lucky enough to be able to tuck orchids into the trees, and they often surprise me with their flowers:

There is nothing I love more than wandering out into the garden and picking some eggplant, sweet potato, ginger, lemongrass, tumeric and a few curry leaves, and then coming inside and making a curry for dinner!  Once that is simmering I will nip out and pick a few salad greens and some cherry tomatoes, and voila we have dinner.  I share some of my recipes on the recipe tab of this blog.

We walk every day, mostly on the beach, and love to explore the local area we are lucky to live in, you can see some posts on the explore the tropics tab.

I hope you enjoy finding out more about life in the tropics from my blog, and I look forward to discovering even more exciting blogs to follow worldwide.  It is a little like armchair exploring.

I love to sew, craft, knit and crochet whenever I get a spare minute.  I like to make things that are useful as we live a clutter free life.  You can find some projects on the crafts tab on this blog. I recently made this quilt for my grandson created from heirloom garments from past generations of his family.  As I was sewing it, I felt that all these women represented would be hugging and nurturing our new little arrival.  I felt truly blessed while I was making this.

 I have two step grandchildren here in Australia and a grandson in America, and occasionally will post about grandparenting from afar.  I really love finger puppets, in person or on skype, in fact any time I am with the grandkids I turn into a rather silly grandma making rhymes or stories about anything and everything.

Sooo.... a giveaway!   I have this set of duck finger puppets, hand knitted by me.
the rhyme goes like this:

Five little ducks went out to play,
over the hill and far away.
Mother duck said quack, quack, quack.....
Four little ducks came running back.
Four little ducks went out to play,
over the hill and far away.
Mother duck said quack, quack, quack.....
Three little ducks came running back.
Three little ducks went out to play,
over the hill and far away.
Mother duck said quack, quack, quack.....
Two little ducks came running back.
Two little ducks went out to play,
over the hill and far away.
Mother duck said quack, quack, quack.....
One little duck came running back.
One little duck went out to play,
over the hill and far away.
Mother duck said quack, quack, quack.....quack quack QUACK......
Five little ducks came running back. :)

 This giveaway is open worldwide, and please just tell me in your comment if you want to enter.  I know it takes forever to go through all the blogs on grow my blog but all the giveaways are to be announced on the same day - February 15th, so make sure you get your entries in.