Merricks

on Barrenjoey Headland

2012-01-27T17:27:00.006+11:00

I was trying to get a decent photograph of this tea-tree. So far, using Rachel's camera produces better photos than I can using my fancy Nikon SLR....

Now, in summer, the riot of flowering heath of late winter has gone, but there were still some lone flannel flowers and native fuchsia. I was chasing this tea-tree, but the rain kept on coming down, so I had to put my camera away and come away..

Leptospermum

Looking up the Pittwater from Barrenjoey

Looking across to West Head in the misty rain

Away again

2011-11-19T22:59:00.007+11:00

Strip of vineyard along the road, Bedford Park, SA.

Waiting for my flight to Brisbane

Not sure why I started this. I was in Adelaide for a geostatistics course given by Peter Diggle. The course was really good. But when you organise to go, you organise the least possible time because you don't know anyone and you don't know what to do.

I find getting from A to B extraordinarily stressful, so I tend to organise not to linger which is ultimately pretty silly. The course was at Flinders University which is some way south of the city, and I had hoped to stay at the university to avoid public transport. Perhaps for want of something important to stress over, I get myself ridiculously worked up about catching buses or whatever.

Adelaide was looking very beautiful. Its street trees were green and lush and growing well and from the University we could see the sea. And I am sort of sorry I didn't get to dip my toe in that lovely sea.

I took lots of photos of the most beautiful river red gums I have ever seen, but my photos were not particularly good. So the photos you get are of the strange little piece of vineyard 5m by 100m running along a suburban road, with its very old, well trellised and very healthy vines, and a view of the Adelaide Hills (?) from the airport

Digitisation Lab, Australian Museum

2011-10-18T17:59:00.015+11:00

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallaba_ochropepla
Gallaba ochropepla. One of the Gallaba species in drawer 184.

I have been volunteering at the Australian Museum. They have trained perhaps 100 or so people to digitise the collections. (We are volunteers but the project is managed by a permanent officer.) First cab off the rank has been entomology, and today I teamed with Clare to photograph Drawer 184 which featured the Gallaba genus.

Rhiannon, one of the project leaders has now started a blog (Rhiannon's blog), and you can see what we have been doing here. It is an exceedingly fiddly task. Each specimen in a drawer has all its labels removed using tweezers. The labels are put onto a piece of plastic foam so that all the information is displayed, while the insect is placed beside. An extra label (our K label) is added, and when the insect and its associated information has been photographed, the labels are rethreaded on the pin and the specimen replaced in the drawer.

Many specimens are over a hundred years old and most are quite fragile. The aim of the exercise is to make the entomology collection (6 million specimens (?)) available and to obviate the need to pull out the actual physical specimens.

I was pleased with our work today. We took good photographs (but we did manage to damage 6 specimens..) I had hoped to find images of our moths on the internet, but only a single reference to just one of the three species we photographed in drawer 184 popped up on my Google search for "Gallaba". (Now found references but no photographs for G. dysthryma, and poor photographs for G.eugraphes). Utimately our work will show the animal, its species name, when, where, and by whom it was collected.
--------------------------------------------------------

The photograph is of my driveway using the effects menu ("sketch) on my new Nikon D5100. Fun software, but I hope that is not what I was paying for, but rather for the lens...

Driveway, Palm Beach.

morally ugly movie, lovely park.

2011-10-11T18:55:00.006+11:00

Paperbark Tomato Lake, Belmont, WA

Gums on Tomato Lake, Belmont, WA

Poppy was at daycare so we took the other little girls to "The Zookeeper", marred by the gratuitous nastiness of the hero when wooing his girl. Which we followed by going to Tomato Lake. First time the experience of taking the girls to the park had something for the adults and something for the kids. We walked around the lake, looking at the waterbirds and just enjoying the park, which had lovely gums, banksias and paperbarks and an impressive swamp.

Egrets roosting

Jamie and Ellie on the spider

Clair's dolls

2011-10-09T09:44:00.006+11:00

I went to Bayes on the Beach, and asked Clair if she would give me a lift from Brisbane, so after the workshop, we went to her place.

She has a whole room full of these lovely dolls made by her from scratch.

The workshop and the conference were terrific, but Surfers Paradise could well be the most vilely ugly and depressing place on earth.

Waratahs

2011-09-23T09:48:00.005+10:00

Waratah flower arrangement, Qantas Club, Sydney.

Near the Wirrieanda Creek entrance to Kuringai Chase.

Great North Walk, Broken Bay NP.

It has been lovely seeing the waratahs this year. I had only seen them once before in the wild, walking with Ath, in Kuringai Chase, now some many years ago. I think I would not have seen so many this year, except for Ruth, who set me walking and photographing the Chase once more.

(And the lovely display at Qantas was a bonus, as I head off to WA, with Rachel & Don to see Nicole, Nick, Elizabeth, Jamie and Poppy at Rottnest.)

Camera

2011-09-16T20:20:00.003+10:00

Flannel flowers,McKay Reserve, Palm Beach.

Finally bit the bullet and bought a new camera. It has magical focussing. But all the jiggling with lenses means that I'll want to pick my lens for the day, and if I choose the one which does flower closeups so well, then I can pretty well forget landscape and broad brush stuff...

But it looks like I might be able to photograph flowers at last.

Angophora hispida (Dwarf apple)

2011-09-10T13:01:00.016+10:00

Walking the Waratah track, in Kuringai Chase, I was struck by the extensive low growth of Angophora hispida shown below. Part of what I love about Australian flora is their capacity to adjust to both harshness and opportunity in the successive seasons and years. We have had good rains lately, so there were only new leaves in the photo showing this species taking advantage of the weather and an available spot..

Vegetative regrowth

Here the root system has obviously been damaged by a grader (or something) working on the track, and the new trees are crowded densely on the old woody root system with current growth less than 30 cm high. The area shown was perhaps 30-40 square metres of Angophora hispida.

The two pictures below show regrowth immediately after the 2007 fires, and in both, you see the lovely colour of the new leaves, together with their hairiness which gives the species its name.

Below are the nuts. And here you see, too, the opposite leaves which are a feature which distinguishes this genus from the Eucalypts. In the second photo of the nuts, you see that hairiness is also a feature of the stalks which join the nuts, and the nuts themselves.

When this plant flowers, it is covered in blossom and buds, and is generally covered in ants which (I think) play a role in fertilisation.

Finally, on the spine of West Head, near the Basin track, you can see how this species, like so many of our trees, sheds its leaves and becomes skeletal in response to difficult times.

Return

2011-09-02T14:35:00.006+10:00

Waratah, in the Broken Bay NP, just north across the Hawkesbury.

Tea tree, at the end of the street.

Acacia sophorae seedpods. Earlier in the year the leaves were fresh and full of light. Now they are battered, insect chewed and wind broken.

I am slowly returning to life here. But I am feeling more cheerful. I have work to do and once more have plans.

So many tea trees are out now and this one is from the bottom of the street as is the wattle whose pods I haven't seen before. The splendid waratah is from a walk I did with R. last Sunday who is planning on walking to Everest Base camp in December. So she needs to get fit for walking and I need to get fit. It was a splendid day, a beautiful walk, and the return late afternoon, down the mouth of the Hawkesbury by water taxi, made it pure perfection.

These photos are from my iphone. Still existing with the iphone camera!! I need to earn some money.

Studying

2011-08-20T23:55:00.003+10:00

Boronia clad slope, Flint and Steel track, photo Ruth P.

I got the email the other day: my thesis has been accepted without emendation. So all I have to do is get it bound and a few other administrative details.

Kerrie has a student working on what it takes to complete a Ph.D. Strange and funny undertaking. But given all the self doubts, I reckon two or three things were critical. I told everyone what I was doing and having made the step, I couldn't withdraw without enormous loss of face. I had been given a scholarship and that was such a statement of faith in me, and also something that I had to honour by completing. And, finally, and perhaps most importantly, the assumption on the part of my supervisor that I could and would.

You go to work each day and work in your little cubicle, reading the "literature" and writing. You feel like a monk, shut away, studying, or like a Chinese, locked in a room doing his imperial examination to become a Mandarin.

And finally you come away knowing some things you didn't know before, (in my case, learning how to use the library...), but probably not the things you thought you might, when you started.

Jury duty

2011-07-25T13:35:00.007+10:00

Diana (one of the figures in the Archibald fountain in Hyde Park)

Phoebus Apollo

Theseus killing the minotaur

The pool in front of the Shrine of Remembrance

Today, I was called up for jury duty. I went armed with a medical certificate. I find it pretty extraordinary that at the age of 68, I am apparently required to do a nearly 4 hour daily commute and 5 days a week work where I may not move, eat or shit, except at the behest of the court. I argued that it would exacerbate existing health conditions and that I should not be called up again for the remainder of my life.

My doctor thought I was not a very upstanding citizen, but then her commute to town is probably less than an hour, and neither is she currently unemployed... (I would prefer to spend the immediate future in finding a part-time job after completing my Ph.D., rather than ruining my health in the service of the state.)

The photographs are taken on my walk through Hyde Park after my dismissal.

Photos from WA

2011-07-16T14:45:00.008+10:00

Tash's Jarrah floor

Unidentified pea in the Kensington Bushland

Painted crayfish at Cicerello's, Freemantle

So many people in Perth have these beautiful jarrah floors. Such a wonderful colour and so long lasting. Even Nicole's 1930's cottage has its original jarrah floors.

The fishtanks at Cicerello's in Freemantle a fish and chip shop dating from the 30's were extraordinary. The fish & chips somewhat less so. A great place nonetheless for plebeian dining. And finally, I still don't have an ID for this very spiny pea.

Visiting WA

2011-07-07T13:09:00.008+10:00

Ikea beads fitted one by one on circular and square frames

Nicole blew these eggs, papier-mached them, and then she and the girls painted them with textas

Kensington bushland

Kensington Bushland

Nicole has enormous patience in creating things and so do the two girls. The beads require tweezers and both Jamie and Elizabeth (4 & 6) are expert in handling them and deciding what they want to do with the colours.

Nicole wants everyone in the family to contribute an egg and has a dozen blanks still to go. I have done one and will do a second, the first is so awful.

The Kensington Bushland is lovely. It's almost just across the road, and is remnant jarrah and banksia forest. The paths through it are fenced to deter animals and people from entering. I used to walk Harley here every day when I visited WA. But now he is dead, I see it less frequently.

Zoran's eggs

2011-06-19T11:01:00.002+10:00

Zoran's eggs

I was trying to do white on white with highlights. Fiddled with the exposure. Failed miserably.

Zoran has acquired three chooks and a chook house in his backyard. He & Branca no longer buy eggs. And Zoran wraps his eggs in plastic wrap so they will not dry out in the fridge. (I photographed them wrapped but I did not manage a good photo.)

They made beautiful bacon and eggs, but I forgot to show how lovely they looked when cooked.

Iphone and fundamentalist Christianity

2011-06-10T10:40:00.006+10:00

Vicki's begonias on the carport still surviving despite the sea wind.

Tangle below the verandah. First Iphone photo...

Rachel's flat. Table set for Saturday lunch.

I gave myself an iphone as a present for having submitted the thesis. So, I have been starting to play with it. I love its connectivity with my contacts. If there is an address then clicking on it takes me to a map showing just where they are and in another click I have the route mapped out from whereever I am. (Provided of course there is some public wireless point available.) Another click takes me to an image of that address. If I am hunting for a hairdresser on the net up pop the ones nearest to my phone plus maps the lot...

At the moment, I do not have any of the photographs of my contacts so that a glance at the phone tells me who is ringing. Collecting those photos will be a slow process, particularly since I rarely photograph people so I cannot download any photos from my computer..

Rachel's lunch was interesting. And I blotted my copybook. I have become somewhat obsessional about the increasing influence of Christianity on our politics. The sad thing is that the dominant English-speaking culture is American. I love it for its intellectual richness, but Oh God, as a society I think it stinks. That huge divide between the rich and the poor, between the educated and the completely ineducated. So the influence of fundamental Christians is being felt in this country and in particular, I believe, in the behaviour of the climate change deniers. It seems to me, that there is a significant and influential mob who, believing in God, cannot believe that his favourite species might be wiped back to the stone-age, if we are lucky, or become completely extinct.

The two guests, Catholics, immediately changed the subject. But then, unlike me, who has so recently attended University, they have not seen the Christians at the start of the year manning the entrances of UQ and handing out thousands and thousands of copies of Darwin's Origin of Species, of which the most important part was the introduction purporting to be scholarly and arguing for Intelligent Design. Their children will be subject to this anti-intellectual bullshit, I have no doubt, and we and our government and our intellectual elite, having destroyed our state schools, will be increasingly subject to such nonsense.

A final comment about the iphone, a large number of its books come from project Gutenberg, but sadly, most of these project Gutenberg books are full of typos.

The Basin Track

2011-05-30T05:45:00.018+10:00

Lambertia formosa

Acacia suaveolens

Female casuarina against the sky

Scribbly gum, E. haemastoma

An unidentified flower

An unidentified flower

Despite the rain, or perhaps because of it, the colours seemed very true for these flowers. The mountain devils were a rare and striking red amidst their soft grey foliage. Coming up the path, the first flower I noticed was a Banksia spinulosa with its lovely black stigmas edging the bright orange of the flower and then the somewhat bedraggled Acacia suaveolens with the rhythm of its phyllodes against the soft white flower heads. Photographing it, you notice that the smooth edges of the phyllodes are translucent.

The red and grey spider flowers (Grevilleas) were flowering and the grey spider flower was striking with its flowers atop its stalks, and there was a hakea, common as dirt, no doubt, but flowering too with tiny flowers all along its stems and huge woody knobbly seed heads.

I put in the photo of the scribbly gum because of the beautiful red of its stalks. It too, was flowering. In the rain, its flowers always remind me of Little Ragged Blossom.

Not surprisingly, I saw two flowers I had never seen before. Never seen before, since in both cases the flower was little more than a simple continuation of the foliage, itself largely unremarkable. And I am assuming I had never seen the reddish one before, since I have probably walked on by thinking that the plant was entirely dead or burnt since the entire plant was orange. So easy to pass by and assume familiarity. And equally easy, in my ignorance, to assume that I have never seen it before as I did with a Boronia which had turned to seed.

Working

2011-05-28T02:12:00.009+10:00

My desk in Anne's office. I look out to the rock-face and Cliff street is three storeys above, but we are at street level on the other side.

Rice-paper plant in flower at the top of the Whale Beach steps. I see this plant when I walk to the bus-stop to go to Anne's office in Milsons Point.

But the journey by bus takes forever, and the walk to the bus-stop is over a kilometre, and my pack is heavy. I am not sure how to do this, nor how sustainable it is. I need human company and I am struggling to work at home. Palm Beach currently seems incredibly difficult.

Tony Abbott

2011-05-14T13:09:00.003+10:00

"America's Climate Choices" from National Academies Press.

I should be sending this to Tony Abbott. Perhaps he might get serious about climate change.

Blue

2011-05-14T04:46:00.009+10:00

Colvillea racemosa. In the City Botanic Gardens, Brisbane.

Feeling blue. Need some work and more contact with people to drive me to do things.

Checking out some photos on Flickr, I came across this quote "The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera" (Dorothea Lange). BrainyQuotes Which I think is spot on.

Still haikuing (& insect haikuing at that) & two books

2011-04-23T10:37:00.008+10:00

Barrenjoey Road, Palm Beach.

Myriads of nets
suspended from power lines
trap the wind-borne flies.

I have finally finished my two Blurb books on Bradshaw, and ordered them for Janie. I have shown them both, although they take up such a monstrous amount of space, as I wanted her to get a chance to see them.

Bradshaw 2010 by Margaret Donald | Make Your Own Book

Submitted (sort of)

2011-04-21T19:05:00.003+10:00

Grevillea and seedpods, Artarmon. (Toyota Service Centre.)

Posted three copies of the thesis to QUT today, by express post. With any luck, it should be submitted on the first day of work after Easter... The thesis was in glorious colour, but on paper that looked like loo paper. Anne had run out of paper and I tried to get something close to the same, but failed dismally.

So many things to be done around here and I keep forgetting to get them underway. But I have managed new specs, and today I was chasing my pink slip. However, with the "just-in-time" philosophy of the service centre, they were unable to service my damned car. So back again next week, but that will still be in time for my rego.

lunch & close to submission

2011-04-16T15:42:00.006+10:00

Andrew heading back to the Starship on Saturday, having delivered us to Careel Bay Wharf, after a delicious lunch

Sea at Palm Beach

Palm Beach Pool & Casuarinas

Turpentine on Whale Beach Road

Turn of the road

Lovely lunch with Andrew and Vicky and Rachel on the Starship on Saturday.
And today, at midday, posted what is extremely close to being my final submission, to Kerrie. Came home and took a walk and a swim, and now am waiting to speak to Kerrie to find out what I must do next.

Tomorrow I expect to work on something which is not Ph.D. related.

Centennial Park

2011-04-12T18:30:00.011+10:00

Fig in Centennial Park to commemorate the old man and mum.

Nearby lake

And another nearby lake, on the other side of the road.

Looking at the island through another Moreton Bay Fig.

Went today to inspect the fig I organised last year to remember the parents. Their ashes were scattered in the sea near the Whale Beach pool, but apart from a cabinet in Janie's museum in Charles Darwin University, there is nothing which commemorates them. I tried to organise a bench, but that was not possible in Pittwater. The tree I chose was a Moreton Bay Fig which will hopefully live for many years in Centennial Park.

The Centennial Park authorities are determined that the plaques should not be commemorative, so the plaque simply names them: James & Elizabeth Donald.

(And I have a very small place in the history of this tree planting exercise. I was the first person to ask for and to pay for a tree in instalments.)

not quite haiku

2011-04-10T09:58:00.002+10:00

Hibiscus. Boondall station.

Gardenia. Boondall station.

Photographed these while waiting for Jan at Boondall station.

And my not haiku?

Israel in Gaza
One lesson has been well learned
Do not count the dead.

Second last day

2011-04-09T19:56:00.002+10:00

Casuarina & mistletoe. Boondall wetlands.

Second-last day in Brisbane. Walked with Ruths's mob of super fit persons, up and down Mt Coot-tha, and then up and down again. (6 am - 8.30 am). And then I was ready for a sleep. But at least my shins are not stiff this Saturday.

Sad and glad to be heading home.

Slowly getting there

2011-04-05T16:45:00.003+10:00

Passion flower and fruit, Kedron

Sent latest draft to Kerrie, who is in Malaysia. The worst bits are slowly taking form. Bought myself a book as a present and two Dover colouring-in books for Nic, so that I might come home and bludge in bed.

Reflections

2011-04-02T15:01:00.004+11:00

Channel 7, Mt Coot-tha. Reflections

Channel 7, Mt Coot-tha. Reflections

Up at 4.30 am to go walking with Ruth and members of the NPAQ (and others) on their regular informal training walk on Mt Coot-tha. Coming up the mountain, we saw the dawn sky reflected on another face. Returning, we saw this.

Friday, and not finished

2011-04-01T22:41:00.005+11:00

Palms & Figs, QUT. Between Old Government House & O Block

Hibiscus mutabilis, QUT, near O Block

Bit of a rainy day today, so the palms do not look as brilliant as usual, but it is always a lovely oasis.

Walking on Mt Coot-tha tomorrow. Hope I am now sufficiently fit...

haiku challenge winners

2011-03-30T10:25:00.018+11:00

I've been chasing IDs on some of my photos, Wasp species, host for a mistletoe,..), but this morning I wondered how the Hexapod Haiku Challenge was going, to discover that judging will not finish for about a month.

In the meantime I wanted to put up some previous winners. And it is worth clicking on the links, since the judges dissect each haiku, teasing out its meaning and saying why it won.
2010:

Silverfish, tell me,
Darwin and Dostoevsky,
do they taste the same?

Martha Love, Gatsonia, NC

2008:
Two million flowers
The Ten-thousand mile harvest
Sweetens my pancake

Joel Caren, Raleigh, NC

And I finally got an ID on the strelitzia below, Ravenala madacasgariensis, which grows in a single plane.

Planes

2011-03-27T13:58:00.014+11:00

Clair's planes

Clair had a party to celebrate my final seminar, and I slept there overnight. She has taken up model aeroplane flying as something to do with her father, and now has these four planes, with ambitions for many more, is on the club committee, and writes their newsletter. Talking to her, you, too, want to start flying immediately.

There was so much to carry home. The computer weighs a tonne. So I came straight home to Ruth's, fell on the bed and slept. But first I saw this lovely mistletoe, whose photo does not do it justice.

Mistletoe, growing on a camphor laurel at Lutwyche cemetery, Kedron.

And this morning and yesterday, I have been working on my thesis, with an interruption this morning of putting out the washing, and of going to Stafford City to do the weekly shop..

Ruth just knocked on my door to show me this
(also shown here). And now I have finally found the original posting on reddit. (Ruth's nephew had a terrible accident a year ago. His prosthetic leg is a stunning piece of art.)

Tomorrow

2011-03-24T10:10:00.007+11:00

Iris in the rain, Mt Coot-tha picnic area.

Galls on A. penninervia, Mt Coot-tha

Throughout the forest below the picnic area were acacias festooned in what I thought were insect galls. But they are apparently caused by a rust fungus, and insects then make enthusiastic use of them. See Rust fungus

Tomorrow I give my presentation of my thesis...
Ann has wished me luck. Ruth has given me a home. And Kerrie remains her unflappable, helpful self.

Not haiku at all.

2011-03-18T09:32:00.008+11:00

Phytochemical stimuli
direct and modify
insect pollinator responses.

Quoted from
Williams, G & Adams, P. (2010) The Flowering of Australia's Rainforests A Plant and Pollination Miscellany, CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Australia.

Phytochemicals
direct, modify
pollinator responses.
(5)(5)(7)

In the misty rain at Mt Coot-tha.

Insect haikus, again.

2011-03-18T08:40:00.021+11:00

Four hundred thousand(1)
In Australasia alone.
And man is special?

(1) Cranston, P.S., Insect Biodiversity and Conservation in Australasia, 2010, Annual review of entomology, 55: 55-75.

And Jean Hort has so many stunning photos of them: e.g.,
a Robber fly, and an even more stunning robber fly, a mantis, a mantis fly, some ants, an ant's head, and many, many more.

Originally, I wrote four million, but on checking Cranston, I realised I had added another zero to the guestimate of species numbers. He says 400,000 insect species. So I had another go. But it definitely needs a context to be understood.

The photos below show evidence of the many insects here.. And sometimes show an insect.

Insect effects on a Eucalypt, Timber Creek, Northern Territory

On a hakea, Barrenjoey Head, New South Wales.

Male Pandanus flower, North Stradbroke Island, Queensland. I think it was crawling with ants, which led me to ask whether it was wind, bird or insect pollinated?

Ant nest, high on a Boab, Angalarri River, Northern Territory.

Termite nest on a casuarina, Barrenjoey Head, New South Wales.

Paper wasp nest on a Buckinghamia, Kedron, Queensland

Another haiku

2011-03-16T16:26:00.007+11:00

Dysdercus sidae on Lagunaria patersonia, Norfolk Island Hibiscus.

I couldn't find out much about these little bugs. Yet I have to have encountered them many, many, times before, and they were dense along the branches of this hibiscus. Any research done on them seems to have been done so long ago that my University (QUT) doesn't allow me access to the pdfs...
1928 gets quoted. & GoogleScholar gave 1964, 1970, 1973 (in S.Africa), and 1983!!!!

Dysdercus sidae
copulating. They say they
fancy hibiscus.

Two more steps

2011-03-16T12:03:00.004+11:00

Waves, Whale Beach.

Near Whale Beach Pool.

Two more steps to go: The final seminar, the rewrite and submission.
I return to Brisbane tomorrow and I haven't yet started the final seminar slides..
I am at home today, which is why the swim and the photos. Need to pack all I need for two weeks.

Walk

2011-03-10T19:45:00.004+11:00

Barrenjoey Headland. On the path beyond the lighthouse.

Barrenjoey Headland. On the path beyond the lighthouse.

I had to go for a walk. Men came today to pick up the spare fridge. In the end they didn't take it. Theoretically, it was part of a 'fridge buy-back' scheme. But they wanted $200 to take it. I had waited all day and felt quite sick and miserable about it all. So I went for the walk.

I do love the silver of casuarinas and tea-trees. And for some reason the isopogons are so green. Very beautiful.

Preface

2011-03-09T18:57:00.025+11:00

I thought my new self-published book should include these haiku efforts with photos, perhaps, and I thought I might try to write some atheistical arguments in a terse format. Nail my colours to the mast.

I have been thinking of late how altogether risible the (Christian) theist position is. And that it would be worth saying why, given that Australia has retreated from its post war secularism and seems to be wishing to imitate a theistic America ("one nation under god"). The laws which Christians wish to impose upon me so that I cannot exercise my conscience have oppressed me since I was a young woman,...

It bothers me somewhat to "come out" in this manner, because some of the nicest people I know are Christian and their niceness is a function of their belief and their desire to be good and to be good to others. Nonetheless, from a philosophical viewpoint, I do find Christianity ludicrous in the extreme. So I am just going to have to put those arguments.

Walked for almost the first time along Whale Beach Road to get to Palm Beach pool. The beautiful Melaleuca quinquinervias I photographed a few years back have been savagely lopped and look like they will have difficulty surviving. There is a lawn at their base and the person who mows the lawn is ringbarking the trees. I couldn't bear to photograph them..

But this lovely casuarina was flourishing. On the base of the cliff on the eastern side, getting the water soaks from the sandstone. A beautiful tree.

To go with a photo of the swimmers:

We are jellyfish
subject to wind and current
thinking we control our fate.
we think we control our fate.

God loves us
But only those born since the year dot.
Others go to hell.
All others hell bound.

Can't get these right but this is as good a place as any to work on them...

For a state which is both religious and democratic
the logic of genocide is inescapable.

Bliss of no longer becoming anxious
Post menopausal state or brain-cells dying?

View from the house towards the central coast at dusk.

this one remembers walking with Ath

2011-03-05T16:15:00.002+11:00

Goanna on the Basin track.

Ancient goanna
So nimbly climbing the tree
And hiding from us.

Millions and millions

2011-03-05T12:45:00.007+11:00

Millions and millions of species.
And the Christian god favours the one
whose eyesight is surpassed by the eagle
whose speed is bettered by the cheetah
and whose nose cannot compare with his dog's.

And those new viruses
evolving to survive our antibiotics?
Why does this god not love and favour
his latest creations?

It seems to me that it is time for atheists to get political. Clearly, the Tony Abbotts of this world find it impossible to believe that their god could render his favoured species, the only species with a soul, extinct. For them, the thesis of man-made climate change is not believable. Yet all these characters who refuse to accept the science of climate change are happy to accept the science which makes medical breakthroughs possible or allows them to turn on a light.

Angophora costata, Palm Beach, Sydney.

And what of trees? Why animals rather than plants? Surely 400 year-old living organisms are worth a thought.

Another haiku, another insect

2011-03-05T10:47:00.014+11:00

An Ogmograptis
has scribbled for aeons on
E. haemastoma.

Scribbles on Eucalyptus haemastoma

Scribbly gums, E. haemastoma.

However, it seems now that Ogmograptis scribula has multiplied into many, many species.... In 2005, scientists discovered that various scribbly gum moths are very choosy in their diet, and that the local larvae (in Canberra) did not scribble on E. haemastoma. Different moths have different scribbles. I haven't yet been able to find the name of the moth which scribbles on this lovely tree. It seems it may not yet be named.
CSIRO: Scribbly gums interpreting their scribbles
Australian Museum: Scribbly gum moth

Still working on the haikus

2011-03-04T19:55:00.007+11:00

This beautiful katydid is from
Jean's photos.

The haiku is:

Pretty Katydid
hiding in dead leaves & twigs.
Don't move, Katydid.

Another, again based on
Jean's photos verticordia is

Green soldier fly
and pink Verticordia.
Each helps the other?

haiku for the hexapod haiku challenge

2011-03-04T07:24:00.010+11:00

Thrips & beetles
So needed in the sex life
Of the idiot tree.

Idiospermum australiense, the idiot tree.
Photograph courtesy of Tony Rodd.

Link to photo

For the pollination story, see Williams, G and Adam, P. (2010) "The Flowering of Australia's Rainforests A Plant and Pollination Miscellany", CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria.

I have taken the following from
BlackDiamondImages

Idiospermum australiense, is the most famous of the primitive North Queensland rainforest plants having been considered extinct until it was found again just south of Cairns near Noah Creek in 1971. It has been called the Green Dinosaur Tree or otherwise,Ribbonwood. It belongs to an ancient 120 million year old family of plants only previously known from fossils. The fruit is very large, as big as a tennis ball and toxic to birds and animals. It is brown in colour and descibed as a woody nut by Cooper. It is believed however that the seeds were dispersed by extinct animals and birds. The tree produces fruit with some interesting characteristics. All modern flowering plants produce seeds which have either one seed leaf (monocots) or two seed leaves (dicots) but the seeds of the Idiospermum can have between 2 to 6 seed leaves! Normally seeds will germinate and send up a single shoot but the Ribbonwood can sprout more than one shoot per seed. The fruit is large at 80mm (3 inches) and globular, splitting into four segments on the ground. The spirally arranged flowers can range in colour from white or cream aging to pink, red or orange and are fragrant. The fruit contains alkaloids which can disrupt nerve transmission to the brain. This rare species is only found from Noah Creek to the Daintree River and from the Mt Bellenden Kerr Range to the foothills of Mt Bartle Frere in lowland rainforest up to 260m altitude.
Source-Plants of Tropical North Queensland by John Beasley p.106 plus Cooper and Cooper 2004, P.232

4th Annual Hexapod Haiku Challenge

One more chapter

2011-02-28T18:56:00.002+11:00

Commelina cyanea, Native Wandering Jew, Norma Road, Palm Beach.

Only swimming on weekends, and I spotted this beautiful blue, walking to the beach.
Just one chapter to go, the final summary and discussion. All other chapters have had at least two drafts, the papers to be published or published about 7 drafts. The last substantive chapter is now in second draft......
Two weeks before I submit to the internal examiners... So, quite a bit of work to go.

theses and botanising

2011-02-21T15:38:00.010+11:00

I am currently writing up my thesis, and taking an inordinately and unnecessarily long time to do so. I have been on only one botanising walk, since my return to Sydney. (So, two photos from that walk.)

And here at work (avoiding work) I found a specimen from the NSW herbarium's record, with a photo of an actual plant collected by Banks and Solander. (If it is not from Banks & Solander, then it does come from the British Museum Collection..) Such an incredible collection. (Click to see it...)
Plantnet Acacia julifer

Casuarinas and banksia on Barrenjoey Headland.

Leptospermum squarrosum, a lovely tea-tree common in the coastal scrub.

Given that Acacia julifera was collected by Solander and Banks, here is a photograph of a beautiful tree planted, I think, in the 19th century, and a plant in the Botanic Gardens whose plaque says "Not collected by Banks and Solander". It is a magnificent tree.

Eucalyptus grandis.

Shade

2010-02-28T08:28:00.004+11:00

I have been spending my time making books through Blurb, and no time here at all, of late.

But at the moment I am trying to photograph the various shade structures, so common in brisbane

Albert & Margaret Streets, Brisbane

Green Soldier fly

2010-01-08T09:55:00.003+11:00

Green Soldier fly
Originally uploaded by jeans_Photos

This is a beautiful photo from jeans_photos, and I was testing out the blog facility in Flickr. If you click on the photo, you should get to her photo-stream, where you will find several more images, each equally if not more beautiful.

In the rainforest

2009-12-03T20:50:00.005+11:00

Went walking with Ruth, from O'Reilly's along the Lyrebird Lookout track. I haven't yet learned to love the rainforest. When you walk along a track, the trees and vines are so dense about you that you can't see the trees. We were walking among giants, but it is so difficult to see what any tree is. You recognise that there must be a brachychiton near, because, scattered on the forest floor are its bright red flowers. And the forest floor signals the changes in vegetation, as we increased in altitude, with the leaf litter going from large broad leaves to the very much smaller Antarctic Beech leaves. Only the epiphytes, the elkhorns, the crows nest ferns and the orchids finding a place to live in the bark cracks are discernible. And the fungi and lichens. Only when we walked along the road, could we see how magnificent the trees really were.

In the early part of the walk we saw a lot of white-browed wrens feeding in the leaf litter. Along the track, again looking at our feet we saw large snail shells which according to Ruth had been eviscerated by Noisy pittas. And finally, as we were about to leave the track, we saw a satin bower bird near his extremely gaudy bower, decorated in bright bits of blue from human artefacts: the second bower we had seen that day, with the earlier one using the blue tail feathers of scarlet rosellas for its blue accents.

Flame Tree at Moran's Falls

View from Lyrebird Lookout

Walking stick palm & fruit

Queensland's Constitution

2009-05-30T15:33:00.005+10:00

Paul Kelly, Kev Carmody, Frank Hardy, Vincent Lingiari

Former Legislative Council Chamber

Stained glass window: Queen Victoria

Inner courtyard of Queensland Parliament House

I spent yesterday at a symposium to celebrate Queensland's 150th birthday: The Queensland Constitution, its origin and evolution.

Lots of speakers, but the two most impressive to my mind were Justice James Allsop, and Pat King, J. (I need to have the documentation to hand to say precisely who they are..) All the speakers read from their papers (to be published) and did an impressive job of skipping pages to fit to the timeline.

Allsop was extremely interesting in his history of the NSW parliament and the various strands of intense feeling, and the forming different alliances, in the efforts of the colonists to rid themselves of the executive dictatorshop of the penal settlement. So I am sort of looking forward to the book.

The conference was held in the old legislative council chamber (the LC was abolished in 1922, after many years of effort), which we reached by crossing from the parliamentary annexe. Hence the paintings, improperly photographed & shown here. Somewhat surprising were the wooden verandahs round this inner courtyard. Odd for such a majestic building (at least from George & Alice Streets.) (I think we were shown the dirty linen. But probably everyone is so used to it, they don't notice it.)

I had paid to go to the dinner, but there was a gap of two hours between pre-dinner drinks and the dinner, and the end of the conference, and my courage failed me. A pity, I had planned to see the strangers dining room.

The Old Man

2009-04-09T15:16:00.002+10:00

Rowers on the Brisbane River, March 2008

Well, it's not me on the river. But this morning was the last day of the level 3 rowing and the morning was as perfect as this, and the traffic (rowers) was at least comparable if not greater.

I am a better rower than I was, but still not fit to be let loose on the river by myself, so I'll do another level 3 (single sculls) course with UQBC.

It was a perfect morning, one of those mornings for which the old man used to say "Haec Dies" (This is the day the Lord has made...). And I missed him, looking down the river at the perfect morning.

Miscellany

2009-04-04T08:52:00.006+11:00

Kurilpa Street Bridge.

Spilling spoons sculpture. South Bank.

Early morning rowers on the river.

I am trying to document both the Kurilpa Street Bridge and the Hale Street Link. They will only be built once, so each day is a unique snapshot of their progress. Here, the bridge looks to me like a ship.

Sometimes, in the morning, rather than swim at the UQ pool, I swim at Streets Beach and breakfast at South Bank. The morning is a lovely time to be there and the spilling spoons sculpture (who is responsible for this beautiful object?) was spilling water in its lovely random fashion.

And, finally, I am a very lucky person learning to row on the river. Although my last expedition (in a sharpish wind) we cut short because of its hazardous nature.

Talks

2009-03-21T09:24:00.002+11:00

Banco Court. Brisbane Law Courts Complex, 304 George St., Brisbane.

Forecourt of the Law Complex

I have been going to a lot of talks. The series at the court above was the most notable. Sarah Worthington gave the UQ T.C.Beirne lectures on equity and property and how it affects, could affect claims after death, bankruptcy. I felt almost a complete clown after the first one, but I persisted for the full three. I suspect that the principles of which she was speaking generally only come into play when the litigants are two banks. In any case, it was clear that you would need to be very well heeled and know that the fight was worth it, that is, that there would be money at the end.

The room was hung with portraits of scarlet-robed judges and outside were historical displays relating to federation: so lots of paintings of the Lucinda, on which and from which our crappy constitution was drafted. And then portraits galore, timelines, people, actually a pretty good display.

I also went to a talk about Israel and Palestine, given by an Israeli peace activist, Jeff Halper. I do not find his position to be rational at all, despite his evident good will. Israel will continue with its program of genocide. However, I did buy his book and am struggling reluctantly through it. The talk was given in the parliamentary annexe of the Queensland parliament. So I am slowly exploring Brisbane. The room used contained four paintings of the one aboriginal prisoner, together with a note of the person to contact should you wish to acquire such an artwork. (I didn't.)

And last and exceedingly least, two appalling talks at the Royal Historical Society's commissariat store: on on Wickham, general administrator (?), just prior to separation, and another on Henry Cape, a sea captain.

Going to Newcastle

2009-02-17T16:01:00.007+11:00

Paperbark in the Wetlands.
Hunter Botanic Gardens (just out of Newcastle)

Angophoras & Banksias. Hunter Botanic Gardens.

Wetlands. Hunter Botanic Gardens.

Went to Newcastle on the weekend. It took far longer than I had anticipated to get to Fassifern from the Williamtown airport, and of course a great deal longer because firstly our aircraft was late, secondly having been loaded aboard, the plane was not fit to fly and hence we were loaded into buses, zoomed around the airport and came back to where we started, to an almost identical plane and by this time Qantas was desperate to beat the curfew at Williamtown...... A long, long journey. I left the University at 3.15, got to Rob's by midnight.

On Saturday, in the rain, we drove up to the Hunter Botanic Gardens, which I had wanted to see. They were very different from most botanic gardens, for the most part we were walking on paths which looked to wind through the wilderness. They were lovely in the rain.

(The wetlands almost look to have been specifically created, with all those drowned and dead trees.)

Toowong cemetery

2009-02-06T19:58:00.005+11:00

Kangaroo sprawling in the midday sun. CBD Brisbane

Russian orthodox graves. Toowong Cemetery.

War graves

Mayne family grave. Toowong cemetery.

Janie spent the night here on the way to the Tasmanian wooden boat festival. I've wanted to check out the Russian orthodox graves at Toowong cemetery for a while, so that's where we headed before we had to head out to the airport for her flight.

We were intrigued by the fact that the Russian orthodox graves were scattered all over the cemetery. And by the sheer number of them.

And it was also a surprise to see the war graves, forming part of a general cemetery, and in addition with wives and mothers, and fathers interred in the same grave long after the death of the man who had served. Again, despite the bulk of the war graves being in a common area we found those commonwealth war plaques scattered about the cemetery (particularly for those who served in a war, but had died long afterwards in peacetime).

(I photographed the kangaroo the day before on my way to meet Janie at Roma Street station.)

North Stradbroke Island

2009-02-01T13:56:00.008+11:00

A Mangrove island in Moreton Bay. North Stradbroke Island in the background.

Pandanus. Cliff face, North Stradbroke Island.

Male pandanus in flower. North Stradbroke Island.

Pandanus & Casuarina. North Stradbroke Island.

Used the satnav to get myself to the North Stradbroke Island ferry terminal, yesterday.

My first taste of ocean water since coming up to Queensland. Swam regardless of the beach being closed, but with great care. I don't believe that there was no safe place to swim on Main Beach. In the end we swam in where it was probably far more dangerous. In a little narrow gorge with a very strong sideways and outwards pull. So I simply lay down in water about a foot deep and let the lovely incoming waves break over me.

Mainly took photos of the beach casuarinas and the pandanus. And saw for the first time that pandanus are dioecious. I find it really hard to find good botanical reference material on the web. So I haven't managed to track down the pandanus species despite it being found on every Queensland beach..

The mangrove island photograph was taken from the ferry jetty at Cleveland, with North Stradbroke Island in the background. Part of what makes Moreton Bay a water-bird refuge. It is truly an amazing bay. (Huge, and that is what makes finding a decent beach close to Brisbane virtually impossible.)

GPS

2009-01-26T17:00:00.006+11:00

Pandanus on the foreshore of Redcliff Beach.

Casuarina. Redcliff Beach.

Mangrove at Nudgee Beach

The beaches on Moreton Bay (and all those that I have seen so far) are so different from what I know as a beach. I think it would take another lifetime to acclimatise me to them.

Pandanus and this incredibly dessicated looking casuarina are to be found on every beach I have so far seen. Shallow beaches, dirty water and warm. But there are all those islands off the coast, so the water is shallow and fed from all the muddy mangrove creeks and rivers...everywhere. Also incredibly salty.

I have brought up the car from Sydney using the old Satnav. But I clearly needed newer maps and so had to buy a new one (no maps available on the old one). So I was determined to venture forth and try the roads and the navigation.

I set out for Redcliff, having seen photos from a Flickr friend, but diverted to various places on the way. So I thought that Nudgee might serve for a swim. Clearly not. Great for fishing. And so I continued on.

The Norfolk pines of Redcliff looked somewhat the worse from the long drought, but it was a swimmable beach and so I swam.

The new satnav is not as satisfactory as the old: it does not automatically tell me to continue straight when I reach an intersection with millions of directions. You need to keep a sharp eye on the number of metres left before the turn or you will turn too early. Also the maps are crappy. We now have voiced streets, but this is not always helpful: Sir Fred Schonell drive becomes "serve ridge..." and Brisbane is pronounced with the last syllable rhyming with rain. Anyway it took me there and brought me home safely so I should not be complaining.

footnoted novels

2009-01-25T20:15:00.005+11:00

Lilies and mistletoe. The dam at Pokolbin.

From de Beyer's road

I've been working my way through Walter Scott's novels. They are amazing. I love the long ironic introductions, with their kindly portraits of pompous, garrulous, or ignorant people and others, chatting about books, their readers and their purposes. The portraits from literary and legal life. I love the extensive footnotes, and the fact that he cannot say an unkind word about anyone.

At first you tend to skip the introductions and ignore the footnotes. But by the 10th book or so, they have started to grow on you. Some books have several introductions and prefatory notes. Sometimes they are wonderfully comic. They nearly all seek to show the tale was inspired by some factual happening.

I also love the essential equality of all the characters, peasants chat to queens and dukes, servants give more than as good as they get from their masters and are often funds of great goodsense. Legal eagles and those who aspire to be, wander through the tales and are made gentle fun of.

In any case, I could not recall the device of footnoted novels, which is Scott's practice. And had noted it also in Manzoni's "I promessi sposi" (but used there to quote written sources from the famine (1628) and the plague (1630) and hence function as they do in modern scholarship, while Scott's footnotes often use spoken sources and it's always unclear whether the sources are in anyway available.)

(Of course, when I hunted up footnoted novels on the internet, I found I had forgotten Umberto Eco, and Nabokov and of course, skads of others, including Georges Perec, mostly 20th Century writers. But each of them using footnotes for different purposes.

(The photos are from Christmas at Pokolbin. Such a beautiful place.)

And persisting....

2009-01-23T09:55:00.006+11:00

Eastern Water Dragon by the Brisbane River

Mother & chick on the lily leaves. Southbank.

Wondering along on the way to University, I was reminded by gazing upon various animals, of the essential sameness of the bilateral design of birds, lizards, whales, humans, all with the virtually the same sets of bones: elongated, foreshortened, atrophied, different; and thought of the essential stupidity of the argument for God from intelligent design. It would seem that the designer has never got it right and just has to keep on experimenting.

And one does have to wonder about those, who, gratefully accepting all the wonders of modern science when it comes to interventions to save their lives, do not notice a parallel story of antibiotic drugs, rendered less useful, by the rapid evolution of the various viruses and bacteria. The design is neither finished nor final.

How I hate religion! (And there we go. We all seem to need something to demonize.)

To continue

2009-01-22T20:51:00.007+11:00

Christmas at Pokolbin

You may wish to read the hysterical response in link from Crikey.com to Michael Backman's column

The original column of Backman's was not that good, but the response, both by the Age and by Margaret Simon indicates just how impossible it is make remarks critical of Israel.

For me, the truth of it all is that the policies, laws and wars of Israel are fundamentally racist and unjust.

I still find it extraordinary that anyone can justify or try to justify, making war on a whole population for the sake of two prisoners (the war on Lebanon) or of even several deaths, thereby killing thousands, maiming more and destroying the capacity to stay alive. The war in Lebanon and the war in Gaza are and were fundamentally racist. I would wish that there might be a sufficient groundswell to indict the Israeli government for war crimes.

(And I am reminded of a column I read before Christmas, where a fundamentally nice man, criticised us all - most appropriately - for taking moral positions on things over which we have no control, to feel good about ourselves, while turning a blind eye to our own moral failings... Spot on. But when the disconnect between the discourse and the fundamental facts is so great, it is difficult to believe one lives in the same world.)

(And the picture comes from my peaceful and happy Christmas, and celebrates Don's vegetable patches).

Electronic intifada

2009-01-21T20:58:00.009+11:00

Seamist and sunlight. Whale Beach Road.

I have copied this from the electronic intifada.

Joseph Massad, the Electronic Intifada, 20 January 2009.

"The logic goes as follows: Israel has the right to occupy Palestinian land, lay siege to Palestinian populations in Bantustans surrounded by an apartheid wall, starve the population, cut them off from fuel and electricity, uproot their trees and crops, and launch periodic raids and targeted assassinations against them and their elected leadership, and if this population resists these massive Israeli attacks against their lives and the fabric of their society and Israel responds by slaughtering them en masse, Israel would simply be "defending" itself as it must and should."

I can fault nothing in this statement.

Sadly nothing will change with the change of presidents. Neither Australia nor the US will see Israel's acts as war crimes. The world will not become a better nor more just place, while US governments are captive of the Israeli lobby and refuse justice and human rights to the Palestinians. (Obama's inaugural speech indicated business as usual in the middle east: the Palestinians are guilty and innocent and guilty alike deserve at best to be driven from their homes or simply to die. Extra-judicial killing is OK. Clearly, the Palestinians are subhuman: For provocations equivalent to those of the IRA whole regions of the earth must be destroyed. Imagine the same logic applied by the UK government to Northern Ireland. It is quite unthinkable. Why?)

(And these are trees in my beautiful street. And I fear to say this.)

From Sydney to Brisbane

2009-01-10T16:19:00.003+11:00

Bluff Rock. Near Tenterfield, NSW.

The Condamine. Warwick, Queensland

I drove up by the New England Highway. Someone suggested to me that it would be the better, safer route. I'm not entirely sure about that. True that for many stretches of the road there was just me. But the distance was longer and it was a two lane highway (one lane one way, the other the other) which I hate as it doesn't allow any room for error.

I used the satnav and hence had no idea about intermediate towns or the length of the journey itself. Staging myself with directions to the next turn (204.7 km to the right...) I hadn't realised that it took in all the little towns on the way, so that there was need for a constant attention to the speed signs and the route to the upper Hunter from Newcastle seemed to consist of a constant chain of towns each extraordinarily close to the other.

Each staging post being a town, petrol and food were largely separated which is not the case for Highway 1, from Melbourne to at least Newcastle, so I had to revisit my strategy for these two items.

From Glen Innes, where I slept the night, all the way almost to Brisbane, it was an easy drive. Still not sure about the two lanes, though. I'll return via the coast and find out how horrible that is.

It was only when I felt that Brisbane was within reach that I started to take photos. (And then my battery ran out. I will be buying a spare.) The Condamine I had to photograph because of Don and it was there that the battery ran out. (There was some stunning scenery, a really beautiful drive.)

Christmas

2009-01-08T12:31:00.002+11:00

De Beyer's vineyard. (Taken on a walk with the girls. Pokolbin.)

View across the vineyard to the mountains beyond.

Poinsettia. Palm Beach.

I had been dreading Christmas, but despite its various disappointments, it was much nicer than I had hoped. It was a real joy to have us all together and to be able to enjoy the children and the grandchildren.

Very hard on the N's to organise themselves and the children. I don't expect they will repeat the exercise in a hurry, but it was terrific nonetheless and probably would not have happened but for Don's stubbornness (determination).

The Botanic Gardens

2008-12-27T21:55:00.003+11:00

Fruit bats. Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney

Wisteria and Palms from the Botanic Gardens Restaurant

Was invited to lunch the day before Christmas Eve at the Botanic Gardens. So I spent a very pleasant half hour in the gardens photographing some beautiful trees (not shown here)

After lunch, I spent a considerable sum of money in the garden's shop. The excuse was Christmas. They had some stunning books (too expensive for me, most of them), some beautiful original botanic artworks (ditto) and other things (also lovely) which were a bit more within range. But there was no dross. (Or was it my alcoholic euphoria?)

(The bat photograph was taken just outside the restaurant facing the garden's shop.)

The Zoo

2008-12-27T21:20:00.005+11:00

Taronga Park Zoo. Water bird exhibit with casuarinas in the sunlight and a very obscured pelican.

Araucaria cunninghamii from the skyway. (Such a splendid tree.)

Tiger. (He was exceedingly handsome.)

Went to Taronga Park Zoo, with the children and the grandchildren. It was a lovely day. Both children enjoyed all the animals they saw and so did we. The displays of the animals were the most natural I have seen in a zoo (or anywhere) with most of the barriers being apparently insignificant and not impeding your view. And most of the enclosures appeared remarkably natural. (And in the case of the waterbirds, they were not enclosed at all, despite the jabirus and brolgas on display and lots of pelicans in addition to the various ducks.) The credit for the lovely displays must go to the gardeners as well as the designers.

The price was a bit steep ($23 concession!) but did include as many rides on the skyway as you pleased, a fact I only discovered when I pulled out my money to ride.

We got to see a platypus in what appeared to its natural environment. Fabulous. This was a first for me, not for the sight of a platypus, but for seeing it other than in a most artificial and ugly environment.

Figs in Hyde Park

2008-12-22T08:28:00.003+11:00

Figs in Hyde Park

Was with R. yesterday. She is profoundly depressed and there is nothing I can do.

We went shopping. I had wanted to choose a gift for her, with her. I ended up buying dresses for the grandchildren and nothing for her, and when I left her, I was leaving her to see them. It makes me miserable to see her so sad.

She is dreading coming up to her father's and I am frightened about her driving, when she is not happy. But I know that when we drive together and are slightly on edge, we both drive worse, so it makes no sense to offer to drive her to Pokolbin. (Not that she would be likely to accept.)

(The photo was taken on the walk from her place to go shopping at DJs. Hyde Park was lovely, except for the fact that they have removed all the Morton Bays next to St Mary's and now there is no lovely cloak of green to distance that monstrous pile.)

Home

2008-12-17T10:25:00.002+11:00

Looking down on to my back verandah

Morning glory infesting the bottlebrush

View from the carport

Well, these photos say I am home. And it's very nice to be home. Even the weeds are lovely.

The Web

2008-12-10T22:03:00.005+11:00

Mangroves on the flood tide. QUT.

Cassia javanica. The Women's College.

Leopard tree with new leaves. The Women's College.

It is an amazing new world. This morning, still pursuing documentation for my flower and plant photos, I was pointed to the EOL (Encyclopaedia of Life) site. It is still extremely rudimentary. But it plans to point to all the various pieces of documentation about a species. Australian plants don't yet exist. But where there are entries, they look pretty good. Check it out.

It took me to the BioDiversity Heritage Library site, which appears to be putting up every journal/book that has been published since people started naming plants and animals. They are making available the facsimiles for us to read, and using optical readers to index every text. Again, they scarcely seem to have touched Antipodean stuff but perhaps I am expecting too much. But check out this Joseph Banks publication.

The photos are of the mangroves this morning on the flood tide at QUT, the beautiful new bronze tiny feathered leaves of the leopard tree, and of the Cassia which has come into greater bloom since I first saw it a few days ago. The masked lapwing is still sitting on her second set of eggs (I think it's a least two weeks and if I don't see chicks on Friday morning then I won't see them at all this year, since I'm off down to Sydney on Friday.) Her bloke came up to protect her when I took her photograph, so it's not all as solo as at times it has appeared.

Cassia javanica

2008-12-09T05:35:00.004+11:00

The tree.

Flowering branches.

Detail: Flowers and leaves.

The usual story: Collected on camera, id'd on the internet, thanks to Flickr. The leaves, trunk and habit are not unlike a Jacaranda, but I'd been puzzling over some seedpods on the Women's College drive: a long cylindrical pod, with two seams running the length of it, splitting open to show a set of seeds each within a disc of width about 3-4 mm of material, the length of the pod being up to 40 cm or more. Puzzle no longer. They belong to this tree: Cassia javanica.

Sunday

2008-12-07T18:38:00.006+11:00

Southbank rainforest walk. Palms and weeping figs.

Tipuana tipu. UQ Lakes.

I've been reading Manzoni's 'The Betrothed' (I promessi sposi). Now in retrospect, it feels like the lives of the saints. But it is a delight to read. From the very first event, where the priest Don Abbondio is accosted by two bravoes and we have three pages quoting the various edicts by which these bravoes are to be discouraged.

"Hearing such bold and confident words from so great a noble, and such orders going with them, one would be very much inclined to think that all the bravoies disappeared for ever at their very sound. But the evidence of a nobleman no less authoritatative and no less endowed with titles obliges us to believe quite the contrary. ...

And wherever he touches on history there is always this delicate irony. Fantastic stuff. A most extraordinary book: we go from character to character with interludes of beautifully ironic history - history, which has been deeply internalised and now comes out as natural conversation. And it's always a conversation with you, the reader. And it's a tale of terrible times: immense lawlessness, war, famine and pestilence, encompassed in a tale of Milan and its environs from 1628 to 1630.

"The people had tried to create abundance by sacking and burning, the government was trying to maintain it be the gallows and the rope. Such means were linked to each other, but the reader can see how little they had to do with the ends; and in a moment he will see just what avail they wre to attain them. It is easy to see, and not uninteresting to observe, how there was a necessary connexion between these measures; each was an inevitable consequence of its predecessor, and all a result of the first decree which fixed the price of bread so far from its real price - from the price, that is, that would have resulted naturally from the relation between supply and demand. .... But then, as the consequences gradually began to be felt, it became the duty of those responsible to come to the relief of each edict with a law forbidding people to do what they had been encouraged to do by the preceding law."

"Man's activity is limited; and the more of it is put into giving orders, the less goes into carrying them out. What goes into the sleeves cannot go into the gussets."

Paths

2008-12-04T19:43:00.004+11:00

Hoop pines. Araucaria cunninghamii

Near the UQ Post office

Had to buy stamps for Christmas cards, today. And send a parcel. It was stinking hot and horrible by 9am when the Post office opened. And today was the day for buying boxes to store my stuff here over Christmas, so that meant I left the uni early. Fortunately, because by five there was a violent thunderstorm. Not the weather for carrying cardboard boxes.

The bright sunlight and dark shade on the UQ paths took my fancy as I headed off to work.

Last row

2008-12-03T21:59:00.002+11:00

Stacked oars in the UQ Boathouse, with boats in the background

Our last row this morning. We had seven and we rowed seven and we all rowed most of the time. The only time all seven were not rowing was when we were manoevring to get in to the pontoon and when we were turning about. A. (our coach) stayed at the stern the entire time - I presume to make sure she knew precisely where we were headed.

It's an amazing world. There is a living all around the world for rowing coaches and A. is off to Inniskillen in the new year to take up a rowing coaching post, while most of us have had a pretty positive experience and intend to keep on next year, rowing fours not eights in the early new year. A far cry from when I was a girl growing up and such a sport was simply not offered.

But here, the college (perhaps 200 girls) field 5 fours, which is 25 girls with the coxes, and so do all the other nine colleges.

Lily?

2008-12-02T22:18:00.006+11:00

Common as dirt. And lovely. And I don't know what it is. (UQ)

I wasn't a fan of my photos today. But I did like the stamens of this. One of the things I like about taking photos of flowers is that I generally need to magnify the image and in doing so, I see in the photo what I don't see when I just look. So here, when I see these normally, I see the ragged flower, but today I saw the stamens standing quite free of the flower. And the parts with all the pollen are hanging quite vertically, yet the flower itself is all over the place.

And the paperbark flower below, seen carelessly, looks something like a bottle brush, but when you see it up close, what an amazing structure it has.

Paperbark. UQ.

Sunlight

2008-12-01T20:32:00.009+11:00

Sunlight through the grass

Taken a long while ago and has just one comment on it in Flickr, but I came across it while hunting for some other photos and I still think it is beautiful. And I also love that very slight morning moisture in the air, invisible, except that it captures the shafts of sunlight.

Putting up this photo reminded me that I had wanted to go out in the dark to get a photo of the Kigelia, whose buds I had noticed the other day. Such a beautiful flower and only visible by flashlight. It's so elegant, as it hangs, like a living candelabra.

On the way out, I disturbed the nesting lapwing, nesting for the second time this season in the very safe spot of the grassed college roundabout. I very evilly took a flash of it, and it made appropriate menacing cries. She/he (is it the female who keeps the eggs warm?) has been sitting there I think for almost a week already. Seems an awfully long time to go without food, and by sitting there it reminds you of the miserable weather it must endure, which you tend not to think about when birds are on the wing or sitting on a shady branch.

Kigelia pinnata. African sausage tree. UQ.

Daily collections

2008-11-28T17:31:00.004+11:00

Colour on the walk home, yesterday

Solitary mangrove. From the Goodwill Bridge

SouthBank Creek. In the morning.

Felt somewhat dispirited after our fortnightly gettogether, but then don't I always? I just try to keep beavering away.

Floating vegetation

2008-11-27T16:39:00.009+11:00

Flood debris in the mangroves at QUT

UQ Boat House and pontoon and rowers getting off the river

Flowering foxtail palm, SouthBank

The ferries started again on Tuesday. It was the first day I had looked at the river since they had been cancelled (on the previous Thursday). There were huge logs everywhere as well as the mats of vegetation I had seen on the first afternoon after the storms. What is curious and disconcerting is that the floating vegetation continues to float, moving upstream and downstream with the tide.

We've had more rain in the last two days, too. But one wonders when the floating vegetation will cease to mar the surface of the river. It seems as if it could go on for ever, floating to and fro. (I said this to a woman while waiting for the cat. She assured me that the water hyacinths would eventually die because of brackish water... and presumably then they will lose some flotation. I hope so.)

On Tuesday, it made for interesting rowing, since the last thing we wanted to do was punch a hole in the boat by cannoning into a log.

Various palms are flowering at the moment. And on Sunday, I finally found the powerhouse at New Farm. My father would have loved the restaurant there.

Watt (at the Powerhouse on the river)

Palm trees

2008-11-21T19:57:00.002+11:00

Flowering palm by UQ Lakes

QUT: Between O block and Old Government House

Today all I could see were Palm trees. Flowering everywhere. I first of all saw the mess on the path after all the torrential rain we have been having. Piles of what looked like tiny offcuts from wood. But actually the flowers of the palm tree in the first photo.

And then, coming home via Southbank (so that I could have a wallow at Streets Beach) I found another flowering palm.

Sparkling morning after rain

2008-11-20T13:46:00.008+11:00

Melaleuca along a Southbank `creek'

The creek on Southbank

We have had several afternoons and nights of torrential thunderstorms. But the morning dawned bright and clear. The Brisbane River is in flood, that is, the water is moving extremely fast downstream and I expect that even the flood tide will have difficulty pushing up river today.

We rowed this morning and finally rowed as an eight. An interesting proposition: the boat rocks and sometimes it's extremely hard to keep your oar clear of the water despite being feathered as you go up to the catch. And when you don't get your oar in square when you push with your legs to pull on the oar, you shoot to the back of your seat long before the rower in front of you who is actually pulling against the water, while you are not. But I managed to be in time most of the time and to pull well on perhaps 2 out of 3 strokes.

The mornings when I row I miss breakfast at the college, and so I breakfast at Poppy's in Little Stanley Street and walk to QUT via Southbank and the Goodwill bridge. Everything was sparkling. Hence the photos.

Coming home, the river had rafts and rafts of vegetation floating down it and they were cancelling the ferries after dark.

Along the river

2008-11-12T19:48:00.007+11:00

Mangroves at the QUT ferry pontoon

Southbank. Bougainvillea, weeping figs & palm trees

State Library from the river

Gallery of Modern Art from the river

Poincianas on the building site. (Gallery of Modern Art behind.)

Cranes

Two days earlier. Same site. Pile-driver (yellow) and two cranes.

They tell me Joh was responsible for the Cultural Centre and Southbank. I must think more kindly of him. It is a beautiful place and all Brisbane seems to flock there to barbecue, to picnic, to eat, to swim, to do cultural things and to just enjoy themselves. The people pour off the ferry at the Southbank stop and on again and it doesn't matter what hour of the day or night it is.

The ferry has to slow to a crawl between Regatta and North Quay so as not to disturb the building works on the river. I heard the yellow pile-driver first and then saw it. Amazing that they have built this way since at least the Bronze Age.
See
www.tv.com/time-team/vauxhall-london/episode/450351/summa...

The bridge being built is the Tank Street Bridge
Wikipedia
For the design see
Department of Public Works
I hope it doesn't clutter up the river..

Borrowing the beauty of others' photographs

2008-11-11T20:49:00.005+11:00

1. wiggy1, 2. Bad Langensalza- rosa 'Little Artist' 2008-07, 3. Autumn leaves 2008-10, 4. Pahoehoe*, 5. 181_0672 Crabapple Malus Rosaceae, 6. Punk ball, 7. IMG_2243_h, 8. Cistus psilosepalus v. hirsuitus, 9. I am Outta Here, 10. Pink Woolly Feather Flower-7133, 11. Scarlet Honey Myrtle-7230, 12. Brassica rapa, 13. Punica granatum, 14. Wallum Boronia-7816, 15. Tolumnia Durras "No.1", 16. reedmace at Askham Bog, York

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

This mechanism allows me to go back and enjoy some of the photos I have tagged as favourites.

Homeless

2008-11-10T20:21:00.007+11:00

Backhousia myrtifolia, at LonePine sanctuary

Gums at UQ Ferry Wharf, on a foggy morning

UQ Ferry Wharf

Ferry Map

Weekends are purgatory. I am without a home.
The river is always beautiful but it is not enough.

Cup day

2008-11-04T20:27:00.007+11:00

Against the light. Lorikeet feeding in a flame tree.

Banyan near the Goodwill Bridge

Cup day and maths department party. Before the party I went to some good exhibitions at the QUT art gallery: William Robinson and some lithographs with lovely colour and feeling, and an exhibition called "Replant" where several artists were gathered together on the Daly River to draw, etch, paint, photograph plants.
Some lovely things of Fiona Hall, in particular, Green Ant Nest and Water lilies by Marita Sambono.

(I included the photo of the Banyan, because its structure reminded me of Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia.)

More chirpy

2008-11-03T19:44:00.006+11:00

Pandanus. Gorge Walk, North Stradbroke Island.

Casuarinas. Gorge Walk, North Stradbroke Island.

Pathway. Gorge Walk, North Stradbroke Island.

Pathway. Gorge Walk, North Stradbroke Island.

On Sunday, I took myself off to Cleveland to get to Stradbroke Island. The train journey was long & tedious (nearly an hour, with the train stopping all stations), and by the time I found myself at the busstop, I was starting to wonder why I had come. But there was a sign at the busstop which gave a telephone number and advertised a free bus service to the Stradbroke flyer.

Well, the next departure for Stradbroke Island was in roughly an hour, but the bus came by and picked me up and it was a pleasant wait at the down-at-heel ferry service. It had already that island air where people busy themselves with island things and tourists are necessary nuisances. No information needs to be given: the locals know and the tourists will find out as the island time and processes take them in hand. (I'll go again, but probably not by train.)

Blue

2008-11-01T22:33:00.001+11:00

Jacarandas

These are georgeous but I am pretty blue.

Fremantle Prison

2008-09-13T09:13:00.004+10:00

Cell painting by an Aboriginal prisoner

Prison Yard surveillance post for warder (prison officer)

I thought it was just going to be one of those tours of nineteenth century horror. But this prison was used up until 1991 as a maximum security prison. At this time there were two prisoners to a cell sharing a tiny bucket to defecate and pee in, which was theoretically emptied once a day. The prison was finally closed because of these conditions. The story ended up being one of 20th century horror.

The last prisoner to be lashed by the cat of nine-tails was in 1943, received 25 lashes as part of his sentence. He had the first 17 before the doctor intervened and the salt was rubbed into his back and being taken to the infirmary. He received the remaining 8 three weeks later. (The possibility of being sentenced to be flogged remained on the books till 1993)

But the worst was the boredom of one's day, out in the yard with temperatures over 50 degrees celsius in the summer. It's a wonder that there was only the one riot (on January 4, 1988). A yard where rape, bashings and murder were commonplace. A terrible terrible place.

Water: Brisbane to Perth

2008-09-13T05:52:00.003+10:00

Somewhere over the south west of WA

Over Central Australia

Watercourses in the desert

Mountains and water tracks in Central Australia

Somewhere in Queensland

Flying from Brisbane to Perth, yesterday, I looked out the window the whole way. And everywhere there were signs of water, or where it had been.

These are just some of the photos I took: All poor quality, but of a breathtaking landscape.

St John's Cathedral, Brisbane

2008-09-01T19:17:00.007+10:00

The front of St John's (taken late in the afternoon and a very poor photo)

West wall (I think)

Coburn in a side chapel

John Olsen in the same side chapel (west side)

One of the lovely and various cushions on the pews at the front: there must have been hundreds

The little side-chapel for mothers

At the worst of being unable to walk, I took a taxi to St John's which I had noticed in the twilight, and loved its fairytale exterior, and had determined to get a better look at. So I took myself there on a Saturday, to find myself in the midst of an Indian-Anglican wedding. They let me in and after the ceremony I wandered around and took a few photos.

The exterior stonework is that lovely pink / blue rock that Brisbane seems to specialise in when it comes to cut stone, and the front seems to have towers straight out of Perrault's fairy tales.

The interior has all the variety of a well-loved church, well-endowed and full of extraneous beauties: a little chapel for mothers, looking very Greek-influenced, a side chapel with a Coburn wall hanging and what looked like it might have been a variation by John Olsen on his 'Five Bells'. There was a flag in that chapel too, so I wondered if the chapel might have had some military significance.

The interior of the side aisles(almost brick work) was golden, and not particularly impressive. But what was lovely was the sense of accretion over time. (Even if it does truly anger me that the state, supposedly secular, government is contributing millions to some new towers.)

Weekend

2008-08-28T06:48:00.006+10:00

Engraving by Nicole, hanging in Rachel's flat

Went to Rachel's this last weekend, so she could look after me.

We had a thoroughly girly and expensive weekend: took her broken ring to Hardy's to be rebuilt, bought some bras. Then went to DJ's noodle bar for lunch. The queue was long and it hurts for me to stand, so Rachel queued, and I bought some coffee, and not content with that whipped up to the table cloth section and managed to buy a table cloth. The transaction completed,the phone rang and I jumped the queue to sit down and await my previously ordered lunch.

Revived, we then went off to CUE and I persuaded Rachel (I hope not too hard), to buy some dresses. We then went back to her flat and I lay down and had a rest.

Somewhere in the weekend, and I think it was the Saturday, we took in Tropic Thunder at Fox studios. It was the best, the funniest comedy I have seen in a long time. I could even become a fan of Ben Stiller. No holds barred, stacks of in-jokes and amazing conversations, loads of blood and gore, brilliant take on war movies, and very, very funny.

Pleasures of flickr

2008-08-17T15:13:00.009+10:00

One of Barbara J.H.'s photographs
Aerial view of a pineapple farm, and a lovely piece of abstract geometry.

This time I started to put in links to some of my favourite photos, but then I just used fdsflickrtoys to create a mosaic. If you go to the mosaic (by clicking on the image above) and click on the number representing the image you will arrive at the original image and image-maker's photostream. (Or more simply, you could click on the links below.)

1. Wow, 2. Deep Blue Ohio Evening, 3. Balloon flight-2975, 4. feldrain mit platterbse 2008-06, 5. Pink Sunshine, 6. Slow motion firework, 7. scattered shadows, 8. Fishing in the middle of the river Nemunas, in Kaunas, 9. 木綿の花, 10. Lichens and Airplant, 11. Milton Park Lodge - Bowral, 12. Can you find your bike?, 13. Schiehallion, 14. Caminhos, 15. black cheeseberry, 16. Ancient bushcraft (II)

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Looking silly

2008-08-15T14:33:00.007+10:00

Mink

Yesterday, I was a bit over ambitious on returning from being pushed and pummelled, and having to walk from Edward Street to North Quay, I encountered for the first time, David Jones. With only a skirt to my name apart from jeans which I wear everywhere, I wanted to see if I could find something nice.

Well, the up escalator is some distance from the entrance and by the time I got up it, I was reduced to crawling. Being something of an exhibitionist, I wondered how long it would take before anyone noticed this woman in her mink, sandshoes, jeans and backpack, making her way along the floor in monkey fashion. (Some time is the answer.)

(DJ's and a kind lady did finally take pity on me, giving me some water to take my various prescription painkillers, and then I surprised myself by buying a dress...)

(The mink is a present from my sister and it has and is being a great comfort while I am not feeling well and am so ridiculously sorry for myself.)

The photo I took today. (I'm not quite sure what the response would have been had I asked a passerby to photograph that very ridiculous apparition.)

Dreaming

2008-08-15T05:47:00.006+10:00

Advertisement for the Mikado, QPAC

I keep dreaming my parents are alive and wake up planning to do things with them. (I presume it's the panadeine forte that I'm taking. They are unlike other dreams which always seem intimately connected with working out my basic waking concerns: these are too full of anticipatory pleasure to be of the same ilk.)

So last night my father was coming up to Brisbane and I thought I would take him to the Mikado.

So, as I returned this morning from my daily pummelling, I took this photo of the advertisement for the Mikado (It looks like the show may have some very gay overtones...)

Unable to walk

2008-08-12T15:56:00.002+10:00

Lily leaves. Southbank Winter morning

It's been an interesting week. Completely incapable of walking and in pain, things have been pretty miserable.

But the extremely upside of it all has been that I have become so bored with reciting my tale of woe that I am now finally, finally, starting to talk to the people in college. And enjoying it.

I have also learnt that the UQ security service exists not just to protect the denizens of UQ, but picks up the moribund and less than moribund from anywhere on the campus and takes them to anywhere on the campus.

So, on Saturday last, I fancied a swim. The security service indicated a possible delay ("Saturday's our busiest day"), but took me to and from the college to the pool. How about that? Not bad, eh?

Mt Coot-tha

2008-07-01T20:47:00.003+10:00

Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens

My last days here in the apartment at Women's College. I got my sister to come down and spend a night here, and we went to the gardens.

The base of the fig looked to be garlanded in flowers (which of course it was).

Sunset on the Brisbane River IMG_1285

2008-06-10T18:34:00.004+10:00

Sunset on the Brisbane River IMG_1285
Originally uploaded by MargaretsFamily

A long time since I posted. I managed to leave my camera in Sydney.

So what's been happening? Well, I've been sorting out (or more to the point, not sorting out) what my PhD's about. I got quite excited, but my supervisor in WA is not enthused, and want's me to do what I think is pretty much a load of shit.. We shall see.

And in the meantime, just before semester one ended, a mob of evangelist students from Missouri took the ferry. And sought to evade paying the fare. I watched them from the time they got on at North Quay and listened to their conversation. "Do you think we don't have to pay, since we haven't got a seat?". (No attempt to find out) I motioned to one lad and told him that you paid your fare by going inside. He ignored me.

I was getting madder and madder. Tourists rich enough to cross half the earth, but not prepared to pay their way when they got there. Eventually, after Guyatt Park, one of the students asked me to take their photo. I said yes, if they paid their fare. They then came up with some very specious excuses: "we're poor students", "we were going to pay when we got off" (Was the ferry going to wait while they finally found out where to pay, and all 10 of them paid?)

I remain outraged. To come to another country and claim that they didn't know they needed to pay. They didn't know because they didn't want to find out.

They were no ornament to their country, their church or their creed.

Snorkelling off Moreton Island

2008-04-08T18:45:00.004+10:00

Moreton Island

Tangalooma. Artificial reef, Moreton Island

Went snorkelling on Sunday. Failed to realise that here in Brisbane, you have to travel to get where you want to snorkel. In other words, a reasonably long boat ride, an hour across rough seas, and then all snorkelling to be done from the boat. Wetsuits a requirement. I also failed to realise that we would be a mixed bag of snorkellors and scuba divers.

We anchored off Curtin reef (another artificial reef), reasonably deep, and not suitable for those snorkelling. And when all the divers had returned, headed for Tangalooma. There was a very strong tidal current ripping alongside all the wrecked boats, and the idea was that we were to drift along in the current, close by the rusty oyster-incrusted hulks. The trouble was that drift wasn't quite the right word. The current was racing. And the thought of being snagged on all that rusty iron was not attractive. They took us in an inflatable to the top of the race and in no time flat we were back at the boat having seen very few fish. At that point, having seen how incompetent, I and my buddy were, they sent us back with one of the Garys to help us and this time we saw lots of fish.

Originally they had planned to take us to Flinders(?), but the weather was not improving so they decided that the dive after lunch would again be at Tangalooma. By this time, the tide was no longer so swift and we took our time 'drifting' back. The visibility by this time was less than a metre, but we still saw lots of fish.

In the end I thought it was a pretty good trip with most of us well looked after. But snorkelling off Sydney or off Rottnest seems a good deal simpler. I do hate struggling in and out off a wetsuit and in and out of fins.

Easter

2008-03-31T18:27:00.002+11:00

Fisherman's Beach, Emu Park (out of Rockhampton).

Rockhampton Customs House (1901-1986)

It had to happen. I went into meltdown a couple of weeks ago. A state severely exacerbated by the bad faith of the dean of studies here. But hopefully that will be the worst of it.

I went by train to Rockhampton for Easter and saw my brother. We had a lovely day canoeing, and another surfing and ate copious quantities of pawpaw and pineapple. I had a sleeper to myself coming back in the train and if you are not claustrophobic, it was pretty civilised. They supplied a key to your room so that you could safely lock up your gear on going to the breakfast car or to take a shower.

Weekends

2008-03-16T18:41:00.005+11:00

Stenocarpus sinuatus, Firewheel Tree. Perth Zoo.

Not sure whether it is alcohol, or seeing my beloved daughter, but most of the dramas have faded away. Almost. They still exist. Nothing has changed. But I feel happier. We didn't talk particularly. Just had a meal together. Sat in the taxi and did nothing whatsoever in the Qantas club. I hope she too is happier.

Anyway, now I need to organise Easter and do a bit of exploring.

I have just attended the AGM of the students' club. I am definitely a fish out of water. I had been going to discuss the issues about tutoring and the formal dinner with the principal but if I am going to depart, will I bother? On the other hand, how many such meetings are there? Good God. Right now I just want out.

In Perth

2008-03-09T01:30:00.004+11:00

Gum, Anketell Street.

Illyarrie, Anketell Street

Finally saw the Illyarrie and its amazing joined cap of four thrust off by the blossoms. And when the cap has been thrust off, the blossoms form the corners of a square.

I now have an ID on the gum tree. It is E.globulus subsp bicostata. See www.anbg.gov.au/cpbr/cd/-keys/euclid3/euclidsample/html/Eucalyptus_globulus_subsp._bicostata.htm

As for the Illyarrie See also: florabase.dec.wa.gov.au/browse/profile/5638
and: asgap.org.au/e-ery.html

For a photo of the Illyarrie in flower, see Nuytsia's photo at
www.flickr.com/photos/nuytsia_pix/2301820844/in/set-72157...

Heading off for WA

2008-03-04T19:29:00.002+11:00

In the Qantas lounge at Brisbane Airport, heading off for WA, to present what we propose to solve their problem.

Not really properly organised, my slides need to be redone tomorrow. Today was spent at a PG orientation course, which was very much the Curate's egg. And I oscillate as usual between negativity and positivity.

I think I need to relax. This is a start, not a conclusion and as a start it is entirely dubious and certainly not the answer.

This looks to me like a lighthouse. West End, Brisbane

And, I would very much like to know the story about this.

The Brisbane Customs House

2008-02-29T21:08:00.005+11:00

The Customs House, Brisbane.

The Customs House, Brisbane. Eagle Street and Queen Street corner.

From the river.

The Dome is above the left front only, and the curved circular section is also only on the left (looking from Queen Street).

Looking from the river, the wall hides the bottom floor (warehouse), but right at the river level there is a derelict section, with barred and broken windows, which served as the latrines (so said the girl at the desk). (The latrine was not captured in this photo.)

The coats of arms are pre-federation "Australian" coats of arms. They feature the kangaroo and the emu and the words beneath are "Advance Australia" "1899". One of the 5 pre-federation customs houses in Queensland.(Clearly illustrating the importance of trade/free trade/customs: one of the very few issues dealt with explicitly by our wonderful constitution.)

(Currently owned by the University of Queensland, who use it as a function centre and restaurant. And a very FAQ restaurant it is, sadly.)

This link gives some excellent detail about its history.

Flume

2008-02-27T21:50:00.005+11:00

I couldn't resist this. It's the last paragraph which is so extraordinary.

From Wikipedia:
"A flume is an open artificial water channel, that leads water from a diversion dam or weir completely aside a natural flow, often an elevated box structure (typically wood) that follows the natural contours of the land. These have been extensively used in hydraulic mining, for the transportation of logs in the logging industry, electric power generation and to power various mill operations by the use of a waterwheel.

"A flume can be used to measure the rate of flow, see Parshall flume.

"In competitive swimming, specialized flumes with transparent sides are often employed by coaches to analyze a swimmer's technique. The speed of the flow is variable to accommodate the full spectrum of swimming styles and ability. Recently, flumes became available in the retail market for the use of lower-level swimmers. These down-scaled flumes are ideal for a swimmer trying to improve but without access to a pool, as they easily fit inside any moderately-sized room."

I think I'll get one for college.

One of the lakes at the University of Queensland

(It was in walking round this lake that I encountered the word.)

Formal dinner

2008-02-27T21:10:00.005+11:00

Ficus lyrata, with figs

(This photo retains its sharpness viewed large and then you can really see the figs.)

Well, last night was the first formal dinner. And it was not a night for the squeamish. The food was not too bad and quite well presented. But, the end. I have never seen anything like it. The meal had been attractively presented with the vegetables on one dish, the meat on another and these dishes passed around so that we could help ourselves.

When everyone had finished, the girls, most senior in college, insisted that the food scraps be scraped from the plates into these common dishes which had held food for the eating and still did, and the plates be stacked at table with knives and forks on the topmost plate.

Finally at the end the table linen was thrown into two bundles on the floor, kitchen staff supervising.