I knew it could happen.

All that crocheting and the arrival of a very cold winter (0 degrees C) has seen my wrist taken over with rheumatoid arthritis.  I knew it might hit me and I was hoping to get the throw finished but I have had to stop, 1.5 rows from the end.  If I don't stop now it will get worse.  If I do stop now there is a chance it will go away.  I know it is lurking there just waiting for me to make a mistake.  So no action at all.  It is an autoimmune problem and my niece has it as well, although she has had to give up all her art work, and she worked as an artist she can't hold a brush or even a pencil.

So quite a bit of walking and photography.  I'm storing up design ideas for the future.  Years ago I came across the native hibiscus tree that grows on the edges of the beaches on the island.  Their flowers are lovely.

The flowers drop onto the sand and change colour.  A run of these scattered on the sand is a lovely sight.

But there is a beetle that eats the leaves and flowers leaving every thing looking rather raggie.

This is a 'jewel beetle' which is rather stunning in it's own right.

I have never seen them on this end of the island before.

Maybe it isn't them that eat the leaves because they are always found on the seed pods.

These ones aren't as bright as the ones on the northern end of the island but still, great colours.  I can see these done as stump work.

That bright red on the underside is very striking.

I remember making a small quilt that featured those flowers.  I wonder what I did with that?

 

Where I live

The window in my sewing room looks out onto the patio.  This is a sun trap in winter and a lovely place to sit and stitch or knit.  My dream would be to have climbing roses growing up the posts and all over the railings.  But I live in the sub-tropics and roses just don't grow very well here.  What will grow is Bouganvillia, so I have planted some of that.  Now, I wasn't sure just how it was going to take but it is now starting to cover my railings.

 

The view out the window is improving.  It has taken over a year to get to this stage and it has no perfume, unlike roses.

It still has to be trained into position but this is a start.

The big drawback are the huge thorns on the branches, they can ripe your arm open.  They make rose thorns look like midgets.  I bought a purple variety to plant at the other end of the patio.

So now I am on the look out for other coloured varieties.  I have seen a lovely mauve one in a local garden but haven't spotted one in a nursery as yet.  I had a wonderful climbing rose in Cairns, which is in the tropics.  Just couldn't get it to grow here.

 

 

 

This is my home in town

I went into town to have lunch with my daughter and my sister the other day and was taken by the bark of the Xanthorrhoea australis tree.  The bark looked so much like lizard skin. 

Then I realised there was a lizard sitting there. Same colours same pattern.

The city house is near the university and it is a nice place to have lunch as that is where my daughter lectures.  It has changed since my day.  But the students still sit around.

And there are some new sculptures.

The Dutchman's pipe was in full bloom.

And those gargoyles still look down on your in the quadrangle.

But I am always happy to get back to the island.

Where I Live

It is just so wet!!

It is supposed to be dry at this time of year and we are in the midst of floods, yet again.  I haven't seen a clear sky in over a week and now the mould is starting to grow again.  My house smells of bleach as I try to keep it's growth at bay and I have spent days with the pressure hose getting the paths clean of the slime.

The mornings are still. This image was taken waiting for the barge to arrive.  I am used to clear views, not all this mist.  Usually you can see the other islands.

The water looks great, but in reality it is full of mud and vegetation bought down in the flood waters.

But if the sun peaks through everything changes.

I just wish the rain would go away.

It is even too wet to mow the lawn.  I hope winter comes soon.

Where I live

These are some more shots of Mowong beach, this time with Nugget.  He is my son's dog and is completely loveable, but no brains, except when there is food around.

He is most unhappy because he would like to be swimming with my grand daughters but on this beach he has to be on the leash.

Still, we took him to the dog off the leash beach later in the day.  This day was for the girls to enjoy the swimming without that annoying dog.

After the storm

I thought all the wild weather was over but again the storms hit us.  Lots more flooding.  In some areas people hadn't cleaned up from the last flood.  Here on our island a huge storm came in from the sea bringing thunder and lightening and lots of rain.  Luckily no person was injured.  I can't say the same for the bush.

Some really big trees came down among the houses.  Some were found to be hollow.

Huge giants that looked immovable.

A few fences were crushed and people ran around sand bagging entrances to their homes.  The communication tower got hit and the Telstra crews worked for a couple of days to get power and internet back up.  The ground is waterlogged after all the storms and the beaches leak water like a sheen over the sand.

The day before the storms the weather was so calm.  I sat out the back on the ferry and just soaked it up.

On the way into the jetty I saw that the pirates had returned.

I wondered why she ran for cover into the mangroves.  Now she has come back.

A few days later most of the mess has been cleaned up.  The little sailing boats are back,

and the sunsets are spectacular, even if the beaches are still messy.

As I was walking home today I ran into a family of wild ducks.  Mum, Dad and the 9 kids.  Somehow they managed to survive the storms and were out on their first walk.

Seems a bit late in the season for new ducklings.  I hope they survive and I hope this is the end of the storms.

Grandmother duty - Cancelled due to weather crisis

I was going to my son's home for the next week as my grand daughter is ill but Mother Nature has intervened.  It has been raining hard for 4 days straight.  We have had over a years rainfall during that time.  My shoes are permanently squishy, they will probably rot with mold when the sun comes out, along with everything else in the house, so I must stock up with bleach to kill it all before it takes hold.  It is pretty bad up in Brisbane as well with the river breaking it's banks and all kinds of things washed away.  My son is flooded in at our town house, but he still has power so will ride this out.

We are not only cut off as an island a lot of the roads around the area are cut as well.  This is the local pub on the mainland,

and this is the car-park.

You have to wade into our local Cafe on the island.

the verandah is above the flooding so I can still get a coffee.

But, the water does drain away fairly quickly once the tide goes down.  The wetlands are getting flushed out.

But the many trees have been brought down.  On the main beach where there are usually big gum trees,

there is now a hole.  I'm not sure just where the tree has ended up.

At the other end of the island 6 or 7 new creeks have been created by the run off. 

The biggest seems to have brought the contents of a midden as well.  This beach has numerous middens from the times the aboriginals hunted here.

I think the boat ramp will have to be rebuilt.

And there is more rain to come.  Still the kids think it is great.

The other thing that the rain has brought out is frogs.

There seems to be thousands of them, the noise is deafening.  All the males are singing to get a mate. 

The Kerlews (birds) and the snakes are feasting.  So this weather isn't bad news for everyone.

A difficult week

It is the first week of the school term and it has been a difficult week.  Looking after a child with a disability isn't easy and I have had a number of challenges this week.  Monique broke both my new iron and my laptop computer we use for classes.  The iron was knocked off the ironing board, so I have replaced that with a top of the range one.  I will just separate the iron section from the rest of it whilst she is here. 

The lap top is in for repairs.  It is only one year old but I can't get replacement speakers, so I will add some external ones.  She spilt water all over the keyboard.  I thought she had done damage to my Mac but I have managed to get that working again.  There are going to be some rocky patches ahead.  This all happened in the first two days.  I just hope I survive it all.

I do have this beautiful place to live, which is a plus.  The early morning sunrise.

The sky and sea when the weather changes.

Even the mud-flats have their own beauty.

And of course my little dog, Bear, is there to give me sympathy.

And I have my stitching to keep me sane.

The 23rd Psalm

Usually, in the mornings Bear, (my dog,)  and I walk down a path through the bush to the Golf Course and then back home via the beach, if the weather is fine.  If it is wet we come back via the road.  As we started our walk the other day I was struck by the beauty and peace of the path and the words, "He restoreth my soul" came to mind.

That is just what this walk does, restores my soul.

It isn't the most startling and outstandingly beautiful walk.

But there is something about the bush and the singing of the birds that the moment I enter this walk I feel peaceful.   In wet weather some of the trees which have closely spaced, fine leaves, hold onto the raindrops and when the sun comes out the trees shine like they are bedecked with stars.  (I'm still waiting for the right time to catch this with my camera.)

 

 

A forced retreat

My son rang me this morning to say he had tested positive for Covid.  I'm still coming to terms with that.  When he was here he told us that everyone at work had contracted the virus, so in some ways I'm not surprised. (He is triple vaccinated.) Now we have to handle that.  It is impossible to get a test done unless you have symptoms and there are no home tests available to self test.  So, we will just have to wait and see what happens.  Not much use worrying about what might happen.  Both my husband and I are 'at risk'.  He because he has had open heart surgery and me because I have a problem with my immune system, so it is a concern.

We have to go into isolation for the next 7 days as close contacts so I am lining up the sewing projects.  Those place-mats and then quite a bit of quilting.  At least there will be no interruptions!  Because we live, away from people, I can still go for a walk outside.  And there are some parts of the island where you can be completely alone.  So it isn't all doom and gloom, and just think of all the work I can get done?

This morning the sea was calm and the wild hibiscus trees had dropped their flowers into the water.  (This tree is home to jewel beetles as well as having lovely flowers.)

I am going to keep an eye on my Bougainvillea, it is growing like Jack's bean stalk and it is not going any higher than the roof.  I wonder how long it will take to get to the roof?