Care and responsibility

This was taken on Tuesday evening, yesterday. I have not seen him since he scarpered up those stairs and out of sight. I have checked the roadside gutters. I will give him more time. Having heard that animals can somehow navigate their way home, tomorrow I will go over to Kirsten's apartment to check. Then, I guess, I have to ring them.

And I think he was having a good time, at least he said he was.
Bugger ...

Thurs 31 December
Still no sign when I awoke, so went around the back and through all the lanes and alleys. Nothing. I texted D&K. I walked over to Double Bay and combed the joint: inside, on the balcony, in the fire-well, in the garbage disposal area, in the gutters. Nothing.

Let K&D know again. This afternoon. I pinned up two MISSING posters on poles in walkway areas. Then combed the area again taking a wider arc and walking down every every every alley I noticed. I cannot see his body in any gutters.

I met a lady who said there is a pack of feral cats down near White City, cross Alma Street, walk alongside the murrayas, cross the little bridge and then stand there ever so quiet. They will come out. Won't let you get within a bull's roar though. I will do this tomorrow.

Fri 1 January
Wrote out two more big posters for light poles. One outside the corner store. Spoke with two neighbours. Wrote out 16 smaller notes and put them into letter boxes on either side and me being on a corner are the wedge. Looked over the large grounds of the nursing home where my Dad is. Nothing.

Nothing nothing nothing.

Grass without a lawn

Joan had a clump of delightful looking silver Fescu near the entry to her driveway. The green eyes immediately glowed - I must get me some of that!

However, being a little less mobile than before, I have settled for the achievable instead. May I introduce to you two clumps of "Purple Fountain Grass" which, the label trumpets, is a Sterile Hybrid. Mmmm ... manufactured specifially for we the indescriminate consumer. If we want more, we have to buy it - not breed it.

As Diana "Bubbles" Fischer used to say, "And it comes in such lovely colours!"

Lavender - lavandula dentata

There are quite a few variations upon Lavender down in the nursery. I have not investigated, but I think the lavendula may be a poor man's lavender: one not grown for cut flowers, or for oil but purely for pleasure. Corrections welcome.

The flower spike to this one is quite different for others down there.

And the container from yesterday was a gift from a couple of friends for my 60th last year. I had asked for "something old and junky" and they found this which was labelled turkish.

Baby's Breath is really gypsophila and is a bit like an incredibly small daisy.

New additions

After the kids brought over their cat for his sleepover whilst they jet off to a wedding in Hawaii, I wandered up the hill to the Paddington Markets in the grounds of the Public School up on Oxford Street. I bought this lavender for $6, an alyssum for $2 and 5 Babys' Breath for $2 each.

My lemon tree, lime tree, daphne and two of my gardenias have new shoots. Two other gardenias are in grave trouble.

My backyard shed

I have always drooled for a shed to sort my "stuff" out in some reasonably organised way that enables me to find things. This is the back wall of my laundry.

This staghorn

My window on the world

Sort of came to a grinding halt last week due to medical tests and lack of money paid WHEN IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN PAID!!!

But here is where I sit to do all this research and writing that I do after I have taken copious photographs. It is also where I do all my Family History work.

Next week one of my tasks is to get a new motor for the foundtain on the wall near my desk so that I can have the tinkle of water to keep me harmonised.

Tuesday, I traipse over to RPA where the very informative neurontology nurse, Alison, is going to strap me into a device that will rock from side to side and up and down. Yes, she knows that I am prone to both car sickness and sea-sickness and is used to "the obvious reaction". On Thursday I am over to Missenden Road way again to be podded and poked by the opthalmologist. I think the main thing he is going to do is to check whether my retina has fallen off its perch.

However, the week is not all medical tests. Tomorrow, I train up to The Blue Mountains to spend the day with the wonderful Joan Elizabeth. Wednesday I get to tour over State Parliament House in Macquarie Street. Thursday I get an introductory tour over the State Library and then on Friday I get to look after my daughter's cat as she and Darren choof over to Hawaii for a week to attend a friend's wedding.

Retirement is okay thus far.

My courtyard

Here are my new digs with my persona starting to show. I do have a table to go with the black chairs but have to use that inside until I find a dining room table I like. I have a dining room. A dining room!

A sunroom. A laundry. A courtyard.
A dining room. A living room. A kitchen.
A bedroom. A bathroom.

Each area is quite commodious to these eyes.

This is the largest footprint I have held sway over for quite sometime. The tiling is a very mediterranean thing to do (the owner is Greek) but it is easy to clean and the cats love its coolness.

I waited for a bus to come past to show you how far I have to walk! It is only one bus route: the 389, which meanders charmingly through Paddington.

Now ... where was I?

This is a little treasure, which we are so lucky to have found. I say "we" because although I first found it online, it was my son-in-law who was convinced it was what I was after and who took me to check it out.

It is all on one level. The shower has space for a stool and is not over a bath. There are no internal stairs like at Glebe. It is about 5 minutes by car from Kirsten's place in Double Bay. It is about 100m from my father's nursing home and there is a bus stop right outside - important if the driving ban continues. It is the ground floor of three apartments and is entirely tiled - meaning very cool which I noted yesterday when the mercury topped 40C.

This first image is of the north facing sunroom directly inside the courtyard and exactly where I have set up my work space.


The other criteria were that I needed space for my cats and for my plants. So there is a large courtyard (which I now know to be common area but not used "much") which is tiled making it very easy to maintain - except maybe for the eucalypt droppings but the tree has such other delights that it can stay! The little "out" building across the courtyard houses the garage for apartment 3 and my laundry. In my head, this laundry is now my "shed" with all that connotes in the Australian psyche. These photos were all taken whilst waiting for the moving guys to bring my junk over from Glebe.

Tomorrow, I will start a leisurely tour showing how I have made the space my own in the last ten days.

Pining

Having been away from my garden, small as it is, since Tuesday 20th October (nearly 3 weeks), it has dawned on me how rent asunder I feel. In that time, I have seen it twice, plus we have endured a 37.5C day. I expect a lot of damage when we are re-united on Thursday.

But that will be a challenge for me to overcome which I shall relish.


These photos were taken in Vic Park as I walked up to the University on Friday to hand back my swipe card and say hoo-roo. Agapanthus and Jacaranda flower at the same time and are close to the same colours - except that aggies can also be white.

Come Friday, I will start to post about the new venue for my transportable garden1

Francais en Double Bay

After my second collapse in two weeks I was given these rules by the cardiologist: no driving until further notice; no up and down stairs; no living by yourself. So I am camping out with my daughter and SiL for a few weeks. The cardy cauterized a wayward whatsit that was causing the arrythmia (?sp) and I see him in 10 days. The neurologists are still trying to work out the vertigo and the seizure.

Having a BP reading of 60/40 was not nice ...

The purple haze has begun

Jacarandas are filling the blue of the sky all along my way to work. I took these photographs about 5:30 this afternoon as I sauntered home, much to the delight of a snuffling doberman.

There is nothing like homegrown tomatoes!

I bought this seedling at Gardens-r-Us on Gardeners Road on 20th September. The growth rate is astounding.

A spray from Tassie

Read this post in conjunction with the post on the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens which is up on Sydney Eye.

Accentuate the positive

The second fig had dropped off the perch when I returned from work today, but I knew that was going to happen. Just like many miscarriages indicate that the seed had not grown properly.

Here instead are two images full of potential: olives and limes.

Boo hoo!

One had dropped when I was away, and the second I think will drop within the next 24 hours. The tree is too immature to sustain fruit and leaves.

I think I have solved the problem of the yellowing of the leaves of my lemon/lime trees. I applied two doses of iron chelates before I went to Tassie. They are looking better already. I will thin out the just setting fruit once all this inclement weather passes and give them some seaweed mix as a gee along!

Grow you little beauties. Grow!