Itsy Bitsy Spider

I was sitting on my back verandah in the sun and noticed this little shadow of a spider on one of our hanging pot plants (that's plants in a pot just to clarify).  The spider is very small but the shadow looks kind of menacing.

Tiny spider looks creepy in shadow form

The Stripey Street Cat and other Street Art

We had to vote for our local council election this morning.  Ho Hum.  At least on the walk up to the local church to vote we saw the Stripey Street Cat.  Yes, that is a link to a Facebook page, as the Stripey Street Cat has become a well-loved fixture of graffiti in my local area.  I believe it is actually stencil art, and it shows up all over the place.

There is another Stripey Street Cat on a street sign down the end of our road, I'll take a photo of it too some time, but here it is in our back lane, looks like it is on a mission:

Stripey Street Cat

Also in the back lane, we noticed this wall has been recently modified.  The dog on the corner was always there, but the girl is new.

The doggie is somewhat obscured by the shadow of the stop sign

Meanwhile, a friend of ours sent me a photo from a local butcher shop's window.  He thought it was representative of the slow-cooked lamb dinner we had a few weeks ago (before dinner that is):

Tastes good cooked slow

Later on this afternoon, some children from the Fijian Seventh Day Adventist Church up the road came around collecting canned food.  We gave them some tomatoes, baked beans and salmon.  I hope it helps a family who needs it.  Those kids are beautiful with big, big smiles, even though Bruce stole their ball in our front yard.  Bruce thinks all balls belong to him.  After much laughter from them, and me jamming my finger in the front door, I returned it.  Bruce loved it.

What a dork, he carries a tyre around.  Doesn't look guilty either

Pastizzi, pet sheep and other doings

So, I haven't been able to blog anything for four days, and prior to that I was busy doing stuff.  We've been to all manner of places the last week and I barely took any photos because I just wasn't in the mood.  It is winter after all and I've been a bit grumpy.

Nevertheless, last week we were out and about a fair bit.  We bought some frozen Pastizzi from the famous Pastizzi Cafe in Newtown, just up the road.  My favourite are the chicken and mushroom, but they do about 12 varieties, both savoury and sweet.  12 snap frozen pastizzi cost $14.

These are delicious

After 25 minutes in the oven, they came out like this:

Awesome winter deliciousness

I spotted New Zealand Natural ice cream on the way home and had to buy a tub, because I know it's the creamiest ice cream in the world, and I've tried a lot of ice cream.

As yet unopened

That wasn't all we've done in the last week.  We also:

• Had Yum Cha at Fisherman's Wharf Seafood restaurant at the Fish Markets.
• Went for dinner at an old school friend's place in Mona Vale, on the northern beaches.  We had oysters, sashimi, fresh tuna and barramundi.
• Went for dinner at a friend's place in Marrickville.  We had slow-cooked beef stroganoff and cous-cous.  It had cooked for 8 hours.
• We had lunch with a friend at his parent's place.  They've been married 50 odd years and had 7 children, 4 boys and three girls, all now grown ups - there are 8 grandchildren.  They've traveled to the four corners of the earth and are fascinating people.  We had roast lamb shoulder.  His mother does the potatoes like this - she par-boils them, sits them under the roast and with the other vegetables in the pan, pours off half a bottle of red wine.  It was fabulous.  We had a great afternoon.  And their house is full of curiosities.
• We also had a brief visit from some friends that live in Collarenebri, about 8 hours drive away.  They have a pet sheep, Bronco, that is now becoming a ram.  Becoming a ram apparently includes ramming people with horns.  Bronco was rescued as a lamb when his mother was killed on the road.  Bronco kind of thinks he's a dog.

Baby Bronco

Bronco hangs out with some dog mates

Bronco by the campfire

Bronco with growing horns and a fleece

Bronco's dog crew

We have had some very pleasant winter sunny days here in Sydney, although the nights are cold.  Even in July, our camelia tree is blooming.

Stunning winter-blooming camelia

Bruce just finds it all very tiring.

Zzzzzzzzzz

In the garden we have loads of skinks.  I've always liked lizards.  Sometimes these little ones fight over territory, but not to the death.  Just until the bigger one wins.

A skink.  We have loads of them hanging about.

I'm not sure why this iPhone photo turned out like this, but it's quite interesting.

Haiku and the butterfly

My friend sent me a little Haiku to ponder.

A leaf

Fell from a tree                                                       

Only to return                                                      

A Butterfly

Then there was this giant butterfly on one of our camelia trees.

This is a big butterfly.  I think it was recently un-cocooned because it stayed there a long time.

Amazing nature eh?

Some graffiti is actually art

Where we currently live in Enmore, inner west Sydney, there is a lot of graffiti. Well there is tagging, which in my view is just vandalism, but there's also quite a bit of actual artwork.  Much of the graffiti is actually done on "legal" walls and the artists have a real pride in it.  It does colour up the neighborhood.

This street mural has been around for years.  I like it that it hasn't been tagged over.

The wall below is fairly newly sprayed and just up the street from our house.  It's colourful in that graffiti kind of way.

Adds colour to an otherwise boring wall.

I don't have to go far to find street art, actually just outside my back gate.  The mural below has very recently changed, and I didn't know until today.  The Pink Panther was always there but the rest was a cartoon version of Inspector Clouseau.  Looks like somebody died spraying a train, hence the station scene and "Rest in Peace".  Sadly, it does happen.  It's just too dangerous.  So please don't try and spray trains or train tunnels.

Newly modified, slightly bleak

That's a real street sign incorporated

Train close-up

The whole wall again

This one is right next door and has also been there for ages, unchanged.  Glad it doesn't get tagged

I'm going to go in search of street art now.  However, below are two examples of what I call mindless tagging.  Especially because it was done on the walls of our old house.  It was so annoying, and expensive to get rid of.  I just think - why don't you tag your mother's house?

What a mess.  Even the footpath looks bad

This is not art, it's very ugly, especially on my house.  It cost a lot of money to get rid of this.

Gnomes all alone

This gnome lives at my aunty's place in Orange, NSW.  I love my aunt dearly but I would have to say that one of her most endearing qualities is that she is the master of good intentions that kind of, well, don't quite endure.  On the other hand she teaches piano and is very talented and laughs all the time.  She is also a master of the jive, which for the information of people born after 1975 is a dance.  She mastered it in her teenage years and still does a great one now at age 68.

Green-eyed gnome on a tilt - does he have a big blue thumb or what?

You can see below that the green-eyed fellow has a pseudo companion.  This little guy looks a bit lost.  Also, there is a cute table and chairs set-up that hasn't seen much use by the looks of it, and is somewhat too close to that tree for comfort.  And those roses don't look too well.

Gnome all alone

On closer inspection, that chair on the right is actually broken and collapsing.

Nice spot for a cup of tea and scones

I don't think there have been too many morning or afternoon teas here, but there's a certain quaintness to it all.

It's raining

Raining like you wouldn't believe actually.  And incredibly windy.  We have extreme weather warnings for the rest of this afternoon and tonight. If feels dangerous quite frankly. The birds all freaked out about 2 hours ago before anything even hit us.  It is only 4:00pm but is very dark outside.  My nephew is coming over for dinner after work so I hope he is safe driving in this.  The house is all warmed up though and we're making meatloaf with potatoes and green beans, which is exactly the kind of comfort food you need on a night like this.

This was the radar picture from a while back, Sydney is underneath that yellow stuff in the middle.  I'm glad I'm not outside.

God Save the Queen

Australia is a constitutional monarchy.  Queen Elizabeth II is the Queen of Australia. This week her Diamond Jubilee official celebrations go into overdrive.  I won't attempt to cover this, however the Queen has been a constant since 1952 and I think most people have a fondness for the Queen.  View this article from the Daily Mail showing life in England in 1952 around the time of the coronation.  The photos are priceless.

My friend Celia is English.  She is also talented.  She is a tailoress, a designer,  an all round  craftswoman and in her earlier life she was married to one of the Sex Pistols, the punk rock band who famously penned "God Save the Queen" around the time of the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.  We'll cover some of this another time, however Celia found an old book called "Royal Knits" when she was in Dunedin, New Zealand a while back.

Those medals are knitted, maybe the flowers too?

To celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of our dear Queen, Celia decided to knit the Queen's crown from the pattern in the book.  Seriously.  Knit it.  Here is the proof.

The ultimate beanie

The cranberry glassware belonged to my grandmother

We had some little miniatures from England too (Middleton-In-Teesdale) so thought they should be included.

Middleton-In-Teesdale mini things

Even too small for a nip of whisky

The collection, I think it is meant for coffee for crickets

I cant even read knitting patterns so don't ask me how the crown was created.  But we took some detail shots.  Celia does this for fun.

I believe next on the "Royal Knits" adventure are the corgi slippers, which are not slippers for small dogs but rather slippers for people in the form of corgis.  I'm not sure how else to explain that.

Their tongues are hanging out - is this for real?

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?

I've been up to London to visit the Queen.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?

I frightened a little mouse, under her chair.

The Veges

I saw these posters stuck on the wall in a grocer's store.  How cool are they?  I later found out they were from Violent Veg, which I won't even attempt to explain....

I wish my celery was that big

Grater Danger

The day Earth became Mars

I was cleaning up my photo library and stumbled across these iPhone pics of the day Earth became Mars.  At least here in Sydney it did.  It was September 23, 2009 and we woke up to the usual radio alarm, ABC 702.  This station actually tells the news.  What they said was something like "The city is red this morning, like Mars".  Thoughts of HG Wells' The War of the Worlds?  Turns out a huge dust storm from inland Australia made it all the way to the eastern coast.  Wow, it was weird, and windy too.  We actually went to work in this, clothes and bags and all surfaces in the house were covered in this fine, red dust.  It was really the colour of the outback.

It was really windy too

This is the sun behind the dust.

Out the front door it was even more incredible.

This was about 7:00am, we were breathing in red dust from inland Australia!

Not a UFO but the headlights of a car

Here's the sun again, trying to get through. It looks eerie but with the wind as well it was like the apocalypse had arrived.