SUNDAY ON THE BEACH WITH ........

......George, his dog, & others....



.....plus a watch washed up on the beach, stopped at 12.05....what happened at 12.05 I wonder?

SOME DAYS ARE DIAMONDS!

....just like today! Just arrived back home from my ( almost) daily walk with my friend Robin down to Hastings Pt via the cycle track & return via the beach. It's a BRILLIANT day, warm-ish & calm, & Robin & I picked 3, yes THREE, top pieces of beach glass, 2 clear/frosted & the other GREEN!! No daggy beer bottle beach glass like my photo above!

Dolphins surfing in the waves, having the time of their lives, AND THEN....

...out to sea, leaping out of the water, humpback whales, on their annual winter migration north,from Antarctica to the Coral Sea, where the females give birth. We walked up to the headland ,lay back on the grass in the sun & watched 3 different pods of whales for about 45 minutes.

Yep, some days are diamonds!

ABC WEDNESDAY

W is for.............................
WHISPER THE WONDER CAT!!


Whisper the Wonder Cat was adopted from the RSPCA four years ago, at 10 weeks of age. Her name then was Ariel but she loudly complained that , really, her name was Whisper, so that's what she became.

Like most cats, she loves boxes......



...and like other living creatures, she does naughty things when she doesn't get her own way!


Her second best friend is Casper Domingo who decided he wanted to live with us 3 years ago. Together, they get up to all kinds of shenanigans, like fighting over shelves in the linen cupboard!

But , in the end, there's nothing they like better than curling up together on the best seat in the house!


If you romp on over to Mrs Nesbitt's, you'll find links to other ABC Wednesday posts, and also see Mrs Nesbitt's own W post, which is along the same lines as mine.

LIFE'S A BALANCING ACT

I reckon life's a balancing act.....try & maintain a bit of equilibrium....tread the path that brings the greatest rewards, whatever they may be!

For me, the great reward of the balancing act, above, was reaching the other side of Lawn Hill Creek dry. Hmmm...Lawn Hill National Park , now known as Boodjamulla NP, could be my next 'favourite places' post...out-of-this-world amazing!

ABC WEDNESDAY

V is for...............................



My gorgeous zippy pocket-rocket VW Polo is what's referred to, here in Oz, a Euro-diesel. It's a whole new generation of high-tech. diesel vehicles that are classy and SO-O much fun to drive. They run on the smell of an oily rag and ooze that special VW vibe! Just a shame that diesel prices here have spiralled more out of control than unleaded, and nobody except diesel drivers seems to care a fig!

Visit Mrs Nesbitt and click on others who have posted V items.

FROMELLES 1916

In July,1916, Australian soldiers fought a pointless bloodbath of a battle alongside British soldiers, near the small French village of Fromelles. In a 24-hour period, Australia lost over 5000 soldiers killed, wounded or missing. The Australian War Memorial in Canberra calls it "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history." Many of those missing, presumed dead, have no known grave.

Last year, a geophysical survey revealed the location of what was believed to be one of the mass graves supposedly dug by German soldiers for the burial of unknown Australian and British soldiers killed at Fromelles.

In May and June of this year, an extensive archaeological dig positively identified the remains as those of some of these soldiers. This week a official ceremony was conducted at the site after the pit had been resealed. The owner of the land has generously donated the site to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The governments of France, Australia and Britain have to decide now whether to exhume and attempt to identify each of the bodies in this pit, and then provide individual graves for each soldier at the site, or to leave the bodies as they are and provide a memorial.

EARLY MORNING DEWDROPS

We've had quite a lot of heavy dews over the past week or so, and early morning is always a wonderful time to be out with a camera. Unfortunately,my camera doesn't really cope too well with ultra close-ups. You can see the 'velvety' covering of dew on the grass in the next picture,


and this was the best I could do, and maintain focus.

MY BIG EFFORT!

Ok!Ok! Time to bite the bullet...this Sunday I am taking a spot at a local car boot sale/market day and will make my first public attempt to sell some jewellery and mail art. Spent today pricing new work and cutting prices on pieces from last year, which proved to be quite a difficult thing to do. Obviously I want to sell my work, but I don't want to undercharge either, because that devalues it.

ABC WEDNESDAY

U is for...................

ULTRAMARINE


Ultramarine is the blue colour pigment obtained from ground-down lapis lazuli and has been a valued rock and pigment for thousands of years. Traditionally, lapis comes from Afganistan, but it is also found in Egypt and Chile, and, in smaller quantities, in parts of the former USSR & Asia. Its primary metaphysical property is as a bringer of peace.

Genuine lapis is very expensive, and as I only have lapis chips, my photo below is not wonderful. However, it gives you an idea of the ultramarine pigment, which is classified as a 'warm blue'. In painting, it is often used to symbolise royalty.


We're getting to the tricky end of the alphabet...what a challenging time for me to have joined! If you're wondering what else in our world starts with U, please go to Mrs Nesbitt's and you'll find a whole list of blogs featuring U!

MUSIC MONDAY

Having only come to the music of kd lang in the last couple of years, I am still very much in her thrall, and there is so much of her past recordings still for me to discover.

"Watershed" is her recently-released record...it seems very personal, with her songs of love, both good love and bad, feeling to me to come from her own experiences. As a listener, I feel quite privileged that she is telling me these stories from her life.

It's music to really listen to, in quiet moments, not 'something playing in the background'.

If you go to YouTube, you'll be able to watch and listen to a trailer about "Watershed."

MOST ROADS LEAD TO......

It's the Queen's Birthday Long Weekend in Australia this weekend which is such an anachronism, considering her real birthday is in April and probably a majority of Australians are keen for our country to become a republic.

However, everybody loves a long weekend and round here most roads lead to Caba this weekend. The Greenback is not a display of an ailing foreign currency but a beach fishing competition, where most of the fish caught are Greenback Tailor. All fish caught are auctioned for charity, but the feeling is that catches should be weighed, then thrown back.

The V8 Superboats race at a specially constructed inland venue at Round Mountain, just down the road, where they also race jetboats.

BUT, if all this sounds like too much excitement for one weekend, you could head down to Ballina instead, where you can fish in less crowded environs and putt about at leisure in your tinny on the Richmond River.

ABC WEDNESDAY

T IS FOR......
........TICKET


The year I lived in London, my friend and I were lucky enough to get tickets for the Men's Final at Wimbledon. It was the year Boris Becker , as an 18 year-old I think, won his first title.

If you visit Mrs Nesbitt's, you will find links to others who participate in this activity, so you can check out what others have posted for T.

MUSIC MONDAY

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is a Gumatj man from Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory. Blind since birth, he has the voice of an angel, and writes and sings incredibly moving songs about his country. He was once a member of Yothu Yindi and now fronts his own band, the Saltwater Band.

On his record,"Gurrumul", he sings his stories accompanying himself on his guitar.

If you click here, you can hear Geoffrey, and here, you can listen to the Saltwater Band.

For a true blast from the past, listen to Yothu Yindi sing Treaty while watching a former Australian Prime Minister make himself look like a goose!

BEWARE!!

These signs are on the side of the road as your drive west out of our little village. When I first moved here 12 years ago, most weeks you would see a koala wandering around on the roadside, as there is what is called a koala corridor in the bush west of the Tweed coast. However, since the construction of a new section of Pacific Highway west of the koala corridor, about four years ago, I have only seen one koala. This is what we all feared.....their disappearance.