RIP Walter T. Pigeon

I woke this morning to find Walter, legs in the air and as stiff as a board. After wrapping him in kitchen towel I walked though the garden humming before placing him in his final resting place.


Walter the pigeon came to me in the third week of December as a teenager that had fallen from his nest. His parents were not around, so I took him home. He had no feathers on his tail or back. He lived in my laundry basket for a week or so before I put together an aviary over the Christmas break. He loved his new home…its floor was shell grit, he had pigeon mix and a water bath. He was happy and chirpy. Then he started losing weight. I was informed he had coccidiosis and nothing could be done.

Had I left him on the corner of Forveax and Elizabeth Streets, it’s highly likely he would have died then, but hopefully I was able to give him a few extra days of a happy life.

Bonnie Would be Proud

- 7.54pm
- 8.36pm - you can see the stars to the right if you look close

- 9.25pm - 9.46pm
- 10.41pm

There was a total eclipse of the moon. The technical details are all in Eastern Standard Time. I tried to take a few pictures but mucked it up by allowing to great an exposure so a couple are a bit hazy, but you get the general idea.

5:53 - Penumbral eclipse begins (Moon begins to dim, very slightly, as the Sun begins to shine through our Earth's atmosphere)

6:51 - Partial eclipse begins (curvature of the Earth becomes visible on the Moon)

7:52 - Total eclipse begins

8:37 - Greatest eclipse

9:22 - Total eclipse ends

10:23 - Partial eclipse ends

11:21 - Penumbral eclipse ends (Moon gets bright again)

Tour Guide Extraordinaire - Day One

After the late night/early morning on Friday I was kinda glad I had agreed to meet my sister and her hubby at 12.30 in the lobby of their hotel in the Rocks. I wasn’t hungover but I was feeling tired and really like I wanted to have a day in bed. But family called and I answered.

I haven’t seen my sister H for over seven years. In that time she has divorced, met and new fella (C) and married him and lost her eldest son to the disease that made him sick his whole life. So to be truthful I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but I planned to show them some of Sydney and generally catch up.

We started, in grand British tradition with a cuppa tea and a light lunch. I have to confess to not really remembering what we talked about, but it was lovely and we did decide that we would make the trip over to Manly on the ferry. On the ferry over we talked about B (her son) and how I hadn’t called her because I knew she didn’t need one more person saying ‘sorry’. She understood and said the card I had sent had meant a lot and all the cards and flowers had been buried under a pergola at the bottom of her garden.

Upon our arrival in Manly I introduced H to Copenhagen Ice-cream, with a double scoop of Strawberry and Maple Macadamia I gave her the mission of finishing it before we reached the other end of the Corso. It was Hot on Saturday and as soon as we stepped out of air conditioned shop the ice-cream did it’s best to melt away. By the time we had reached the Beach and far end of the Corso, H had melted, sticky ice-cream covering her hand and down to her elbow. She admitted to having never seen even her children get so messy. The blue-bottles (jellyfish) in the water meant that she and C had to paddle in a tiny hole I dug that filled with water. But they got to stand in water on Manly Beach, so they were happy.

A walk took us to another beach (Delwood) were C sat and had a cigarette and watched while H and I went looked in Rock Pools. The ferry trip back to the city was more chatting and the start of sunset over the bridge and Opera House.

We had dinner at Doyles on the Quay. H and C both tried Sydney Rock oysters for the first time. I don’t think they will go out of their way to eat them in the future, but they didn’t spit them out. We drank some nice 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon from the Coonawarra while we ate and chatted more. We reminisced about our childhood, shared gossip and opinion about our sisters and laughed about the incident with the ice-cream earlier. We even spoke about B but I had to change the subject when she started to look wet in the eyes. C looked on and said several times, 'it's good to finally met you', 'you sound just like your mum' and 'you haven't seen each other for years'.

I saw them to their hotel and agreed to meet them again at ten on Sunday. I walked home thinking about how a mother should never have to see her child die.

(541 words)

Just Shocking!

After a brief stop at the shops on the way home tonight, Hubby and I were driving north with a few lightning strikes going off somewhere in the distance to the left of us. As we continued north the frequency of the lightning increased, but it was still off to the left. When we turned of the freeway (to the left) we started heading towards it.

‘It’s miles away, no problem.’ My hubby stated as I continued to drive.

‘Ohh, that one was close.’ A few minutes later as I recover my eyesight from the flash bulb that went off in front of me.

‘You know, if the car was struck by lightning, the electric circuits would fry, the power steering would fail and the hydraulics of the brakes would stop working,’ he said several more miles into the trip, but still twenty minutes from home.

As I continued to drive, I leaned closer to the steering wheel, I’m not sure how it helped, but the stress levels in the car seemed to rise as the hairs on my arms did from the ionisation of the air. Several times the lightning was close enough to cause momentary blindness, and with 30-40 strikes a minutes it was less than comfortable.

Now…I’ve always liked lightning (for those of you who don’t already know it, I’m a bit odd!), but my experience tonight has taught me, driving towards it and amongst it, isn’t much fun!

When we finally got home, the strikes had eased somewhat, but I had to risk standing the minimal rain and try to get a picture to prove my tale. Out of nearly 600 (thank god for digital) I got six pictures.

Enjoy them ;-).

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Shed your Skin

I’ve been a bit quiet since the whole NYE thingy-me-bob. Partially ‘cause I haven’t had anything positive to say, partially ‘cause I’ve been a bit busy trying to get out another Newsletter, despite being firmly in the ‘I don’t give a flying f*ck’ camp after all the calendar fuss back in November.

As you see...not a lot of positive stuff. Anyway, I was sat at the PC tonight, doing said newsletter stuff when Harry decided to supervise from the picture frame above and to the left of the monitor. I don’t have a problem with side-plate sized spiders, so I left him to it.

I looked up a while later and I realised he had been growing and was taking off the old restrictive skin to reveal the new shiny skin underneath.

I’ve decided to do the same...New Years is gone, I’m alive and as healthy as I’m going to be. The Summer issue is nearly finished and it looks sh*t hot, so moaning minnies, bring it on! The old skin has been shed, my new skin looks kinda groovy in cut off jeans shorts and I'm liking it.


UPDATED : 11.31pm 11th Jan 2007 - Huge Hairy Harry (aka Huntsman) - the spider is in the bottom of the picture, the old, shed skin is above.

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