Blotchy enjoying his morning sun

 Just a few pics I took yesterday morning of my male alpine blotched blue tongues enjoying a sunbake on the log in the enclosure she shares with another girl (I hope). I'm hoping to get a boy in time for next spring so they can breed. (OK so since I wrote this last week I have confirmed the sex of this lizard is male. I am hoping the other lizard is female - she has lots of bite marks on her back at the moment which indicates hopefully that this lizard in the pic has been mating with her. However, it could be that the other lizard is also male and that they have been fighting. I hope this is not the case). Both lizards are beautifully marked - this one with pink blotches and the other has yellowy blotches.

 Lovely lizards, very friendly and great to watch as they shovel nose first through the leaf litter on the floor of their enclosure.

I really hadn't thought they would venture up on top of this log...I scolded myself for not sinking it deeper into the ground when I set up the enclosure back in May, but I needn't have worried. Both girls climb up and over the log with graceful fluidity.

Smellscapes

Now I know, 'smellscape' is a term that is inelegant and, let's face it,  ugly, actually, but at least it recognises the importance of smell in people's experiences of places and of times. I can still remember (well, to be more precise, I have memories of) the brand new plastic Tupperwear lunch box I took to school in infants school. Just how accurate my smellmory (oops I just made that one up) is, of course is debatable, but I do have a memory of the smell. So just as a song or piece of music can instantly create a recall to a particular time and place for people, so too, can smell.
And I was thinking about this as I was rogering the bottom paddock on Sunday afternoon. We still have a few large privet bushes in a small gully in that paddock and they are covered in sweet smelling flowers at the moment. And, as I sat there on Roger, being careful not to run over any small skinks or frogs which might be avoiding being cut to ribbons or run over (and yes I am as careful as someone can be seated on a ride-on), I was enveloped in a great cloud of sweetly smelling privet. This smell took me instantly back to the back of my parent's place, my childhood home, in Cardiff, Newcastle, searching the bush near Tickhole Tunnel (what great place names there were) with my mates Wazza and Flip for water dragons, land mullet and swamp snakes. The power of smell. Evoking memory.

Lunch at Shane's at Dharavi

 When Shane moved out from our place in June, he headed ten minutes away to Cawongla, where he has set up his new 'camp' on a property at Cawongla. Parking a caravan he bought next to an abandoned dairy bales on the property of one of his ex's mother-in-law's property, he is fashioning out a very nice place, which he has affectionately dubbed Dharavi, after the Indian slum.

 He has created a safe compound around his dwelling to protect himself, his garden and Bluey, from the herd of cattle and the angry bull that live in the paddock, what he has now, also affectionately, dubbed, The Serengeti. It's man against beast at this haven...and Man is winning. He invited us for lunch on Saturday (it was my first visit, Steve had been before), which we enjoyed from a nicely set table, replete with table cloth, while looking across his garden into the wilds of the Serengeti.

 With the help of various friends who have given him an assortment of bulbs and cuttings and seedlings, Shane is putting his magical green thumb to work, transforming a patch of paddock into something botanically splendid.

Now, unfortunately the bales has seen better days, but he has shovelled off tons of soil from the cement floor, which is in quite good nick, and he has set himself up with washing machine and refrigerator in the bales.

14 September - a most auspicious day!

Auspicious for three very good reasons.  The first is because it was the day when my first two PhD students from Southern Cross University, graduated. Dr Monica Torland (who is from Norway) is on the left and Dr Mucha Mkono (from Zimbabwe) is on the right. Mucha also received the highly prestigious Chancellor's Medal for Outstanding PhD thesis.  Shame none of us look especially happy, but we really were. Honest!  We celebrated that evening with dinner at Bangalow Pub.

The second is because the 14 September marks the anniversary of the birth of Alexander von Humboldt (the 'father' of modern geography). The geography student group I was a member of when I was a student at University of Newcastle, SNUGS - you can work out what the letters stand for - adopted Alex as their mascot and we always made sure we celebrated his birthday. He wrote the 4 volume Kosmos and laid the foundations for the study of biogeography (in which I did my honours and masters theses). His appeal increased for me also, because he had been accused by one of his more pious travelling companions as 'frequenting houses where impure love reigned' and he developed a rather serious attachment for a young Prussian soldier, Reinhard von Haeften, with whom 'he could only be happy in your presence'.

Finally, the third and not unimportant reason is that it also marks the anniversary of my moving into Larnook. This year marks the fifth year.

What a day!!

Spring

We've been enjoying spring weather for pretty much the past six weeks and while the warm to even hot temperatures have been very pleasant, we haven't had any rain for six weeks. The ground is dry and the grass is starting to die off in patches. Baxter and Dexter are now starting to lose a bit of condition so we might need to buy in a big round 'bale' of rye grass to supplement their already supplemented diet of grass and lucerne. Although we are supposed to get a bit of rain this week, it is normally not until October with the start of thunder storm season, that we start getting enough rain to kick start the grass.
Lots of plants are out in flower at the moment. Our rock orchids in the jacaranda trees are splendid in pink and mauves, while all our citrus are covered in creamy white flowers and the air around them is sweet with their fragrance. In the gardens, there are the mauves and reds and creams and oranges of grevillea and bottlebrush, and our purple flowering mint bush is covered in beautiful purple flowers. Splashes of brilliant, deep reds and purples and yellows betray the bromeliads flowering in their pots beneath one of the mango trees. Both of which are also in flower.
We haven't yet heard or seen the visitors from PNG, the channel billed cuckoo or the koel cuckoo, but no doubt we shall soon. Nor have I seen any dollar birds, another of the migrants from the north. But, the fairy martins have successfully reared another couple of babies, which have begun taking their first flights from the mud nest, carefully built underneath the eaves alongside our middle deck. The young birds can often be seen resting on the floor of the deck, something the parents never do.
I've seen a few dead snakes on the Rock Valley Road, a brown and a couple of green tree snakes, but haven't yet seen a snake on our place. We saw a goanna a few weeks ago, but no snakes as yet.

Phantom of Newcastle

 Last weekend (6-8 September) saw us in Newcastle, bringing down a bunch of friends, to join up with other friends and family to see Metropolitan Players' production of Phantom of the Opera. As you will remember, Steve was co-costume designer and creator, with Bev Fewins. The seven of us, six from Northern Rivers and Vaughan from Sydney, arrived Friday afternoon and stayed in a lovely terrace house in Parnell Place, Newcastle East. We had a beaut breakfast at Scotties, in Scott Street, on Saturday morning. From left, Dale, Vaughan, me, Glen, Steve, Julie and John. Steve went off to see the matinee performance, after we'd had a nice walk out along Nobby's breakwall (seeing a cute Australian fur seal), while I enjoyed an afternoon of second hand bookshopping, before we all assembled at Le Dynasty - all 25 of us - for our pre-show dinner. Which was delish!

 And these are a few photos so you can get an idea of how scrumptiously fabulous the costumes were. The Phanton taking Christine across the subterranean lake, deep below the Paris Opera.

 Carlotta and Christine in one of the operas.

 Masquerade....lots of costumes in that scene!

 Carlotta not happy.

 Masquerade again

 Final bows for the cast at the end of a stunning performance and season!

And take a bow, Bev and Steve!  Fabulous work!

Weekend with Andy and Brendon

 I'd just begun mowing the bottom paddock when Roger slipped his belt and was not going to go anywhere in a hurry. I made a half-arsed attempt at putting the belt back on but failed dismally. So rescuing Roger had to wait until Saturday morning. Our friend Andy arrived on Friday afternoon with his partner, Brendon, and they spent the weekend with us - a little Larnook respite from Sydney.  After champagne o clock taken in the hot tub we sojourned to Cawongla Store for their scrummy wood fired pizza and more wine of the sparkling and still varieties.

 We headed down to Kyogle to shop as we do most Saturday mornings and then once back we set to work on Roger. Brendon impressed us with his mechanical skills and knowledge but what we thought was a success turned out to be short-lived, which meant an undignified tow up the hill for Roger. Luckily Steve managed to sort out the problem and I was able to complete the entire mow (lower paddocks and around the house) after the boys left, yesterday afternoon. But back to Saturday. I put both boys into a state of bliss with my massages followed a bit later by some more wine-time in the spa. Shane and Bluey came over and we had a nice dinner of Thai pumpkin soup (Shane's recipe), green chicken curry and Steve's now-famous flourless chocolate and orange cake courtesy of the Kitchen Goddess herself, Nigella.  Oh and then we watched a moofie - one of our faves, Gods and Monsters.

Sunday morning was leisurely before the boys headed back up to Coolangatta airport for a 2pm flight back home to Sydney. Steve, Andy and Brendon in front of the mango tree. Looking forward to your next visit, boys.

Rock Orchids in Flower

 Our friend Shane (aka Julia) gave us these beautiful Dendrobium orchids when he moved out of his place at Condong, near Murwillumbah, last December.  He split them up and fitted them into a number of our jacarandas.

And now most of them are flowering in a rather spectacular way, just in time for the beginning of spring. Absolutely beautiful.