When you have a large garden filled with birds there are lots of opportunities to create photographic images for occasions such as Christmas and New Year. So why not Valentine’s Day? Admittedly I’ve been married over 40 years, but Rob is still my knight in shining armour.
Read more →So where could my partner and I go for a special celebration lunch in the Upper Blue Mountains? Our preference was for somewhere we’d never been before. After many recommendations on our local community site we decided to try Pins on Lurline, located in a lovely
Read more →Seven years ago I was seriously ill in a Sydney Hospital with a hideous, undiagnosed condition. It was affecting my brain, my heart, my muscles…. and just about everything else. Part of my stabilizing medication was a very high dose of the steroid Prednisone. Among the side
Read more →Now I’m pleased to report that you can still buy stamps at the Sydney G.P.O., and post your letters in those wonderful old post boxes facing George Street. But these days the privatised, refurbished G.P.O building is also home to bars, restaurants, cabaret shows, cafes and high-end
Read more →It has been a long courting season for the bowerbird in Blackheath’s Memorial Park. I began monitoring his ‘boudoir’ in mid August 2018. Without doubt it was one of the most beautiful, symmetrically arranged collections of blue treasures I had ever seen. WOOING IS A WEARYSOME BUSINESS
Read more →WELL HELLO AGAIN GANG-GANGS! After not seeing Gang-gang cockatoos in my Blue Mountains garden for several years I was delighted when a lively group arrived. There were lured by the ripening seeds on my various wattle trees (acacias). They have been returning almost every day. So far
Read more →WHAT A STAR! I have the gentle climber Star Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminodes ) growing all around my garden (ten plants at last count). It is extremely hardy, and survives our Blue Mountains frosts and snowfalls without the slightest problem. In the photo below it is tumbling down
Read more →In 1924, fundraising began for a carillon at Sydney University, to remember the undergraduates, graduates, and staff who died in World War One. When they hear the glorious peals of the carillon, young men will see visions and old men will dream dreams. Justice Street. The project was
Read more →Susan Glaspell wrote A Jury of Her Peers in 1917. It is one of the most powerful short stories I have ever read. The three female characters have remained in my heart and mind since I first came across this early piece of feminist literature over twenty
Read more →Cinnamon Bells is the common name of a very strange orchid in my Blackeath garden. Its botanical name is Gastrodia procera. This leafless, Australian native has been dubbed the Potato Orchid, as the tubers the plants grow from were roasted and eaten by Aborigines (particularly the Wurundjeri
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