I did a spot of house sitting several years ago for friends who had a hobby farm near Franklin. The little dog I only minded once and I have forgotten her name. The cat Chloe was very friendly and would sleep on the bed with me and pat my face when she wanted me to get up. Sadly both went over the Rainbow Bridge some years ago now.
I have forgotten the name of this little dog who was owned by a friend I used to house sit for.Chloe was also owned by my friend.
Oliver was an orphan lamb who was hand reared. He was named Oliver because he always wanted some more. The goats as far as I know did not have names.
Oliver, a pet lamb.Nameless goats
The Potaroo, one of many that visited the property was not a pet, they were considered pesky freeloaders. My friends grew vegetables and had strawberries and raspberries and these were all in netted enclosures. I had to make certain that I shut the doors firmly after I went inside them to water or pick anything. Still although they are cheeky these little wallaby like animals are rather cute.
Of course I have lots of pictures of trains, hundreds in fact, but most of them were taken when we used film cameras, some are even on slide film. I’ll try to find some on the computer that I haven’t shared before or at least not too often. I have again used Adobe Photo Elements 2018 to edit these and played with some different effects.
This is a rerun. I have used it at least once before but I like it. It was taken in the Adelaide Railcar Depot where we used to work. It is a 300 Class diesel railcar probably built in the late 1950s. They had no air conditioning and in summer got very hot, especially when they had been sitting in the yard for hours. They were like ovens and we had to clean them.
South Australian Railways 300 class railcar
Another picture I’ve probably used before but with a different effect. Museum Station in Sydney. Museum is one of our favourites because of its old-time decor so it perfectly suits the vintage look and I even added some scratches.
Museum Station, Sydney 2012
Tracks can also be for trams. Here is one at the Tram Museum at Loftus outside Sydney.
Vintage Tram, Loftus NSW 2012
A V Line locomotive at Southern Cross Station in Melbourne 2014. I shot this through a glass window and was unable to get rid of the reflections but if you look closely you can see a tram reflected in the middle of the picture.
V Line loco, Melbourne 2014
Then of course there are model railways. This one was at a show in Sunbury, Victoria 2014.
Model train, Sunbury 2014
This last one is very old, taken on a trip to Alice Springs in the 1980s, one of the few I have of this class of locomotive. At the time this was taken you had to go to Port Pirie or Port Augusta, South Australia to see one as they were on standard gauge and the main line to Adelaide was still broad gauge so seeing the standard gauge diesels was exciting.
This is how I store my Barbie shoes. I have three boxes of these, two for Barbie and one for Ken. Some of Barbies shoes are quite elaborate as you will see in the next picture.
Barbie shoe boxBarbie sized boots.
My shoes on the other hand are just laying about where I can get them easily. I keep a pair of boots by the back door because in winter the garden can be quite muddy. I still call them Wellington boots as we did in England. I actually refused to wear Wellingtons for over thirty years after an incident at school when someone put chewing gum inside my boot. However when we arrived in Tasmania in June 2002 I speedily realised that I needed something to keep my feet dry. I bought this pair of boots in an Op Shop in Huonville for 50c and still use them. It’s hard to pull them off sometimes and it reminds me of the old song “My Old Man’s A Dustman”.
Frequently worn shoes.Boots bought for 50c in 2002.Shoes at the Op Shop.
As I didn’t want to include a picture of my own feet here is one of Cindy’s paws. She has been coming in rather muddy lately as well.
For this challenge I was able to find plenty of examples literally in my own back yard. Frost covered grass, newly reclaimed soil after the old shed was demolished, newly laid gravel in the parking area and Polly investigating the new ground cover made of bark.
A frosty, foggy morning at home.The patch of ground where the rustic shed once stood.The beginnings of the garden renovation.Polly investigating newly laid bark ground cover.
Luckily for me although it is nearly winter and there are not many flowers left in my garden I have taken a lot of photos of them over the past spring and summer and previous ones. I don’t really like gardening but I do like flowers and I like sitting out in the garden and being able to look at flowers so I have easy ones, roses, bulbs, perennials and the odd pot of colour like pansies and petunias.
Really I do prefer to see flowers in colour, I’ve preferred to see almost everything in colour since around 1970 when I bought my first roll of colour film but I’ve grown to appreciate the subtleties of black and white through participating in this challenge over the past couple of years.
I took all of these photos last year sometime in Spring. They are all taken around Oatlands at my house, the hospital and down the High Street. All the flowers looked so pretty in colour I thought it a shame to fade them to B&W. The photos did remind me of old gardening magazines I used to read years ago. There was one called “Your Garden” and I had a lot of those. Everyone should have planted their Spring bulbs by now and I am looking forward to seeing all the flowers at the Botanical Gardens. I don’t have so many flowers in my own garden because I am too lazy to do the hard work it requires to have a nice garden. Here are my flowers for this week’s challenge.
