OUR NEW NEST AND RETURN TO CULTURE

 

We have been about 10 weeks in our new nest, and I continue to explore on my daily walks.

Shady trees above the path are wonderful in our current hot weather.

Walking in the opposite direction to the view I showed on my previous post, I discovered this view, one that is very familiar to me:

It is the McPherson Range, on the border between Queensland and New South Wales.

I know these mountains very well, as my childhood home was in that region.

It is a faint picture, as the mountains are 147km away (and I was facing into the Western sun)...

On the very left of the range is Mt. Lindsay, a place we sometimes visited to listen to the Bellbirds.

The highest peak is Mt. Barney which my brothers liked to climb from time to time.  

I could not see this view from our previous house, but we are very high on our new plateau...

This was my birthday rose, and we planted it in early December.

It is thriving, despite some days of 36C heat, and now has eight new buds.

Some days I water her twice a day, a litre each time...

We have good drainage, but on some hot days, it drains a little too fast!

We have now finished unpacking over 100 boxes and our home is starting to look good.

And we have found time to resume some cultural activities.

I loved the film The Choral (as life-long choristers ourselves), starring Ralph Fiennes as a community choir conductor in England during WW1.

Beautiful choral singing, as they perform Edward Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius.

I have been to a children's version of The Nutcracker ballet, with the Australian Ballet Company: as the guest of my only granddaughter, Little Miss Three and her Mum.  It was a treat to introduce her to the world of dance, and she sat entranced, holding her magic wand and waving on command of the narrator.

This week I return to GoMA as a tour guide, after time off to move house, and the Christmas break...

There is an amazing new exhibition, Presence, featuring work by Olafur Eliasson, an artist of Danish/Icelandic heritage.

He combines art and science in a fascinating suite of works evoking the land and light of Iceland:

Beauty brings a rainbow into the room: a spotlight shines onto a fine mist of water in a darkened room.  As you move closer, you might or might not see rainbows, depending on the individual eyes.  I can only see shades of brown but my husband can see green and blue.

This is only one of many extraordinary works taking you into another world.

Our mini Magnolia continues to give us one or two big white blooms each day.  I love it!

I hope you are having an interesting January, and are coping with the heat or the cold, whichever applies...

Have a great week

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