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Monthly Archives: February 2016

Shell: a study

27 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos

≈ 27 Comments

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shell

When I find a white weather-washed shell on the beach I decide its beauty is worth a series of photos. It has that bleached look that comes from time in the sun that peels away layers to a sometimes dimmed pattern within. From every angle you see new artistry: tiny holey dots, scallops, frilled ridges, curves, elliptical apertures, an intricate design of coils and curls and circles and borders.

There is a log in the early morning shade falling from the headland, also weather bleached. After my brief dip, while J is still riding waves, I settle down and place my treasure on the sand and let the camera peruse it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with BlogsyPosted with Blogsy

Black and white gardens

21 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in challenges, photos

≈ 18 Comments

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b&w, spotted gums

Garden tragic Jude is asking this month for a b&w or monochrome garden-related photo. My garden is the bush, and one of my favourite plants is the spotted gum, which I've photographed untold times – smooth and stately, peeling in great slabs, gleaming with rich colours after rain. I've adjusted to its name change – once Eucalyptus maculata it has become Corymbia maculata – but a name change doesn't change beauty. The forests near home are filled with spotted gums and their companion burrawangs and, in summer, hyacinth orchids. In one patch on the headland the trunks are twisted and the trees stunted. Elsewhere they stand alone and can reach giant status. The Big Tree in state forest near J's has been a place of family pilgrimage for many years: if you haven't visited it you feel deprived of a mysterious pleasure. Other giants lurk on the outskirts of rainforest.

The one in the photo is the view from the front door of the house where my children grew up. I have seen it peering through mist; vivid in crimsons, creams and greens after rain; dangling shreds of bark at raking up time as the fire season revs up; serene and smoothly grey in afternoon light.

 

 

Posted with BlogsyPosted with Blogsy

Choosing

21 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos, Thursday's special

≈ 9 Comments

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choice

Klara is Paula’s guest blogger on Thursday's special this week. She says “I’m challenging you to show us what choice means to you.”

This is right up my alley as I wind up life at Potato Point for at at least six months, possibly twelve, and head off to Warsaw. The choice has already been made – months ago – and the consequences are slowly unwinding.

Where will I choose?

HERE …

or HERE?


No choice really, once you factor in these two, who live in Warsaw …


Warsaw it is!

 

A choice I've made a number of times before.

Posted with BlogsyPosted with Blogsy

Visited again

20 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in movie, photos

≈ 25 Comments

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diamond python

Be warned

This post contains images and a video of a snake which some (overly timid!) readers may wish to avoid

 

As I drink my morning coffee and J washes up, the diamond python begins his serpentine journey back to the guttering, and hence to his daytime home in my roof. This time, I’m involved in nothing more important than a coffee, so I whizz out with the camera to record his passage. It’s fine while he’s on the balustrade, and I get close enough to touch him (which I don’t do) as his tongue flickers in and out navigating his way back to the lattice. The sun shines on his gleaming black and gold pattern. At one point he senses my presence and stops, oscillating his head to figure out what’s invaded his journey. As he weaves his way back up the lattice the jealous sun positions itself behind the competition, ensuring that I can only photograph sunflare.

 

 

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“A blessing for the whole day”

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos, Potato Point beach

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

early morning, shell, Thoreau

I'm a bit uneasy quoting Thoreau: I'm not a big fan. He is too self-righteous by half, especially if you believe the story that his mother brought him lunch in his self-sufficient solitude. However, he's sometimes spot on. An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. He doesn't mention a swim, but that doubles the blessing.

For the last few days I have been doubly blessed. I rarely walk early these days, and even more rarely plunge into the ocean. But the water is warm; I have a companion; throwing a ball for the dog gives me a bit of body heat; and by the time I've walked the length of the beach I'm ready to meet the waves, hoping one will slosh me out of the gradual approach that is my custom when I encounter a body of water.

This morning the colours are muted, shades of grey and a tinge of apricot, early light becoming the fingers of god reflecting in the wave wash. Sand anemones blur under the surface of a rock pool. But there are a few sparks of bright beauty: opalescence inside a shell, the gleaming gold of seaweed, a tiny speck in the surf which is my resident son doing what he loves best.

By the time I leave the beach, the light is aureate, and I am set up for the ordeal of a phone call to the Polish consulate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with BlogsyPosted with Blogsy

A seaweed gallery

16 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos, Potato Point beach

≈ 11 Comments

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sea weed

Seaweed is usually a recalcitrant photographic subject for me: the gleam disconcerts the camera, and distracts it from its primary duty of sharpness. But recently an early walk with the sun just rising produced this haul of Tutankhamen gold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with BlogsyPosted with Blogsy

Surreptitious photography

14 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in Black and white Sunday, photos

≈ 17 Comments

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surreptitious photography

Paula's b&w Sunday challenge this week usually goes against my practice, as it usually does against hers. She says “Surreptitious photography is challenging, but it may have its rewards like ending up with really candid shots, or it can have undesirable effects such as being beaten up.”

I've had two surreptitious photos waiting for posting for a while, one taken in Częstochowa of three women in fur hats and coats chatting at the pedestrian crossing on my first foray out of Warsaw in 2012. They caught my eye particularly, because I was feeling deprived of such chattiness after five months in a world where everyone spoke Polish. That photo I can't seem to track down.

The one I could find was captured at the end of 2014 when I was taking fellow blogger Jude on a whirlwind tour of the south coast during her brief stay at my place. We visited the Blue Pool at Bermagui, and looked down on these three women, also chatting companionably. This time I did not feel deprived: Jude and I had been talking non-stop ever since we met. I took the shot from high above the sea pool, vivid green that day despite its name, with the blue Pacific behind it.

 

 

My preference I think is still for colour, although the black and white one does focus attention on the circle of women within the circling water, without distraction. Here's the original, both cropped and uncropped.

 

 

 

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A very hectic delicious week

13 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in babcia indulgence, photos

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

visitors from Poland

As I write this, the twins and their parents are in the air returning to Warsaw and a flu epidemic: “I hope it's the flu we had when we left”, says my daughter. Their visit was all too brief, only five days at Potato Point.

But what rich days! Maja and Jaś are three and two months now, full of energy and play and a continual flow of words in two languages. This visit they love the sand and the sea, and the beach reciprocates by offering calm blueness, warm water and low tide for our morning jaunts. They are quite willing to hold our hands and walk down to the beach, past kangaroos, across a rattly bridge where they see fish, and along the edge of the creek. They dig holes down to the water; help dziadek and tata build droozle castles; mould perfect sand fish, crabs, ducks, aeroplanes and bucket-castles which they immediately and gleefully stomp on. One day dziadek finds them a big crab in a crevice and they are sure-footed on the rocks as they peer in at it peering out at them.

At home Maja runs her own bath and refuses hot water. They play games in a laundry hamper: they are lizards and emerge from the hamper saying “Pop”, with a handful of lizard eggs. They build with blocks their mother played with, off cuts of a dolls house built by her Tata. They listen to stories which all seem to feature farting. They go downstairs to the “cellar” where their uncle plays his guitar for them and finds the one his father bought as a 16 year old. One day, when mum and dad leave them, we extinguish anguish by letting them take turns with uncle's can-crusher. They've been at pre-school since October and they take turns beautifully.

On the first night dziadek says “You're as mad as a cut snake” and they relish this, running around and pointing at us and saying “You mad as a cut snake”. Then Jaś improvises and yells “You mad as a cut seafood”, and since abuse is sanctioned “You a conch shell”. They know two south coast Aboriginal words, thanks to a book called “Our Little Yuin”, illustrated by children at the Wallaga Lake Aboriginal preschool.

They already understand the need for the indefinite article in English (non-existent in Polish) but prefer “an” to “a”: “I want an banana”. They have a bit of Aussie in them: “I not gunna” is a common assertion. Often they preface statements with “Maybe …” When I call a seagull a pigeon, Maja says “Not a pigeon. Pigeons are colour.”

There are moments of drama. Over the breakfast cornflakes, “I want a pink plate” has me racking my brains until I remember my precious hand painted Wedgewood, mainly pale yellow but with very special pink centres to the flowers. The need for a yellow duck in the bath is harder. Tata draws one with a yellow texta, but that's not good enough. I produce a sparkler and peace reigns. Purchasing a whole watermelon poses unforseen problems: “Not a green one. Want a red one.” The dramas seem to be associated with fatigue and colour preferences.

Uncle is a great resource. Not only does he play guitar. He has a dog, and he lets them “hold the handle” when we go for a walk. Jaś takes his job seriously and doesn't let go when Cruz breaks into a gallop, resulting in a face plant on the grass. On the last afternoon uncle produces bubble mix and hyperventilates as he blows bubbles on the front deck.

Now they've gone. Fortunately, in four weeks we go too. If we didn't already have our tickets, I think we'd be buying them now.

 

Maja daring the ocean with dziadek

 

Jaś in search of water

 

Playing in the creek

 

Holding Cruz's handle

 

Burying the twins

 

Watching chooks at Blue Earth cafe

 

Shining torches on my backyard

 

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Weaving the lattice

12 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos

≈ 18 Comments

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diamond python

It's dinner time. I'm sitting opposite my son when he says, sotto voce, “Look!”, and points over my shoulder. I turn slowly and see a narrow reptilian head waving out from the guttering. By the time I grab my camera it has disappeared.

However, ten minutes later I glance out the window and see a black shape with gold markings lying along the top of the deck lattice. I'm in the middle of a precious phone call to a friend, but suddenly my attention is divided. I watch as the diamond python weaves its sinuous length between the squares. The questing head stretches towards the bottle brush, changes its mind, glides across a pair of discarded undies, and begins the descent to the back yard, briefly along the balustrade, and then down behind the railings.

As a chaotic week draws to a close I feel blessed, and add such visitations to the long list of things I'll be deprived of in Warsaw, now only four weeks away.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with BlogsyPosted with Blogsy

Discovery of the week: the power of a sneeze

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in discovery of the week

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Catullus, prophecy, sneezes

Last week I was expecting a number of things in the mail. They were unexpectedly sluggish arriving. As I was complaining to my son at dinner one night, Cruz sneezed three times. My son said confidently “They'll be here tomorrow.” It hadn't occurred to me that the resident dog, with his endearing black eyepatches and a terror of thunder, might be a prophet, but sure enough the next day the sluggish mail arrived. I'd never heard of this superstition of sneeze as omen.

 

Is this dog a prophet? -

 

At the weekend I was telling J the story and he, putting on his classicist's hat, said “Surely you remember that Catullus poem? Sneezes a good omen for a love affair?” No. I didn't remember. I found the number of the poem on the Internet (Carmen 45) and he hunted it down in his murky green Catullus. Over coffee and toast he translated it for me.

 

As the two lovers, Septimius and Acme protest their love for each other, Cupid that perennial bystander when love's in the air, sneezes approval on the left, and sneezes approval on the right.

Now, having set out with good omens they love and are loved with mutual passion.

 

From now on I'll be scrutinising every sneeze for its prophetic insight.

 

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