Saturday Sky

We were at La Perouse yesterday - it had been a beautiful day - sunny and warm and we'd had a wander on the beach at Congwong Bay before checking out the location of various things that Grandpa Flea needed to know for a Probus outing that he is organising. Late in the day the sky was filling up with cotton wool clouds and the sun was sending out long rays of "God's light" . Flocks of sea gulls and crows were circling around, riding the thermals and looking for scraps left by litterbugs. I was trying to catch the sun's rays in a photo - without a lot of success, but the silhouette of the birds against the sky really appealed to me.

While we were wandering around I became very conscious of how little I know of the geography and history of this land that I live in. La Perouse is on a bay at the end of the bus line in the south eastern suburbs of Sydney. The link above to Wikiipedia has a good summary of it's history. Named after Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse, and traditionally an area with a large aboriginal community, it is still a relatively unspoiled waterfront suburb, but signs of the great middleclass sprawl are showing. Just up the road, the magnificent site of the now defunct Prince Henry Hospital has been broken up into small building lots for those with plenty of money, and high rise apartments are starting to encroach on the once unbroken view of Little Bay.

Fortunately, some historical parts of the site will be protected and retained. One of these is the Nursing and Medical Museum. We are going there for a Probus outing in June and will have a conducted tour by one of the nurses who worked there in the fifties and sixties. Prince Henry was known as "The Coast Hospital" and had originally been a quarantine hosptal for infectious diseases. A friend of mine studied medicine when we left school and one of her placements was at Prince Henry. At that time there was still an operating "leprosaurium" there. We were both amazed (and very young!) to think that there were people with leprosy living in Sydney - we'd only ever heard about it in the context of overseas countries. The leprosaurium was closed in the mid-late sixties after the advent of antibiotics that controlled the disease.

Just as well Janette isn't holding her breath - knitting content - SOON.

Home again, home again ....

We're back home again after a Probus trip - three days on a bus and three days at Ballina - it's a long way. We broke the trip up at Coffs Harbour, but had a ten hour trip on the way home. Not my favourite way to travel, although we did have plenty of stops. I never thought I'd be one of those groups of 'oldies' who get off a bus en masse, all with their little name tags in case they forget who they are (oops! did I say that?) - but here I am and despite myself, I enjoy the trips! We may look like a bunch of old farts, but there are extraordinary lives behind the ordinary faces. We went to the naval Museum at Ballina, and on display was the ship's wheel from a ship sunk in WWII - and in our group was a 90 year old who was on the ship when it went down! He told us the story - absolutely incredible. The women staffing the front desk were overcome with emotion and wanted his phone number so the "boys" could get in touch with him for more details. He is the most delightful person - and amazingly fit - it's a bit humbling to be overtaken on a hill by a 90 year old!!

Saturday Sky - on Tuesday
This photo was taken at the sculpture garden of Thursday Plantation, a tea tree oil company on the north coast of New South Wales (sorry, the link wouldn't work - you can google it). It was a very interesting garden with a tea tree maze, a rainforest walk, and lots of mosquitoes - I think they breed them so you need to buy the tea tree oil to take the itch away!



Saturday Sky in Advance!
We'll be away again next Saturday, so I thought I'd get some credit up! If you look VERY carefully, you can just see a tanker on the horizon on the right of the photo.


Not the best photos, but the best I could do - and here is another not so good photo for Roxie and Carson. I went out on th deck last night for something and saw this little sweetie popping her head out, ready to venture forth for mealtime. She is very shy and I had a great deal of difficulty finding her on the screen as it was so dark - this is the only photo that had her in it - the other ten were of the tree trunk! Enjoy - sorry it's a bit blurry.


I went to the Guild meeting on Monday and was bombarded with baby jumpers for AIDS babies - forty of them! All different colours - and sizes! It's amazing how we can never all knit the same pattern and get the same size! We've given up doing rugs from squares for that reason. We now use strips!

Here's looking at you ....

I can't believe it's over a week since I last posted. We have listed our house for sale again and life has been very busy. I have also had a bad knee - for months - but why go to the doctor when you're in pain? Eventually the chiropracter referred me back to the GP and after x-rays and an MRI I now know I have a Baker's cyst behind the knee which has ruptured - perhaps if I'd had the sense to go to the GP a year ago it might have resolved by now. Fortunately it is improving but I have to wear an elastic bandage thing that keeps rolling over and cutting off my circulation - what do they say about the cure being worse than the disease? We have also had a couple of days off-line after a blackout the other night.


I missed Saturday sky and am in advance of Wildlife Wednesday as we leave in the morning (Tuesday here) for a trip to Ballina with Grandpa Flea's Probus club. We'll be back Sunday, late, but I'll post a Saturday sky next Monday (I hope).

I will miss the possums when we move - I've been fiddling with GPa Flea's camera and having fun. This possum was awake the other day, just lazily peeping out from his house. I can't get Blogger to put the hand and eye alongside each other - probably because they are different sizes - you'll have to use your imagination.We had a visit from a pair of King Parrots during the week - they are very shy birds and hard to catch on camera - the male is much more brightly coloured than the female - who heard the beep of the camera and declined to be photographed!

I disturbed a baby gecko when I was moving some pots outside. We often used to have these inside our house, but when we painted the dark brick walls a cream colour, they moved outside - easier to blend in with the surroundings. The first time I disturbed one of the bigger geckos, it barked at me! It was happily ensconced under a cane basket full of toys in the children's room (40 years ago) - I'd never seen one in the house before and didn't know that they could bark - what a fright.


When will there be some knitting content on this blog? Your guess is as good as mine! I have finished one legging for my grand-daughter; done half the front of a jumper for another GD; knitted a lot of spare cotton into dusters and wash-cloths - straight knitting is all I'm really capable of, at present.; finished a Noro garter stitch scarf for Sue at Cherryhills; and ignored Eloise for the eldest Flea. I have to pack some knitting to take tomorrow so may give Eloise a whirl. One day I'll post some knitting photos - promise.

Thank you everyone for your comments - I'll respond when we get home on Sunday.

Night & Day ...

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.

Sunday here, is Saturday there ...

...... fortunately, as I forgot to get a "Saturday Sky" photo on Saturday (here). So I'm cheating (since it's Saturday there!). The sky is not anything remarkable today - just dull grey - so this is a photo of the sky earlier this summer when bushfires were creating a smoke haze which made the most remarkable sunset. It's all the more remarkable, because we rarely see much sunset here - we're in a valley surrounded by tall trees (how did you guess?) and this photo is of the southern sky.

Day 55 - I'm just sneezin' along

Saturday Sky: this photo says it all.

It has been a hot and humid day - and now the thunder has started and it's about to rain - we hope! Grandpa Flea has been off bussing around a local history route and I've been home with a filthy cold. I NEVER get sick, I don't know ANYONE ELSE who has a cold, although everyone tells me "It's going around", so I can't point the finger. I'm aching, have a small jackhammer in my head and a tonne weight on my neck and shoulders, and I'm tetchy - and it's only a cold! Imagine how I'd be if I was really sick! The upside is, that an elderly friend (as opposed to the elderly FleaPas) was very happy to take my place on the bus trip. He is a real sweetie and I'm sure he will have a great day.

Now I'm going to have a cup of tea, two panadol (tylenol) and a good lie down (for those of you who are too young to remember, or live elsewhere, a good old Aussie tradition used to be "a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down" until they discovered that the aspirin, phenacetin and caffeine mix in Bex ate your kidneys up).

Day 48 - Question 3: Why is it always ME?

Question 3: Why is it always ME??

Does anyone remember that plaintive cry from the children when asked to do ANYTHING along the lines of taking out the garbage, packing up the table, wiping up etc? Well, today I reached a milestone - I KNEW I must be old and declining into my second childhood when I wanted to shout "WHY IS IT ALWAYS ME????".

And what, I hear you say, could have prompted this usually very calm (well, sometimes) and reasonable person to descend into such childish ways? - the blogging computer of course!! When I turned on today, instead of rebooting, there was some sort of message involving the word "PANIC" and no activity - there continued to be no activity when I rang Apple, as most of the process involved waiting for very long periods while a dinky little circle thing ran around in circles on the screen .......... I should have had my knitting with me. Eventually the problem was solved by reloading all the software - joy of joys.

So, dear friends in cyberspace, I shall reveal to you, the secret of life, just as I imparted this very special knowledge to the Fleas as they were growing up - the answer is this :" LIFE ISN'T FAIR and it's time you accepted this fact and stopped complaining!". Just as well I took my own advice and am now a happy little vegemite once again.

I keep seeing "Saturday skies" on other people's blogs - so thought I'd join in - hope that's okay, or are the sky police going to get me? I'm scared. If I never blog again, you'll know what happened.


The beautiful deep blue Australian summer sky - I love it so much. Whenever I'm overseas I miss that blue, along with the blue-green of the eucalyptus trees. I had often read that Australian painters fell in love with the light in Europe - and wondered how could that be? But the first time I went to the UK I knew at once what they were talking about - the softness of the light, pink skies at midday, misty hills covered in the soft pink heather - it was all so different. And, wonder of wonders, the trees that I disliked so much here, the ones with a very bright, verging on a yellow-limey-green, foliage, looked absolutely beautiful set against the soft colours of the English countryside and sky. I still dislike those trees in Australia.

As I have no new knitting photos to display, I'll amuse you again with another of my "Knitting Around the World" collection:


This photo was taken in a wonderful yarn shop in Ketchikan, Alaska (I can't remember the name). I fell in love with it - didn't buy any yarn - but got to feel Lorna's Lace for the first time, and remembered the Mariposa shawl knitted in a soft green bamboo for the future. I did buy some necklaces though - one was silver with lapis lazuli blueberries and the other had a quaint silver octopus pendant. I'll add photos at another time (code for when I can find them in the mess in my drawer!).

Happy knitting.