SkyWatch Friday

(For more SkyWatch Friday links around the world click on the link above)

November moon (Melbourne Australia)





Kinglake Victoria

July after the fires

Sunsets

Good Friday 2009

A late entry for Skywatch Friday from Melbourne Australia. Still playing around with my new camera.

Sorry about the lack of activity on my blog for so long.......no excuses......and no guarantees either!

(Also sorry about all the wires in the moon rising shot) Not quite up to Annie's standard yet!

To view other Skywatch Friday entries click here

Skywatch Friday............for my sister.........
my first Skywatch Friday post - skies from Horsham.

If you would like to see more skywatch entries, please go to...the new blog for Skywatch http://skyley.blogspot.com

Two rainbows are twice as good.
Looking forward to Naomi's visit.
Must get the newsletter done this weekend ready for printing and posting next week.
Spring chores are keeping me busy at the moment: cleaning the oven at the moment, and got to do some more weeding before it rains.

Friday 29th August

Hymenanthera dentata (Tree Violet)

Recovering today from the loss of the Grand Final (tennis) yesterday........very sad. So I went down to the river, looking for Jasper again, and discovered it was a beautiful day, quite mild and sunny. I was also pleased to discover a few plants I hadn't noticed before, two of which I could actually identify.

Spyridium parvifolium (Australian dusty miller) (Tree violet again)
So I made a repeat trip to the river, still looking for Jasper, and took my camera this time.
Here are some other photos of our plant group's excursion to Strathewen last Sunday too.
















Needless to say Jasper came home when he was good and ready (and tired), and Lady says she
doesn't mind if Jasper disappears everyday, if it means she gets to go looking for him!

Saturday

Enjoyed my day at Eltham Library today, even if it was a bit quiet. Guess it was better than being too busy to be able to find my way around, as every branch is a little bit different and have their own ways of doing things.
Thursday was disappointing for our Grand Final to be washed out. So we go back this week to finish off.....albeit with a slightly different team, as one of our girls can't make it this week. We went ahead Thursday night however with our end of season dinner out, which was very enjoyable.
Saturday last week we went out with Ginny and Kerry to a Heidelberg Choral Society concert....Nabucco in concert. Was a great concert, with wonderful soloists too. Just wish they had access to a bigger venue, as it was rather close quarters for full orchestra, 8 soloists and 100 strong choir. We all came away having thoroughly enjoyed the performance, but just a little bit deaf. I managed to take a couple of photos with my phone camera:
Then last Sunday we had another night out with some of Ginny and Kerry's other friends to celebrate their Ruby Wedding Anniversary. Was a good night, enjoyable company, and good food at the Mylin Vietnamese restaurant. Again I forgot to take my camera, so have just a couple from my phone camera:
My current project is to go through a lot of botanical photos to select some for a powerpoint presentation. Need to have this done in a couple of weeks I think, ready for a community talk a couple from our plant group will be giving at Mill Park Library.

Sunday 3rd August

It is nice to be home again after my brief sojurn to Cairns to help Margaret. I am not sure how much help I was, but certainly hope I wasn't a hindrance. Wish I could have stayed longer to help with all the running around, and maybe I will get back if I am still needed later on. It certainly is a good time to visit Cairns, not that there was any sightseeing done, but the weather was just balmy compared to Melbourne at the moment. Even the windy day was okay if you had a cardy on - maybe a bit more if you were a Cairns-ian.
Got through tennis on Thursday after the late flight back Wed night, in a bit of a daze, but we won, so we are still on top of the ladder and into the start of the finals next week. Then Thursday afternoon and evening was spent getting stuck into finishing the newsletter, getting it printed Friday, collecting it, folding, stapling and labelling them, and posting today....hooray. The email version is already sent.
And now I have just successfully uploaded photos from the two July garden visits onto my web album - see link to My Botanical Web Albums under Plant Links on the top right.
Had a nice birthday dinner out with Neil tonight at the Machan, a local Indian restaurant - a bit noisy, but nice food and ambience.

Sunday 20th July

Back into the routine here again. Sorry for not posting for so long. It has been a busy time with meetings and paperwork, and it has taken a lot of time reducing the 300 or more photos from our trip to Numurkah and Canberra. As you can see from the new slideshow here I have reduced the photos from Numurkah. Have had some lovely garden visits here closer to home too, which photos still have to be processed. Then there is still the newsletter to do for next month.

Lately of course we have all been very worried about Peter and Marg. Let's hope things keep improving for Peter in hospital, and that Marg can get away to get some more sleep too.

What a pleasure to look out at the damp drizzly weather at last. Katie and friends spent the weekend up at Mt. Hotham snowboarding, and said they had pretty well blizzard conditions the first day, and more rain and snow the other days.

Hooray, Katie passed all her subjects including her thesis - what a miracle, and Keryn did well in her subjects too. Both Neil and I did react rather strongly when Katie jokingly talked about a PhD next......."not in this house you won't"!

Would someone just tell those weeds to stop growing please? Now there is this lovely weather, but which is not very nice for going out in, and the weeds they just keep on going.

Wednesday

Well, here I am at the National Library (in Canberra) able to access the internet/emails at last. Neil is at the conference at Geoscience Australia today, so I am a free agent, and enjoying exploring old haunts. Was going to go shopping, but will instead visit the Botanic Gardens, National Museum and National Gallery if I get time.

I am glad to see Ann is enjoying her newest grandchild in NY, though I imagine by now everyone there will be feeling a little sleep deprived.

We are staying in a b&b in our old street, so it was nice to catch up with an old friend just a short walk away yesterday. Canberra is having a cold snap this week, just for us, but it is really what we expected.....foggy cold mornings, with glorious sunny afternoons. Last night we also caught up with another couple we had not seen for over 20 years. They moved to Wagga Wagga soon after we returned from Perth, then we went to Melbourne after they returned to Canberra.

Not looking forward to our long drive back on Friday, but since I have work arranged for Saturday, it has to be done.

Tuesday 17th June

Congratulations Joanne and Andrew, and welcome to the wide world Liam.

Another event today did not go so well.....our tennis Grand Final. We lost by 3 games. A bit disappointing, but I enjoyed the tennis, and was not as nervous as I used to be on such occasions. Was a bright sunny day, but a bit windy, with several points being won by the wind.

However this afternoon also brought back the internet. Having been deprived for almost 4 days, I phoned Optus once again(5th time), but this time I was not so polite, and, among other things, said we would be changing providers if it wasn't fixed within 24 hours. It may be a coincidence, but it was back within 20 minutes, and hasn't faltered since! What a waste of time it was yesterday spending one and a half hours talking to the help desk in India.

Looking forward to our trip to Numurkah this weekend for the Quarterly Gathering of the Australian Plants Society Victoria. And also to our trip to Canberra following, albeit a very cold venue. Will be nice to catch up with some friends of old we haven't seen for some years now.

Saturday 7th June

Just a teeny bit more rain we had overnight, which made the weeds easy to pull out this afternoon. Didn't get much done before I realized it was time to go out to dinner with Ginnie. Was nice to have some time to chat together, and we both agreed it was a nice meal at the Ivanhoe Hotel. Went nice and early, so it wasn't too noisy or crowded.
I enjoyed last night's meeting at ANOS (Native Orchid Society). Have missed a few months, due to forgetfulness, or inability to go. Here are some not so good photos taken on my phone camera - will remember next time not to try closeups with it. Of course there were the real professional cameras out to record the beautiful specimens for the next newsletter. I won another plant in the raffle too.

Wednesday 4th June

Happy Birthday John. Hope you have time to celebrate. Erk.......that means we are both getting closer to the big 0's next year.
Again not much news for the week. However the good news is that we finished the first of our Tuesday tennis finals in great style yesterday, with a big win. So it's straight into the Grand Final in two weeks time. We also had a good win last Thursday, though we are only half way through the season. This week was not looking promising, with one of our girls injured, but yesterday I managed to tee someone up to play for her. I would hate to have to forfeit.
Some other good news is that we had a cheque in the mail from the travel insurers, reimbursing us for our extra airfares we incurred last year for returning a week early for Betty's funeral. No, they weren't slow in paying up either - it was less than a month since I got around to submitting our claim. They had told us we had 12 months to claim, once we'd told them we were going to, so of course with everything else happening, it was put to one side.
No more weekend work happening at the moment, which I am pleased about - might have more time to get into the garden, though Scrabble on Facebook seems to be taking up the slack at the moment! Good news with the rain up north. Wonder if any of it will drift down here?

Tuesday 27th May

Phew....finally finished the newsletter for another 2 months. Of course, just after I'd emailed it to the printer I had a phonecall from someone to see if I could put something else in it. Too late. Decided to pick it up on the way to work tomorrow, rather than make a special trip out in the rain tonight.
What a shame the preliminary final for our tennis today has had to be postponed till next week, because of the rain. We were doing okay too, although a late start with having to mop up one court. Was good tennis too. My first set took over an hour, with us winning the tie-break 8-6, so not much in it really. The other girls played almost 2 sets during that time too.
My weekend work has halted for the time being, thank goodness. Will be nice to have some time to get out in the garden again, weather permitting.
How'z this new haircut??
What a disgrace is the Camden community. Shame on them.
Good news on the Euc. erythrocorys - it has some new shoots. What a pity Betty threw hers out.
The Ginkgo tree is still a glorious gold with a carpet underneath.

Wednesday 21st May

Another nice bit of rain over the last few days. Just over an inch in fact. I should be out there planting in every spare minute, but the cold and damp is not so conducive at the moment.
Some more good wins at tennis, both last Tuesday, Thursday, and yesterday. This puts us into the finals for Tuesday next week.
Our Ginkgo tree outside the kitchen door is looking just beautiful at the moment, as you can see.
Must say I am finding all this weekend work a bit of a struggle at the moment. Don't seem to have much time to relax, what with the newsletter hanging over me this week, and tennis 2 days, and work Wednesdays, and Thurs night. Roll on June, when hopefully no more weekend work. Fitting my moves in on Scrabble (with Ann in Brisbane, and Joanne in NY) is fun too!
Went out to dinner with Ginnie, Kerry, Alan and Michelle Saturday night. Happy Birthday to Michelle for yesterday.
Ginnie, Michelle and I are hoping to see The Painted Veil sometime soon, and I would also like to see Unsecret.

Thursday 8/5

A whole week without posting.
I must admit I have been distracted by lots of work and our plant sale on Sunday among other things.
Last week I had plenty of work on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday afternoon.
Thursday night was our Yarra Yarra monthly plant meeting, at which I supplied the laptop to run the powerpoint presentation by our speaker. This entailed a bit of preparation on the Wednesday morning before work, checking out that it all worked, since it is a new digital projector the group has bought. Glad I did, as I had to ring the ASUS help desk to find out how to get it on the screen. Spent all day at our plant sale Sunday, which did extremely well as usual. Then Tuesday night our Committee Meeting was held here.........a bit protracted, with lots of discussion on the problems with our Victorian group, planning for this year's Flower Show to come, the success of our recent plant sale, etc etc.
Tennis was successful last Tuesday, and again this week, but last Thursday's tennis was a washout. Lovely to get some rain though. Today's game was a win too.
Work this week on Wednesday, and Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
Hope you have fun playing with Milimba my virtual cat.

Tuesday morning

Have had some nice rain the last couple of days - about 17mm all up. Long may it continue.
I have been disappointed with one of my Bunnings plants - a Eucalyptus erythrocorys - planted it out soon after purchase, and it is already dying. My friend Betty bought one at the same time, and it seems hers is dying back also, and hers is still in the pot. Think it must have been pushed along too quickly in its growth and hadn't been hardened off enough before sale - there was a lot of new tender leaf growth on it when we bought them.
Well, I have succumbed to joining Facebook. I decided I needed to know more about it as a librarian - people do come to us expecting us to know all about everything on the internet! I must say I am not impressed with it so far - not intuitive to find your way around it. Though Annie was quick off the mark inviting me to a game of Scrabulous (Scrabble) before I'd even signed up fully! So that will be fun to play, though I expect they will be very long interrupted games.
Yesterday saw a really cold snap arrive, though it only got down to 10deg last night. Oops, look at the time - am off to tennis.

Saturday 26/4/08

Not much news this week. Only 1 day at work, Wednesday and a 1/2 day Thursday night. Quite busy on Wednesday, and quiet but steady Thursday night. Managed to get a bit of the holds list done that night for a change.
Tuesday was a good tennis day, brilliant weather, and a very good win - in fact we were so far ahead that the opposition forfeited the last 2 sets, as they were nursing several injuries (it was 1 lady's first time back after a hip replacement!) Thursday's tennis was a different story - again, lovely weather, but after 4 sets each it was a draw, so we may as well have not played, except the exercise was good for us.
Managed to get a few more plants in this week, so now have to run around with our recycled/collected water and keep a bit of water up to them. We have been promised rain this weekend, but apart from being cloudy and a few spots last night, nothing has eventuated yet.
Neil and I watched Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress on dvd last Sunday night, and thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it was subtitled rather than dubbed. Wonder what the book is like......has anyone read it? There was another one someone told me about at the library the other night, which they recommended the book over the film, but I can't remember it now. Mmm, wonder if it will come back to me?
Anzac Day yesterday. Am always surprised that new stories keep emerging each year from families and historians. Quite interesting to hear the story around the French town Villers-Bretonneux. And interesting that they kept the memorial service for families of the crew of HMAS Sydney to Thursday, separate from Anzac Day.

Saturday 19/4/08

Crowea saligna (large flowered form)



Vale Milo. It is always so sad when a pet dies.

Here are some photos of the Crowea I was telling you about Michelle. It is a prolific flowerer, but I think it likes a slightly sandy mix and a raised bed for good drainage. Mine has not been watered through summer really at all. I must get some more of them myself.

Last week was a lean week for work, not that I minded really, as I had tennis Tuesday and Thursday, and choir Monday night and Maroondah meeting (of our plant society) last night. So I was quite pleased to have a few hours on Monday to load software on Neil's laptop, after picking it up from the repair shop (he decided to take Vista off and go back to XP). Also managed to put a few new plants in the garden this week, only now they have to be kept watered until the rain comes - perhaps not quite as much as if they were in pots though. It is just remembering where I put the new ones in...
Also took Ann out to the airport on my way to work on Wednesday lunchtime. Pity she had such a long wait for her flight. Oh yes, and we had a meal out together with Neil Tuesday night at Eos Greek restaurant in Greensborough. Was a little disappointed with the food - a bit overcooked, and lacking dips or sauces with the meat platter. They were doing a roaring trade (yes, a bit noisy) for a Tuesday night, so they must be doing something right.
Have a slightly swollen knee since Thurs tennis. Think I am just coming out in sympathy with Katie though - she really hurt herself at netball, and is now having to get a referral to x-rays and a physio to help it recover. However, might start increasing my dose of fish oil tablets now that I am back to playing twice a week, and see if that helps my knees. Two tablets a day has certainly taken most of the creaks and groans away.
Keryn has been quite sick this week with a cold. Must be something going round now, as Ann had it too, along with Natalie and Hannah. Bring on the lemon and honey drinks. The lemon tree outside has quite a few on it, but not quite ripe yet.

Sunday 13/4/08

Am recovering at last from a very busy week. Nice to sleep in and know I can do my own thing today. With an overcast sky today, I might rush to put a few more plants in soon, in the hope they will be watered in with some rain. Not holding my breath though, since the rain forecast for the last 2 days never eventuated.
Was surprised that I was quite upset by an irate borrower this week, who shouted at me and threw his cards across the desk. Makes me think how hard it must be for call centre people, teachers and nurses etc who must have to take this on a daily basis. I certainly wouldn't last long if it happened often.
Margaret and Peter seem to be enjoying themselves up Rubyvale, Longreach and Clermont area. Finding gemstones, metal detecting for gold, and general sightseeing. Another 2 weeks before they have to go back to work, I think.
Ann is going back up to Brisbane on Wednesday, and I am hoping to pick her up Tuesday sometime so we can have a meal out together. Will take her to the airport on Wednesday on my way to work at Mill Park.
Am supposed to be having Tuesday off tennis this week, unless someone else can't play. Back to Thursday tennis this week, with me as captain this season. Ugh, we still have 3 weeks in May when we are 1 person short for our team, since 3 of the regular team are off on overseas trips!
p.s. Just heard that I am needed at tennis on Tuesday. Also have emergencies for 2 of the 3 weeks needed for Thursdays in May, so I feel a little better now.

Wednesday 9/4/08

Well, it's good to be connected to the rest of the world again. Telephone and internet came back on Sunday night. The first we knew of it was the phone ringing, and it was such an alien sound, we ignored it for a bit thinking it was on the tv. It was Annie, who had seen me update my blog and thought I was back online.........however I had been using Keryn's borrowed mobile wireless modem to get online for that.
Monday morning I ended up taking Katie to the airport early to catch a flight to Sydney for the Miss World Australia contest. Then back to pick up Betty to take her to Bunnings to look at their range of native plants. That was fatal........so now I have a whole lot more to plant. Discussed the idea with her of our plant society having an afternoon down there to promote our group, and to talk to people about the way to grow the plants, conditions etc. She agreed it was a good idea if we could get Bunnings to support us as a local group.
Yesterday was tennis day. We played the Uniting Church team at Diamond Creek on mod grass. We got off to a bad start unfortunately, and never really caught up. I ended up winning 2 sets and losing 2 (badly).........not much new there. Was a beautiful day though, really glorious conditions. Came home and actually planted a few things in the garden. Then had to get ready for our committee meeting last night, which went well..........meaning we finished early for a change! They liked my idea of collaborating with Bunnings, so now it is up to me to approach them to see if they will allow us to do it.
Am off to work again today, till 8-45, when I go out to the airport to collect Ann, who is fast-tracking her plans here in case she has to go to NY early - her daughter Jo has been admitted to hospital with early contractions. She will only be with us overnight. Then we have a quick game of tennis in the morning, before I drive her over to stay with Ian and Natalie and the grandchildren. I have work again tomorrow afternoon.
Neil is working hard to get everything ship-shape here before he goes north again on his camping trip - lots of repairs, and pruning happening. I think he is waiting till all is settled with Probate too with his mother's estate. He is only waiting now on the English account to come over - shouldn't be more than a few weeks, by the time letters get there and come back again hopefully.
Had an enjoyable Indian meal on Monday night at Bhoj Restaurant with John and Wendy - making use of our Entertainment Book again. Was nice to see them again - pity they haven't had time to stay a little longer. Managed to help John sort out a few issues with his computer.........very nice little Mac. Have to get to work - will put photos on later.