HOME AGAIN!

Yes, I’m back in balmy tropics. Or am I just barmy?

It was a short trip home to celebrate a birthday (not mine-I’ve stopped having them!) and to see some old friends. There was wine-tasting, wine drinking, wine buying. And food. And a new game involving some very old people trying to identify themselves in some very old photographs. Fabulous weather and trees still wearing their autumn finery.Did I mention the wine?

It was still very much “hot summer nights” when I left https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kji0iO4bwMw&feature=kp.

A scant week-and-a-bit…I returned to teeth-chattering chill. Wha’appen?

And it was a sad home-coming,too. Blue Eyes is gone. Just a spider. And a common one at that, but I felt tears welling when The Man told me. There is a huge tear in the web so we are guessing a bird got her.But, damn! I’m upset. sniff…UPDATE! The Man called me, a few minutes ago, to see something…a new Nephila web!Complete with owner.Perhaps not Blue Eyes, but, still…Insert mental image of two old gits doing happy dance down the driveway!

And I missed some herpetological drama, too. Mr. Next Door looked out his kitchen window and saw this…

 

So he rang The Man and The Man rang The Snake Man. And lo!The Snake Man did hurry forth, with his snake equipment *

And here is a picture of the Three Brave Men trying to determine what the snake had eaten.**

 

Perhaps it was the snake I saw on our roof a few weeks ago? Nobody knows, as they say on QI.

Do I have photographic evidence of my having been absent from my post? Maybe. The camera is still in its case. There is a more pressing matter to be addressed.Lu-ceeeee….!

 

 

*old pillow case

** probably a plover

PLAYTIME

I bought a travel box of water colours the other day and thought it would probably be a good idea to try them!

Long ago, in another lifetime, I was an artist’s model/assistant. No, not apprentice, because that would imply that I was taught.  No, I was more… the go-fer. And the first thing I did learn was that Winsor and Newton was the be-all, end-all name in water colours. Dispatched one day for a tube of Alizaron Crimson, I came home with a tube of the colour by Reeves. Oops!

Anyway, it stuck with me and when the only travel box in town that was within my price range was a Reeves product…the clock’s hands went backwards and I hesitated.

I did a quick sketch of the silk orchid that lives on my desk. If you’re curious, you’ll find it above, on the “sketches” page.

Last year, when pruning/hacking back the Hibiscus mutabilis , I poked a few of the trimmings into the soil. Seven bits, apparently, all now flowering. No discernible fragrance, but oh! so lovely to see!

The flowers open early morning, a pure white until around noon (this photo was taken then), but as the sun heads west the petals take on, at first, a delicate blush, becoming a deep madder by late afternoon.

Here’s a  view at 2pm…

And one at 4pm…

Tomorrow they will look like this…

And now…it’s bedtime.

Thursday-update about spiders for Ian. The squeamish(you, Daisyfae!) are warned. The brave can go here  http://mrwriteon.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/all-our-lovely-harbingers-of-spring-are-to-be-welcomed/

I was messing with camera settings – this is the H.mutabilis, not a Mecanopsis Look at those legs! I feel much better about mine now! 🙂

FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY….

…because my scintillating, high-flying social life whirls me away from the humdrum.

Or maybe I’m busy re-inventing the wheel. No, that job’s done in Canberra!

Oh well, while I think of a really good excuse for being a pretty crap blogger and because everyone seemed to like last week’s musical offering….

Take it away, Dud! And Marian.

Sometimes…I do miss bits of my old life. Of course, I’m a tad too long of fang these  days to live the way I did.

But hey! I’m a survivor. Mind you, I came close to not being one of those this morning. Intent on getting a macro shot of a really teeny tiny spider, I slipped on the wet bricks. I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to learn that the Fujica survived! But the mouldy bricks are now also bloody bricks, my bloody jeans are ripped  and I’m minus a few bloody epidermal patches. Still, it feels bloody good to vent. 🙂

Remember this?

One of my neighbour’s beautiful but-too-big-for-its-position trees. Absolutely gorgeous, but… at over 30′ high and at least half that wide, it had become a problem.

Cassia javanica

And now we have new neighbours in that house.

This morning,  contractors arrived to “remove” several overgrown trees. The two C. javanicas among them. Sad, but necessary.

And here’s one of the spiders I was after…

A small St. Andrews.

Look here for more information (yes, better pictures, too!)

Now, time to get my fishne…er,   non-bloody jeans on and go shopping. sigh…