On Isabel's Children leaving for Abroad

Whispering winds what do you tell
Where are the children gone?
To lands across the seas they go
far, far away and left us all alone.

We wish them great adventures
and many tales to tell
we wish them kindness on their way
and safety where they dwell.

Someday we hope they will return
to stay a while again
we'll be the roots they sprang from
the rest from wind and rain
when all their dragons have been slain
we'll wait for them no more in vain.



Isabel, they will be back again soon though not unchanged.
You may like 'The Nest is Empty ' Sept.2008 in my archive.

SkyWatch ~ 44 .The Wide Open Sky.

I give you a lovely blue sky, but from where I stand,




a terrifying one as well. Are we being sucked
out into inter-galactic space?



First the clouds, then perchance the cattle and the
farm to follow....what is left for me to cling to?



Thank goodness, this time it did not quite happen
and we got this sunset later in the day instead.



Scaredy-cat here was worried that the sky would go
up in smoke instead.

To enjoy more promising skies, click on the Logo and fly.

A big thank you to Klaus and our ever vigilent SkyWatch
Team for keeping this wonderful meme going.

Inspiration Wednesday

Is inspiration that which has accompanied us through
life and given us solace or is it drawn from the pebbles
we have picked up along the way? For me it has probably
been both. The one peg I can always hang my hat on is
light in all its glorious forms, beating down on us like a
sledge hammer or just the merest whisp of starlight
drifting down from a cloudy midnight sky. The stark light
of the first rays of the sun disguising the normal colour palette
of the landscape



or the last afterglow on a twilit world. Refracted light
from ice clouds, rainbows in the sky or in a dewdrop
on a blade of grass. Light in all its forms, including its
total absence I find an inspiration for creativity, be it
painting or throwing a pot, with light defining its shape.
The same applies to sculpture, light lends form.

When I was thrown in head first into the English

language at the age of 13 and had to learn it by myself

in a foreign country by being dropped into school at

mid-year just two weeks before exams, never having

studied Latin and faced with translating from one

unknown language into another, I was rather proud to

achieve my 3%! It took some 3-4 months for me to raise

my head above water and, with the help of L.M. Montgomery

and Anne's love of long words as well as the sea stories of

Joseph Conrad, both found in the school library, I gained

the first building blocks, later to be augmented by G.B.Shaw,

Shakespear, Oscar Wilde and all the other classics. At one

time the Oxford Book of English Verse was my constant

companion with Chaucer in the original as bedtime reading.

On the other side of the path I gathered up James Thurber,

O'Henry, Mark Twain, Steinbeck and the delightful Ogden

Nash. You can tell that my pockets were rather weighed

down by this time and yet there was room in them for a

like compendium of German Literature as well as my

Latvian heritage.....and then came the Australian Poets:

Henry Lawson, Banjo Patterson and all the others.

All these pebbles have been rubbed to a well loved shine

and are a part of me. Should you ask me who the most

inspirational person in my life has been, there can only be one

and that is my wonderful mother who kept what was left of

our family together through flight and famine and emigration,

could write a sonnet whilst cooking a meal, worked hard

all her life and remained a true philosopher and inspiration

not just to me but others of my generation who recently,

20 years after her death still wrote articles about her smile

and tolerance which have affected their lives as well.

The Weaver of Grass suggested we write of our inspiration,

never having thought about if much before, it was also a revalation

to me. Click on Weaver to visit other stories.

WATERY WEDNESDAY ~ 11 and BIRDPHOTOGRAPHY WEEKLY ~ 19

All photos enlarge for better viewing.



Little Pied Cormorants drying off after their sunrise
breakfast



and doing a bit of preening.



Sunrise glow on the water under the jetty the birds
are sitting on.

To see more birds or water, click on the respective Logos.

Thanks to 2sweetnsaxy for Watery Wednesday
and thanks to Birdfreak for Birdphotography Weekly.

MY WORLD ~ 36 Cuckoo Clocks in Omeo

In the small, historic Victorian country town of Omeo,
on the road to Mt.Hotham's ski slopes (see previous My
World post) is this charming giftware shop.




It draws its name from the wares it sell and is called
The Cuckoo Clock's.
Designed in warm timber with spacious display rooms
it is a delight to visit, browse and pick up some memento
of your trip.



All items are of high standard and quality with genuine,
beautifully carved cuckoo clocks from the Black Forest
and Alps of Germany that can lighten your purse or put
quite a dent in your credit card, to souveniers of linen
tea towels with Strudel recipes.




On the hour or even more frequently one hears the
plaintive cuckoo's call echoing from all sides. No longer
a mechanical device, but recordings of the real thing.



A little kitch, but even here the discerning eye of
Leonie Pendergast, the proprietress is felt as this little
crystal tea-pot shows, a little bling but well shaped and
made.



A beautiful display case full of personal ornaments



Decorator items galore take advantage of natural
as well as electric light



and general eye candy everywhere. In the background
is one of the display cases and the picture windows
overlooking the garden and down hill, the main street of town.



A closer look at the pretties on display.
A selection of real Venetian masks,

coloured crystal,

also of beautiful cut crystal,

and for the more macabre minded, some witches

flying around a mobile. Again, an imaginative way
to display these delightful ladies.

Sorry , this one uploaded itself twice and I could

not find a way to delete it.

Click on photos to enjoy the details.

To Klaus and the Team, as always, my thanks.

TODAY'S FLOWERS ~ 24 Flowers in a Bare Winter Garden

Mid-winter and the nights are full of frost
but after years of drought and now a little rain,
it seems not all is lost.



I went out to the garden, to see what I cloud see
I spied a little Almond bud upon an Almond tree




and Crabapples were blooming though winter cold is here




a Pansy and a Hyacinth,





a little Rosebud dear

some Cyclamen

and Snowflakes

Geranium as well

and in the shadehouse corner a Jacob's Ladder fell
like pearls strung on a necklace with tiny flowers strewn

that mingled their sweet perfume

with that of grass new mown

Just when I thought how wonderful

the presents it bestowed

a lone Anemone smiled up

nodded its head and shyly bowed

Precursors of the Spring to come
the welling tide they promise,
but just for now I am content
with what the heav'ns to me have sent.

Click on the red Rose Logo for a world of flowers.

A hug to my friend Luiz Santilli Jr. and the Team he has

enlisted to to give us this joy of sharing flowers.

Jonquils at Cair Paravel

Jonquils on this field of old
from a tiny bulb unfold
that some poor hard working wife
planted here to ease her life



Cair Paravel we call it now
to us a ruined castle bold
yet held it in some bygone time
a woman's love of place untold



She tried her best in barren waste
to make a homely garden grow
survivours of her toil stil cling
upon this little rise of saline soil



The Jonquils, Garlic, Periwinkle blue
have struggled here an hundred years
and fifty more and still
as they did long ago
gladden us and swell our hearts
with thanks to this starved soul
for these few links at hand
she had of comfort and remembrance
of her native land.

SkyWatch ~ 43 'Only Five Minutes More'

Here are five minutes more of the same sunrise
I showed you last week. Please enlarge to enjoy.

4.38am a beautiful pale gold sunrise giving no
indication of what was to come



4.40am the first colour tinging the clouds above



4.41am a fire kindles in the sky and starts rising
to the clouds overhead



abating a little to reveal the pale blue beyond



mixing the colour palette from golds through blues
to reds and purples



to finally tip a whole bucket full of red fire accross
the sky above me and all around.

The experience was totally awe inspiring,

like a rain of curling, swirling fire!

the Logo will take you to other skies of wonder.

To Klaus and the SkyWatch Team, where would we be without you?

BIRDPHOTOGRAPHY WEEKLY ~ 18 and WATERY WEDNESDAY ~ 10

Autumn at the Ovens River at Porepunka, Victoria



For best viewing, all photos can be enlarged.
A tiny Silvereye, Zosterops lateralis, thinking
about his morning ablutions in the cold river water.



and enjoying the unshine while it still lasts.



A common House Sparrow below posing on an autumn
tinted Birch twig



and a bridge over untroubled water, although rather
treacherously slippery and troublesome in itself, that
leads nowhere in particular, just making access through
the bush a little easier to the river further up stream.



The above photos were all taken on one of our autumn
interstate holidays.

Click on either Logo at right to see many more wonderful
birds and waters around the world.

Thanks to Birdfreak and 2Sweetandsaxy for these two memes.