My weekend outfit

1. moth &owl jacket, 2. moth top, 3. moth wallet, 4. moth earrings2

It is so easy to find gorgeous, original things on Etsy. This is my ode to November, moth month.
I desperately want them all!

Posting resumed

I cannot believe that my last post was Monday! Now it's Friday.

I'll blame it on me, starting a marathon of Lord of the Rings on Monday night, right after I last posted. All week I've been rushing home, getting dinner over and done with, then settling down to the next installment. UV dips in and out - he enjoyed LOTR when it came out, loved the books but doesn't have my penchant for watching it all over again - he likes to dip in at the good spots (i.e. battle scenes, battle scenes and battle scenes!)

I haven't got far I might add - over 3 nights I've only got as far as half way through Two Towers. Looking forward to buying the next book of the 50th anniversary edition - and it's Two Towers! They are lovely, hard backed editions and they are not cheap so I'm buying them one by one. My old original paperbacks are starting to disintegrate so I thought it best to rest them in the shelves. I tend to read LOTR every year or so. It is a wonderful story to revisit. I always seem to glean something new from this amazing tale. I confess to wasting most of my stuvac (final school exam study period) reading LOTR for the first time which is why this time of year always reminds me of this book.

Last night we went out to dinner with my cousins and had a lovely Lebanese feast. Nice to catch up with everyone. It was a night of storms, lightning, rain and then humidity which was intensified in the small restaurant. But still an enjoyable night.
This restaurant does wonderful food and I love the cardamom coffee, served in an exotic jug a bit like this ...

from here

... and drunk from tiny china cups, accompanied by gorgeous turkish delight. Scrummy!  I just found this recipe for it - might have to try it out ...

Mystery solved

My little man playing the maraca filled with tiny silver balls turned out to be ...

Cisco the Cicada!

He was doing a sound check in our bathroom ...

No wonder he was trying out all those different riffs!!

I was right though, he was a really little guy!

UV gently scooped him up and deposited him outside, well away from any furry avengers!

But look who else was lurking above ....

Harold the Huntsman

Can you see the glint of one of his many eyes that I picked up with my flash?

Quite amazing really!

Hmm, spiders are not my thing, really not good with them ... but our ceilings are 3.6 metres and he's away up there, minding his own business (namely catching bugs) so I weakened my natural inclination to run away screaming while at the same time imploring UV to get him outside, but don't kill him!!!

(cue rolled eye!)

It was raining last week and I think he took refuge inside - I couldn't blame him really.

He's hanging around the kitchen at the moment, and I kind of feel like he wants to be one of the gang so as long as he stays up there, he won't get moved on - for now ...

You can see we are in the habit of naming newcomers to our place ...

Other regular wild visitors include Boris the Fruit Bat and Priscilla the Possum (who wears steel capped boots and likes to dance in our roof space from time to time. We hear her carefully lifting the wood on the side of our eaves and creeping in, but then she leaps around noisily from beam to beam. We open up our attic hatch, flick on the light and she melts into the darkness, then slips away the way she came in. We really have to seal up that spot.)

Both Boris and Priscila make regular sorties around about the gardens in the neighbourhood, when there are berries or nectar about.

I'll finish my wildlife post with a couple of cute shots of the boys ...

More glinting eyes from Jasper (enjoying one of his favourite mats, freshly washed)

 

 

Licorice

 Rufus

Aren't these tulips gorgeous? Thank you dear friends!

 

 

 

I have to work out how to stop the white out that happens when I use the flash, especially in these macro shots. It drains much of the colour away. More things to practice.

sunday

Sound. Right now I'm hearing a very overpowering cricket or maybe it's some little bloke out in the garden with a very big maraca (well, compared to him) filled with hundreds of tiny silver beads. He shakes it for a count of 6. Oooh, just then he did if faster, 13 times, then twice 9 times, still fast, then again 13, 9, 13!! Intriguing  ... right, I'll stop there. You are probably thinking I have had a touch too much sun this weekend. (but it is interesting - how does he decide how many to do?) Stopping now (he seems to like 9 the best) Over.

 Yesterday's sound was a bird, high up in the tree beside the deck. Dad could hear him over the phone. He had a most insistent call - apparently he's from Queensland and his name is something starting with K but for the life of me I cannot remember what Dad said. His name is like his call. These birds come south to nest. Apparently they're hard to see, but I got a great view of him, perched up there above me. He was a reasonable size, had amber or reddish eyes (I think) and a smallish beak. Very loud and very insistent.

It's quiet now (well, except for the odd maraca burst from the little guy) Evenings are nice when they are quiet. The day's noises have dispersed, evaporated. A deep stillness settles with the darkness. Night. It's a soft, dark sounding word. Fathomless.

>>>

 A moth and the moon

Flower

Rosebud potpourri

Finding my eye

Photography seems to be creeping up on me surreptitiously. It's in the family you see, well, my 2 siblings both photograph. In fact, one exhibits his work. Mon pere has always been a bit of a photographer too so I guess it had to happen. Not a bad thing at all. It's nice to look at things and think about how you would shoot them. I find I'm looking more at colour and form, shapes and the relationship of things to each other. This part of it is from my mum who loved to paint and draw and taught me lots about observation. Seems this visual art stuff is kind of in the stars. Nice.

So, I find that I am photographing more and more and I'm looking at more and more photos in all sorts of lovely blogs. Like these >>>

Les contours du silence and My funny eye are just wonderful.

And here are some of my shots of late >>>

 Walnuts

 

 Bookendish

 

 Operation face washing

 

Fireworks at my place

 

My first agapanthus

My weekend outfit

As it's raining steadily here, my weekend outfit has been adjusted accordingly:

1. grey trench, DeNovoStyle 2. umbrella brooch, littlemustardseeds 3. red boots, zaasvintageboots 4. red rain hat, terrygraziano

For goodness sake ....!

I am happy to report that our internet service provider finally came through with the goods. The throttle is off! We are back to normal speed but only because we rang them to say that we were experiencing crazily slow response times. Seems we were on a really old  plan and were eligible for an upgrade for no extra cost. Hmmmm, nice to discover this but I think if it wasn't for my increased blogging activity with the wonderful blogtoberfest we would have been none the wiser ........ I can't help but say a small grrrrrrr!

Anyhow, here's a nice shot to make me feel better :::

My sweet Jasper.

I was attempting a homework closeup but he kept moving.

I quite like the effect of this shot - his eyebrow whiskers stand out beautifully and he looks quite thoughtful.