In this beautiful Melbourne Autumn weather the first thing I do when I open the doors is take a big breath. The air here is so fresh and there are gorgeous scents in the air - eucalypt, the ginger flower, other flowers, herbs, whatever is around. Occasional smoke from burning off or wood fires, but I like the smell of wood fires - providing it’s not the height of summer!
Graham and I are so glad we made this shift. The leaves are turning and we have yellows, oranges, reds and browns on the trees and on the ground. So beautiful to see and the leaves crunch under your feet as you walk along. That scares off the birds, or at least alerts them to my presence so I’m having to learn to walk around very quietly and slowly if my camera is in hand.
Well, you could say our cats have well and truly settled into their new home. They love the property and can run at full speed along the lawns and under trees and up the long driveway.
Smokey sits for ages under the Fig tree watching the bird life in it. We’ve had to put bells on him to alert the birds. He gets very well fed but still likes to hunt. Toki is content - he eats as much as he can get and lies around sleeping and surveying the world. Shadow has caught a mouse and played with it but didn’t know what to do with it. I distracted him and it got away.
Well, we’ve been in our new home 5 months now. Still not fully unpacked but liveable. Guess that means what we haven’t unpacked we might not really need, hey? But those things are mostly DVDs, books, videos and we periodically go scrabbling through the boxes to find a movie we want to watch or something.
We’ve pretty much got a routine happening now and each day I go out with camera in hand to see what photos I can get. We have a family of 5 kookaburras here and tons of other birdlife so there’s always something. And I’ve recently joined the local photographic society to go on photowalks and get to know other photographers. So far I’ve been to William Rickets Sanctuary and JW Manson Reserve where there’s a creek and ovals. I’ve got some photos over at my photoblog.
Our first Easter in our new home, the weather has been beautiful, but it’s been marred with some sorrow. Our second Easter without Miriam and her birthday is coming up very soon. Which has also highlighted my own personal sorrow at the loss of my son 30 years ago. He would have been 31 this week.
It is Oliver’s first Easter but at 4 months of age he’s too young yet to know what it’s all about. His mum and dad happily eat the chocolate though :-) Mel turns 30 this year and it’s likely we’ll hold her party in our home, which is designed for entertaining. We’ll enjoy doing that.
