Bees in flowers in MtLawleyShire

There were many, many bees around the Grevillea and the coral gum blossom.  I am allergic to bees, but I still love them.  So I leaned in.

 

The coral gum blossom was literally buzzing:

 

 

 

 

a strange little post 🙂

Next – young moon over MtLawleyShire

MtLawleyShire and a Sunday afternoon walk

I have a sunset to post, from last night, but it is going to take a while because it was spectacular.  Today, the sunset was merely glare in a featureless summer sky, but before that, there were flowers, bees, trees and birds

Flowers:

In sumptuous shadow and flowing light – hibiscus

 

 

the outrageous and glowing colour of bougeanvillea:

 

catching the light in the wind:

I walked past a beautiful rose garden:

 

 

 

a tiny, richly glowing geranium outside a picket fence:

Grevillea:

 

the flowers of a tallow tree:

Coral gum blossom – one with bee 🙂

 

 

a raven in a carpark, calling out to his mob:

Favourite trees:

the piebald one on the corner two blocks up

The lemon-scented gum:

      

and a tall tree down near Beaufort Street:

a tree of a different kind – & can you see the moon in the wide empty sky?

then it was time to go home –

Next – bees and blossoms.

Then, young moon and sunset.

I hope you enjoyed this post 🙂

 

Out of MtLawleyshire – Trees at Murdoch University & Matilda Bay

I have had a busy week and while there have been no sunset photos for the end of the week, there have been lots of trees.

It is Festival season in Perth, and within the Perth festival is the Writer’s Festival – & I am a writer, of sorts.  This year, I actually attended an event at the University fo Western Australia, but before that, I was invited to attend a Q&A with China Mieville at Murdoch University in the southern suburbs.  It was an excellent talk.  He’s a very articulate engaging character, which is to be expected from his books (my favourite is The City & The City).  But, though he would probably raise his eyebrows at this, it was also a chance to look at trees.

Murdoch University has wonderful native grounds, filled with mostly natives.  But not just trees – flowers:

Grevillea:

 

This – so reminiscent of a flame tree flower, but it isn’t.  Glorious red 🙂

Eucalypt blossom:

 

& the nuts they leave behind:

Water lilies:

& this

Grows into this:

 

Now the trees. I don’t know what this is, but its brilliant green is striking, and the duller yet graceful shape of a sheoak:

 

Wonderful tree with almost furry bark:

 

Cape Lilac in the outside cafe:

 

These are just beautiful from various places around the campus:

 

& this is the trunk of a massive tree:

Finally, two towering trees soaring into the inconstant, uneven sky of a terribly hot day threatening rain and delivering none:

 

A plane tree in the city as I made my way home:

& this?  At the small park in West Perth just down from where I teach – a peppermint tree looking like a jungle unto itself:

Today, I attended a talk by China Mieville & the wonderful Margaret Atwood.  They played so well off each other, and Margaret Atwood is such a character – so sharp & funny & wonderfully subversive.  I love her writing, have heard her talk often and this was just as wonderful.  China Mieville was a wonderful partner for her.  Of course, with his genre writing, her novels Oyrx & Crake and After the Flood (as well as The Handmaid’s Tale)  were under discussion along with his novels  (& mention of  a book the talk reminded me of that I want to read for the PhD: Hoban’s Riddley Walker).

And although I had no time to wander along the river, everywhere you go around the University of Western Australia and Matilda Bay there are trees:

a Moreton Bay fig dappled in the inconstant sunlight today:

A scribbly gum and another:

 

just trees – a strip of manicured wilderness between roads and car parks, paperbarks and others:

 

in the university grounds as I hurried towards the lecture theatre – white trunk amidst intense green:

& this wonderful tree on the corner of a carpark:

 

& then it was time to go in, and after that?  Time to go to work.  No more trees till, maybe tomorrow.

& today, it rained.  A little.  Enough for me to make my students laugh as I ran outside to dance about in it.  In the middle of the city.  Oh dear 🙂  But it was such a relief after a cooler, though intensely humid day, and tonight, I will have to have a light blanket.  Much better than the 40 degree celsius of the two days before!

I hope you enjoyed my trees.  I enjoyed looking at them, and the activities of the two days 🙂

Out of MtLawleyShire – an afternoon at Matilda Bay

An afternoon too hot and time poor to wander too far, with the river unstill and sparkling in the endless sunlight.  But it was nice to stop for an hour, have a coffee with a dear friend, before we both went back to our respective work.

There were so many swans!  On the ground in front of me on the path I took towards the tea rooms.  They have very big feet!  The second of these swan photos (it’s the same swan) paused at the foot of something larger:

 

A large, graceful paperbark:

 

& its flower:

A plane tree, leaves burnt by the long heatwave, and the same damage can be seen in the leaves of the flame tree outside the tea rooms:

 

& this one: I am fascinated by its knobbly trunk and the way its branches have grown:

A cormorant on a post in the river & later I caught him just coming up from a dive:

 

Swans on the river:

 

 

I think this is the River family all grown up:

 

& sometimes the ubiquitous gull makes a statement: on the beach & against infinity:

 

There were ravens – the 2nd photo is definitely ‘quothing’:

 

The city from across the river: that infinite blue sky speaks of the heat:

 

Wider views towards the hills, with little bits of wind calligraphy & the long tidal ripples in the river:

 

 

Through the doorway of the tea rooms: it looks so invitingly green

         

My favourite cedar: foliage & trunk with a patch of sunlight:

 

Foliage:

& at work, in the small gardens on the corner of 2 busy roads: a bush with tiny white flowers – & a bug!

 

Finally, home later at night: the moon:

Hopefully, there will be a gradual cooling.  & hopefully next time I am there, I will have more time.

No sunset photos tonight, as the sky is clear, but I will be able to shoot the moon 🙂

I hope you enjoyed my little afternoon out before work.

some flowers in MtLawleyShire

I went for a wee walk this morning – & found flowers:  these looking like fluff atop a box tree

Bright red somethings against a bright blue sky:

a grevillea tucked away behind bars:

quintessential eucalyptus blossom – very May Gibbs‘ ‘Snugglepot and Cuddlepie‘:

 

A sliver of Mexican Rose – it’s so difficult to get these flowers in all their gorgeous deep pink:

& roses:

 

 

Finally, sunflowers: one in someone’s garden and the other in my study:

   

Hopefully, tomorrow, I shall post some trees…though I’m still learning about this camera…

Christmas Eve in MtLawleyShire

It was Christmas Eve.

More than that. it was goodbye to my little camera.  It had developed a problem in its sensor and was no longer very good with sunsets or images in other than bright light.

I took it on my walks that day and photographed petunias in my cousin’s garden

White Grevillea and wattle flowering over someone’s fence

 

a rose and more wattle

Grevillea flowering in the corner outside someone’s garden wall

 

and the red flowering gum, flowering like a Christmas tree

Sunset from my friend’s front garden: the creeping red an indication of the beginning of the heatwave due to start on Christmas Day

 

       

and on the way home: the glow behind the city and from outside my house

 

then into my courtyard:

 

It feels like stepping *inside* a Christmas tree 🙂

 

And this – the most special photo of them all: the moon on Christmas Eve and the last photo from my little camera.

Goodbye little Powershot sx120.  You taught me a lot.

I am sorry I have been so quiet.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas filled with light, laughter and joy.

Keira 🙂

Flowers mostly: a walk in a small part of Mt Lawleyshire

It’s a while since I’ve had the chance or time to just walk around, looking at flowers and trees.  Working nights and often days, I get no chance for taking sunset photos or any others!  It was mostly flowers.  The area I walked in – which is where I usually take sunsets – isn’t that big on trees – very sadly so as one of my favourite trees – a flame tree which I took many, many photos of earlier this year, a scant few months ago, has been chopped down.

It’s heartbreaking.  This is all that remains and leaving a terribly empty space.

 

It should’ve been like this:

  which gives a place for birds – feeding and shelter.  I will miss the flowers and birds next year.

On a happier not – box tree blossom which are so delicate compared with the trees themselves

and I don’t know what these flowers are, except they are very delicate:

These tiny things are very difficult to photograph and are from a bush just down the road from me.

I have no idea what these flowers are – coming from a bush with great long thin branches falling over a high stone wall.  They remind me of flame tree flowers, but they can’t be: it’s the wrong season and it’s not a tree.  But very similar in shape and colour.

 

This is pretty catching the sunlight

& these Jacaranda flowers – which survived the wind and storms, are highlighted against a wall:

Honeysuckle and frangipani added wonderful perfume to the warm air:

 

& this little singing honeyeater watched me as

I photographed these kangaroo paws in the wind in someone’s garden:

 

there were roses, but many were out of range.  But these were pretty and glowed in the afternoon light.

 

An usually coloured jasmine almost camouflaged against the brick wall

& one of these: I love these 🙂

This small bush intrigued me with its twisting branches:

& when I got home, a certain someone was tired of waiting and wanted dinnah!

I hope you enjoyed my little amble around the streets – except for the tree that is no more.

🙂

 

Still here in mtlawleyshire – some flowers & the moon

Oh my friends – I have missed you.  I have been so disciplined and have looked at your posts so quickly, and have not left messages on so many.

I am so sorry.

But after a few more months, I will have time to go back and go through them – which is always fun 🙂  And something best done when there si time to savour and comment.

So please forgive me.  You are not forgotten.

And now, I have so many photos to post!  Oh my goodness!.

I thought I would start with just these: shots of flowers I took as I walked down to Beaufort street – & the moon.  She was up early, and it took some doing but I managed to get this.  Not bad, I thought, with my little camera.

Now there are just all these flowers.

Roses:

 

 

 

Zygocactus.  They are finished now and the plants have returned to being odd, ugly straggly things of the shadows and dust and spiderwebs, but they were glorious in flower.  The red ones belong to someone’s garden I pass on my walk, the pink the last of mine.

 

 

 

a smattering of eucalypt blossom:

 

There was a whole tree of the red, but I couldn’t get a decent angle

and in my garden, a different type of flower – larger than dinner plates!

 

More coming 🙂 Including trees! Hyde Park.  Sunsets and storm clouds with some rainbows.  And probably my fattee cattee!

Keira

Quick post: flowers, cat & the aftermath of storm in MtLawleyShire

Yes, I am studying, but damn it – that flower is still flowering, my cat is still gorgeous and we (finally) had some rain – & a storm!

First, the zygocactus: I have tried for different angles, but it’s difficult and I’ve had varying success 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Not all the flowers are out yet, but there are enough now to take more than one flower in a photo:

 

Gum nuts on an old gum and another with lovely flowers

 

Daisies and a small white flower on a bush – highly perfumed.

 

a wall covered in brilliant orange-flowering creeper

Young trees in the car park. reaching up to sunset light – & the last one is a lemon-scented gum, young and lovely.

 

Sunset from Beaufort Street

Beaufort Street in sunset light & then the dark of evening

 

snatches of rainbow after the storm with its welcome rain

 

and sunset moving into the aftermath

& finally, 2 portraits of kitty – one made glossy by the strong sunlight (& she was full of purrs), the other – the dark hunter.  She was intent on a little lizard – & I caught the little lizard so saved it from her great plushie-paws.  She didn’t really mind 🙂

 

OK, back to study for me… 🙂

A quick trip to MtLawleyShire’s university

I had to drop off some books at the Mount Lawley campus of Edith Cowan University, where I’m doing my PhD, & on the way back to the carpark, saw some trees in flower.  Some were difficult to photograph as the flowers were very shiny & the sunlight was so bright, but hopefully this gives you an idea:

 

Others were lovely, the epitome of Australian gum tree blossom, though the tree itself is a strange one, very striking with the young branches and twigs white, like the gumnuts left behind after the flower had finished, the green leaves and dark trunks.

 

 

 

These are so newly opened they still have their caps on

There were other trees, but I had only a little time, so just this one with its height and intriguing bark:

 

and that’s all.  And I got to return my books before they were overdue 🙂