Monday, October 24, 2016

OUR WORLD - Spring is here . . .


Spring is here and time for daisy chains


the paddocks and hills are covered in gold,
well actually, a South African imported weed
but so very pretty


and joy of joys, our dams are all overflowing 
for the first time in twenty years


To all of you who have wondered, no, I'm not dead yet . . .


Monday, June 6, 2016

Memories of Mothers Day


A gift from DD, these monstrously large chrysanthemums
deep, deep red and smelling like chrysanthemums of old


look into their hearts and you get sharp crab claws
and delicate trumpets for angels to blow


I do so enjoy the scent and look of Oriental lilies
click on each or any for more detail.


Linking with I Hear Macro

Sunday, May 15, 2016

MONSTERA deliciosa - an unusual plant


My Monstera deliciosa, when it was but a baby
now, both the wall and water tank are invisible
and I have to lift  leaves aside to sidle past it

it is taking up two thirds of my shade house!


Ever since I first saw my first Monstera as a teenager, 
I fell in love with it.
No idea why . . .
it was not long that I realised that it was Monstera deliciosa,
with the round holes it it's leaves that drew me, not the non 
fruiting cut leaf plant that was so in vogue 
as an indoor ornamental

it is doing well in my protected shade house 
and brings a touch of the Tropics into my difficult, dry garden
in the driest State in the driest Continent
and has been fruiting now for a number of years

here is a cluster of four emerging flower buds


 and the pristine, virginal flower,
already protecting the fruit in it's heart

 the fruit takes 2 years to ripen and only flowers
after fruiting

in common parlance, it is called the fruit salad plant
as the fruit has flavours composed of pineapple, banana
and a variety of other tropical fruits


on the ripe fruit, the outer, green layer drops off,
revealing the luscious, edible bits inside.

a bit like eating corn on the cob except for the intense
sweetness and tropical flavour . . . yum


it took at least a decade of waiting for it to fruit,
this year I had 14 pieces of fruit and in 2 years time,
if I am still around, there are 17  buds and flowers
promising a glut of deliciousness.

If I stick around until I am 90, I'll be able to open a market stall!

Linking with 

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Mothers Day - the bravest woman I know


A bunch of flowers I thought I had bought for myself
taking up half of my room

when in reality, they are for my beloved mammi


a little and immensely courageous woman
in a faded photo on  her wedding day in 1918

Serious and sombre, with no idea what life had in store.

My father, with a distinguished cross for 
years of surgery on the Russian front
after being conscripted out of Medical School.

Naturally, after the war he had no right to practice
without a degree.

They made their living in the twenties and thirties
in whichever way they could.
Father, tuning and restoring pianos, as share farmers 
and running a store in a small town.
This venture did not really prosper
since mother was too open handed to the poorest of the poor.


Later, father joined the police force and became a detective.
Mother meanwhile, had born him 5 children,
losing her firstborn doughtier to dysentery at the age of two.

When the Germans handed Latvia to Russia in the secret 
Ribbentrop plot, my father was arrested and deported to Siberia
and mother became our sole support.

My elder brother was fighting for our country and badly 
wounded in Lithuania, loosing a lung and a number of ribs
but, within weeks, was sent back to the front.

Mother, having studied languages at university,
worked shifts at the international exchange 
at the post office.
Not easy juggling a job and three children
between 4 and 12
and finding sufficient food for her hungry, growing chicks.

In 1944, with the advancing Russian front on the horizon,
she packed up her chicks and what we could carry 
and her trusty, hand cranked sewing machine,
and, after a 2 hour warning, we were on the last train
from certain death under the Russians
 to a Germany besieged  and bombed from all sides.

While the war lasted, we were all separated and put to work,
happily in the same village. I was 7 and was shunted 
from one place to another and had to help wherever I was.

Mother worked as maid to a publisher in his summer house, 
a water mill, with running water under the kitchen. 
Mother had mountains of dishes to do and got 
very bad rheumatism and the hardest thing in my life I 
had to do, was to pick a large bunch of nettles 
and beat her naked back with them.

The surface pain took her mind off the unbearable pain inside.
Finally, she was carted off to hospital 
in the nearest town.

I felt totally bereft.

Not knowing whether papa or my elder brother 
were dead or alive was hard for us all, but mostly mother
for there was a time when she felt with certainty 
that my brother at the front, had been killed.

Fear for all her children was ever present,
not just before the end of the war from the Gestapo
and the bombing
but after it as well, with soldiers of various armies
coming through and two young daughters to keep safe.

Then came the famine, we were in one of the 
French zones
and the French really hated the Germans
and confiscated any food they could find 
and sent it back to France.
There was little enough for the local population
and much less for us who had no contacts on the land.

Mother traded all her silver and linen we had brought 
with us, except for her children's christening silver,
for food. Even so, she got thinner and thinner,
like a horse ready for the glue factory.
Every bit of nourishment she fed to her children
until survival surpassed fear from being sent back 
to Latvia to a certain death
and we finally registered as displaced persons or DP's.
Shunted from camp to camp for two years
until we found a country which would take us.
Only Australia was prepared to take a parent over 45
and a child of school age, but at a price.
My younger brother, 19, and my 16 year old
sister had to come first and sponsor mother and me.

So we came to Australia, where people of working age,
had to work under contract for two years,
wherever they were sent by the government.

My sister was working as nurses' aid in a NSW
country town, my brother as dessert cook 
at an army barracks and I went to school and
had to learn English from scratch.

Not being able to speak English, when travelling on 
public transport, other passengers would sidle away
from us, as though we had the plague if we spoke.

At first we lived in a boarding house, three in one room 
with use of tiny kitchenette and bathroom
while my brother slept under the front steps 
with just a trellis separating him from trawling 
perverts looking for young boys.

Mother, my sister and I all worked in a 'sweat shop'
while they both sewed garments, I was finishing them 
after school and on Saturday mornings.

Every penny was scraped together until, 
with another family we had enough for a deposit on a house.

A few years later, we sold our half and had a 
deposit for our own house.

Oh the joy!
Mother planted apple trees, a birch and a fir tree 
in memory of our homeland.
A grape vine shielding the porch,
berry bushes, roses and vegetables.
Just to get our hands into our own bit of soil!

My mother was a wonderful woman, respected and beloved
by all who knew her and I miss her 
every day although she left us more than a quarter
of a century ago.

There is so much more to mother's story
but that would take a whole book.


My DD gave me this almost black chrysanthemum
that actually smells like one too.
It seems the modern ones have the scent engineered out of them.

How boring the world becomes 
when you do all this genetic modifying.

Linking with TODAY'S FLOWERS

Sunday, April 17, 2016

More wonders of the World - a little patch of God's garden


Memories of New Zealand last December

A fast raining little river flanked by lupins
who could help stopping to admire?


couldn't stop on the bridge
so had to walk back from the road verge 
up the hill a bit


but it was so very worth while
of be engulfed by the massed perfume
and multiplicity of colours

as a bonus they were flanked by elder bushes in full bloom
which are prolific in this beautiful country

an elderflower infusion sponged on hives 
and many other rashes 
shrinks them away within a few days,
even allergic reactions to antibiotics 
that manifest in large welts


these lupins have covered acres of land down the hillside
some call them invasive weeds
but what is a weed but a flower out of it's desired place

only people wanting to
force their own will on a landscape
think in therms of flower and weeds

Sometimes, just sometimes, God steps in
and creates a flower bed of this magnitude
that leaves one speechless with awe at the beauty

I will never forget the wonder of the scent
almost visibly hanging in the sun-warmed air

it was so hard to drag ourselves away . . .


Linking with


Thursday, April 14, 2016

SkyWatch -- Hope and disappointment


To all my dear friends and followers
I am so very grateful for you all who call in
especially when you leave a comment

I am getting older, not as old as I still hope to become
but some things are no longer as easy as they were.
Although I immensely enjoy all your posts,
I get so tired in the evenings, I cannot find the
words to leave a fitting comment.
I wish it were not so . . .

Here is something else I quite desperately wish for
although I kno, in many parts of the world 
they are getting much too mush rain
here it has been bone dry
for so long, I hardly remember what rain
or rich, moist soil feel like


we have not had sufficient rainfall since 1995
and it looks like another dry autumn.
In a good year, my windows are covered in huge rain moths at night
this year I have only seen one!!!

Small wonder I look longingly at these cloud


and all I have been getting is this


don't take that the wrong way,
I'm not complaining,
I'll take beauty in whatever guise she comes in
and these amazingly tender sunset tones
in the Eastern sky are always a balm for my thirsty soul


Linking with SkyWatch

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Some small wonders of Autumn


The Valotta lilies, Cyrtanthus elatus
 have put on their lipstick


shy Naked Ladies unfolding their beauty


to burst into bloom and still
demurely draped in shadow play


and when we look into their hearts,
they show us their very soul


Linking with

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Autumn crocus


It has been a very long, dry summer
a few weeks ago we had our first rain event 
and hoped the long dry was over

no such thing, we had almost 2" in one go
and not a drop more

it confused nature even more,
spring bulbs are popping up
plum trees are in full blossom 
and
my autumn crocuses, Colchicum burst into bloom
which only lasted for a few days 
as the heat came back . . .


at least they were brilliant for those
precious few days


please click on the photos to see more detail


Linking with 

Sunday, March 27, 2016

OUR WORLD - Happy Easter !


Wishing a Happy Easter to one and all
who celebrate this Christian feast
and all those who celebrate Spring and the
renewal of life in general.


For the first time in my life
I was on my own on this day,
not lonely, just at peace and happy to be alive.

I pray for peace on this beautiful planet 
in these troubled times . . .

Linking with OUR WORLD

Monday, March 14, 2016

OUR WORLD - A special wedding in the family


Seldom do I put up such a personal post
but it was such a happy occasion 
that I could not just keep it for myself.



my very special grandson (left) and his best fried 
awaiting the bride
under a splendid Eucalypt on a hill in a vineyard


his beautiful bride arrives
looking like a princess from a fairy tale


the happy couple cutting the cake

as  their wedding present, his baby sister and partner
both chefs,
did the catering for some 140 guests
and a great time was had by all!

Linking with OUR WORLD

Sunday, February 21, 2016

OUR WORLD - more from my NZ trip


A rare sandstone outcrop
a high-rise for many birds
and home to ancient petroglyphs


there is such a lot of wisdom in this sign
if you read the fine print


unfortunately, as in many places.
sacred sites and ancient petroglyphs
have given way to graffiti
and senseless destruction


happily, at least now, it is securely fenced off


Linkung with OUR WORLD

Thursday, February 18, 2016

SkyWatch - The Land of the Long White Cloud


Summer clouds in New Zealand





I'd love to go back to the Land of the Long White Cloud
where so much goes on in the sky

Linking with SkyWatch

Thursday, February 11, 2016

SkyWatch - watching the day fade


After a long day's drive across New Zealand's
South Island,
we found this splendid hotel in Wanaka
with views across the lake and the snow-capped mountains


with the statutory G&T in hand
we watched the last rays of the sun 
catching the mountain tops


darn it, it's hard to take photos with my phone
while hanging on to my gin with the other hand
and leaning over the balcony 
 trying to photograph around the corner


happily I stayed safe after all and
was able to enjoy the pink clouds
reflecte in the lake
and my G&T


Linking with SkyWatch

Monday, January 18, 2016

OUR WORLD - Along the New Zealand coast


Heading further down the coast,
green grass and these twin oyster bays


a quaint house in Warrington


and a couple of shots of the splendid railway
station in Dunedin



Linking with OUR WORLD

Monday, January 11, 2016

OUR WORLD & Good Fences - More wonderful New Zealand


Driving on, we found this wonderful place 
recently returned to the Maori people
who have put immense pride and toil
into, not only this magnificent hand carved 
entrance arch

but also into the kilometres of walking trails
over hills and dales and along the sea side


as you walk the trails, the sacredness of this
place oozed up throughout he soles of your feet


blood red flowers to remind one of the blood
shed here over the centuries


even the service area has a long log for the volunteers
to celebrate around the bonfire 


occasional shaved lawns giving a broad view
and a lovely place to picnic and listen to the 
native birds singing in the large shade giving trees


last, but certainly not least, this massive tract of land 
is surrounded by a seven foot high paling fence
forcing one to enter by the gate, that has a 
magical protective force. 

Walking through the entrance arch, there is a feeling of awe 
as you enter this sacred place.

I saw a number of cars turn back and go away
obviously not able to appreciate this place.


I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the way we travel.
We tend to avoid the large crowds and car parks 
of the usual tourist attractions
and follow up the gentle places of this world.

Linking with


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