G'Day,
I have been reading around some of the other participants work this week. Oh aren't we such a gang of romantics, finding love the antidote to woes, or even just a friendly caring face.
I thought I might try a different tack. I don't like to follow the crowd, never did.
Anyway I thought I would write about my beloved Uncle Wally. Every child should have an Uncle Wally in their lives. He is such a sweetie and quite an eccentric in his own right, he does not follow the crowd. I love that about people.
Anyway, my Uncle Wally. He found fun and excitement in things before they became trendy or fashionable. Things like collecting and restoring vintage cars and bikes. He was dubbed the oldest bikie in Griffith by a biker's club. I reckon he had one of the first movie camera around when I was a baby and took movies of interesting stuff long before others could afford them and long before the little hand held camcorders of today were available. He even went skiing up in the snow country when he was in his teens on two homemade skis he made from planks of wood. He is also an example of keeping healthy through exercise and eating home grown organic vegetables and fruits. He walks 4 km each day rain hail or shine. What a great character. He is 82 now I think. He built his own house and can and has done just about anything. And... he is dyslexic, so he never learned to write or read.
Anyway where I was going with this story....
Uncle Wal has been bitten by brown snakes probably 4 times in his life. A few years ago he was bitten again, on the finger. He felt something sting him on the finger when he was moving some timber he had stacked down the back behind the shed. He wasn't sure what it was. After a while he stared feeling not so good and thought maybe it was a snake again so he went up to the hospital which is only a few minutes drive away from his home. He made it to the car park and couldn't make it any further, then he managed to call a passer by who came over to help him and they bought the nursing staff out to help him. He nearly died that time. He had to stay in hospital for a week. Not good, I wasn't there but I can just imagine him champing at the bit to get back outside again and not want to stay in bed. Hahaha. The doctors said next time he is bitten will probably be the last.
Just a note about these snakes. the eastern brown snake is the second most deadly snake in the world and the first one is the inland taipan. Both infamous Aussies. The eastern brown snake is a quite common and wide spread critter and although it is shy and will get out of your way if it possibly can but it will attack if cornered or breeding. They are born with a full dose of venom and can use it from birth, which has been known to trick people who pick up "that cute little baby snake"The antidote can be found in all hospitals, large and small around the state, if you are lucky, hahaha.
I have had lots of encounters with them, but that is another story.
Bye.
Love Linda.
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Monday, 22 November 2010
Sunday Scribblings "What a difference a day makes"
G'Day,
I am back for a try at the "Sunday scribblings" prompt this week after several weeks absence. Anyway I was thinking of this weeks prompt laying awake last night. What came to mind was loving hands. Don't ask me why, but here goes.
Loving Hands
A day, a year, a decade, a life time.
I have watched your hands.
The nails, the long straight fingers
as expressive as any face,
in anger, sadness or happiness,
in excited speech,
in work, in loving touch.
A touch of love, sensual, gentle
showing their strength.
Holding our new born baby,
guiding a elderly arm,
soothing towards love, or sleep.
Mistakes forgotten to their touch,
their familiar touch
A day, a year, a decade, a life time.
Together.
Bye.
Love Linda.
A day, a year, a decade, a life time.
I have watched your hands.
The nails, the long straight fingers
as expressive as any face,
in anger, sadness or happiness,
in excited speech,
in work, in loving touch.
A touch of love, sensual, gentle
showing their strength.
Holding our new born baby,
guiding a elderly arm,
soothing towards love, or sleep.
Mistakes forgotten to their touch,
their familiar touch
A day, a year, a decade, a life time.
Together.
Oh my children would cringe. Hahaha. Too embarrassing to have parents that still think like that. Yesterday was my birthday. I am now 51. The pic above was taken at my sister's wedding a few weeks ago.
Bye.
Love Linda.
Friday, 19 November 2010
Ellen's Wedding. Burra open gardens.
G'Day again,I would like this post to be part of the Friday Fertilizer prompt. You can see our host's name on my side bar. There is a Friday Fertilizer logo there. If you click on the picture it will take you to "Tootsie Time's blog and you can see what other gardeners around the world have to share.
Here are some photos from the Burra open gardens which were held on the first weekend in November. I went out there to have a look, as you read in my last entry...OMG.....bloody fantastic gardens displayed at their best. I tried to put in a link to the pics I put up on my face book account but...well you know all about my computer skills, or lack there of, so I am putting them in a separate post to share with you. OK. the first pic is of one of the many photographs I took of the wonderful Iris in flower at a nursery in Burra. All sizes shapes and colors.
Some more of the iris garden beds.
This is at another of the gardens. How would you like to wake up to this view each morning Mmmm mm-mm.Beautiful
An almost black iris. I have a special interest in black flowers.
A delicate pink iris. Iris, iris, and more iris. I did have a few in pots that were flowering but are nearly finished now. Mine were lovely, but the sheer variety and numbers here put them to shame.
Just look at the flowers.
And again, garden beds at the iris farm.
Pure gold.
Here is a red flowering gum at the second garden I visited. Very pretty and very Australian.
And... my theme flower. Waratah. The telopea. Overlooking the Burra landscape. What a view eh. I made this my flower because it is the state flower emblem from where I was born. New South Wales, and I love red. It is not that easy to grow I wondered if the owners had imported soil . The waratah will only grow in sand stone based soil which comes from around Sydney and the coastal areas around there. Certainly not the soil near Burra which is near Canberra. I know the ones growing in the botanic gardens here are in imported soils.
This is part of the second garden on display which is also run as a nursery. I had lunch here and the lady who owns this also blends tea, so it was a great visit for me and I got to sample some of her blends. It was funny trying to get my tiny little car up the steep hill when she stared to slip on the gravel corrugations but I managed it. Imagine what that driveway would have been like in wet weather, definitely an 4x4 needed.
But OH...just look at that view.
A big blood red Shirley poppy.
Another Shirley poppy. I had some of these growing happily in the last rented house we were in and had to leave them behind before I had the pleasure of seeing them in flower Grrrr. Ah well it wasn't meant to be was it.
Part of the first garden. Well is this beautiful or is this beautiful? I visited 4 of the 6 gardens on display before I ran out of time.*****************************
OK the rest of this post shows pics of my sister's wedding that I recently attended in Queensland.
The pic above is of my lovely niece Cassie, with her son Ezra 1 year old, and my son David at my sister's wedding.
The pic above is taken during the ceremony and shows beautiful my niece Tatham, her sister Cassie, my sister Ellen, the bride and my brother in law Sandy. Aren't they all beautiful.
(above) Peter and I at the wedding.
Sandy and Ellen, the Bride and Groom. Wed 31st October 2010.
My mob. David, Me, Michael, Annie and Peter.
A picture of the units we stayed in taken from the beach. Yeppoon, Queensland.
The units we stayed in at Yeppoon. It was really cool to watch the tide go in and out each day and see the subtle changes that happened on the beach.
My baby, Annie my youngest.
My great niece Ivory on the beach at Yeppoon. 4 years old.
This was an anagama kiln at a pottery near Yeppoon that my sister took me to see. It is a dragon with eyes etc to decorate it. Anagama kilns climb up a hill and are fueled by wood, they are a Japanese type kiln and need a couple of days constant stoking with wood and attention for the whole time to fire. Lots of hard work , but the end results are really something wonderful.
Before the wedding. Bride and groom. Hahaha.
Bride's daughter, my pretty niece Cassie, blowing me a kiss. Yes that head dress is just what you think it is. Hahaha.
This is the coal fired power station at Biloela where my sister lives. It is inland from Rockhampton about a 2&1/4 hour drive. The main industry for this area is coal mining and beef cattle. Great steaks, I got to sample them.I took heaps of pics over the last few weeks in my travels, I hope these few I have shared give you a bit of an idea of what I have been up to.
Cheers.
Love Linda.
Sunday, 14 November 2010
G'Day,
Is anybody out there anymore, since I have been away from my blog for so long?
Anyway, for my archives and for anyone who may be interested and still remembers me, here is an update on what I have been up to over the past month.
Well, you know if you have read in here before that I was disgruntled at having to move house. We were kicked out of the house we were living in a few weeks ago at short notice because the owners wanted to move back in. That was o.k. it is their house.
The rental market in Canberra is very competitive and each house we inspected, (and there where many,) was also visited by thirty or more other prospective renters, so as you can imagine it is quite hard and stressful to find another house to rent. We applied for seven places and had confirmation that we were accepted by the present real estate place just 3 days before our cut off date to go to Queensland for my big sister's wedding. As you can imagine it was a mad rush and we were absolutely exhausted. But we did it..... we did it. I can be very determined when I need to be and am capable of pushing myself work wise, to a place beyond where it is physically sensible to go, and I pay the price later.
So the new house? It is a small three bedder and we have had some difficulty finding places for our goods and shackles, we even had to find new homes for some or our furniture. I didn't like that but I guess it was time to do that anyway, and we still have too much stuff, I am bad at throwing things away. The house is ok though. When we moved in it smelt terrible, I guess they let their animals rule the house then tried to cover it up by perfuming it with sweet smelling cleaning chemicals, the blend was unbearable but I think it has improved with cleaning and spraying and bi-carb-soda-ing the carpets. My boss Brett came and sprayed the carpet with industrial deodorizer for me. It is funny how we will tolerate our own foibles house keeping wise, but refuse to tolerate other peoples isn't it. I am not a perfect house keeper but I reckon I am not as bad as some. I have sure seen some doozies in my cleaning work, oh boy have I, and am pleased to brag that my home has never and will never stoop to that standard.
Anyway, we have a house to live in, we had to take what we could get and BONUS! It has a great productive garden. Not too many flowers but lots of fruit trees and a vegetable patch which was very over grown but has great looking soil. Pete has been working on his days off and has weeded and replanted it with an assortment of vegetable seeds and seedlings. Part of the vege patch includes a good size and abundant strawberry patch. The fruit has no comparison to the flavorless berries sold in the supermarkets. It is great and full of juice and flavor. We have been going out the back and eating straight from the garden. There is a fig tree, a nectarine, 2 plums, a peach, 3 espaliered pear tress, 3 cherry trees, a lemon, apricot and loquat, and a large grape arbor. The old man who planted them sold this house 6 months ago and was italian, a race who are known to be great fruit and vegetable gardeners. Mushrooms have also been popping up in the back lawn and we have had several feeds of them.
So....... we went away to my sister's wedding with a house hastily jammed full of unpacked boxes and stuff every where. I had to leave my beloved cat and dog at the kennels and you should have seen their poor faces when I left them, we have never had to leave them in a kennel before, poor things. They have been so neurotic and needy since we came back.
We flew to Brisbane and then on to Rockhampton where we were met by my sister, Mum and my neice Tatham and her new beau, Brennan. We were delayed at Brisbane airport between flights for a couple of extra hours at Brisbane airport, so that was pretty annoying. Then they ferried us in two cars, (there were a few of us) a bit over 2 hours inland to the town where my sister El lives and works, Biloela. I think it has a population of around 4,000, quite a nice friendly little place. El has a house up there rent free and a car rent free with her job. Lucky bugger. It is a large house on a 5 acre block, I think the house we are in here would fit into her lounge and family/bar room easily. Haha. I got a tour of the hospital where she works and had a BBQ lunch with her workmates. They were nice people. Bonus of being the boss's little sister I guess, hahaha. We stayed there for 3 nights then moved to the coast to a town east of Rockhamptom called Yeppoon where the wedding was to be held. The place we stayed was in a great spot, right on the beach. The units were smallish but the owner was great too. It was great to sit under the coconut trees and watch the water gently lapping, the children playing, and the tides go in and out. There were lots of shells and tiny crabs all along the beach and I even got in the water and feel the gently waves rocking my body, then on the way home the taxi driver said a crocodile had been sited in the area a few days earlier....if I had known. Hahahaha. We will definitely have to go back there to explore some of the great barrier reef islands, which we didn't get to look at this time around. North Keppel and Great Keppel islands where right in front of us there.
The wedding was great, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. There were visitors from all up and down the eastern seaboard of Australia. I put some of the photios in my face book page and I will try to put a link in here so anyone who wants can have a look at them. As I said I will try, ha ha.
So back to Canberra and her pleasures. Yep it is a good place to live. The drought has broken and spring is in all her glory after all the rain we have had, beautiful. It has rained again today on and off, we seem to be getting showers every second day lately.
Last weekend after doing a lot of sorting and organizing trying to get everything in the house organized I went out on Sunday afternoon to an open garden display at Burra. Burra is a semi rural area near here. O.M.G. you should have seen those gardens. Just gorgeous. Emerald green countryside, landscaping and flowers every where. I got to see 4 or the 6 gardens before I ran out of time in the afternoon. I was talking to a lady at one of the gardens and we were saying how do people manage to put all of their time into gardens like that to get them up to such a standard to display. Well two of the gardens were run as a sideline to small businesses run by the owners. One lady and her son ran a nursery and tea blending business, another husband and wife team were iris breeders and there were over 7000 named varieties all in flower at just the right time, so spectacular. At the nursery place I was lucky to negotiate the driveway in my tiny car though, she started slipping on a steep hill and the corrugated dirt gravel road, hahaha. But, when I got up there....oh the views! I had lunch there and spent my money before I got to the iris place so couldn't buy any of the plants there, ah well I have other irises and they are in flower now too, though the rain today is probably finishing them off.
Yesterday I got some extra work at the university where they are renovating a big cafeteria, so lots of scraping cement and climbing up and down ladders and mopping plaster dust off floors, but the extra few hours pay will be nice with Christmas fast approaching.
I went shopping today and bought some cloths for the warm weather, two pairs of trousers and two shirts. Nice.
I have also started a course of treatment on my poor old legs. I have been having acupuncture and acupressure massage. The acupressure massage has been quite painful. They seem to know just where to dig their fingers into your legs to cause the most pain, but it seems to have made a difference already. What I have been blaming on being fat for many years on my lower legs is actually fluid from bad circulation and with the treatment the swelling has started to go down. I am interested to follow through and see what results are accomplished. If it works the way I would like it to I will be able to go on long walks and exercise again the way I would like to do without pain and finish a shift at work without hobbling home and out of the car like a drunken person at the end of the day.
O.k. that's about all for the update for now.
Bye .
Love Linda.
Is anybody out there anymore, since I have been away from my blog for so long?
Anyway, for my archives and for anyone who may be interested and still remembers me, here is an update on what I have been up to over the past month.
Well, you know if you have read in here before that I was disgruntled at having to move house. We were kicked out of the house we were living in a few weeks ago at short notice because the owners wanted to move back in. That was o.k. it is their house.
The rental market in Canberra is very competitive and each house we inspected, (and there where many,) was also visited by thirty or more other prospective renters, so as you can imagine it is quite hard and stressful to find another house to rent. We applied for seven places and had confirmation that we were accepted by the present real estate place just 3 days before our cut off date to go to Queensland for my big sister's wedding. As you can imagine it was a mad rush and we were absolutely exhausted. But we did it..... we did it. I can be very determined when I need to be and am capable of pushing myself work wise, to a place beyond where it is physically sensible to go, and I pay the price later.
So the new house? It is a small three bedder and we have had some difficulty finding places for our goods and shackles, we even had to find new homes for some or our furniture. I didn't like that but I guess it was time to do that anyway, and we still have too much stuff, I am bad at throwing things away. The house is ok though. When we moved in it smelt terrible, I guess they let their animals rule the house then tried to cover it up by perfuming it with sweet smelling cleaning chemicals, the blend was unbearable but I think it has improved with cleaning and spraying and bi-carb-soda-ing the carpets. My boss Brett came and sprayed the carpet with industrial deodorizer for me. It is funny how we will tolerate our own foibles house keeping wise, but refuse to tolerate other peoples isn't it. I am not a perfect house keeper but I reckon I am not as bad as some. I have sure seen some doozies in my cleaning work, oh boy have I, and am pleased to brag that my home has never and will never stoop to that standard.
Anyway, we have a house to live in, we had to take what we could get and BONUS! It has a great productive garden. Not too many flowers but lots of fruit trees and a vegetable patch which was very over grown but has great looking soil. Pete has been working on his days off and has weeded and replanted it with an assortment of vegetable seeds and seedlings. Part of the vege patch includes a good size and abundant strawberry patch. The fruit has no comparison to the flavorless berries sold in the supermarkets. It is great and full of juice and flavor. We have been going out the back and eating straight from the garden. There is a fig tree, a nectarine, 2 plums, a peach, 3 espaliered pear tress, 3 cherry trees, a lemon, apricot and loquat, and a large grape arbor. The old man who planted them sold this house 6 months ago and was italian, a race who are known to be great fruit and vegetable gardeners. Mushrooms have also been popping up in the back lawn and we have had several feeds of them.
So....... we went away to my sister's wedding with a house hastily jammed full of unpacked boxes and stuff every where. I had to leave my beloved cat and dog at the kennels and you should have seen their poor faces when I left them, we have never had to leave them in a kennel before, poor things. They have been so neurotic and needy since we came back.
We flew to Brisbane and then on to Rockhampton where we were met by my sister, Mum and my neice Tatham and her new beau, Brennan. We were delayed at Brisbane airport between flights for a couple of extra hours at Brisbane airport, so that was pretty annoying. Then they ferried us in two cars, (there were a few of us) a bit over 2 hours inland to the town where my sister El lives and works, Biloela. I think it has a population of around 4,000, quite a nice friendly little place. El has a house up there rent free and a car rent free with her job. Lucky bugger. It is a large house on a 5 acre block, I think the house we are in here would fit into her lounge and family/bar room easily. Haha. I got a tour of the hospital where she works and had a BBQ lunch with her workmates. They were nice people. Bonus of being the boss's little sister I guess, hahaha. We stayed there for 3 nights then moved to the coast to a town east of Rockhamptom called Yeppoon where the wedding was to be held. The place we stayed was in a great spot, right on the beach. The units were smallish but the owner was great too. It was great to sit under the coconut trees and watch the water gently lapping, the children playing, and the tides go in and out. There were lots of shells and tiny crabs all along the beach and I even got in the water and feel the gently waves rocking my body, then on the way home the taxi driver said a crocodile had been sited in the area a few days earlier....if I had known. Hahahaha. We will definitely have to go back there to explore some of the great barrier reef islands, which we didn't get to look at this time around. North Keppel and Great Keppel islands where right in front of us there.
The wedding was great, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. There were visitors from all up and down the eastern seaboard of Australia. I put some of the photios in my face book page and I will try to put a link in here so anyone who wants can have a look at them. As I said I will try, ha ha.
So back to Canberra and her pleasures. Yep it is a good place to live. The drought has broken and spring is in all her glory after all the rain we have had, beautiful. It has rained again today on and off, we seem to be getting showers every second day lately.
Last weekend after doing a lot of sorting and organizing trying to get everything in the house organized I went out on Sunday afternoon to an open garden display at Burra. Burra is a semi rural area near here. O.M.G. you should have seen those gardens. Just gorgeous. Emerald green countryside, landscaping and flowers every where. I got to see 4 or the 6 gardens before I ran out of time in the afternoon. I was talking to a lady at one of the gardens and we were saying how do people manage to put all of their time into gardens like that to get them up to such a standard to display. Well two of the gardens were run as a sideline to small businesses run by the owners. One lady and her son ran a nursery and tea blending business, another husband and wife team were iris breeders and there were over 7000 named varieties all in flower at just the right time, so spectacular. At the nursery place I was lucky to negotiate the driveway in my tiny car though, she started slipping on a steep hill and the corrugated dirt gravel road, hahaha. But, when I got up there....oh the views! I had lunch there and spent my money before I got to the iris place so couldn't buy any of the plants there, ah well I have other irises and they are in flower now too, though the rain today is probably finishing them off.
Yesterday I got some extra work at the university where they are renovating a big cafeteria, so lots of scraping cement and climbing up and down ladders and mopping plaster dust off floors, but the extra few hours pay will be nice with Christmas fast approaching.
I went shopping today and bought some cloths for the warm weather, two pairs of trousers and two shirts. Nice.
I have also started a course of treatment on my poor old legs. I have been having acupuncture and acupressure massage. The acupressure massage has been quite painful. They seem to know just where to dig their fingers into your legs to cause the most pain, but it seems to have made a difference already. What I have been blaming on being fat for many years on my lower legs is actually fluid from bad circulation and with the treatment the swelling has started to go down. I am interested to follow through and see what results are accomplished. If it works the way I would like it to I will be able to go on long walks and exercise again the way I would like to do without pain and finish a shift at work without hobbling home and out of the car like a drunken person at the end of the day.
O.k. that's about all for the update for now.
Bye .
Love Linda.
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