journey day

We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

-T.S.Eliot

the past in cast iron and wisteria

reading Tim Winton

blue sky, mine

room with a view

seeing the suburbs with new eyes

I love the houses, the neat gardens, the lemon trees, palm trees, the verandahs, their dinky names (Avalon, Tara)...

path

grace

the past on paper

maggie

ice-cream stop on the way home

by the embankment

pepper tree

One of my most favourite trees. So evocative of heat and sun and dry ground underfoot, of playing as a small child in the enveloping dappled shade.

chemo day/sister day

My sister came along to chemo today as she will do this regularly once I've gone, in order to give Mum a break from the hospital scene (and a chance to stay home and clean the house...). We talked all day and had a good laugh about a lot of things, including this bizarre 2006 calendar that was on the wall near Dad's chair.

cannas!!

architecture

theme and variations

slow rainy day

what we've done, what we might do, patterns, wool, musings, the lull of crotcheting, and all the women I thought of with every stitch...

icon

Castlemaine

beautiful sunny day, beautiful country, a thriving country town (where I'm not the only one wearing Redbacks, and the babies are all in slings and home-made knits...)

Elizabeth's farm

We brought scones, jam and cream and left with more jam, a book of George MacDonald fairy stories, a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums, and two big bags of pine cones. I had to open the gate for the car, stand and wait until Mum drove through, run and check the letter box, close the gate and hop back in. Now that's a well-remembered rhythm from a long ago childhood.

Aboriginal flag

and a beautiful blue sky

Spavin Dam

This is where I go on my daily walk. There are geese, ducks, coots, the usual magpies, Indian mynahs and parrots, and yesterday I saw a heron.

oak trees

She-oaks or desert oaks. When the wind blows, they say sssshhhhhh....

pinkheath

Victoria's floral emblem

where we walked today

Urquhart's Bluff, Anglesea

Moreton Bay fig tree

A very early start to the day - we left home in the dark - to get to the first appointment at the Peter Macallum cancer hospital. I walked in the Fitzroy Gardens and took photos, thinking about Auntie Margaret who always loved the autumn leaves of Melbourne in gardens like this, and of my school girl self reading my book on the tram on the way to school and knowing I was nearing my stop when I saw the trees here. This one is a Moreton Bay fig, native to Queensland and NSW. Magical, secretive, all-knowing trees.

roadside views

concert

Carolan's Harp: Airs, Jiggs and Planxties by "the chief musician of all Ireland" - Toirdhealbhach O Cearbhallain (1670-1738). The only concert I've ever been to that ends with the lutist mopping spilt beer off the floor.

homegrown

gum trees

Near Sanatorium Lake (which is just a dam really), Mt Macedon. We think they might be manna gums, which is what koalas like to eat, but we're not sure.

flowering gum

farmers' market

A lovely sunny (sandal weather) morning. We bought strawberries, a box of tomatoes for making sauce, half a cabbage for making borshcht with the beetroots growing in the garden, Sicilian pesto, Turkish bread, grapes from Mildura, home grown peppers, and some plants: lemon thyme, red kale, and black kale. Lunch afterwards at home on the front verandah and then a warm lazy afternoon reading the paper (basket weaving in Arnhem Land - sign me up!)

cityscape

Spent some time in Melbourne this morning and last night - dinner at Shakas in Lygon Street with comrades and overnight in West Melbourne. It's like being in a dream; all rather familiar and yet all so different. Lots of thoughts about time and space, about the effects of landscape on our selves...

underfoot

soup and poetry

I put on an apron today and it felt good. I made soup and listened to Edward Hirsch talking to Ramona Koval about poetry on Radio National. He wrote:

I walked into the woods today
and felt
you know,
kind of religious.

ironbark

The trees around here speak. In the wind, the leaves swoosh and swish, in the evening calm, they stand so still and knowingly. The windows are open. The breeze is blowing and the birds are calling. I am a fish returned to water.

road to the hospital

It's not all like this, but the first part is, and the last part on the way home. It's so wonderful to start and end the day in the bush.

lemon tree

Everybody's gotta have a lemon tree...

trellis

An autumn morning. The grape vine on the trellis has grown so much since I was here last.