Christmas Day

In years gone by we have always had friends come on Christmas eve for drinks and nibbles and then viewed "The Star" from our paddock when it was dark. I first saw "The Star" twenty two years ago when we first arrived here. There were no trees on our block except for the ginormous sugar gum on the corner of our block near the gate. So we had a clear view from our bedroom window to the Sellicks Hills. And there, the week before Christmas, I was jolted with this view of a giant Star on those hills. It was magic and most years after that, except for once or twice, the Star appeared just before Christmas. Now of course our trees have grown so much they block the view from the window and we lead our guests out into the paddock to see the magic Star.Last night we only had four of our friends who were able to join us and one couple had not seen this before and were enchanted by the scene.It was a beautiful , clear and calm night which added to the magic of it all. Being in the "third age" we finished the night early.

This morning was lovely and cool and as we were on our own, the first time for years, we opened our present and marveled at my new journal book created for me by a dear friend who lives interstate and is extremely creative. I shall love using it in the New Year. Brian was very pleased with his 18 year old whiskey. I was very touched to get a Christmas message on my mobile from the eldest step grandson, such a pleasure to know he remembers us, the young are notorious now for totally ignoring almost everyone, so it was doubly good.
We left about mid morning to go to my brother and sister in law's place a little way out of Strathalbyn. We always take the shortcut through the Kuitpo forest and we marvelled at all the Christmas bushes flowering in profusion along the way. It is the native Bursaria spinosa and we have two bushes on our place as well but not flowering as prolifically as these.

 To the left is a photo of our little Christmas tree which consists of a couple of Cyprus branches. I keep up with that tradition as my youngest son always brought home a branch from the pine trees when we were at Hughes Park and he used to decorate it right from when he was a little tacker.







Below is the Christmas table my sister in law organized and decorated.

We had a very pleasant day with my brother and sister in law, a lovely lunch and after coffee we went and looked at her bromilliad collection while Brian looked at my brother's blowlamps collection. Took a lot of photos of the plants which are quite beautiful and of course brought one home! They have native rats in their garden and they are a real pest though quite cute looking.They dig underground passages and if you happen to step where they are, the ground collapses and you can have a nasty fall. My brother trapped 70 this season and lets them go in a reserve as you are not allowed to destroy them, being native.
When we came home there were several messages on our answering machine and two people had called in and left greetings and presents for us.
We wound up the day by having a Chivas Regal on the front verandah watching the birds diving into the pond for their evening drink. So another lovely Christmas day ended!!

A Treasure of a Day

Had a fabulous cello lesson this morning with my teacher saying she thought I had really progressed with my Elegie by Faure...it spurs me on. After lunch I went to Noarlunga and Harvey Normans to see about a graphic tablet and my friend there offered me a used Nikon D80 for a price I couldn't refuse.When I arrived home with it and showed Brian he was over the moon for me, so now we will be able to go on photo shoots together!.
Tuesday 18th December.
This morning the light was so beautiful I took more shots of the flowering Raintree and the pond.The Agapanthus are very vivid this year too, though they all need to be revitalised after the flowering, dug up and sorted out.
We are getting close to Christmas now and we still haven't got a little tree yet, perhaps tomorrow ( creeps in this petty pace from day to day) can't remember the rest of that quote...
My violin friend rang this morning sounding somewhat stressed so we have cancelled our music playing till after the New year unless we find a free day between now and then. what is it with the Christmas season? Everyone seems to get so wound up, food seems to be the major worry, yet we have so much now we are able to buy. Looked at some turkey legs in the supermarket this morning and I wondered if they may not have been emu? they were huge (and tough I imagine) still, done in the slow cooker they would be fine with wine and herbs......

Golden Rain Trees Flowering

The Golden Rain Trees are flowering now. They originally

came from my friend Washington Parker who chose them for street trees in Watervale  when he was councilor there in the 1970ies.The trees are now 20 years old and have managed to cope with the droughts we have had for quite a few years.I love their flowers and then their clusters of Chinese lanterns which rustle in the wind and then drop their little round black seeds in the autumn when the leaves turn all golden and beautiful.The resulting crop of little seedlings are easy to deal with. Two have escaped our notice of course but as they were in quite suitable places we have let them go on and they are managing to compete with gumtrees.
The Kniphofia is flowering too now as well as the small Agapanthus. The Morning Glory vine has gone berserk as they are inclined to do, but I adore their spectacular blue/purple flowers. We have had 6ml of rain and the lawn is now covered in yellow oxtongue thistle flowers !! it will all need mowing again and as I have a suspected stress fracture in my left foot I am supposed to rest it, mowing may be a slow process.It is neither here nor there compared to what is going on in the rest of the world.I wept last night for all the horrors we see on the news.I only look at the news to get the weather map and forecast which I note down each evening so that we can look at it in the morning to remember what the forecast was for the day!! I know, you will tell me the radio announces it each morning but we don't ever have the radio on before 10am ,if at all.
Brian has just come in to tell me it is sherry time.We started having a sherry on a Sunday lunch time so we sit on our front verandah and watch the birds and the fountain on the pond.......a little ritual...

Train ride to Adelaide

This morning we braved the hot weather (forecast 36 C)and left early in case of hold-ups with all the roadworks going on, to catch the 9.45am from Noarlunga center to Adelaide. I love train travel and the scenery along the coast at Hallett Cove is spectacular.We traveled past the State's white elephant, the Desal Plant, and all the graffiti on the fences along the way. Some of this is quite artistic and at Oaklands park it is positively stunning. I think it is Oaklands Park but it may be another station. On reflection it was possibly Hove.It is also amazing how some of the plant life survives along the track, on banks so bare and desolate looking. The ubiquitous artichoke thistle flowering away with the stunning purple flower which later will turn a beautiful golden colour. Fabulous in dried arrangements my late sister in law used to create when we lived on Hughes Park and our horse paddock was covered in them. The horses would pull back their lips and delicately bite the golden tufts to get at the very palletable seeds. Hundreds of Galahs would land on the plants as well and create such a din with their screetching on a Sunday morning when we had a chance to sleep in, we would go out and shoot at them to move them on. By then ofcourse we would be wide awake and stay up and make our pot of tea and drink copious amounts at a leasurely pace.
Back to our train journey. The train goes past the new hospital they are building at the railway yards and it looks like a massive place. We got to Adelaide in good time and were shown how to use our new Seniors card to get through the gate.Walking through the underpass to Hindley street to the Grainger studio where we were going to hear various ensembles from the ASO perform, we wondered how it was dug out as it would have had to be done with pick and shovel back in the early 1900 dreds.How physically hard people worked in those days.
We got to the Grainger studio in good time and as it is an old picture theater the space is huge and we were able to sit anywhere so chose to sit very near the front. The first item, after the introductions etc, was by the ASO Brass Ensemble and Brian found out he was not as deaf as he thought! Next was a harp and violin duet, a Suite composed by a young Russian harpist by the name of Izmaylov. Beautifully and sensitively played. Looking at the harp, what a large instrument it is and it must be a nightmare at times to transport. After that we had the reed ensemble playing three English songs the first one recognizable as "Early one Morning" which we learned at school and I still on occasions sing.Last we had the choir "Stress Free Zone" which sang a capella after which they were joined by the brass ensemble and sang traditional lovely old Christmas songs in which we, the audience  joined in with great enthusiasm. I wasn't allowed to take photos unfortunately. After a coffee and mince pie we went back to the railway station and caught the train home.It was blazing hot by then so we didn't divert but came straight home to the airconditioner!

Birds and their Nests

This morning I found what I think is a Peaceful Dove, drowned in the compost bath. I do have netting over the bath but a tiny area was not covered and it must have got into the water there and then couldn't get out again. We are not aware we had any Peaceful Doves on our place, though the bird map shows it is possible. I wonder if it may have been an aviary escapee?

The Blackbird chicks fledged yesterday, they grow so quickly as on Tuesday they had feathers but were all huddled together in the nest which sat in the middle of the standard Bonnica rose I was deadheading.Quite near the front door and this always does have us intrigued, Blackbirds have their nest where people walk past with great regularity and at our shoulder or lower height. I remember finding one nest in a low daisy bush.
Unfortunately I found one blackbird chick drowned in the pond, this afternoon.

The nest the Murray Magpie builds is perfection in mud, beautifully constructed in the round on a tree limb high off the ground in the Ashtree where the frog mouths had theirs not far away. Theirs is an untidy collection of sticks and you wonder how the eggs manage to stay there!The frogmouths have made the Peppertree their home it seems , as my friend took some photos of them with his fabulous lens.

An Enchanting Saturday

Yesterday we had the pleasure of seeing two well brought up children. Monique and Benjamin arrived with their parents for lunch and greeted us with shy but spontaneous hugs. Responded with"please" and" thank you" when asked would they like a drink after their long journey from the other side of Adelaide to Willunga and while their parents enjoyed their respective drinks they went about looking at things without whingeing or whining to be entertained.
We had lunch under the vines as it was a lovely cool day and they ate what was their choice and us adults were able to converse with each other or the children without any hectoring or sulking by the little ones. What a delight!!
After lunch we decided to look for the Tawney Frogmouths and take photos of them if we found them. We did indeed find them, in the Pepper tree, much to every ones delight and astonishment, for the birds stay still and pretend they are invisible.
Monique and Benjamin then decided to move the round hay bales to the corner of the paddock, but we thought doing all sixteen of them a little on the ambitious side.

 We walked through the paddock and came to the pond in front of the house. Here the children were fascinated by the gold fish and hearing the frogs but not seeing them.Benjamin found a fish skeleton, eaten clean by the ants and revealing it's delicate bone structure. So he was able to take it home in a little plastic container for "show and tell" at Kindy.

They all went home Monique carrying the little knitwoven bag I had made for her some time back. They are all most welcome to come again and hopefully find more treasures on our place.
As adults not in touch much with young children and seeing very often the awful tantrums displayed by children in public places, it was a real pleasure to experience our happy and contented family members!!

Melbourne street and its Treasures

This morning after a slow trip from Willunga to Melbourne street in peak traffic, I dropped Brian off at his eye specialist.Instead of walking to St Peters Cathedral because I didn't think it would be open to the public at 9.15 am, I walked up Melbourne street.I passed this stunning wrought iron gate and saw that it is now the David Roch Foundation gallery.It would be open at 10am,so walked on and went into the corner shop called The Store and ordered a coffee.Staff are very outgoing and friendly and I was offered a paper or magazine before I even sat down. The area is well organized and has a very lively feel about it.I took some pictures, one of the lass who was industriously polishing glasses behind the bar.The coffee was excellent and I highly recommend it as a place to meet and bat the breeze.The menue looked good too.

The one thing that has me baffled about this blog , is that I seem unable to position the photos where I want them, never mind, you'll just have to accept the hodge podgy look.
On the way back I took some photos of the stunning flowering Jacaranda trees.There was so much colour with the native Frangipanny trees in flower as well.

When I arrived at the Gallery, the curator was just opening it so she invited me in. It has a beautiful Japanese style front garden with the carefully raked gravel and simple but interesting garden furniture.She told me the red garden seat came from an embankment on the river Thames and the ends were resting camel castings complete with red tassles. Inside the Gallery is exhibiting the most exquisite collection of French art, both paintings, furniture and textiles. It was my first time for seeing




a  Vitrine , a most ornate and beautifully crafted glass fronted cabinet for displaying treasures like netsuke. That wonderful book The Hare with Amber eyes which I read and re read, talks about the Vitrine the wealthy French had in the 19th century to display their treasures and the author inherits his great uncle's collection of netsuke.

Of course I wasn't able to photograph that. Unfortunately I had to get back to pick up Brian from the specialist so I wasn't able to fully look at everything.I will go back though and take time to really look at the paintings and fabulous pieces of furniture.I came home so inspired I got stuck into mowing our wild, wild garden. The good thing too, was that Brian's eye pressures are down which is such a relief.

Painting Garden Furniture

Today was "feed the potplants" day, I feed them on a Sunday as for some reason I seem to view it as spiritual practice. The plants love it of course and respond well with flowers and healthy foliage the next week. Brian painted the little verandah table as well as the old fashioned slatted garden seat we have. It all looks very Zen, so neat and clean!
The above rose is "Ian Thorpe" it is still in its pot and will be till next autumn when we will start planting ou new rose garden.We are thrilled with this rose, it cuts beautifully and the colour is soft and lovely.There are sixteen round bales of hay off our little patch and the Willunga hills in the background are becoming more and more wooded. They used to be so bare when we first arrived here twenty two years ago but people have planted trees which have done so well considering we have had a ten year drought. As I went around our place this morning, looking for the Tawney Frogmouths, I took photos of the bales of hay as well as the rose and the pommygranite flowers. The young Murray Magpies were sitting in a row on the gumtree limb but I couldn't get them to pose as their parents were very uppity and screaming warning notes at me.The Willy Wagtails young are doing their own thing now, and the Black birds are still breeding. Have planted Queensland blue pumpkin seeds this morning in the chook yard so hopefully they will do well there.The ground was like concrete where I generally have my vegies, it would be good to have some rain again.

Lavender Pinochio

We went to Ross Roses yesterday afternoon and got quite a shock to see the place so run down. It used to be an absolute jewel of a place with well kept rose beds all roses with easy to read tags and paths of well mowed grass.It looked deserted but on closer investigation to see if there was a notice on the door, we saw a man behind the counter.He was willing to identify the small roses and first thought it was Julia's rose. I knew it wasn't that one as we have one in the front garden. Brian mentioned that he thought it was a Pinochio but it had not matched the photo in the Rose book. The man realised then it was Lavender Pinochio and so it is. It is a lovely little rose of faded pink tones and I think it would go well with the Hot Chocolate rose which is a dark brownish red. We are planning a new rose garden now and it is fun thinking how we will achieve this.
Monday 12th November
Today we went to the new little restaurant just opened in an altered restored, little stone building up the road a bit from here.Beautifully done and a pleasant outlook.The food was good but not cheap and I do think for that price they could add a little potato and a few beans without charging extra.Food is not expensive to buy and even if the staff cost a lot to employ, surely a few vegies wouldn't break the bank? The coffee was excellent.

After going back to Willunga and picking up the mail, we decided to go onto Myponga to look at the roses there. I fell in love with Ian Thorpe, a wonderful deep red into brown and one of the employees showed us Fire and Ice which was also too stunning to pass up.So we bought them both and will have them in pots till next autumn when we plant them out.then Brian decided we needed more goldfish and as they were cheaper by the tens ( I only wanted two for a large outside bowl ) he got ten. So, we have done our bit to keep the economy going!!
The irises and roses are just stunning this season. The bowl on the right with the chook next to it is now full of water and the two little goldfish seem reasonably settled. Put in some slate pieces for them to shelter under. The rose above is actually a Tineke rose would you believe. It is a lovely shape and lasts extremely well when cut and brought inside. We saw a very lush burgundy Pierre de Rhonsart today as well. We have the pink one climbing up the honey suckle trellis.

Tawneys have fledged

This morning while hanging out the washing, I noticed the Tawneys were no longer in the nest in the Ash tree.Looking around I found them in the Pepper tree, near the chook shed and not very far up. They won't be easy to photograph because of all the leaves hiding them. I also finally found the blackbird nest in the patio vine, I had looked and looked and could hear the chicks but they seem to be ventriloquists and could not pinpoint the source of the sound.
Saturday  10th November

It is a stunning morning today, glorious sunshine and the sharefarmer is raking and bailing the hay at this moment. The hay had been left too long to my mind,  but these young men lead such busy lives and ours is only a small patch.
I tried to find the Tawneys but they have gone elsewhere perhaps, I should have taken a picture of them yesterday while they were in the peppertree. I saw them at dusk flying onto the honeysuckle trellis but can't take pictures then. I did take pictures of the stunning cactus flowers late afternoon and I will see if I can transfer them here.It seems to have worked!! Are they not absolutely stunning? you can just see the nodding violets as well.
I have started pruning the roses, poor things have been sadly neglected and still they bloom. There is one in particular of a faded old rose look, but neither of us can remember its name. So will take it to Ross roses this afternoon and see if they can identify it. We can also look to see what is blooming and take notes ready for ordering as we will start a new rose garden which will be in the sun.

Horses and Fetlocks

This afternoon I missed the only horse race I ever look at, the Melbourne Cup!! I was at the physio having my own fetlock strapped as I seem to have stretched the tendons in my arch and it was swollen and sore. I raced home thinking I would just catch it but Brian had just watched it and said Greenmoon , and Australian horse, trained by and Australian and ridden by an Australian had come from well back and won the race.We had a bottle of wine to celebrate and watch all the formalities and presentation of cups etc.I bemoaned the fact no one mentioned the horse in all this, but later Brian said, we all remember the horse in years to come but who the hell are the jockeys and trainers let alone the owners??? Pharlap, Black caviar, Green moon....how true, I would mention the Pt Lincoln horse but can't spell her name.....

We had some tremendous thunder storms last night with winds so strong it blew the top of the raingauge so have no idea how much rain we had.Everything in the garden looks happy again after yesterdays pounding of hot north winds.

Last Sunday while Brian's son was staying with us, we went to a new winery just up the road from us. We only seem to do these things when one has visitors. It is a dear little building where they have the wine tasting, quite rustic looking and stunning views over White's valley towards the sea. The wine is organically grown and interesting enough for me to buy some. A Pino Noir grown on the plains here is unusual to say the least, it is usually better coming from a colder climate. On Monday, we went and had lunch at D'Arry's verandah.The weather was foul, one of those hot,northerly winds and brown skies days. Inside was great and the food delicious and beautifully presented.The staff there are very attentive without going over the top, so we had a lovely afternoon, good food , good wines and lively conversations.

Fabulous Baroque Music

 Yesterday a group of music lovers gathered at our place to listen to Lucinda Moon on the baroque violin and Catherine Finniss on the baroque cello play pieces of music from the baroque period. Lucinda talked about how the music before this period was mainly composed of large, impressive church music somewhat stylized to keep within the boundaries of conventional societies expectations.

A  movement emerged in the 16 and 17 hundreds to give composers more freedom to be expressive of their individual feelings and emotions so a lot more ornamentation arose. It was a most delightful afternoon with everyone coming away enthralled. We also raised $400.00 for the McLarenVale hospital, thanks to Lucinda and Catherine donating their time for this fundraiser. Professional musicians spend a huge amount of time playing their instruments every day to keep in trim, musically speaking, and we appreciated the time donated so freely to give us such pleasure.

Today was a beautiful day, the Tawney frog mouths chicks  are growing quickly. We found a Willy Wagtail chick dead by the garden tap at the back of the shed.The trees seem full of squeaking chicks of some sort, wattle birds, blackbirds, greenies and they are very hard to pinpoint their voices being thrown quite a way.I have started watering the front garden today.

St Peter's Cathedral

This morning we left early to be in North Adelaide Melbourne street for Brian to see his eye specialist by 10.30am . As the express way is stop start and go slow, we decided to go through Morphett Vale and face the miriad numbers of traffic lights.It all went relatively smoothly and found a parking spot in the patient car park. So left Brian to see his doctor and I went and walked to St Peter's Cathedral past the Childrens Hospital and across various pedestrian crossings. Had a look at the Op Shop first and found two dear little glass fish which I bought on the way back.

When I entered the Cathedral a very nice man handed me a brochure showing the various points of interest in the magnificent building and I was able to have a selfguided tour. I was also able to take any photos I wanted to take except for art works on display.The magnificent stain glass windows are awe inspiring and to be able to wander and take a close look at carvings and furniture was just great.I love the Lady Chapel where you can sit quietly, reflect or pray, whatever moves you.While I was sitting there( the picture on your left is the Lady Chapel) someone started playing the magnificent organ and the music was just glorious. It reminded me too of being a 6 year old and in church with my parents, being so bored and counting the organ pipes, first the big ones and then the little ones and when I got tired of that and my mother had run out of peppermints to feed me to keep me quiet, I would count all the women's hats with feathers and then the ones without feathers....I'm sure the Good Lord forgave me ..
I had to leave all this beauty and walk back to collect Brian who did not get a very good report and has to come back in a months time.

Fruits of Spring

It never ceases to amaze me how nature can be so prolific at times. Besides the mandarins and lemons, we have Quandongs and Loquats hanging from the trees in luscious enticing colours .Yesterday for dinner I added the steamed quandongs to the rice, vegetable and prawn dish and we found it gave just that little tangy tartness that took it out of the ordinary.
Both fruits are mostly stone, the yellow loquat more juicy than the red quandong.Apparently the loquat is also known as the Japanese Medlar and is related to the apple family. It was quite popular many years ago but has fallen out of favour.
Friday 19th October
This morning early, hanging out the washing, I could hear the Willy Wagtail scolding and scolding. So in the end I went over to the chook yard to get a better view of what was making the Wagtail so angry, out of the gumtree flew a little sparrow hawk with the Wagtail after him and the blackbirds joining him in the chase when they saw the hawk fleeing.How typical......

The musicians who will be playing Baroque pieces for us Sunday week, arrived around morning tea time to practice in the studio at the same time as our pump man arrived to install the fish fountain. He had quite a few little problems with it and will come back next week to finish it as the polly pipe was kinking and not bending as it was supposed to.However it is working OK meanwhile as the photo may show.Meanwhile, sat outside the studio for a bit to hear the wonderful baroque music being played. We will all be in for a great treat Sunday week!!

Steamed Quandongs

Qudandongs are quite easy to de-stone and cut into quarters.After I found some the other day, I did just that and then steamed them with the broadbeans from the garden.They are actually quite delicious and tangy done this way, plus they retain their brilliant red colour. So I have done some more early this morning and I will put them into a pasta salad for tomorrow when friends are coming to lunch.
This afternoon my friend came and played Vivaldi and De Fesch on the piano while I played them on my cello. We are still practicing to get it in time together, but it is coming.

We had our craftgroup meeting at one of our member'splace yesterday. She always does fabulous lunches and we always appreciate her fare with great gusto!! We also work at whatever project we have set ourselves as individuals with great concentration while we mull over the state of the world and the different attitudes we are confronted with these days. The lack of service as we used to know it, the technical button pressing era we are in and dealing with the de-humanised answering machines when wanting to enquire about the most simple things.

To the right of you is a picture of one of our members deep into her craft with the canine member wishing we would all go home so she can have her mistress all to herself again!!
Her little canine friend ,not shown as she was parading the latest doggie fashion on the floor below, a very fetching fairisle knitted coat with matching leg ties, was not altogether welcome either.....luckily, not a cat in sight !
It is interesting to note that handspinning is back in vogue, I started handspinning Merino wool back in 1968 when the Ashford spinning wheel  was first imported from NZ.

Today at about 5 pm I was watching a bronze wing pigeon coming into the pond for a drink when I saw another one rapidly approaching the pond as well. Suddenly the first one chased the later one off and I saw there were two others as well. So now we seem to have two pair of bronzewings in our little patch. There were also two small birds , honey eaters of some sort, busy in the flowering Wisteria tree when we were enjoying our evening drink on the patio but neither of us could see what they actually were.Too small for the little wattlebirds and too dark for the Greenies.

Quandongs galore!!

Today was an exquisite day weather wise. We had intended to go to lunch in the new restaurant just up the road called "Au Pear". When we came back from shopping in McLarenVale we saw it was closed, so we will try it out next week. It did mean I had a day to do the last of the clearing of dead fall branches and the accompanying bark litter as next Saturday our permit to burn expires. There is something very satisfying about cleaning up and seeing the way clear to do the mowing so we can walk through the garden again without tripping on branches and the Lhemanii conkers which roll under foot. The conkers are great for burning in the wood stove as they retain their heat. One hit me on the side of the head just missing my eye as I pulled a dead branch down off the tree for burning, it left quite a mark!!Now all I have to do is the East and North side of the house.I also found Quandongs all over the ground and they are the prettiest red colour. I find them pretty tasteless but they look great in a little blue bowl. The tree itself was a seedling Mayo Thomson gave us years ago and it took a long time to establish itself. Now it is sending suckers everywhere would you believe. I'll cut some up and but them in a salad for colour if not taste.I seem unable to insert the photo here, it insists on sitting at the top.
Wednesday 10th October.
I had hoped to clean up more ground today but it is back to winter with a freezing southerly gale and rain as well. My music friends came this morning and we are continuing with the Haydn trio, at a snails pace,I must say, but it will come together soon I'm sure. My violin playing friend arrived with her right foot in a moon boot as she had broken a little bone before last Wednesday as well as cracking her ribs in a fall onto a table as she tripped over a footstool.Being of the old school, she thought if she ignored the pain it would go away but ion the end succumbed to everyone's advice and went and saw her doctor. He was not amused that she should have left it for so long.

I also took a photo of the jacket I have made for a friend in my knit-weave style with an interesting finish to the band and collar. I'll see if it will insert itself here....
Hooray!! it did!!!