Thursday Doors : Cat Nap…

In the village of Ebor, along the waterfall way in New South Wales, we stopped for a coffee.

With a name like “Fusspots” I could not resist stopping at this combined post office/grocery store/café.

It was a sleepy little village of 160 people and at least one very sleepy cat…

Some crafty, imaginative folks live here too. Notice what they have created from horse shoes…

Pushing the green door open the bell tinkled to let the owner know he had customers.

After a delicious, home-baked Devonshire tea we went on our way to explore this scenic area.

To come with us for a drive through the waterfall countryside click here.

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Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time)

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I have also linked with The Daily Post discover challenge.

Thursday’s Special : Here and There

A tricky challenge from Paula this week, “here and there”. How can we be here and there at the same time and what photo can I use to show this.

Well I’ve slept on it, I hope you don’t mind Paula, but I have twisted it a bit…

So here is my interpretation…

Here it is…

How to hold boomerang

There it goes…

and here it is again…

A few years ago Paul Clancy would come down to Burleigh Beach to demonstrate and sell boomerangs he had made. Jack bought one and Paul gave him some lessons. Jack made this shaky video of Paul in action. Believe me it is a very difficult art to throw one correctly, but more importantly, to have it come back and then catch it.

We took the boomerangs to the grandchildren and they had some fun, until it sailed into the top of a very high tree and as far as I know it is still there…

 

Garden Photo Challenge : Essence of Summer.

The absolute essence of summer is the scent of the frangipani.

The delicate perfume pervades the air, especially at dusk as the sun goes down.

A perfect time to sit in the warm tropical evening after a day in the garden and share a glass of wine. This is summer in my part of the world.

But that is just a memory.

It is now mid winter and the frangipani have dropped all their leaves and the bare branches reach for the sky.

But look closer, 2 very confused buds are just opening…

Like the world over the plants are quite confused with the seasons. It is supposed to be winter and  our dry season and temperatures should be cooler. But it has been the warmest April and May on record and now we are having record rainfall.

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Jude at “earth laughs in flowers” hosts a garden photography challenge and for June she says…

“This month I want to see what summer means to you. Still focussing on the garden or parkland let your photographs tell me your story of summer-time wherever in the world you live.”

Curvaceous Icon : Weekly Photo Challenge

I’m sure this building needs no introduction. From every viewpoint its contours swoop and flow like waves on the ocean.

It dwarfs the people gazing at its grandeur.

But it is not the only curvaceous icon on Sydney’s waterfront.

The old “Coat hanger” is peering over her shoulder.

If you look very closely you will see tiny ant-like dots, brave souls, nearly at the top as they climb this Sydney monument.

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I wonder how many other Australian bloggers have chosen to showcase our well known buildings in this weeks photo challenge as Cheri asks us to “find inspiration in the curves around you.”

Wordless Wednesday : Will you join me?

Garden Photography Challenge : Tropical Summer…

Last week I reminisced about my English past and the roses that brought the “essence of summer” to mind from that bygone era.

This week I am  back in the present and what the “essence of summer” means to me now. I live in the sub-tropical area of South-East Queensland and the summers are hot and humid. The flowers and foliage are vivid, dazzling, showy even flashy. Demanding attention they flaunt and show off often surrounded by luscious tropical greenery. So here is a gallery of some of my favourites.

Bird of paradise.

Heliconia

Nasturtium

Banksia, native Australian shrub

 

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In the northern hemisphere it is mid-summer. Maybe the sun is shining, hopefully the flowers are flowering. But down under, in Australia, it is now winter in this topsy-turvy world, but our sun is still shining, well most days. So I have to go back to December, January and February to find these signs of summer. As Jude (Earth laughs in flowers)  says:

“This month I want to see what summer means to you. Still focussing on the garden or parkland let your photographs tell me your story of summer-time wherever in the world you live.”

Thursday Doors : Armidale Cathedral…

My eye was caught by the colourful peeling bark of this gum tree in the grounds of the Armidale Catholic Cathedral. Then I noticed how the door matched the bark colour.

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Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time)

Garden Photography Challenge : The Essence of Summer…

This weekend winter arrived in Queensland, Australia.

Torrential rain, 90km/hr winds and the temperature plummeted to 19c degrees. Now that may be balmy in the Northern hemisphere but down under, after an endless summer of 25-30 degrees, it meant dragging out the winter woollies.

This month the theme Jude (Earth laughs in flowers) has chosen is “the essence of summer“

“This month I want to see what summer means to you. Still focussing on the garden or parkland let your photographs tell me your story of summer-time wherever in the world you live. “

So I have travelled back in my memory to a perfect summer I spent in Adelaide and visited the Adelaide International Rose Garden.

The Adelaide International Rose Garden takes visitors on a heady journey that’s a delight to the senses. As you wander the garden you’re drawn through a series of colourful spaces, each cleverly revealing a rose collection from a different style of garden.

The garden displays over 2,500 roses, including areas devoted to Australian bred roses, single roses, heritage roses and pillar roses. A walkway in the garden highlights roses selected for specific Australian causes (Olympic Gold, The Children’s Rose). Mixed companion plantings add lots of seasonal colour.

Together with the National Rose Trial Garden – which began in 1996 to help the rose industry establish which roses not yet for sale in Australia are best suited to our climate – the International Rose Garden is a great favourite with national and international rose lovers alike.

Roses are one of my favourite flowers and, unfortunately, I cannot grow them in this sub-tropical climate. There are species bred for this climate, but they are hard work. The humidity attracts all kinds of bugs and viruses meaning constant spraying and pampering to survive and thrive. So I love visiting rose gardens when I am travelling.

It is 10 years since I visited these gardens so this is a 10 year younger me…

Thank you Jude, it has been an enjoyable browse back through my archives. I can almost smell the roses.

Jude has also chosen rose for her post this week. Pop over to see more summer scenes. 

Thursday Doors : Armidale…

Last year when staying in Armidale we had a memorable bus tour around this remarkable city. A city I knew nothing about before taking this FREE bus tour.

(Come with me back to that tour, and find out more about this city, it is worth a look.)

But today I am showing you the door into Booloominbah. This magnificent country house is now at the centre of  The University of New England, Australia’s first regional university. It houses the offices of the University’s senior management, including the Vice-Chancellor’s office.

Booloominbah reflects the Gothic revivalist influences of the ‘Queen Anne‘ style that emerged in England and the United States in the last half of the 19th century. Recent refurbishment has restored much of the original decoration. The building has National Trust classification, as well as being listed on the Register of the National Estate. It has been described as being “perhaps Hunt’s greatest achievement in the field of domestic architecture.”^[3] It also has a New South Wales heritage listing.  ^(Wikipedia)

This impressive home was built in 1888 for Frederick White and his family, who decided to establish his family of seven children in Armidale because the cooler, fresher, drier air of the Tablelands was good for their health. Amazingly this was only the summer home for the family and stood empty the rest of the year.

The only way to see inside this building was to go on the bus tour.

We only saw a very small part of the downstairs area, but it was very impressive.

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Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time)

Thursday’s Special : Pick a Word…

Restlessness : never at rest; perpetually agitated or in motion:

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Paula (lost in translation) has given us a new challenge this week…

“I’m starting something new today. I’m giving you five unrelated words that are neither synonyms nor antonyms. Pick one and depict it in photo(s).”

• Turbidity

• Restlessness

• Transience

• Prolific

• Decrepit

All are interesting words and I could choose any one of them, but because I live near the ocean and love its restless, ever-changing character I have chosen “restlessness” for my word of the week.

Which one would you choose?