More wildlife- this time a largish kookaburra which landed with a thump on our deck rail as soon as we sat down to eat lunch. It had been in the tree, but fancied its chances when it saw food - it's obviously used to being hand fed. Grandpa Flea went to place a piece of meat on the railing and the kookaburra lunged forward to take it from his fingers.
We are a bit wary of birds that get too close when food is involved - once we were quite innocently sitting in a national park eating our lunch, surrounded by birds that were apparently used to being fed scraps by visitors (as they kept invading our space and were not too happy to go away when we "shoo'ed" them). Grandpa Flea was about to put a piece of sandwich in his mouth when a huge crow swept down, snatching the piece of food from his fingers. In the process, it gave him a nasty abrasion on his hand from its sharp beak. We decided to sit in the car to finish our meal and .... shades of Alfred Hitchcock .... dozens of these birds landed on the bonnet pecking at the windscreen, making it quite clear that if they could break in, they would! It was very unsettling - well, let's be honest here - it was downright frightening even though we were inside the car.
It's amazing how some birds within a group, all with the same colouring and all about the same size, can quickly become recognisable as individuals. This is our favourite - "Cranky Pants". We assume he is male, as he is the dominant bird of a pair that visit regularly. He scolds at us if we approach too close, and he gets very annoyed when I take his photo. You can see him giving me some very explicit advice on where to go in this photo! I must do some reading up on lorikeets - I would have thought that it is too late in the season for mating, but Cranky Pants was in fine form today, doing an amazing display for his mate - almost a snake dance with his head, whispering sweet nothings in her ears and making an enormous display of flapping his wings. When he became a bit too amorous, his "meek" little partner gave him a peck and buzzed him off!
And for
Carson a visit from a large brushtail possum.
And so to knitting - I bet you'd forgotten that this is a knitting blog .... today was the Knitting group at Cherryhills, my LYS. A whole pile of Debbie Bliss books have come in - but how many knitting books can one person use? I think I'd like to live in that shop - I could have yarnball baths at night - go to bed on a pile of yarn as soft as featherdown, cuddling several balls of soft Annie Blatt angora - tie pieces of ?Annie Blatt "Fleur" around my neck for necklaces - knit myself bedsocks and hot water bottle covers in any combination of yarns I fancied - wear the smell of new books for perfume - aaaaahhhh - the list is endless.
Despite my obvious yarn addiction, I came home with only ONE ball of plain wool to add to a skirt I'm knitting for one of the little fleas,and a pattern book for Freedom wool - I think my daughter-outlaw would look great in one of these vests - let's hope it gets finished instead of FROGGED numerous times before being forever consigned to that great frogged pond in the sky - whoops - I mean the back room.
I'm off to bed.
Some people stay up too late at night - which is how they manage to photograph the moon. I'm sure sleep would be much more beneficial. This was taken about 12.05am on Saturday morning in the north-east. 
This second Saturday Sky was taken about 10.30am in the south-west. Before someone tells me that these directions are impossible, remember that I am spatially challenged - a label that encompasses map reading, direction finding, reverse parking, knitting graph reading, pattern modification, school uniform sewing ... need I go on. The only thing that I am good at in the spatial department, is estimating the size of jar or tupperware container that I need for any given amount of liquid or leftovers - and even there I have had some spectacular mis-estimates! More later if I have time.
