This is the perfect time for yellows. My daffodils are all in full bloom. I do love daffodils, the big King Alfreds are my favourites but I have other varieties too.
As it is still winter here we also have wattle in bloom. A bus driver I used to know used to say “When you see the wattle you’ll see the snow.” I always think of that in August and sure enough, although we’ve not had low-level snow this month we have had falls on the mountains.
Winter Wattle
I’m very partial to yellow flowers. Here are some more.
yellow flowers in springtime.Rose and buds, the same bushJonquils 2019
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.
Trees by Joyce Kilmer
I haven’t managed to join in any of Cee’s Challenges for a couple of weeks. I never seem to be ready with a post in time but this week I am determined even if it has to be photos from the archives like this one of my beloved apple tree.
One of the things I like most about living in Tasmania is that I can have a green lawn. I used to live in South Australia and as if the hot, dry, grass killing summers were not bad enough, our house was built on a block composed basically of limestone. After several tries, we gave up trying to grow a lawn and had bark chips, pavers and ground cover plants.
My lawn is not one of those beautiful smooth lawns like a bowling green or a golf course but it is grass. Personally, I like the daisies mixed in with the grass. They remind me of my childhood in England making daisy chains with mum.
Daisies in the lawn.
What would sportsmen do without grass? As I write this I’m watching cricket on television from Lords Cricket Ground in London. The state of the grass is a big deal in cricket. Will the wicket be bouncy, flat or two-paced? Will the outfield be fast or wet and slippery? In the tennis world, everyone talks about the grass courts at Wimbledon, another iconic British sporting arena. All codes of football are played on grass that often turns to mud in winter. It’s a lot less painful to play football on grass but I know of a team who plays on a gravel surface in Queenstown, Tasmania
The Melbourne Cricket Ground.
I think it is important that every city has green space. Those quiet places you can go to enjoy a bit of nature amongst the concrete and steel. Especially if you are not fortunate enough to have a garden of your own.
St David’s Park, HobartBattery Park, HobartBotanical Gardens, Hobart
Of course, if all else fails you could always buy some astroturf and have fake grass.
When Naomi and I get together we laugh about all sorts of things, quite a few of them you just had to be there for and even then you’d have to be us to see the humour. Quite often her laughing will set me off as well. Pets are very funny too, the things they do often make me laugh. There are a lot of movies and TV shows that make me smile but once in a while, one comes along that really makes me laugh out loud. I always laughed at “The Muppet Show” for instance. I have favourite books that make me laugh out loud too. Gerald Durrell writing about his family in books like “My Family and Other Animals, The Picnic and “Fillets of Plaice” (even the name makes me laugh), Betty MacDonald writing about hers in “The Egg and I” and especially “Anybody Can Do Anything”. Really old books but still funny I think.
What’s the world coming to? (Credit to Mel of Crushed Caramel…)
I don’t know but something a lot less funny than being demolished by the Vogons to make way for a hyperspatial bypass.
photo from Flickr use Porcupiny
In one sentence sum up the Internet.
The internet may be both the best and the worst thing ever invented.
Photo: Elias Schwerdtfeger Flickr 2014
If over time you replace parts on a car, at what point does it stop being the same car you bought? How many parts do you need to replace to make it a new car?
This is “Grandfather’s Axe” for a new generation. My answer is that it will never be a new car because unless you replaced all the parts at once there will still be older parts. Is it the same car? Well, the folks at the DMV think so, don’t they?
Gratitude is an attitude. Yea or nay? Explain your viewpoint, please!
Yes, I think it is. You can choose to be grateful for what you have even if it’s not much or you can choose not to. When I say gratitude I guess I mean appreciation. I often say in these posts that I’m grateful for my home, my family and friends, pets, nature etc. I focus on those things because I think it better for me to focus on what’s good in my life than what is bad. Now in my case, there is more good than bad so it’s not so hard but I could focus on not having my husband anymore, a job or a decent income. I choose not to. I’d just be making myself unhappy. I imagine that if you are living in a slum or a detention centre it’s a lot harder to find anything to be grateful for but maybe even more necessary for your mental well-being.
Like most of us, I have fears that may seem irrational to others. I have a fear of falling that prevents me from doing things like changing lightbulbs, getting on to escalators without panicking and going up or down a steep flight of steps. As I have grown older it has become worse. I can’t even ride on the top deck of a bus now because I’m afraid of going down steep steps backwards.
These were once Sydney’s oldest moving stairs. They are wooden and were only replaced in the last year or so. I think this was at Town Hall Station but I can’t remember for sure now.
Things like going to the doctor or to visit a government department also make me feel fearful but in a different way. I feel like there is a big stone in my chest. I do what I have to do but really I just want to run away.
I am lucky though that I don’t have to experience the fears that many people have to face every day. The fear of being hungry, of having nowhere to sleep at night. I do think about this one a lot because I know that it can happen to anyone. A bit of bad luck, illness or debt and suddenly you are out on the street.
Imagine what that would feel like, losing your home. Suddenly all you have in the world is what you can carry with you. The night is coming and you don’t have enough money to rent even the cheapest room for the night. How do you sleep out in the open? How will you keep warm? How will you prevent your stuff from being stolen if you do manage to sleep? How do you protect your family when there is nowhere to go? How do you live with that fear every day maybe for years?
Tributes left for Wayne “Mouse” Perry, a homeless man who was murdered near this spot.
Although you don’t hear it as much now the expression “Fair Dinkum” is one that most older Aussies know, even transplanted ones like me. Well, I have been here more than fifty years now.
Crocodile Dundee photo Miller Hats, Flickr
Every country has its own slang words and expressions and often we use them without thinking how strange they probably sound to people from other parts of the world. My understanding of “dinkum” is that it means something is the real deal, for example, Crocodile Dundee was meant to represent a dinkum Aussie bloke.
An Aussie would say “Fair dinkum” to reinforce that what he/she was telling you was the truth or by changing the inflection use it as a question. “Fair dinkum?” (Is that true?”)
A long time ago I read a book called “They’re a Weird Mob”. It’s the story of an Italian journalist who is sent to Australia to write articles for an Italian magazine about Australia. Nino, the protagonist, thinks he speaks very good English but when he arrives in Sydney he finds he can hardly understand a word anyone is saying to him. Taking a job as a builders labourer he makes friends and gradually learns to think and speak like an Aussie. The author was, in fact, an Australian by the name of John O’Grady who wrote it in 1957. The book was made into a movie in 1966. Here’s a scene. Of course, it looks very dated now.
While I don’t entirely agree with O’Grady that migrants should forget their own culture and embrace that of their new home I did like the book very much. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts Naomi and I worked with many Europeans who came to Australia around the time that the book was written. I believe that our culture has benefited from them bringing some of theirs with them. It’s why we have a wine industry, restaurants serving food from all around the world and colourful fairs and festivals to enjoy. Those people’s children who were born in Australia and their grandchildren are as Australian as any of us.
I think that movies, television and social media have homogenised our language. Young people in Britain, Australia and the USA use more of the same words and expressions. Only the accents differ. I can’t help feeling that’s a little sad because I rather like “strine”.
