My Bright Field

Before tackling the garden weeds and pruning we decided to take a short break.  I think a little trip away in winter is perfect for beating winter blues and we don't have to venture far to be a few degrees warmer than at home.  Royal Hotel Warren We've set up camp in Gilgandra and, ever on the lookout for a new Royal Hotel to add to my Royal Collection , yesterday we took a drive in the rain to visit Warren. It was so lovely to be back out in big sky country and even better to see the crops nice and green and canola getting ready to flower.  Such a contrast to how things looked in the central west this time last year (see below).

This week the council weed inspectors came to Burnbrae garden.  I was actually starting the clean up when they called but I still had a very long way to go.  I ended up with so many pink ribbons marking weeds that you would reckon I was setting up a Breast Cancer Awareness garden party. They only tag the worst weeds like privet, holly, cotoneaster and blackberry, not the normal weeds like agapanthus, ivy, honeysuckle and wandering jew.  There are plenty of those in the garden too. One of the ones to go is the prostrate cotoneaster.  I loved its autumn colour but off it must go. However, the worst of all news is this full sized tree that shades the woodland path is a Portuguese Laurel, deemed a weed, and it will be  $1000+ plus job to get it removed.  The sad thing is it was a big as this when we moved here 30 years ago so must be 60-100 years old.  It has also passed several council weed inspections in the past.  The other thing is that unlike pri...

This week as I looked out my kitchen window at the bare branches of the walnut silhouetted against the lovely evening colour I thought about the various names for this enchanting time of day and when I learnt them. That's my kitchen cabinet reflected in the glass Sunset I don't remember when I first learnt this word but I transcribed the poem The Australian Sunrise by James Lister Cuthbertson into my school poetry anthology when I was 7 or 8 years old.  I still have that anthology. Eventide My first memory of this one was when the lovely white haired organist at church had a stroke and had to go into care.  She went to the Eventide Home at Sandgate in Brisbane.  I thought it was a nice name. Twilight As a child in Queensland I had no idea about twilight. Night just falls there, day one minute and night the next. When we went down south to Melbourne to visit my Mum's family we couldn't understand why we were being sent to bed when it was still daytime.  We were told ...

Cold, damp and dreary weather tends to wear down my cheerfulness even though I enjoy mysterious mist  or a winter's day with a book by a log fire provided the house is nice and warm. My free access to the Foxtel drama offerings has ended and I am pleased because I was watching too much TV along with being addicted to coronavirus news updates.  At last I can go back to reading. I am half way through reading Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of 20th Centry China  by Jung Chang. I enjoyed her previous book Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China which covered the story of her grandmother, mother and herself in Mao's China.  This book covers the extraordinary lives of three sisters who were each married to powerful men of the era and exerted much power in their own right. With China displaying much "discontent" with Australia at the moment I find it interesting to understand a little more of their history and motivations.