Still at it

70 years old and a cat plays better than me.  I am completely hopeless and don't understand a thing.  I have absolutely no natural feel for music.  I don't know why I persevere, except to give myself a hard time.

I do more and more online jigsaws these days as they don't require any brainpower at all, and now and then I have a go at sudoku - I kid myself that I can get from easy to medium, but of course I can't!!!! - and all I do is get frustrated.  Then I have a go at the daily 'quick' crossword in the paper, which takes me at least four hours, even with the thesaurus.  I usually end up going to bed with the sulks and listen to the BBC.

Where is the snow, you ask, Winifred.  Just as you've been having a hot summer, we've been having a warm winter.  I even look lovingly at the pool each day as I scoop out the leaves and sometimes wish I'd accidentally fall in.

Nice relaxing Sunday

In spite of the dreadful things happening all over the world, my friends and I continue to live very comfortably.  Yesterday we went through a lovely old house, 'Eryldene', and had afternoon tea in the gardens.  It's a very modest place by British and European standards, but still enjoyable to be shown through by an architect.

The place is famous for its camellias and azalias (which were not in bloom in this online shot I found).

I'm still enjoying doing dozens of jigsaws each day and love the pics of castles and beautiful places all over the world.  Much cheaper and easier than actually going there!

Shades of Nigella...

Thanks for this one-in-a-million shot, Frank.  I shouldn't be so naughty as to liken it to Saatchi and Nigella, but I can't help it!

Am not feeling very sparkling today.  I should be, as the weather is perfect.  As you point out, Winifred, our normal winter is like your normal summer.  Woke up to the news of that baby boy born in London.  Talk about the media going mad.

Over past days I've been back into the sudoku again and think I should sue someobody - who? - for causing me to become addicted.  I'm still doing jigsaws and the occasional crossword.  All these activities make me wish I was doing something a little more useful, so read 'Hamlet' the other day and found it far more satisfying.

That sea lion...I think it's a leopard seal.

What an interconnected world we live in.  A few blogs back I put a photo that Michael sent me of a sea lion about to eat a penguin, which Emma thought was going to swim on by...Last night I was watching a bloke, Paul Nicklen, being interviewed on TV here in Sydney, when Lina rang to point out it was the very same photographer.

You can see lots more of his pics here and in lots of places on Google:
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=paul+nicklen+leopard+seal+story&sa=X&rlz=1C1AFAB_enAU450AU453&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=knDsUdexFKiOiAetYg&ved=0CEIQsAQ&biw=1264&bih=647

Golly, Frank, how did you survive in 50 degree heat!!!!  Glad you are enjoying the high temps, Winifred.  Here we're having our first winter cold snap - forecast 18 for today.

The mundane

Doing the washing is my favourite household chore.  One reason is that there's nothing easier than sorting the clothes, throwing them into the machine and pressing a button. And hanging clean things on the line is always a pleasure.  My mother must have loved it, too, as I remember her singing at the clothes line.  There's nothing nicer than the smell of sheets, pillowslips and doona cover taken straight from the sun and put on the bed.  Now that's it's winter, sometimes the clothes don't quite dry, so need airing in front of the heater.  In summer it can be so hot that things often dry before you finish hanging the rest out.

If you look closely, you'll see Muffy sitting on the bench in the background.

It amazes me that the 30 degree temperatures in UK at the moment are killing people!  It has to be 40 before I feel affected, and sometimes in the centre of Australia it can be in the 50s.  Yet when I was in Italy a few years back, the heat drove me home.  I'd never suffered so much and thought I would surely die!  That is hard to explain.

Winter sun

The Daily Mail tells me the UK is in for a heatwave.  Here in Sydney we've been having some lovely days of between 9 and 20 degrees.  Just perfect.  Muffy always seeks out the sun and I snapped her a few minutes ago through my bedroom window (where I'm practising the piano).

A day in the life of Sydney

Infogenium, that creature with its mouth wide open is a sea lion (like a seal).  Here is a friendlier one.

Today I explored a part of the city I'd never been to - Hickson Road, at the southern end of the Bridge.  Google conveniently provided me with these photos, including this lovely aerial view and red arrow!  (I didn't actually hire a helicopter and take it myself!)

 It's a beautiful mixture of old and new.

I hate to think what real estate would cost in this area!  

Of course, you have to have a boat too.

The innocence of a 5-yr-old

Michael, this is one of the photos you sent but I was unable to save it in that format, so found it elsewhere.  I showed the pics to Emma without vetting them first, which was a mistake, but I needn't have feared, as when she saw this one, she commented happily, 'And the penguin went swimming by...'

Oh, Infogenium, you say the nicest things! :-))

A day in the country

On Thursday my sister and I met at Bowral, a beautiful town in the southern highlands of NSW, for a one-night-high-tea deal at a lovely old guest house.  It really was quite delightful yet all I could do was wish I was home again!!!!  I really am most peculiar.

Here is the place, overlooking the golf course:

Why do I do it?????

I still have BBC Radio 4 (sometimes 4 extra) on all night and am constantly amazed at the Lords, Baronesses and other titled persons who appear in discussions.  To us here in Australia it's like a fantasy - we can't bring ourselves to believe this kind of thing actually happens!  And at the present time!!!  Although the British queen is our queen too, we don't really think about her much, except to gawp at the ceremonial occasions such as this one yesterday.  And I have to admit I love all the extravaganza as much as the next person.

We have very few rich or 'grand' people (and Lina and I lived with the wife of one of the richest at boarding school years ago when she was a teenager) and there is nothing like the British upper class lifestyle going on here.  I'm still addicted to The Daily Mail and am always struck by the contrast between the haves and have-nots in UK.  Mind you, the most comfortably off Australians who live in grand houses in the leafy suburbs with harbour views never stop whingeing.  And we have lots of poor people, too.  But, since nobody here would think of getting round in a tiara or lives in a rambling mansion comparable to those in Europe and UK, the difference between the haves and have-nots is not so marked.

Mind you, I'm also still addicted to online jigsaws and the things I enjoy doing most are castles and those unbelievable European and British country 'houses'.

Winifred, you make a very good point about why we should all buy things...:-))