Well it is a bit more than a week since I last posted, but at least it hasn't been months this time.


My brother Ian has come home from England for his first visit in 18 years, so I have been rather busy catching up.

One thing we have been doing is getting out in the bush, something he has missed.


 Ian and I were out and about soon after dawn yesterday. Winter has finally really bitten down this way so it was cold and frosty.

One of the things I pointed my camera at was this grass in an attempt to catch the icy feel.


I also caught some extreme close-ups of the frost crystals coating the grass.

And even closer

Winter Skies and Floodwaters

Despite the Wattle blooms insisting spring is around the corner winter just won't let go. It is cold too, there is snow falling on the mountains around Melbourne.

Deb and I had to get out and about as usual.  We both spend far too much of our time in offices to not want to blow away the cobwebs on the weekend.

We were up the Yarra valley which is once again flooding in low areas when in the evening the sullen sky parted briefly and let me catch these stark winter trees reflected in flood waters.

Silver Linings?

Deb and I have shot away for a weekend alone together.

Perhaps a bit perversely we have headed to a beach house owned by a friend in Gippsland.

I say perversely  because it is winter down this way and the warmest we have had since we got here is 7 degrees C.

And it is raining so heavily they have issued flood warnings for the region.

But even if every cloud doesn't have a silver lining some of them have:

Rainbow at the "Eagles' Nest" taken this evening

Oh the hard work a Puppy has to do!

A quick post tonight. Most of the family are ill with typical winter colds. It has been cool to cold most days and wet on and off for weeks (months really). I’ve had the bug too and am busy trying to shake it off.

Lilli is growing rapidly. She’s been with us for two weeks tomorrow. Like most Labradors she is very clever and eager to please. She has already started learning the things she will need to know to keep her humans happy.

She has well and truly already got the idea of house training. She leaves a few puddles because she is still only a baby. But already she asks to go outside to do her business. Deb taught her to sit in about 20 seconds the other day and she now knows she has to sit before she gets her meals. Hard work for a puppy!

She has been for her first few walks on a lead. She already thinks going for a ride in the car is exciting and must be going somewhere interesting.

Like all puppies she is chewing everything she can get in her mouth. Io (our middle daughter took some shots the other day).

Lili says ‘I’ll just see if this planter needs a little adjustment.’‘This old garden border looks chewable.’‘Lies all lies, I don’t chew all the time! Would this face ever be naughty?’

Winter.

While I was away on holiday at Merimbula I was posting photos like this.

And this.

Then I was grumbling that despite the gloriously sunny weather I was cold.

People enjoying their Northern hemisphere summer looked at photos like this

and for some strange reason they didn’t take me very seriously.

Fair enough in tropical parts of Oz it never really gets cold.

However, it is winter down in the bottom half of the world and here in the southern end of Oz it gets wintery.

This Aussie for one thinks it is cold.

Now I have proof of the cold down this way.

On Saturday I took this

and this

See, I’m not just grumbling :-)