May Garden

Life's Little Mysteries #3

"Detective Di" has been on the job again! Here's the latest mystery package left at my front gate - a super-sized sports bag. The mystery lies not in what it contains - a full set of hockey gear, pads, face protection and crash helmet etc (sans name labels) - but in why it's still here 24 hours after I first spotted it.

Surely, if you were hauling this hulking great kit bag around you'd pretty easily realise when you stopped hauling it, wouldn't you?

I've phoned the school next door, where I think the owner probably goes (the girls are picked up after school by their parents outside my home), but the receptionist simply sighed and remarked on the scattiness of young people. With no name, she said, she could do nothing.

So here it sits, just inside my gate for safety, while I hope its owner will soon realise her/his loss and come to claim it.

... or I could take up hockey. After all, I have all the gear.

Late Note: I've just found a zippered package of pencils, pens and calculator on the front fence. No name again. I'm well on my way to a garage sale!

Mothers' Day

Look what the children and I made in creche this morning...a special surprise to take home.

Happy Mothers' Day to all the Mummies!

Life's Little Mysteries #2

How would you feel if you found this flower-studded cross, and the threatening note pinned to it, propped up outside your neighbour's gate?

[Identifiers are blanked out in these photos]

That's what happened to me last night. I was quite concerned for his safety, I can tell you, but held off contacting the police until, more than 12 hours later, I was finally able to contact my neighbour. It turned out that a friend with a warped sense of humour had played a practical joke on him (a quite expensive one judging by the quality and size of the cross-shaped floral tribute).

I was incredibly relieved, and he was rather embarrassed - but at least appreciated the fact that someone was concerned about him.

With a friend like that, who needs enemies?

A carpet of cheery autumn colour

A great day for a little stroll

This morning was one of those dazzling, crisp, sunny days that Sydney does so well and since I had to go to the city for the day I decided to walk.
These are some snaps I took of Hyde Park and its gardens in the morning sunshine.


I was undecided whether or not to walk home this afternoon, but decided to bite the bullet, and as usual, listening to my favourite quilters' podcaster Annie Smith on my ipod helped me cover the 3 km in no time.

This 'couch potato' is feeling soooooo virtuous tonight!

Scatterday M (with a Marine flavour) - Only 1 week late!

An afternoon spent with my two little godsons at the National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour last week provided the material for this Scatterday offering - with a little torturing and twisting of the language to make the photos fit requirements!

Our letter is M and the first category is MUSIC

I reckon the chiming of this mariner's clock, the ringing of these marine bells, and the songs on this CD entitled "Mariner" (photographed surreptitiously in the Museum Shop) would all be pretty musical sounds.

The next category is DANGEROUS THINGS

Here you have a selection of dangerous things from the ships - as well as Matthew who tried as hard as he could to look mean and dangerous for my photo! There is a manhole from a submarine (dangerous if left open when submerging), tall masts (dangerous if you had to climb the rigging in a stiff wind on the high seas), machinery, and gun muzzles.

The final category is COLD THINGS.

Here we have marine rations - cold salted pork - which had to last for months on the long journey from England to Australia. And the cold murky waters of Sydney Harbour. Actually they aren't murky at all, but being dark and in the shadow of the ships you couldn't see what lay beneath.