Sunday Selections # 406

Skipping the intro blurb because my mind is all over the place with changes that are going on here:

every year Elephant's Child goes to see the Floriade show and buys a few fridge magnets to send to people who would like one. I always put my hand up 

and here is my collection

from a little bit further away, see those teeny tiny stars on my fridge?

here's a close-up. They are pastel coloured, gold edged and no more than a quarter of an inch (5-6mm) across at the widest point. They also glow in the dark!

I've been looking for more of these for years but can't find them anywhere. Anybody know of any?

I bought these about 16 years ago.

during our contaminated strawberry scare, I began buying strawberries anyway, because I always cut them up, but there were some odd shapes in my punnet. (other people reported odd shapes too)

Angel wings..

and this, a smaller angel perhaps?

Fruchocs are a favourite sweet in Australia, peach&apricot fruit centres dipped in chocolate, recently a strawberry variety was introduced.

Notice at the top of the pack, tiny white lettering that says "Tear here" to open of course,

at the bottom of the pack is this delightful message. The strawberry pack has a different message but I can't remember what it said.

finishing now with dinner, home made burger patty and a salad. 

Wednesday's Words on a Friday

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along and read it.

This month the words are supplied by Elephant's Child and can be found here.

This week's words are:

1. peel
2. justify
3. wall
4. employee
5. temperature
6. roll

and/or:

1. volume
2. revenge
3. fraud
4. explain
5. weak
6. vague

Here is my story:

The full volume of his voice roared through the factory floor. “Fraud? Who dares to call me a fraud!?”

He pointed to an employee quivering in his seat. “Peel yourself off that chair and explain to me why I am a fraud!”

The employee stood against the wall and tried to explain in a way that wouldn’t cause the temperature in the already hot room to rise any further.

“Well sir,” he began, “you look like the rest of us, you did a good job with that, but you are still quite, ummm, different.”

A glare from the Alien had him wishing he could just walk right through the wall and run home as fast as he could.

“Keep talking,” the Alien said. “I would learn where I went wrong so I can do better!”

“It’s little things mostly,” said the employee. “We aren’t as pink as you probably learned and some of us are other colours, like brown or even black.”

“Like this?” said the Alien as patches of his skin began to change colour.

“Well, yes,” said the employee, “but none of us are all colours at once. For instance a brown person is brown all over, a black person is black all over, some of us white people have very white skin and some of us are pink where the sun touches our skin and some of us turn light brown from sunshine.”

“Light brown?” said the Alien. “What is light brown?”

Another employee spoke up, “like a weak shade of regular brown, like me, I’m light brown, it’s called tan and in the cold months my skin goes back to white because there is not enough sunshine.”

“This is all very vague,” said the Alien. “I begin to think my instruction was not properly done.”

“That’s right,” said yet another employee, emboldened by the fact the first two hadn’t been blasted to smithereens or whatever these Aliens do to enemies.

“We don’t have wheels on our feet to roll around on, like you do.”

“But I’ve seen them!” roared the Alien, who didn’t seem to be able to lower his voice at all.

“What you’ve seen are what we call skates,” said the third employee. “They are wheels attached to boots that we then put on our feet to roll around. We don’t wear them all the time and certainly not to work.”

“Anything else?” roared the Alien.

A timid girl behind him spoke up,” you presented yourself as Mr Mulholland, that’s our boss, but I think you didn’t see him before you manifested yourself here. Mr Mulholland isn’t as tall as you and not round like you either. He is short and thin and wears glasses to be able to see properly.”

“So I have many mistakes that I must correct before I can call myself human?” asked the Alien. “My teachers have led me wrong. Perhaps they thought to “play a joke” as you humans sometimes do. I shall return to Isotopiapalooza and plan my revenge on them. They will be begging to justify their actions.”

Sunday Selections # 405

Welcome back to Sunday Selections.

Begun way back in the mist of time by Kim of Frog Ponds Rock and now continued by me, with a drastic relaxation of rules.

Originally meant for showcasing old photos lost on your files, never seeing the light of day, the meme has morphed into photos of your choice, new or old, good or not-so-good, anything you please, but nothing rude please.

If you are participating, please leave me a comment so I can buzz along and have a look.
Elephant's Child always participates, and her pictures are always worth seeing.

Back in the garden again, a different type of aeonium, smaller and lighter than the black I showed you last week, which is also in this photo just on the left, the darker longer leaves. This area is almost entirely aeoniums

a cascade of green

my mint is doing very well, I must remember to pick and dry some before the earwigs get it

the hoya is recovering after being neglected most of the year, shiny new leaves popping out all over

the white geranium has been chewed by something, probably earwigs, they're quite plentiful this spring

my catmint is also doing well, in spite of the pot being home to an ant nest. I'm currently trying to dry some of this to fill my daughters catmint tube, for Missy to play with. Lola just gets fresh cut sprigs with the stems a little crushed to release the scent, she rolls around in it, rubs her face on it, chews it a bit.

I have a new windspinner, this one is plastic, the others were fabric stretched over wing shapes, I hope this one lasts a bit longer. Eventually, I'll save some $$ and get bigger metal ones. Little kids walking by with their grandma love these.

I planted some red yarrow, but haven't watered it enough, it's struggling a bit, but hanging in there

I also planted some dill, I love the scent of this on a hot summer day and eventually hope this spreads through the bare patches via self-seeding. it should bring plenty of bees.

Right now though, there is nothing to see, the feathery foliage has been eaten down to the ground by something, so I placed an empty soft drink bottle over where the roots are/were and I hope it will recover.

How's your garden growing?

Wednesday's Words on a Friday

It's 6:37pm on Thursday and I've got nothing in mind. I've been out all day and most of yesterday too, so let's just see what happens with these words....

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along and read it.

This month the words are supplied by Elephant's Child and can be found here.

This week's words are:

1. enclosing

2. purpose

3. care

4. patch

5. jamming

6. shame

and/or:

1. bent

2. organic

3. mangle

4. textbook

5. gravity

6. excuse

Here we go>>>

give me a minute, I'm thinking......

and eating. 

Home made hot chips (fries), homemade burger patty, (no bun) and a side of hot slaw, which is just coleslaw vegetables stir-fried instead of mixed with coleslaw dressing.

You're all hungry now, right? Ha Ha

God's Observation Deck 4

Pushing through the star-spangled door and passing through the spacious room beyond, God stepped out onto his observation deck. A huge enormous deck from which he could magically see just about everything.

"Ah, Peter, thought I'd find you here," said God. "Seeing anything interesting down there?"

"I've been watching the Williams family," said Peter. "Michelle's mum has a bumper crop of organic apples this year and she's making apple sauce and apple pies."

"Seems like they've turned things around since they switched their little patch to permaculture."

"hmm," said Peter. "all that mulching and the nutrient from the worm farm have helped a lot. Elaine thinks she may be able to sell some of the apple sauce at the Farmer's Market this year."

"She probably can," said God, "but what's all that ruckus at the back of the house?"

"That's Michelle," said Peter. "Elaine has told her there'll be no apple pie for dessert if she doesn't clean up her room, so Michelle is jamming as much as she can into the closet and hoping it will stay there. A shame really, if she only sorted it all properly, she'd see that most of it is rubbish, old school papers and stuff. She's only going to have to do it all again when Elaine finds out." 

"How about I put a hold on the closet door for a while, just until tomorrow, so Michelle gets some apple pie." said God. 

Peter said, "That doesn't seem like the best idea you ever had. If she gets away with it this time, she'll just keep trying it instead of properly cleaning her room."

"That's true," said God, "but it's apple pie!"

"I think you're ignoring the gravity of the situation," said Peter. "On the other hand, Michelle did help that old woman at the supermarket yesterday."

"What happened there?" said God. "I missed that."

"You remember Claudette Simmons with the badly bent back? The osteoporosis one. She was having trouble pushing her walker across the carpark area and Michelle helped her. She said Claudette should sit on the seat part, then she pushed her to the Community Bus and helped her with her bags as well."

"Hmmm, " said God. "We'll do the closet door thing, and send Michelle a dream message, where her closet bursts open and her bed gets covered in mangled old textbooks."

"That should work nicely," said Peter. 'Do you think we can talk Mary into making us some apple pies?"

"I'd leave Mary alone for a while. She's in a bit of a snit. She asked John had the younger Angels finished enclosing the duck pen, because she wants to collect the feathers for new wings this year, and John had some lame excuse that I didn't quite hear."

"What's up with John lately anyway?" said Peter. "He seems to have lost all purpose, just wanders around like he doesn't care about anything."

"I think I'll go and have a talk with him," said God. 

Sunday Selections # 404

Welcome back to Sunday Selections.

Begun way back in the mist of time by Kim of Frog Ponds Rock and now continued by me, with a drastic relaxation of rules.

Originally meant for showcasing old photos lost on your files, never seeing the light of day, the meme has morphed into photos of your choice, new or old, good or not-so-good, anything you please, but nothing rude please.

If you are participating, please leave me a comment so I can buzz along and have a look.
Elephant's Child always participates, and her pictures are always worth seeing.

Let's see how my garden is doing:

surviving a winter and spring of neglect, things are looking pretty good out there

this very dark red pelargonium is doing quite well, the buds open almost black and become more red when fully open. The flowers look very velvety. For a long while I thought it was going to die. It still is very spindly, but well enough now to take cuttings from at the end of summer. I'm glad no one has decided to rip a stem off this one.

the purple one is going gangbusters, even showing up through the stems of the neighbouring jade. A piece did get stolen from this, but the bush is so well established it doesn't matter quite so much.

this small echeveria is looking a little leggy, I suspect it has outgrown its pot and needs something a little larger, but not until the heat of summer is over. Then I'll put it in something wider and taller so the donkey tail you see hanging over the pot has more room to hang.

this black aeonium was a single stem when planted and now has 8 heads after only two years

everything old is new again...this was a tarnished metal with a rusted chain which eventually broke and I found it on the ground. It used to hang on the awning frame where I could see it from my window.

cleaned and painted, with new chain and added beads, it now hangs in the garden area.

the one surviving ranunculus, there is a dead head off to one side, but I didn't notice that one flowering. The freesias have finished, also the bluebells, starflowers and the Ixias which we didn't get to see, because they leaned so far down into the other greenery I barely saw a single flower stem. I have an idea how to fix that next year.

this is the other end of the garden where I have a mix of black and green aeoniums.

More next week 😃

Wednesday's Words on a Friday

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along and read it.

This month the words are supplied by Margaret and friend and can be found here.

This week's words are: 

1. sully
2. chagrin
3. funambulist
4. heavy
5. lowering
6. sand

and/or:

1. ablutions
2. wasting
3. saucy
4. perpetual
5. moonstruck
6. cigar

here is my story:

(With apologies to Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files and the characters Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.)

(singsong voice) “Scully, don’t you sully, my reputation…”

“Mulder, there you are, I’ve been looking everywhere,” said Scully

“Well I’ve been right here, singing, dancing, having a great time.”

“Mulder, you’re skipping along the top of a brick wall, what on earth are you doing?”

“Don’t you recognise this Scully?” said Mulder “I’m a funambulist, and the trick to it is keeping in perpetual motion, otherwise you’ll fall.”

“Mulder, you’re not making any sense, you’re even scaring me a little bit. What’s going on?” said Scully.

“I’ve been feeling fantastic ever since that doctor injected me. I have no idea what it was he gave me, because I thought I’d better escape while I had the chance, but I’ve been feeling like a carefree kid.”

“How did you manage to escape anyway?” said Scully. “The police had this place surrounded for hours and couldn’t find a way in. They decided it was empty and left.”

“I don’t know,” said Mulder. “All I know is I was running away from him and he cornered me in the ablutions block and as he stabbed me with the needle, my elbow flew up and broke his nose. So I jumped out the nearest window and here I am. What is this place anyway?”

“It’s the old mental hospital, supposed to be empty since it closed twenty years ago,” said Scully. “Now stop wasting time and get down off that wall.”

Mulder stopped skipping around and sat on the wall instead. “I’m suddenly feeling very heavy,” he said, lowering himself to the sand that separated the wall from the road. He lay down and looked skywards where the full moon beamed down at him. “Look at that Scully,” he said. “I’ve been moonstruck.” Mulder then rolled over as if to fall asleep. “I’m so tired,” he murmured.

“Mulder, you can’t sleep now, we have to get you to a proper hospital.” Scully wrapped her arms around him and tried to help him to his feet. “Ah Scully, you saucy wench. I knew you couldn’t wait to get your hands on me,” he said.

“Stop that crazy talk Mulder and get up on your feet. We need to get you to the hospital so we can find out what you’ve been injected with and get you sobered up,” said Scully.

Mulder struggled to walk with Scully’s help and they made it to the car. She strapped him in and began the drive to the hospital. Along the way, Mulder started singing a nonsense ditty about cigar smoking aliens, before suddenly falling asleep and snoring loudly.

To Scully’s enormous chagrin, she found herself smiling at his sleeping form. He was her best friend and she was relieved that he had managed to escape. Perhaps when he woke he could tell them more about that weird Doctor and what he thought he was doing with his experiments.

I AM FURIOUS! and a little heartbroken

On Saturday 27th, I went to the local market with my neighbour V and I bought a pretty pelargonium.

I'd had one in this colour once before, but it died.

On Sunday, 28th, I planted it

this morning I went to the city to buy a few Christmas gifts and when I got home, I found this>>>

someone ripped off and stole the flowering stem!

with several other stems to choose from, they took the flowers 😢😢

This is the last straw. I am never going to plant another thing in that garden.