Birthday Geoff

Happy birthday Geoff! To celebrate the big eight zero, I thought we might celebrate some of your early years. Aren't you just gorgeous, young man.

Then I couldn't resist this photograph of my mother and Geoff in January 1943. This is one of a number of photos taken in Bryanston, in the swimming pool of the house next door to the one we grew up in.

And finally, one of the family -- remembering that grandmother Jessie Kathleen Margaret shares a birthday with Geoff. She was born in 1900. I think this is probably about 1945-ish.

Happy happy day, Geoff and family!

Sunday fiddling

Last Sunday we went to watch and listen to our friend David playing his fiddle with the Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Club. The performance was in a local park, about 3 km away from our house.

The young couple in the photo above are Judy (Mary and David's younger daughter) and her young man Etienne. Etienne and his family come from Pretoria, and moved to Melbourne in the same year as we did.

Here's my friend Mary, in the orange top and white pants.

But on to the music. This is the Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Club. Our friend David is the bearded man, standing on the right of the pic. His face is obscured by the microphone in this photo, but you can see him better (well, maybe) in the video that follows. Enjoy the little slice of music -- we did!

Meet the fish

In our kitchen there is a fish bowl ...

... and in that fish bowl there are two fish. Meet our fish! These critters are fairly young -- they've been with us for about six months. My previous fish lived for more than ten years in this very bowl, but sadly passed on to the great fish bowl in the sky last year.

As you can see, these are minimalist pets. No fancy equipment in the bowl -- just some elodia (weed) that grows happily forever. This elodia is about six years old. I break off the old bits every week and throw them away. I also scoop out the fish into a plastic container, wash out the bowl with dishwashing liquid, and fill it up with tap water. That's my fish-keeping regime and it seems to work beautifully! The food costs about $5 for two years' supply, so they're pretty economical too.

Jolly difficult to take photographs of fish, it appears. They're never in the same spot together long enough -- and they're not very obedient. And no, they don't have names. They're fish.

Traffic fine 1943

We've inherited so many interesting documents that Mom (and her parents) kept over the decades. This traffic fine issued in 1943 is a wonderful example. It's still in pounds-shillings-pence: this is for seven and six (7 shillings and 6 pence)!

Mom was born in July 1929, so she would have been fourteen-and-a-half when this was issued. What on earth was she doing to get a traffic fine?

These photos are of my mother that I think were taken probably around this time. Maybe she was driving her father's car too fast ...? We'll never know.

Birthday Luke

Happy 27th birthday Luke! And oh, the nostalgia! Here is Luke at 22 months -- so, this would have been November 1987. Yes, I acknowledge that his hair was a bit long, but I knew once we cut off those blonde curls, that they'd be gone forever. (No blonde curls now, that's for sure.) Also of note is that I think Heidi made these little dungarees. Sooo cute.

Knysna

What an incredible view!! This is taken from Ei and Wyn Gay's magnificent home in Pezula, Knysna, where between Christmas and New Year we spent a wonderful few days relaxing, resting and ... 

... playing golf. If you look carefully, you can see Tennille in the red shorts on the right hand side.

... fishing. Sadly not even a bite although we could see the little critters swimming in the lagoon.

... missing sandbanks especially when the tide was low. Hee hee.



... eating tapas at Bramon Wine Estate just outside Plettenberg Bay, in the vineyards.

... eating some more.  NOBODY MESSED WITH THE CHEF!!

... watching the sun go down over the hills above Knysna.

... enjoying the magnificent flora.

... and lots of drinking! This was taken at Feather Bed on the Knysna Lagoon, only accessible by boat. Just as well the fish weren't biting!

Birthday Heidi

Happy birthday Heids! I have been keeping this photo for this special occasion -- it's one of my favourites. I estimate it was taken around 1964 or 1965, and Heidi would have been about seven or eight years old. It's taken in our pool, in the Berkeley Avenue house. We have very few colour photos from that time, so perhaps this was taken on a special occasion.

January oysters

Thought I'd share my first oysters of 2013. These are my favourite -- Sydney rock oysters. And where better to eat Sydney rock oysters than next to the Opera House, looking across Circular Quay to the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Australian Garden

We visited the Australian Garden in Cranbourne, about 40 km east of Melbourne, on a cool, cloudy afternoon. The Australian Garden is the indigenous part of Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens, and includes bushwalks, cycling tracks and walking tracks. It's an impressive experience.

The Australian Garden is organised around a central Sand Garden, with stylised sand, rock and plant features that reference Aboriginal art. Central Australia is called the 'red centre' -- the sand in the deserts and arid areas is this rich, ochre red. The plants in the third photo below are called kangaroo paws, as the little flowers look like ... well, kangaroo paws.

There are art installations throughout the gardens, such as these 'rain sculptures'. You spin the disk and there is the sound of falling rain.

References to Aboriginal symbology are worked beautifully into the gardens. Here is the rainbow serpent in the form of a path that wends its way through a bed.

These grass trees (left) are hundreds of years old. The flowering spikes were used as spears by Aboriginal people. On the right, and below, are some of the many banksias. I think the pink fluffy flowers are a pink acacia.

The water features are imaginative and fun.

We walked about 500 m outside the garden, through the bush, to a lookout point. This is from the lookout, looking back to the garden -- you can see the red centre ...

... and we were pleased to see fauna of the hopping variety (a wallaby) and not of the slithering variety.

Well, an outing is not complete without a visit to the garden cafe. And what should we find there but two ring-tail possums, curled up in their peculiarly situated nest between window and louvre shutters? They're nocturnal (pests), so while they look jolly uncomfortable, clearly this pair has adapted to this odd home.