DECEMBER ALREADY

I know,  I know !

We're well into December and I'm lagging behind on the Christmas front.

Thought I'd better get a move along and since the temperature has dropped considerably ( lowest December temperature for 100 years today - 19C !!!) I'm feeling much more in the mood.

So a new Christmas header that shows what Christmas is like in Queensland is now in place.

I know many of you think it looks like fun in the warm sun

and when you are young and love to frolic on the beach in the sun I guess it is.

But I'm hankering for a Christmas like  this!

These are the types of Christmas cards that I've grown up with even though they have no relevance to our  Aussie Christmas.

Yesterday I walked the shops till my feet were throbbing looking for Aussie style cards to no avail.

I found these on the Internet.

Does this make you feel like Christmas ??? ( I don't think so !)

This one is much better.

I'm not giving up.

There must be some nice Aussie style cards out there somewhere.

I'd better hurry up or it will be too late to post them.

I'll keep you posted !

( Sorry I couldn't help myself !)

Cheers.



FAVOURITE THINGS FRIDAY

Yay! It's Favourite Things Friday again.

I'm linking up with Shay once again.

Why not join in the fun?

Today this is my favourite thing........

....

.....

.......

bare  feet  !

Yep, as soon as I'm in the door off come the shoes and I'm comfy.

Now that Summer's here you'll never find me with shoes on in the house.

I love to paddle round the house on the cool tiles in my bare feet.

Shoes are for going out in,

dressing up,

prancing around.....

but

bare feet

are

heaven !!!

NOVEMBER SCAVENGER HUNT

Amazingly we are at the end of another month  - November !

I can't believe how fast this month has gone.
This morning ( 30th ) I sat down and searched through my photos to see what I could cobble together for this month's Scavenger Hunt.
I like to do it this way. Just see what I can hunt out before I take any special photos.
This month I only had to take one - the lucky charm!

So here it is -
November's Scavenger Hunt.


1.  a poppy ( sorry poppies !)



Out shopping on 11/11/11

2. something purple

You can't go past a Jacaranda tree if you are looking for something purple at this time of year.


3. a silhouette

Looking out the window onto the beach at Mooloolaba.

4. comfort food



Only a memory now, it's salad time here!

5.  memorial

 WWII Battle of Britain bunker at Uxbridge kept as it was at the end of WWII as a memorial to the many airmen who saved Britain in those terrible days.

6. a staircase

Myers store in Sydney at Christmas a few years ago.

7. something that lights up

The ceiling of the Melbourne Crown Casino

8. something I've made

Food of course !!! Yummy!

9. polkadots

In my fabric stash for a future quilt.

10. a lucky charm



An Inukshuk - a souvenir from Canada. A symbol of friendship from the Inuit and their fellow Canadians.
You find versions of this scattered almost anywhere in Canada where there are rocks and travellers.
 I like to think they watch over and care for travellers.
I'm one of those - a traveller I mean !

He stands in the entrance of our home.

11. warmth



Plenty of that here at the moment !!!

12. a self portrait

Showing off my Christmas table runner.
.......

That's it for another month.
If you'd like to see some other Scavenger Hunts click here.


Cheers. 

BADGERS

A recent comment from Yorkshire Pudding sent me off to investigate the photos we took on our holiday in England earlier in the year.

He wanted a blog post about badgers.

Now , as an Aussie, I don't know much about badgers.

I do know I was anxious to see one in the wild when we were in the UK

and believe me I looked

but , unfortunately, the only badger I managed to see was a dead one on the side of the road near Ludlow,

lying there like it was asleep

it's pretty black and white stripey nose stretched out in front

and its thick cream fur unblemished ( luckily !).

.

(The two above photos from the internet)

However,

when we went walking through the fields above our cottage in Martinstown, Dorset

along those wonderful public footpaths that you find everywhere in the country, edged all the way by cow parsley in glorious bloom,

we climbed to the top of the hill and came out

to this beautiful view over the surrounding countryside.

A little further on we came upon a small section of large trees

and in amongst the trees we found

 this !

(click to enlarge )

a large mounded area.

Could this be a badger sett?

It covered a very large area and was riddled with entrances.

At the time we had no idea.

 Thought perhaps it was the home of lots of rabbits

but since then I've come to believe it was

perhaps the home of many badgers?

I eagerly await your verdict.

Cheers.

"People come - they stay for a while, they flourish, they build - and they go.

It is their way

But we remain

There were badgers here, I've been told, long before that same city ever came to be,

And now ther are badgers here again.

We are an enduring lot, and we may move out for a time but we wait, and are patient, and back we come.

And so it will ever be." 

~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Chapter 4.

HOORAY FOR RAIN

After 23 days without rain we are very pleased to wake up to this.

(you can see the brown lawn in the background)

Not much rain but it has brought the temperature down a bit though the humidity is high.

A bit of sewing is being attempted here and on  my design wall ( spare bed !) a new quilt is taking shape.

The materials are coming together quite nicely.

I think it is looking pretty but there is quite a way to go as I need 110 squares for the main part of the quilt and 24 more for the pillow cases.

Better get back to it,

Oh wait, there's a documentary on TV about badgers right now so I'll settle down there to watch as I pin.

Cheers.

PS. Have you noticed that your photos no longer enlarge when you click on them? They are now displayed in a Lightbox line but don't enlarge. If you would like to hgo back to the old way here's a message from Jan at Wibbo's words :

" If your blog is hosted by Blogger, it's easy enough to switch Lightbox off and revert to Blogger's previous way of displaying images. From the Blogger dashboard, click on the Settings tab. From the Settings page, click on Formatting then cursor down to Show images with Lightbox, change the box alongside to read No. Click on Save Settings at the bottom of the page and you're done."

Thanks Jan, I've just changed mine back

MORNING GLORY

If you mention Morning Glory Vine to most Aussies they'll wrinkle up their nose in disdain.
In many places Australian bushland and rainforest is fast disappearing under a dense blanket of this vine.

It quickly spreads by way of long creeping stems, twining around and over other plants and gradually smothering them completely by denying them the ability to photosynthesise.

Morning Glory's rampant growth can successfully form a curtain of stems, which is capable of destroying intact rainforest canopy.

as you can witness here.

The species of Morning Glory commonly occurring in Brisbane and around Brisbane’s rainforest remnants are Blue Morning Glory (Ipomoea indica) and Common Morning Glory (Ipomoea purpurea), both of which originated from America.

Blue Morning Glory has large dark blue-purple funnel shaped flowers and Common Morning Glory has white or pink/purple flowers which usually unravel into full bloom in the early morning.

Now all of that background information is to prepare you for a surprise sighting I made recently as I travelled to an appointment at 9:00am along a fairly busy road in a bushy area between suburbs in the outer area of Brisbane where I live .
It was so amazing that Tony and I returned  to take some photos to show you.

This required us to park the car and walk back along the road behind a safety barrier.

The safety barrier is there because there is a steep drop off the side of the road to a gulley and lots of yukky, rough bush.

but if you keep walking round the bend you come to a more open  area

and  this !

The gulley has been taken over by Morning Glory.

and in the morning sunlight it was truely a glorious sight.

A sea of blue, blue flowers covers the ground and the trees.

Now that it has such a hold here it will be very hard to eradicate before it kills all the other vegetation including the trees.

.

However, it puts on lovely show doesn't it?

Cheers.

PS. Tony and I took all these photos in that one small area. Isn't it amazing that you can find these little gems just around the corner if you just keep your eyes open ?

AN AUSSIE AT THE PALACE

All photos today are from the internet.

Recently Australia's highest decorated serving soldier was received by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. It was not the first time Australian Army Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith has met the Queen.

As you can see from the picture Corporal Roberts-Smith is very tall.

Corporal Roberts-Smith received a Victoria Cross for his extreme bravery during an intense gun battle in Afghanistan's Shah Wali Kot region in October. He charged the enemy under heavy machine gun fire after realising his fellow soldiers were in danger.

Read the whole story here.

He is pictured here at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra where his Victoria Cross is on display with other VCs - would you look at those muscles !!! 

We are all very proud of this fine soldier.

PS. He is great on the battlefield. I wonder how he copes at home with his twin girls !!!

Cheers.