CHRISTMAS DOWN-UNDER John O’Grady once wrote a best selling book called, They’re a Weird Mob. It was about Australians and yes….we are a bit strange. What do you expect when we live in an upside down world? Alice in Wonderland described our fair country as; WHERE
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Hello, Editor Des here, Well I have been searching all over Sydney for the best Christmas tree. I found the first one in Cremorne when we were having a little holiday. I thought I really set it off. I’m a true ornament. Hahaha. Red and green
Read more →JINGLE BELLS….. You could decorate a Christmas tree with the sweet, native bell flowers that flourish in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. In fact, I have done this in my garden at Blackheath. I used correas, cinnamon bells and apple berry blooms to adorn a
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HEAVENS ABOVE….DUCKS! I wandered out into the garden one spring morning and heard a soft clucking coming from high in a gum tree. It was a goose like duck, which was soon joined by a wooing male. Such handsome birds. They are Australian native wood ducks, and
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Perhaps the most entertaining and interesting bird in my Blue Mountains garden is the Australian Satin Bowerbird. The difference in appearance between females and juveniles and the adult male is hard to believe. Initially the birds are olive green, with cream and brown scalloped chests, bronze wings
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A few years ago I discovered a most extraordinary Australian native plant thriving in my Blue Mountains garden. Mind you, I confess that for some time I did my best to eradicate it. My worry was that exotic pine seedlings were invading from the property next door.
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THE YELLOW ROBIN AT HOME It lives in the mountains where moss and the sedges, Touch with their beauty, the banks and the ledges. D.F. Thomson Australia’s Eastern Yellow Robins are as trusting as the English redbreasts, although they are not related. They will hop about your
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In Australia’s bicentennial year of 2000, artist Vernon Treweeke completed a mural of an imagined night train journey through the villages of the magnificent Blue Mountains of New South Wales. The mural decorates the walls of the pedestrian tunnel beneath Katoomba station. Three of the villages were
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Hello, Editor Des here! Well Pauline was going to do some research at the State Library in Sydney so I went along too. I thought I might start trying to find my ancestors. Just hope I don’t turn out to be related to Paddington or Pooh…especially Paddington.
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Hello, You know how Pauline Conolly posts rather showoffy pictures of her garden? Well I’m about to take her down a peg or two, hahaha. Made a little bicycle tour the other day and by gum there are some pretty dire ‘blots’ ! Here I go down
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