COLOUR OF THE YEAR AT THE OSCARS

Here at the Red Cardinal Blog we like to discuss the annual Colour of the Year.

The Pantone Colour for 2019 is:

Living Coral

This pretty shade sits somewhere between orange and pink, and in the past I think was simply called 'coral'..

I remember when I was in high school having and loving a cardigan in just this shade.

Dame Helen Mirren at the Oscars. 

 If this is not living coral, it is certainly rather close, and one of my top picks.

But then, I always did love pink....

This is pretty, with a sweet silver bow.

In fact, there were lots of bows to be spotted on the red carpet if you looked closely.. 

Julia Roberts always looks gorgeous and happy..

This black Chanel appealed too...

There is always one charming canary yellow dress at the Oscars -

I love yellow too, but one dress per Awards night is probably enough!

Disappointed that Willem Dafoe missed out on an award for his portrayal of Vincent Van Gogh in 'At Eternity's Gate'.

We loved the film, and thought he was wonderful in the role - sympathetic and eerily like Van Gogh himself in all those self-portraits.

Mr Cardinal and I were doing research for our next big adventure:

We have made our airline reservations for a trip to the South of France to explore the haunts of not only Van Gogh, but Cezanne, Matisse, Chagall, Picasso...

I can't wait to see the settings of many of the famous paintings I have studied over the years.

We then will fly to London and on to Ottawa for a fortnight with our dear daughter and grandsons.  The boys appear to be growing taller every time we see them on Facetime!  We hope to see lots of Autumn leaves...

(And hopefully not the sort of heavy snow they had last week, biggest dump since 1998:

They woke one day to find the snow piled against the glass back door - there are four steps down to the ground here...

No playing outside this week..)

Then we will complete our round-the-world fare by flying home via Vancouver.

We have also been to Sydney lately, to visit our son and his Irish wife, in their picturesque cottage.

Their garden has some resemblance to ours:

Hedges, roses, picket fence...

We proud parents were terribly impressed that our son made this lovely bench for their hallway.  Such a talent!

While in Sydney we saw an exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings from The Hermitage, St. Petersburg...

In the interests of research, we immersed ourselves in some stunning Cezanne, Matisse and Kandinsky, Gauguin and Monet, and on it went:

Cezanne

Kandinsky

Matisse

And just before I go, one royal fashion sighting:

I was smitten with the fabric in Meghan's Oscar de la Renta dress -

just look at those cute woodland birds and animals.

Don't think I wouldn't kill to get my hands on a piece of that fabric....

It has been raining a little bit here, and the temperatures have dropped, to 29c maximums.  Blissful.  Can Autumn be that far away??

Hope you are all well.

XXXXX

Oh look, they got out there anyway!

EMERALD CITY

We Cardinals have had our little excursion to the town of Emerald, in Central Queensland, 

about 240km west of Rockhampton and an area I have never previously visited.

Like many regional towns, life has centred around the Railway, and in this case a beautiful, heritage-listed, Railway Station building.

In between business meetings, we wandered around and found a few oddities:

In 'Discovery Park', a 25 metre high easel with Van Gogh 'Sunflowers'!!

Why???? Because they grow sunflowers in this agricultural region.

(Also cotton, and mandarins, we were told).

Outside City Hall, pieces of a fossilised tree, 250 million years old.

It was unearthed in 1979 when a new railway bridge was being built across the local river.

A Bush Chapel, serene and quietly contemplative, in the local Botanic Gardens.  

A mosaic pathway depicting the history of the area, beginning with the indigenous Dreamtime...you know the story:

While agriculture continues, there are now many coal mines surrounding the town, and the population has exploded in recent times.

But country hospitality is as good as always, and a lot like that of the Southern USA.

Did a little detour to the nearby gemfields, and the towns of Rubyvale and Sapphire...

I found it hilarious, and just like driving through a town in the old Wild West..

No time for fossicking, but perhaps we will return another year.

Fairbairn Dam, which provides the water supply for town, agriculture and mining..

It was fun, and I enjoyed the change of scene.

Before I pop off, I must apologise to those fellow bloggers whose blogs have disappeared recently from the blog list on my side bar.

At least, I hope it was only recently, when Google put us all in a spin of confusion.

It slipped by me because everyone has remained on my Dashboard.

I'll never get a grip on the background region of Blogland, but there you go.

I was never at all technically minded.

Have done my best to replace all missing blogs, and promise to be more attentive in the future!

Happy Friday Everybody XXXX