Parrots' Vineyard

The little seeds in question that the King Parrots are so fond of chomping on. 

The seeds, hanging overhead like green grapes, are tiny. A dozen of the seeds could fit easily onto an area the size of my thumbnail. 

The sprays of tiny white flowers in mid-late spring are an amazing sight, and attract bees galore. 

It's all about the birds and the bees. 

King Parrot Calling

King Parrots really, really love this tree and its seeds.

Flaming Liquid Amber

The sun doth shine in autumn - sometimes.

Although again from the 'prepped earlier' basket, the Liquid  Amber leaves are beautiful.

Rubies in the Sun

Avenues of ruby-red and sunshine-yellow! Pretty spectacular.

(This pic is from the 'prepared earlier' basket - all current photos are hampered by the never-ending skies. And I just wanted to remind myself that the sun does occasionally shine in autumn too!)

Running Elephant Morphs into Flying Eagle

Yes, that's right - this cloud looks to me like a running elephant morphing into an eagle!

Take that, Mr Squiggle!

Actually, that description also sounds like a bit of a Tai Ji description to me - but I have no idea what a 'running elephant' would look like in Tai Ji. 

Anyway, it's a good thing this morphing action (transmogrifiation, as per Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes) is happening above the reddening leaves of a deciduous tree - it now qualifies neatly for this month's theme!

Rainy Autumnal Avenue

I will really have to get some autumn-y photos on sunny days! 

Lest I give the impression the sun never shines in autumn!!

But this is still a romantic little scene. Cue the cozy fireplace and hot cuppa for full enjoyment. 

Citrus in the Sky

It's a beautiful change when leaves shift from that palest of summer greens into the buttery yellow - all the shades of gentle ripeness of Golden Delicious apples. 

Same photo but with a photoshopped-warming filter.

The apple colours of the leaves are closer to reality now, but the photoshopping has banished the reality of the glum rain too. 

Leaves on Fire under a Grey Sky

I never realised just how many grey days - overcast, misty and convectional - we've already had in just the first few weeks of autumn. 

Still, these leaves leap out to grab your attention in their rich, warm colours...

Parrots Chatting over Seeds

A photo photoshopped within an inch of its life in my effort to make the little parrots stand out. 

This tree starts sprouting seeds in autumn, which attracts parrots by the dozen. 

It's a lovely sight - to see dozens of parrots weighing down branches and chewing eagerly on seeds. 

Their guano decorations all over the car aren't so nice though. 

Slower to Rise

At Mt Victoria train station in the Blue Mountains, around 7am, the sun's reluctance to rise becomes more and more pronounced.

(You and me both, Sunshine! Especially on Mondays!)

Facing east, where the sun struggles slowly to get over a rise (pun completely unintentional!)

And facing west, where the promise of sun for the day is more visible...

Sunsets After Storms

This is, btw, completely un-photoshopped.

Great wide fields of heavy clouds can often end with a surprisingly neat edge, as though someone has decided on the line with a pair of scissors. 

This often seems to happen at the end of the day - just in time to offer you a magnificent sunset. Which is lovely.

But it also sometimes feels like the timing is deliberate and the fields of clouds are smugly rubbing in the fact that you missed out on the sun all day long...

Hasten into Night

And the sun begins to retire earlier and earlier

Lest anyone is curious about the apparent 'writing in the sky' in the top left of the pic, this photo was taken from the train. 

Saturday Arvo Drive

The apple-greens-and-reds are everywhere. 

Running the eyes through a feast of colour. 

And the Wheels Go Round and Round

The wheels of this little piece of roadside artwork turn in the wind. And the truck itself spins around the pole too, according to the dictates of the wind - like a weathervane. 

This is Blackheath, Blue Blue Mountains, near the train station. 

The over-eager deciduous trees rushing into autumn are present and accounted for. 

Crabapple Apple?

Excuse the rotten composition but it was quite windy and I was also squinting against the light and couldn't actually see the phone screen...

What I was trying to capture - besides the Crabapple's early metamorphosis into a crimson tree alongside the odd branch of recalcitrant green - was the apple-like fruit on the tree (look towards the top right corner of the photo). 

I didn't realise crabapples got such apple-like fruit. That's my botanical lesson for the season...

Autumn Colours Sing on the Highway

A little spot to pull over on the Great Western Highway at Mt Boyce, on the way to Mt Victoria in the Blue Mountains. 

Even on - or maybe especially on - a grey day, the autumn colours are very vivid. 

Yes, the photo was taken on a phone while in a car. And no, I wasn't driving. 

Eager rush into Autumn

Blackheath in the Blue Mountains - and misty to boot! 

I was positively outraged when I saw these apple-blushed colours on the trees - a mere 6 days into autumn! 

If I could speak Tree, I would ask why they're in such a big hurry!

March Theme: Predictably Autumn

This blog is meant to a photo a day on a monthly theme. If I'm not careful, it's going to turn into '15 lots of photos in 2 days in a rushed, scrambling attempt to make sure there's a photo on the theme for each day of the month'. 

I've finally decided that this month's theme is 'Autumn'. March is the first month of autumn in Australia and my god, the Blue Mountains have rushed to embrace the change of season! 

A bit too eagerly, if you ask me. 

The shift of seasons is more gradual in Sydney. When you are getting 28-degree days, you don't mind slowly cooling evenings. But when temperatures shift as abruptly as the flick of a switch (or so it seems!), well then the shift feels quick and annoyingly over-eager. 

I'm still pathetically calling after Summer, saying 'come back! You can't leave yet. Just hang around a bit more...' Leaving sobbing messages on Summer's voicemail, while Autumn puts its feet up, tucks its hands behind its head and watches my antics with wry amusement. 

I'm not the Shakespeare-quoting type, but sometimes one line says it all:

"Summer's lease has all too short a date".

Anyway, for March, I'm embracing autumn (reluctantly) and looking to the beauty that does come with the cooling, crisp days. The days shorten alarmingly quickly, mist rolls, swirls and dances in the Blue Mountains valleys, and deciduous trees begin to sing their songs of multiple colours...

And now for something completely different

A chocolate box cover to end the February theme:

Yummy, yummy, yummy. 

If you can't be there in person, this is a pretty nice way to taste the country: regional oenological specialties in chocolate. 

Rupert the Bear Annual Cover

Lots of fun to Cook with Rupert. Sonia Allison and pictures by John Harrold. Collins. 

I love these kinds of annuals - such a feature of my childhood. This isn't one of my actual childhood ones though; this was a recent arrival (a gift) to the household. 

I have an old, beloved, battered Jack and Jill annual 1981 somewhere. I must pull it out for a nostalgia trip. 

Rupert rules!

Tintin Cartoons DVD Cover

Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin (cartoon)

A classic Tintin action pose: mid-run, anxious yet determined. 

Good old Tintin!

Chick Lit #5 (kinda)

Lisa Lutz, The Spellman Files. 

It's not quite fair to call this 'chick lit'. It's more of a mystery (with a bit of time-jumping to keep the trail murky). 

But the cover is in that light, illustrator-y, chick-lit style: beautiful simple lines to render a stereotyical silhouette of a detective. 

Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees

Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees, juju. 

If you know of Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees, you would know this album cover is a great visual representation of their sound. 

For an eighties band, the sound is unique and not characteristic of the eighties at all.  

Richly-textured music, guitars that echo as though being played in great cathedrals, fat singing bass, punching tribal drums, and the melodiously haunting song-voice of Siouxsie. 

Out of Time cover

Out of Time movie soundtrack. Music by Graeme Revell. 

I think this same cover is on the DVD cover also. There's only so much you can really convey with movie posters/ DVD covers. But this poster does give the sense of the triangle (the ex, the love affair, the sex affair), the race to figure out who is outplaying whom, all against the steamy, muggy backdrop of (I think) Florida. 

Where days are a slow soup, you're breathing out sweat and life is languid, languorous.  

A good soundtrack and movie for rigid, cold, tight, bitter nights. 

YA Book Cover

Kristin Cashore, Graceling. 

It's a bit of a typical YA cover, really. And when I read the first couple of pages, I wasn't convinced-convinced at first. But I didn't leave it for another day. 

Glad I didn't. YA, gifted or 'graced' people, the nerves, wonder, exploration and wariness of love, political intrigue, expectations vs obligations... It covers a lot and does it well. 

Peter Pinney Lawless and the Lotus Cover

Thanks to John Borthwick 's selection, this was the Peter Pinney book I really wanted to find. 

Thank you eBay!

This book covers Pinney's time in the Caribbean, across the Pacific via Tahiti and them back to his home in Sydney, Oz. 

Along the way, he gets stranded at sea, falls in and out of love, acts as a double for Brando in the movie Mutiny on the Bounty, offers an insight into white male attitudes to Polynesia and Polynesians (women in particular) in the 50s, and stows away on a cruise ship to get back to Sydney. 

I think I can remember the final line when he gets back to Sydney (having carefully forged his health certificate into being up-to-date):

"By all the gods that ever were, it was good to be home!"

Peter Pinney Anthology Cover

Peter Pinney, The Road to Anywhere: the Writings of Peter Pinney. Selected by John Borthwick. UQP. 

This was the book via which I discovered Peter Pinney. Australian traveller, vagabond, adventurer, and writer of his extraordinarily true travel stories during the very different world of the 1950s. 

This anthology, like many of my other books, I picked-up-put-down-&-picked-up-again then I bought it. From the fabulous second-hand upstairs section of Berkelouws Books in Leichhardt, if I remember correctly. 

It includes amazing adventures from Pinney's different books that you could use in a TV show that you would dismiss as beinfar- fetched. He is a product of his time of course. But there are some great descriptions of people and places too. 

Off the top of my head, Pinney caustically describes his encounter with a chap who travels in order to boast about where he's been. "His suitcase, if he had one, would be swarming with a bright salad of labels."  

More in the next post. 

PIL Album Cover

Public Image Limited (PIL). Happy?

2 disclaimers:

i) This is HD's album, not mine

ii) The thing on the left-hand side of the album is my thumb and shadow. The background is actually all white. 

The PIL frontman/singer/songwriter is none other than John Lydon - Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols. 

There is an unmistakable scathing social critique in many of Lydon's song lyrics. This album cover is no different. 

Featureless, high-rise apartments clustered claustrophobically close together like people leaning in for a photo. There is no breathing room between the buildings. The allocated living quarters of the poor, the powerless, the feeble, the addicts, the 'social problems'... Slums. In the US, the catch-all term is "the projects". 

The bright, childishly-happy colours are in contrast to the grim, bleak reality of such living spaces. 

It makes the title 'Happy?' with its multiple meanings all the more poignant. 

Would you be happy to live here?

Do the people who live here have a right to be anything but happy?

Are you happy now with the 'solution' you've provided?

The 3 'clouds' going from an orange centre to a black one could symbolise a few things: 

From light to darkness the longer you live there. 

From equanimity to despair. 

From health to ill-health. 

Definitely a cover with a message.