Hateful Weather…
Heat – 35 degrees. So one swims.
Winds – 130 kms. One takes shelter.
A cool change. Winds of 137 kms. One battens down the hatches.
Broken willow – again. How much more can my beloved front willow take?
Heat – 35 degrees. So one swims.
Winds – 130 kms. One takes shelter.
A cool change. Winds of 137 kms. One battens down the hatches.
Broken willow – again. How much more can my beloved front willow take?
Remember a while back, I said my blogs for the moment would be mostly photo essays? Well after writing 3500 words and editing 50,000 over the last two days, I took the day off with my husband!
Went away for the day to a place we call Fourmile (a little beach on Maria Island across the Passage from House, about 9 nautical miles). It was the first day that I have really relaxed since Mum’s accident 6 weeks ago. I mean really relax because we played Robinson Crusoe. In all the years we’ve been going to Fourmile, we have never seen anyone-else there and this was no different.
At last.
After the worst December and early January in my memory with our weather (not to mention Mum’s accident!), we have finally hit pay-dirt. Yesterday was lovely but the water was very cool for swimming as we’ve not had many sunny days. I emerged with skin burning and bones aching.
Sometimes hospitals can be so draining and visiting a loved one every day, just so. So after our visit today we loaded a picnic in the car and drove to the southern beaches area.
We had done part of it before, looking at the fire damage from last January. This time we took another turn-off and did the rest and in the process finding a very beautiful little beach to which I shall be bringing my kayak on the next hot north-easterly day.
I wanted a tree to suit our little coastal cottage and found some wonderful ideas on Pinterest.
So I walked the beach and found driftwood in shifting shades of grey and ivory.
Brought it home. Cut it to different lengths.
What did I do when it was a cold, mizzly Sunday?
I went to Blackman’s Bay and watched the waves pelting round the point.
Straight from Antarctica.
There’s nothing like crashing waves, spray and rock and roll.
NB: new camera and an amateur who doesn’t read the instruction book – sorry if pics are ordinary!
Drafting ewes and lambs through the yards.
Jackeroos having to hold hats in wind.
Crutching the ewes (taking the mucky wool from their bums so they don’t get flystrike in the summer), husband waiting to go into pens to drench the ewes (so they don’t get worms). Blurred image…
When in the city, this is my reading and writing corner of the study/spare room…
Love reading with the feet up. Note stickies poking out of research book like echidna’s spines…
The shelves that contain the most used of the research books, my absolute favourites because of their clarity and information, also a container of many pens, a Snow Queen Matrushka Doll, bookmarks celebrating earlier books of mine…
My black and white tulips started it.
Followed by the clever mum who produced black and white twins. And then the mum who produced one black lamb.
All of a sudden, I was singing Ebony and Ivory…
Vita Sackville West’s White Garden at Sissinghurst is iconic and many gardeners, myself included, have tried to create their own little piece of that superb garden.
My own lasts about 2-4 weeks in spring, a much awaited sea of white before the summer dry begins. VSW wrote for The Guardian’s gardening column and in 1950, this is what she said about the idea of growing a mono-colour garden: