SUNNY SANDGATE

We are very lucky to live in Queensland, where it doesn't really get very cold in winter. We get very hot summers so when the temperature drops to 10 C (50F) in the early mornings, we feel very cold. During the day it can reach 20C-25C (68F-78F) in Brisbane even hotter further north. Yesterday we went to Sandgate a northern suburb of Brisbane to have lunch on the beach with our son in law's parents, Alma and Bill.

Sandgate lies on the northern reaches of Moreton Bay. When it is high tide like this day it is beautiful.

Looking south along the walkway.

Looking north towards Redcliffe Peninsular.

It has become a tradition to have fish, chips and salad with Alma and Bill every now and then.

It got so warm and sunny we took off our jumpers and BB had to make a hat out of the chip bag to keep the sun off his face.

Enjoying the winter sun.

Gulls enjoying the sun.

A typical old "Queenslander" style house over looking the fabulous view of the bay.

(I forgot my camera so we used our phone cameras.)

Birthday Flowers

I love flowers and I was so lucky as to receive 3 bunches on my birthday last week. Here are some of the blooms.

BIRTHDAY BEAR GETS SOME CULTURE

To learn about the tradition of Birthday Bear click here.

As I am working on my birthday on Wednesday, we celebrated yesterday. We had lunch at the Foyer Bistro in the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) in the city. It is situated on the South Bank of the Brisbane River, together with the State Library, the Museum, the Art Gallery, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (opera house), the Conservatorium and Convention Centre. This area is one big Cultural Centre on the banks of the river.
It was my turn to receive Birthday Bear and I was quite excited trying to anticipate how she would be dressed this time.

Here she is dressed as a gardener. That's me! She has on her overalls, garden gloves and garden shoes. Of course she has a visor and sunnies.

She even has a little wheelbarrow full of lemons (see my lemons here). She also has a watering can and fork and shovel, with froggy handles. I love frogs.

Ann and George (in front) did a wonderful job of dressing bear and making the props. Thank you. From left to right...Ann, Mary, Bill, Birthday Bear, Paul, me , Helen, George. We even booked a place for Bear, which the waitress thought was funny.

I had Pork Belly with apple and rhubarb sauce and side vegetables.

BB had Salmon and schwabi sauce with fries on the side.

Then Bear wanted to check out the view from the deck. The GoMA building at the side overlooking the new pedestrian bridge and the city on the other side of the river.

A city cat glides under the partially constructed pedestrian bridge connecting the cultural Centre with the CBD. We had a lively discussion about the asthetics and cost of the bridge. Some of us liked it and others didn't.

The very old William Jolly Bridge a few metres down stream.

After lunch we went to have a look around the modern art gallery, which was featuring Chinese artists but Bear wasn't allowed to come she had to wait in the cloak room and look after our umbrellas. Yes it has been raining for 2 days now, which is very unusual or this time of the year, but it is better than the drought we've had over the last 5 years.

We went up to the other floors and saw some really way out art. Some was interesting and some was rediculous.

This huge lady in bed was interesting

Up close her skin was almost translucent and very life like. Read more about her and the artist on BB's blog.

The Big, Bad Banksia Man

The Big, Bad Banksia Man is a charachter from an Australian children's story called "Snugglepot and Cuddlepie" by May Gibb. It is an old story as I remember reading it as a child but it is still in the stores today. I saw this Banksia Man in my garden today. Use your imagination and you can see his mean eyes and a mouth near the top. It is actually the seed cone of a Banksia Tree. There are many different kinds with fancy botanical names which I don't know.

This is how they look before becoming a Big Bad Banksia Man.

They start as a new cone and then develop a loopy, hook shaped petal (It probably has a proper name for these hair like structures)

See the looped, closed hooks?

Then they start to open. The one above has half open at the top and half closed at the bottom.

This one has them all open.

This tree has reddy, orange ones.

This tree has yellow ones.

Closed hooks

Open hooks.

I think they are beautiful but then they turn into the ugly Banksia Man.

"Brilliant BB" or "Ode to a Good Bloke."

In our family, BB does the cooking and I do the gardening. Bill hates gardening and I'm a hopeless cook. He also has a dicky ticker and should take it easy. However, after my surgery I also was must take it easy. When we had the trees lopped we had some of the mulch left on the grass for us to spread. Now who was going to move it before it killed the grass and before it rained? "Brilliant BB" offered. So I supervised. I needed it on the pathway next to the vegie patch. Of course that was in a hard to get at place.

At the top of our back garden.

Filling the barrow.

Down the steep hill.

Through the narrow gate (to stop the wallabies from eating the beans).

That done he went inside and made some cookies.

Then he cooked lunch

Ham and eggs.

Haven't I got a "Good Bloke"?

BIRTHDAY BEAR GOES TO COLLEGE.

Birthday Bear has his/her own blog now, so if you are not familiar with Birthday Bear you can read how it all started and the idea behind the tradition HERE.

Birthday Bear is going to the COTAH Restaurant to celebrate Mary's birthday together with a bunch of retirees. COTAH is the College of Tourism and Hospitality. The restaurant is run by the students.

The college is at South Bank in the city. I forgot my camera and used my phone. That was just one of the glitches we had on the night. On the way I received a text from the bank saying my keycard may have been copied so would I go and change my PIN, just what you need on the way to a birthday dinner with friends.
It wasn't an easy place to find but when we arrived Birthday Bear was already there, sitting up waiting to surprise Mary. Mary volunteers at a community Library and she is often wondering where to go on her next holiday. So Bear has thinking bubbles suggesting places of interest to visit. She also has travel brochures and her passport ready.
She is sitting in her Library (real photos of her library) She also has jigsaw puzzles and afternoon tea with a birthday cake ready. Helen and Paul did a great job of dressing Birthday Bear.
Unfortunately there were a few more glitches before the fun could start. Mary's taxi driver couldn't find the venue and got caught in grid lock going around the block trying to find us. Finally when he found the place Mary discovers she has lost her phone probably in the cab. So poor Mary was a little agitated by the time she arrived.

However, when she spied Birthday Bear she felt much happier.

The students did a good job with dinner. Calamari entree.

Chicken mains or
Salmon
Tiramisu or
crepes for dessert.

In the end Mary was smiling and..... .

....we all had a good time.

"Lemon Tree ,Very Ugly and the lemon flower is sweet........"

I had a "Lemon Tree, Very Pretty" as the song says. However after a few years of bearing lots of pretty flowers and lovely fruit, it got an awful disease. I think it was wasp gaul. Nothing can rid the plant of this gross disease except cutting it off. Well, the whole tree was covered in the forever creeping gaul, so I had the whole tree cut down except for a little stump. As it was cut below the graft, I was told that if it regrew it would grow as a bush lemon tree, the host for the graft. It wasn't long before it started shooting prolifically and the long gangly branches had huge spikes like on a bush lemon tree. Many,many flowers blossomed but it was far from a pretty lemon tree as the branches were drooping and the tree was a weird shape.

However as the fruit appeared I was suprised to see that they weren't crinkly, thick skinned, bush lemons but the lovely smooth, thin skinned lemons like before. The tree was laden with hundreds of lemons and the branches couldn't cope with the weight and the fruit was touching the ground so BB propped up the branches with stakes.

This made the tree look even more ugly, but the fruit is big and juicy.

The tree squashed the Tarragon and the......

.....chilli that grow around it.

Now the fruit is ripening and it is fun harvesting them.

This is the fourth load. We have given some to neighbours and friends and we have hunted the recipe books for ideas with lemons. I have ice block trays full of frozen juice. I just wish our vegie patch would do so well as our ugly, mutant lemon tree.

LEMON TREE

by Peter, Paul and Mary

When I was just a lad of ten, my father said to me,
"Come here and take a lesson from the lovely lemon tree."
"Don't put your faith in love, my boy", my father said to me,
"I fear you'll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree."

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

One day beneath the lemon tree, my love and I did lie
A girl so sweet that when she smiled the stars rose in the sky.
We passed that summer lost in love beneath the lemon tree
The music of her laughter hid my father's words from me:

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

One day she left without a word. She took away the sun.
And in the dark she left behind, I knew what she had done.
She'd left me for another, it's a common tale but true.
A sadder man but wiser now I sing these words to you:

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

Our Garden gets a Haircut

Winter is here and it is time for some trees to be lopped. This will provide a bit more sunshine in the winter but hopefully produce more leafier trees for summer to provide much needed shade and privacy. However, it still breaks my heart to see them be denuded. I don't like how the garden looks bare and our privacy has been eroded. Its a bit like a bad haircut and you say to yourself OMG what have I done?

Early morning and the truck, mulcher, men and their chainsaws arrive. It doesn't take long to see my beautiful trees lying on the footpath.

A mountain of them.

The mulcher gobbles them up and spits out the chips.

"Smoko Time" (I can't help feeling they enjoy slaughtering my trees)

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE (Our house is sheltered behind the trees

AFTER

Feeling a bit depressed by the carnage I found some colour in the garden to cheer me up.

Then it was time for work to commence on my favourite tree. It is a big Paper Bark Melaleuca. It stands in front of the house and it has a fairly nice shape except when the Electricity Company comes and hacks it away from the street power lines. But now it has grown over the roof and is filling the gutter with leaves and blossoms, so it needs to be trimmed back from the house. It also has big roots that have found their way under the driveway and they have lifted the concrete. So we are getting the roots cut off on that side. My poor baby I hope you survive. You can see and read what happened on Bill's Blog

We have a House! (Settling in Australia Part 6 Final)

Just before the house was finished in 1954, the stress and strain of working, building, bringing up a family and no holidays finally caught up with my mother. She became run down, tired and depressed (which sadly she suffered bouts of for the rest of her life) The doctor ordered her to have a holiday, but money was scarce. Luckily friends came to help. One of the nurses Mum worked with had friends living in Ballina, a northern NSW beach holiday town. They offered her a free two week holiday with them. Mum really enjoyed her time there and came back refreshed and promised to take us all there one day, which she did in 1956, our first holiday in 7 years.

At the front of Mum's photo album, where I copied these pictures, she has written the following:

"The Speakman Family"

Len, Florrie, David and Diane, emigrated from London-Woodford E18 to Australia in 1949.

After staying one week, Feb 13th -Feb 20th at South Hurstville and finding it impossible to live there, we bought land at 7 Eighth Ave, Loftus for 125 pounds.

After much thinking,and the trials of pioneering in the bush at Loftus we built the house ourselves except for a little professional help. This took five years working on the house every spare moment when not at work, and during our annual holidays.

Len and I made a 5 year plan to build and pay for the house.

(Strangely enough these were the happiest years of my life---Florrie Speakman)

I think this was written in the 70's.

The following are the last photos of our 'Settling into Australia.' We have done it, and we are all happy Australians now.

1954-1956

After five years of hard work my Mum and Dad had designed and built a small two bedroom house. We were all very happy when we moved in from the garage which is behind the house. There was still a lot of work to do. Mum and Dad designed and built a lot of built in furniture and Mum made all the curtains, cushions and bedspreads.

OUR CASTLE

Mum had already started to develop the garden but she had a lot more to do.

At the back they had established a little lawn and a rockery garden. Dad continued building. As you can see he converted the garage roof to a flat roof and added on a car port. Our house only had two bedrooms and a sunroom which could be used as a 3rd bedroom. We had a lounge room and dining room, a kitchen, bathroom and laundry. David was given the choice of using the sunroom as a bedroom or he could have the garage, where we had lived for the past 5 years, all to himself as his own bedroom and study. Naturally a teenage boy chose to have his own private space and opted for the garage, so Dad renovated it for him
David and his friend Mervin (on the bike). You can see Dad's truck in the new carport. I wasn't allowed in David's domain, which he called "Sneaky Speaky's Dugout." I'm not sure how he got the nick name "Sneaky Speaky." Maybe because whenever he played games or cards he always won and we felt he was a bit sneaky with his tactics, and our last name being Speakman accounts for the rest.
My mum was very happy with her new kitchen. A real kitchen after 5years The bench tops and table were red and the cupboards were blue with red knobs.
In the lounge room Dad made built in seats around the corner and under the big window the whole length of the room. Mum bought rubber cushions and made zippered coveres for the seats and the backs. She was so clever. This may have been a house warming party with friends and neighbours. One couple were the people who sold us the tent to live in 6 years ago.

Mum continued working as a psychiatric and later a geriatric nurse. If this picture was in colour you would see a beautiful array of flowers in the background, which she had planted in and around the rocks.

My Dad was always busy working around the house. He also went to night school and and gained the 'Leaving Certificate', and sat the Public Service exams and finally left the PMG and became a clerk for the Sutherland Shire Council." I had started High School and progressed from Brownies to Girl Guides and I loved my new house with my very own bedroom.
My brother finished High School but didn't want to go to university because he wanted to earn money instead. My parents urged him to continue studying and he compromised by taking on an Engineering apprenticeship where he worked part time and studied too. However he hated it and insisted on getting into the work force. After a variety of labouring jobs my Dad got him to apply for a well paid adventurous job in Territory of Papua/New Guinea as a Patrol Officer. In the above photo, when he was nineteen and I was fourteen he said goodbye to us and went off into the world to make his fortune. (That is another story, which ended in him returning to live the rest of his life in England.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROL-ANN

Happy Birthday to our lovely daughter.

She and her husband David have just had a week's break from work in London.

They went hiking in the Swiss Alps

Happy Birthday

in the Alps

Spring in the Alps

Love in the Alps

Weee scootering down the Alps.

We are glad to see her so happy at birthday time.