Post 458 Challenging weather and lots of activity.

It's been a week of appointments and service. medical work, Vergola have finally appointed a technician and he's coming tomorrow! I've had dentist visits, blood  and eye tests and checkups. I have more dental work next month and I won't have blood  test results until tomorrow. I do, however, now have a fairly good report from my optometrist. My eye condition is under control, I passed my driving vision test and I have a new pair of glasses on the way.

My dentist is close to the Hameji gardens and I managed a visit after my treatment. It is a calming and meditative place. I love the way individual flowers, or rocks, or  plants, are given space and position. These two stood out.

There were also a couple of cockatoos and a duck feeding on the grasses outside, the duck silent and the cockatoos very noisy. 

We had an electrical storm on Wednesday night. Thunder. lightening and rain around 8pm but apparently most of the action was between about 2 and 5 am. Several friends lost power, which was restored just in time for an even bigger storm on Saturday.

Wednesday had been a busy day with WES group - giving the talk as well as running the meeting. Lots of discussion, plenty of sharing and things to discuss as well as the talk itself. A few members sick, a number caring for partners or family, fitting in between commitments. A really great group. The meetings and follow up take quite a bit of my energy - and gives me great satisfaction.

Saturday was the Christmas Pageant - a big event on the Adelaide calendar, signalling the arrival of all things Christmas. More important to me was the phone call to tell me the two cabinets I ordered 20 weeks ago from Nordic Design Furniture were ready to  be inspected on Pageant day. There are road closures all around me, so I planned my escape. It certainly rained on the parade and for much of the day. It didn't deter the crowds. The city was abuzz, families everywhere, and traffic crawling. I got to Nordic Furniture, signed off on the two pieces and paid the residual. To my delight they were delivered on Monday.

Leanne, the owner and manager of the Pilates studio I attend, has been making plants in clay pebbles for sale. I am hooked. I bought a couple more this week, now that my front balcony is restored and I don't have balcony plants inside.  

So far they are doing well. I'm looking forward to seeing how they go in the long term.

I organised the printing of my Christmas cards and spent a few hours redoing my list of address labels so I could have them printed at OfficeWorks. I picked up the  labels on Sunday and went for another walk in the Hameji Garden. There was a group of Magpies occupying one area and occasionally disturbing the peace.

Most of the flowers I had photographed earlier in the week were wilting but this new one had burst open along a path. 

At home I cooked up a couple of pies for Monday dinner - since I had my lengthy optometrist appointment,  late Monday morning, and the two cabinets being delivered Monday afternoon.

In the light of the delivery, I emptied the Indian trunk which has been storing some of my family history treasures and moved it so the new cabinet  can be put in its place. I discovered a secret section in the trunk that I had not known about. It was (fortunately, I'm inclined to think) empty. The trunk is going to Veronica, who is quite excited about it. Both she and Niamh found the secret compartment with little trouble. It isn't difficult once you know there is one. It's hard to believe I have used the trunk for about 15 years without noticing the space oddity. 

I spent this morning at the hairdresser and this afternoon transferring things into the family history drawers.  

There is a drawer for items from each of three generations 

 -  my grandparents, my parents, and mine. The fourth drawer at the moment is holding a variety of documents. 

I need to do a lot more work to determine what goes in the drawers and what goes into archival folders. There are more Bibles in the grandparent drawer (although they were not churchgoers in Australia) than the others!  There is satisfaction in the task, but also sadness. I'm happy for today to have got this much sorted and the drawers closed.  My main frustration is that I can't find the unfinished embroidery of my mother's, which I planned to put on the top of this cabinet, under the glass I had made for the top. Yes, it is in that safe place. I'm trusting it will turn up.

 

The other cabinet is a replacement for an older, elegant sewing cabinet which opens by the lid sliding in two directions, meaning it needs to be placed with plenty of space on either side. I think the drawers will work better for me.        

It's been a busy and eventful week. My thoughts with friends in NSW in the line of floods yet again, and those still without power in SA. I've nearly finished my brother's vest - and planning my next project - a story for another day.

                                                       

Post 48: The pigeon is a dove

A message from a friend with a science background this morning assures me my avian visitor yesterday was a dove, not a pigeon. I’m delighted to be wrong. I’d rather have a visiting dove, for symbolic reasons if no other. My friend Melody, in the USA, had also made a comment on my FaceBook page, that a pair of  mourning doves  have been visiting annually since her husband died.  I had not heard of mourning doves, and did a bit of investigating.  We do not, it seems, have mourning doves in Australia. My dove appears to be the spotted dove,  
Streptopelia chinensis and I think female.

She paid me another quick visit today. I had no time to roll back the fly screen before she departed, but a visit is a visit.

The episode has called to mind a gag from The Goon Show in which Neddie Seagoon, on a visit to beach, comments on the 'nice pigeons'. His companion (Eccles, maybe?) replies "They're not pigeons, they're gulls" and Neddie retorts "Boys or gulls, they're nice pigeons"!  It must be 60 years since I heard this, and it is the only specific gag I remember from The Goons. I'm not certain my dove is a girl, but it is not a pigeon!

While waiting for my dove to revisit, I progressed my counted piece a little, and sketched in the next stage. 


My bruises are still fairly fierce and sore to touch but I thought it time to take a short walk around the Hameji Garden. This time I drove there. The garden occupies a relatively small section of Adelaide’s South Parkland.

The garden is a gift to Adelaide from the Japanese city of Himeji.






I should have realised that on a fine warm day in the school holidays others would have the same idea. Just outside the entrance a mother was playing a kind of skittles game with her two children. There was plenty of room around them for distancing.

These bicycles outside the entrance turned out to belong to what I guess was a grandmother and granddaughter..

The Hameji Garden is beautifully landscaped for contemplation and rest. There are narrow, winding paths, water features, open spaces, rocks, stones  and  sculptured plants.

Usually when I visit I meet no more than one or two others. Today there were probably another 10-12 people there, all keeping respectful distance, but I decided not to stay.  It is great to know the garden is used and appreciated. I'd rather, however, walk where there are fewer people, or more open spaces.

Instead I did a short circuit around the outside and returned to my embroidery.

I made good progress on the parrots. I really like the way they are shaping up. I'm looking forward to completing the second parrot tomorrow.