27 February 2013

Peter, Peter, Pun'kin Eater ...


We baked and ate our first ever home grown pumpkin last night.
It was exciting and buttery and delicious!


26 February 2013

Travelday - Roaming Rome

Okay, so my alliteration is not the best there but I couldn't help myself! As my posts have slowly approached Rome I have been in two minds about how to tackle this final step of our holiday. Do I keep it short and give you one encompassing post or do I continue to do a post for either each day or each location? I have in the end decided that a post for each iconic part of Rome is probably the best way to finish ... and as far as I can tell you're not yet sick of my holiday photos so I figure why not stretch the reminiscing out just a little longer.

Our few days in Rome were, as the title suggests, spent doing a lot of walking ... a lot of roaming. I will start with the more specific posts next week and will today simply leave you with some of the random places we saw and loved along the way.






22 February 2013

Samson fought the fence and ... well, Samson won!




Sorry for more blurry photos but I discovered this while getting ready this morning ...
by the time I get home tonight I will be just as dark so no better for trying to get a good shot.

19 February 2013

Travelday - Pompeii

Following our morning driving the Amalfi Coast but before heading up to Rome,
we stopped at Pompeii for a look around.









15 February 2013

13 February 2013

The Colours of Light


This is not easy to understand
For you that come from a distant land
Where all the colours are low in pitch -
Deep purples, emeralds deep and rich,
Where autumn's flaming and summer's green -
Here is a beauty you have not seen.

All is pitched in a higher key,
Lilac, topaz, and ivory,
Palest jade-green and pale clear blue
Like aquamarines that the sun shines through,
Golds and silvers, we have at will -
Silver and gold on each plain and hill,
Silver-green of the myall leaves,
Tawny gold of the garnered sheaves,
Silver rivers that silent slide,
Golden sands by the water-side,

Golden wattle, and golden broom,
Silver stars of the rosewood bloom;
Amber sunshine, and smoke-blue shade:
Opal colours that glow and fade;
On the gold of the upland grass
Blue cloud-shadows that swiftly pass;
Wood-smoke blown in an azure mist;
Hills of tenuous amethyst . . . 

We have to wait till the sunset comes
For shades that feel like the beat of drums -
Or like organ notes in their rise and fall -
Purple and orange and cardinal,
Or the peacock-green that turns soft and slow
To peacock-blue as the great stars show . . .

Sugar-gum boles flushed to peach-blow pink;
Blue-gums, tall at the clearing's brink;
Ivory pillars, their smooth fine slope
Dappled with delicate heliotrope;
Grey of the twisted mulga-roots;
Golden-bronze of the budding shoots;
Tints of the lichens that cling and spread,
Nile-green, primrose, and palest red . . .

Sheen of the bronze-wing; blue of the crane;
Fawn and pearl of the lyrebird's train;
Cream of the plover; grey of the dove -
These are the hues of the land I love. 
Dorothea MacKellar

11 February 2013

07 February 2013

Micro

 here 

Timeline, among many others, is a perfect example ... I still remember the first time The Sparky and I saw the preview, months before the movie came out. We had both read and loved the book and knew that it would make an awesome movie. Of course we made a point of going to see it as soon as it was released ... MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT (yes, that all needs to be in caps, I'm considering bold and underline as well just to make my point).

Why this trip down memory lane you ask? I've just finished the latest, and sadly last, of Michael Crichton's books Micro. As my mind wandered through what may or may not have ended up being a good book review, two thoughts kept coming up:

1 - quite simply, if you like Michael Crichton's work you'll like Micro, if you don't, you probably won't; and

2 - in the right hands it would make a great movie (emphasis added by me for reasons set out above).

Which about sums it up, anything else is basically a potential spoiler, so I will leave it at that.

04 February 2013

Orange Crush




I'm trying not to dwell too much on last year at the moment, it hampers my ability to focus on the future and stay buoyant and buoyantly happy.


That said, I owe a seriously belated shout out to the wonderful Ms I-Hua. These cups came to me at time when I desperately needed some sunshine. They were just exactly what I needed at the time and I love them, not just for that but because they are perfect. I have my coffee in them at least once a day, although less often with a sweet treat accompaniment these days.









(Honestly, there is so much more that I want to say but the delving saw me racing to the bathroom to have a good old cry ... I guess I'm not quite as ready as I thought I was ...)

01 February 2013

Mary, Mary, quite contrary ...



No silver bells or cockle shells but it's definitely growing!


Sunflower!! Fourth time I've planted seeds, first time anything has grown (and still only two of eight).

I have a spiraliser, I have zucchini, I have finally enjoyed veggie spaghetti.

Cucumbers, regular and ... um ... not so regular - all tasty!

Chillis, hot, hot, delicious, chillis.

Pumpkin! In fact two ... we weren't expecting this one to survive here.

More chilli and finally some teeny, tiny hiding tomatoes (they're there I promise).

Plus a bonus, mystery plant ... and Samson staring at a cat through the fence!