A Walk In The Park

Walking through this park on my way to work is much nicer than the walk along the street I've been using.

It's a shame I found the park on the very last time I need to walk this way.

In Which I Meet A Famous Person

A Dress A Day is one of the first blogs I ever read. Erin McKean is an entertaining writer. She's in Melbourne at the moment:

She signed a copy of her novel for me:

Name That Plant

Does anyone know what this is?

It's either a large shrub or a tree. This one is about 4 metres tall, but there are branches all the way down to the ground. It is flowering now in a neighbour's front yard. The bees love it. It seems to flower at the ends of the branches first, then buds open further along the branches. Each bud opens into a pom-pom of pink flowers.

Any ideas?


Thanks, Dee, for identifying it as the pompom tree, Dais cotinifolia, from southern Africa.

Christmas Do Number One

Trip north today for the first Christmas Do for the year.

Stopped at interesting nurseries, antique shops and galleries, spent time with lots of people and ate lots of food, and didn't even think to get out my camera until on the way home I saw hundreds of birds in a paddock. There were many sulphur-crested cockatoos, galahs and corellas, and a handful of ravens, all eating grass seeds (I assume).

Apparently a person walking towards them with a camera is a little more threatening than cars roaring past at 110kmph. I only took a couple of steps before they started taking off:

You will just have to believe me that this is only a small section of them.

She's Back...

Mr Blackbird is still feeding at least one of the fledglings in the vegie garden. From what I've read, the parents keep feeding them for up to two weeks. But Mrs Blackbird is busy elsewhere:

Starting on a second batch!

Obsessed?

This morning on The Age website I saw this tiny picture beside an article about the best games of the year:

I might be a little preoccupied at the moment, but what does the dark-blue thing look like to you?

It's obviously a sewing machine, right?

Half my brain was puzzling over the concept of a game about sewing (how would that work?), and the other half was just happy that there must be a game about sewing, so clicked on the link before the logical side kicked in...

Strategy games, sewing, it's all much the same, isn't it?

Summer Already

Fortunately the first day of summer wasn't too hot to be in the sewing room, or in the garden.

On Tuesday while I was sewing, I noticed that a bird has built a rather insubstantial-looking nest in one of my callistemons. Today she wasn't sitting in it, so I took the opportunity to snap a picture:

I don't know if she has abandoned the nest, or if I just didn't happen to look up at a time when she was there today. It's another non-native bird, I'm afraid. This time it's an Indian import, the Spotted Dove (Spilopelia chinensis).

I made a second trial bodice, lengthening it and changing the shaping. This photo gives absolutely no indication of how it fits, with the wacky fabric and the dummy who is a different shape to me. The photo is only here to show that I did actually do something!

I don't know whether to play with the shaping more or not. I'm not totally happy with it, but I'm not sure of the best way to tackle the bits I don't like.