a very special visitor

Today we had a visit from an Australian native bird, a kookaburra. He (actually we don't know if it's a male) has been sitting on the fence for a few days, apparently waiting for us to feed him (look at that beak, he's a carnivore). Today he flew right up on to the balcony rail and stayed there for about twenty minutes -- long enough for me to phone DD and have the boys meet our visitor through the magic of the Internet.

You can see he wasn't at all fussed about how close we got to him either!

Kookaburras are related to kingfishers. We didn't have any meat in the house but we did have some raw/green prawns (shrimp). He didn't seem to like it much but eventually ate about half a prawn -- I hope it doesn't upset his digestion too much. Perhaps he will visit us again -- we'd better see if we can find some more curl grubs in our daily gardening sessions; what better use for these root eating pests than to feed them to a beautiful native?

fire season

The combination of a dry spring, unusually hot weather and extraordinarily strong winds brought tragedy to the Blue Mountains, just a few kilometres west of us yesterday.

Many people in the township of Springwood and the suburb of Winmalee lost their homes but, as far as we are aware, there has been no loss of life.

The photo below was taken by WM from our front yard, looking west towards the mountains. The tree is in the back yard of the house behind our neighbours across the road, maybe eighty metres away from our front door. The two major fires are in the mountains across the river; the closest one (at Winmalee) is a distance of about twelve kilometres (7.5 miles) in a straight line -- much further to drive!

Please pray for the safety of the fire-fighters (a friend of ours is one of them) and for those who have lost their homes. And please pray for no more fires -- bushfire season is October to March and there has been too much devastation already!

Home again!

We arrived to a cold, wet, miserable day in Sydney. Our train was 45 minutes late getting into the terminal but we didn't have too long to wait for a suburban train to take us home. MIL was waiting for us at the station which was lovely. We had lunch together then she left, WM went to get the cat from the boarding kennel and I unpacked! Isn't that the worst part of arriving home?

Last night WM and I worked on our travel blog (you can find it over here if you'd like to see some of our photos). We are one day away from having it completely finished!

I did work on my hexie project on the train but didn't do anywhere near as much as I expected. This was partly because the lighting wasn't strong enough for me to see my stitching, and partly because there were views to watch, meals to eat and excursions to be taken as well as a blog to keep updating! However, it was always meant to be a long term project so I'm not at all concerned -- it is ready to go any time I have  the urge for some hand-piecing.

The hexie project bag I was working on before I went away is almost finished. In my last class before I went away, I lined the bag and joined the two pieces together with the casing. All it needed was the casing to be hand-stitched down. I took the project away with me but I didn't touch it. It was too difficult to sew in a moving motor-home and I was too tired in the evenings to sew (or do any other form of craft)!

I took three knitting projects with me: yarn and needles for the bed socks mum had asked me to knit, Emily's unfinished baby blanket and an almost-finished pair of socks. The last two projects never saw the light of day! The bed socks are finished but I didn't get them done in time for Beulah's birthday so they are still with me (mum gave Beulah something else). What's that? You want to see them...

Here is one.

They are both finished but I only put one on to take the photo with my iPad. They are knitted cuff down in Moda Vera Marvel (DK) on 3.75mm double-pointed needles to a pattern I modified from Wendy Johnson's Lacy Ribs Socks (Ravelry link). This is the link to my Ravelry page. My modification was to add a rib of mock cabling between the lace; I think the mock cabling should have been done every fourth row instead of every eighth; what do you think?

Anyway, I have four loads of washing to do -- one is on the line (it's a cloudless, mild winter day today), one is in the machine and two are still on the laundry room floor! Then I'd better go and help WM in the garden -- it is overgrown with weeds due to three months of concentrating on the Renovation Project (no, it hasn't rented yet!) followed by our three week absence!

And I still have over 500 blog posts to catch up on! :-(

the last time

Today was the last visit to the Renovation Project for WM and I.

The painter finished today and we did our final clean up, hung the curtains, removed the last of our possessions (cleaning items, handyman tools, coffee, tea bags, etc) and closed the door for the last time.

It has taken us many hours over a period of eleven weeks, with at least ten full days included. Yesterday we were there until nearly seven o'clock. We were back there this morning, returned home for lunch, and went back in the afternoon when we knew the painter would be finished.

Who knew how hard it is to clean up old paint flakes from all around the house where the painter had scraped down the old paint under the eaves?

who knew how hard it is to keep little bits of old paint flakes off our shoes and out of a clean house? It didn't help that it started raining on Wednesday afternoon, poured much of Thursday and couldn't make up its mind today! So we trekked in mud and little bits of grass as well as the paint flakes. Being an empty house in terms of occupants, there was no doormat on which to wipe our feet so we had to use an old curtain in the laundry so we could wipe our feet (and stomp them too) as we came in the back door.

Look closely at the very dirty floor!

Anyway, it's all over now -- we've handed the house over to the property manager that DD and SIL have chosen. We hope there will be (good) tenants in soon -- I don't like the idea of the house standing empty, especially as it has a lane down one side and a reserve at the back.

It's not the house it was when they bought it!

In the meantime, I am typing this while sitting on a bed in a motel room overlooking Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport. Tomorrow morning we're leaving on a jet plane bound for Perth, the capital of Western Australia -- nearly 4,000 kilometres (about 2,485 miles) from here for a well-deserved three-week holiday.

I hope you'll join us as we travel around some of the southern parts of Australia's largest state (2,500,000 square kilometres -- 965,000 square miles).

birdlife at Patonga

This is the house we stayed in (taken at low tide; at high tide the rocks in the right foreground were in the water)

... the advertising didn't mention all those stairs to the right of the photo up to the wooden balustrade then the walk across the front of the house to the even steeper flight of stairs up the left side of the house!


On the Monday after DD, SIL and GS#1 left, WM spent some time taking photos, including this bush turkey (WM was on the upper deck, the turkey on the balustrade below)
 
WM went downstairs to take this shot:
 


And who could resist these kookaburras?


Kookaburras are sometimes called "laughing jackasses" because of their unusual call. If you've never heard one, you can see a short video here.



As you can see from this sharp hooked beak, kookaburras are carnivores.

It's interesting to watch them bashing cold sausages just as if they were killing a live lizard or snake!

Australia in the Round

Yesterday, another teacher and I took our (adult) students to the Blue Mountains village of Glenbrook to view Aitkens' "Australia in the Round".

We travelled by train from Blacktown to Glenbrook then walked for ten minutes from the station to the gallery. The gallery is at the rear of The Blue Mountains Cafe and Gift Shop, in Wascoe St.

Our students are unlikely to travel to some of the places shown in the paintings - some are 4,000 kilometres (2500 miles) from where we viewed the paintings - so it was good for them to look at landscapes they would never see otherwise.

Uluru (a.k.a. Ayers Rock), Northern Territory
from http://www.visitbluemountains.com.au/

But, what was more impressive and educationally perhaps more useful, at least from my point of view, were the simulated landscapes, complete with fauna and flora, in front of the paintings. Real red dust had been brought from Central Australia. Animals had been carefully "stuffed" (apologies to any taximdermists out here) and posed realistically. If the students had been quiet (which, of course, they weren't), they would have been able to hear the soundtrack of nature - Australian style.

kookaburra (a.k.a. Laughing Jackass)
from http://www.aitkenspanorama.com.au/

Photography was not allowed in the gallery so I have downloaded some photos to share with you. These photos do not show the real beauty of the paintings but they do give you a glimpse of what we saw.

from http://www.aitkenspanorama.com.au/

the Jamieson Valley
from http://penrith-press.whereilive.com.au/

I am a strong believer in copyright and uphold the right of the artist (Falk Kautzner) and Mr Aitken (the owner of the gallery) to not allow photos to be taken in the gallery. I also uphold the rights of photographers not to have their work claimed as my own. However, I have no qualms about using these photos - I have stated where they came from and am giving the gallery the publicity for which these photos were taken in the first place.

If you are ever in Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains, do visit the gallery (the food and service at the Cafe are excellent too) but be warned - there is a charge to view the paintings.

If you can't make it, the website is here: you can view all the paintings; which is not as good as visiting but "virtual reality" is better than nothing.