If you nibble my shoulder, I’ll nibble yours.
Adorable, yes?
These two were grazing at Lost World, a remote corner of Lamington National park.
Strangler Fig
Today, our New Year’s Day, was delicious.
Bowl of cherries for brekker. (Could only be improved by the addition of some King Island Dairy triple brie.. but you can’t have everything.)
A trip to Springbrook National Park to see the natural arch. (Here, it most definitely would have been improved if I’d brought my tripod, and someone to carry it! Must have groaned over not having it about.. oh.. a hundred times.)
Being in the Gold Coast vicinity, we hit the beach. About half an hour of the beach completely fulfils my beachy needs, and I left Mr BB and the crowd, to read my non-school fluffy chic lit book and eat slightly melty Lindt.
That, bloggy friends, is a perfect start to the year.
Hope yours is as glorious. 
Door in the Window
I have a fancy for old, dilapidated buildings. I don’t know what it is.. maybe it’s the way you can feast your imagination on the history of them. But whatever it is, I can’t go past one.
What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?
It’s really Mr BB, of course, but he has his wolfish moments.
We spent Saturday at a Regency Garden Party and Grand Spring Ball. (Yes! Another! Girly followers will be able to read about it on Beyondbluestockings..um… eventually.)
And this one is for my little friend, SK: my daughter, the same age as you. 
Incognito Tea Drinking
The art of drinking tea is clearly acquired, rather than innate. Because I can assure you that neither of the mothers of these two petals drink tea in quite this fashion.
Who’s at Home?
It’s a possum.
He’s right where he belongs*.
He is in an old termite nest, high in a gum tree. Last year it contained nesting kookaburras. I dearly wanted to peek in then, never having seen baby kookaburras, but kookaburras have deadly beaks.
The possum, however, could be mild-mannered. So I dragged, with the help of my intrepid mother, an extension ladder across the paddock at her house. She very bravely tried to steady the ladder while I attempted the necessary acrobatics to get a shot using manual focus – which of course means no hands on the ladder. It is a very wavery business when you are at the upper limit of a tall ladder, and the ground is a long, long way away.
After I took the shot, I told my Mama that I was going to try to touch the bundle of fur facing me. I had no idea how it would respond, so gave Ma strict instructions that should the camera and I come tumbling down in a hurry from our great height, she was to catch the camera. Being the sage woman she is, she told me in her most enduringly patient mother voice that it would make more sense to pass the camera back down before bearding the possum in his den. Mothers are so practical. :)
The possum took the petting with good graces. I’ve always asserted that possums are very high on cute factor.**
*By definition, “belongs” means anywhere but my ceiling!
** When they are not living, or worse, dead, in my ceiling.
At the Helm
We’ve been to see the HMB Endeavour replica ship. For those of you who read my Beyond Bluestockings blog, I want you to observe how carefully I am avoiding all pirate speak. Of course, it’s a waste, a shocking waste of opportunity, but.. I resist. :P
Resist. or get dirty.
This shot, with its imperfect focus, is not .. perfect. But see that wildly distorted background? I was hanging out the window of a 4WD while it was bouncing and sliding down a gully on a washed out mud track. It happened that the butterfly was on the wing beside us, and I couldn’t resist going for a shot.
Have you been four-wheel driving in the mud and wet… with the window down?
Don’t.
Not even if a butterfly keeps pace and you have an irresistible urge to shoot it on the fly.
‘Night, ‘Night.
These bees are all boys. They don’t sleep in holes, as the girls do, but cluster on a branch over night. While most of them held still (just a few restless souls among them) it was no place for a tripod, so I had to use a flash. The result is that you can’t see how delightfully blue their stripes are.
They hang on to the branch by their jaws.
My Country
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains
Of ragged mountain ranges
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!
Little of Australia’s landscape could ever be described as ‘pretty’, but I find a beauty in the harshness of the bush, and can’t go past trees with this array of texture.
Swamped
There are guppies swimming in the transit centre, in the middle of the city. (Which is preferable to a bull shark, or a plague of snakes…)
Blue Skies
It seems incongruous that it’s hot and sunny today. One third of the city is under water, people’s belongings are floating in the streets, but it’s hot and sunny. Thank God for small mercies.
Pastoral
We’ve been in the country. Deep in the country.
If you don’t count the extensive flooding, and waking to the sound of cows licking the windows at 5am each day, it was a lot of fun. No, really it was. I like the country a lot. Cows… not so much.
Hope you all had a restful time over the break, and that 2011 will be a blessed time of new beginnings.
Koala Love
Here’s something cute; it’s wildlife with no stinky story attached.
Strictly outdoors.
Never to come indoors.
Ever.
