A BRIEF BREAK FROM SELF-IMPOSED ISOLATION Yesterday I ventured past my driveway for the first time in ages to walk to the chemist in Blackheath village. My little camera is always in my pocket, so here are a few pics taken along the way. April is such
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I made my first, post bushfires visit to Lithgow recently. This town has such spirit and resilience. Nowhere is it better expressed than in a laneway off the main street featuring art created from discarded bicycles. How’s this for sheer exuberance? The exhibit at the top of
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About 30 metres below the Park Avenue gates in Memorial Park at Blackheath is a huge thicket of invasive weeds; blackberries, ivy, scarlet montbretia, red hot pokers etc. A lone Japanese maple struggles to survive in the centre. The irony is that satin bowerbirds, wattle birds and
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Just before Christmas, as the bush fires crept ever closer to Blackheath and we all suffered in the heatwave, I photographed a little tractor and water tank in Wentworth Street. I assumed it must be someone’s home fire protection unit. Mind you, I did wonder about the
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Hello, Editor Des here. Well we had nasty fires up here in the Blue Mountains at Christmas time. It was very scary for my guardian Pauline Conolly. However, Mr Bob Conolly and myself protected everything and were extremely brave…especially me if I may say so. But the
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Absinthe is a distilled, highly alcoholic drink. It is anise flavoured, derived from the plants wormwood, green anise and sweet fennel. It was popular in early 20thC Paris, especially among bohemian artists and writers such as Picasso, Proust, Vincent van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar
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Who would imagine that dear old hydrangeas would hold up so well during the recent fires and heatwave conditions in the Blue Mountains? The origin of the name seems to contradict the very notion that they would! ‘First discovered in Japan, the name hydrangea comes from the
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Time to be out and about now the fire risk has subsided. My own garden is a disaster, with only the natives and hydrangeas holding up. But how is everything else going in this awful heatwave I wonder? Well, to my great surprise an ibis has taken
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It can be a bit of a worry when your long term neighbours sell up, especially if they were really nice. What if the new owners have non-stop barking dogs, or are throwers of wild parties? That might sound a bit grouchy, but as an aging baby-boomer
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I never could resist a nativity play. They are usually performed by sweet little schoolchildren, so an adult version was something of a novelty for me. Titled, The Shepherds’ Play , it was held in the dining room of The New Ivanhoe Hotel last night. All seats
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