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No Flight Risk

I really don’t like flying. I like being there, but not the getting there part. International friends should rest easy in the knowledge that if they invite me to their place, I am unlikely to visit. My reluctance to get on a plane is rather convenient because aviation contributes 2.5 percent of global carbon emissions. As aviation affects the concentration of gases and pollutants in the atmosphere, it contributes 3.5 percent to warming (see here). Nevertheless as an isolated country far from global markets, Australia is dependent on air transport.

In truth I would like my children to travel, both for their own pleasure but also because you can learn much about the world and other cultures through travel. If my kids fly with Qantas in future, they won’t be travelling on one of the Boeing 747 400 series planes. These planes were retired in 2020. This is the last one leaving Australia for the plane graveyard in the Mojave desert, California. I watched that plane fly over my house. It flew low and slow and seemed to hang in the air. My True Love (TL) was at our local park with his camera and he snapped this photo as it passed overhead.

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The Changing Seasons – March 2021

Canberra (national capital of Australia) – March in satire. The empathy, or something, flows.

[This post contains material of a satirical nature. International readers should feel free to concentrate on the photos and disregard the sub-text.]

Spat in our eye then unleashed tears they learnt to cry in empathy training.

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The Light Of Day

I recently remarked that I live in, and for, the shadows. Perhaps this is because I am a night owl. However, much to my surprise, I actually managed to rise and shine before dawn this morning. The reason for this was that my insulin pump’s battery ran out at 5am. It could not have happened at a better time as it was Canberra Day today and Skywhale and Skywhalepappa were scheduled to make their first joint appearance. Now my husband took some convincing that we should go and see this spectacular event, because we don’t do photography for the masses. We are too up ourselves for that. Just joking. Better to sound like an idiot than admit you can’t get out of bed in the morning. However, get up we did and the outing was totally worth the sacrifice. I took a photo to honour this occasion. Coincidentally, it was the last photo I needed to embark on a photographic journey of a hypothetical day for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge on natural light.

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The Changing Seasons – February 2021

Summer ends in the national capital, Canberra (Australia) – Clean air, clean water, good nutrition, shelter and safety; the essentials of life in the national capital, the rest of Australia and globally. I do think about these issues quite a lot. February was no exception.

It has been a grey, often wet and windy end to summer in the national capital. The sun has shone too but it hasn’t really had any bite to it like it has in recent years. Thank goodness, I say. Who needs that howling inferno we had last year. However, we know the clement weather is temporary so we enjoy it while we can.

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Last Photo On My Phone – January 2021

My version of note-taking on my Kindle. Since these are someone else’s words, it would be inappropriate not to mention the name of the book and the author. The book is The Sweet Hills of Florence by Jan Wallace Dickinson. I will have more to say about this book later. Why not read it and join in the conversation.

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The Changing Seasons – January 2021

Mid-summer, Canberra (Australia) – Incidents and grass aplenty, as well as much catatonic lounging.

I suppose if you want a quiet life you wouldn’t have pets, children or partners. You certainly wouldn’t have Covid and all the stress and interruption to life that involves. Thankfully there has been an absence of Covid in Canberra over January, otherwise how would we have dealt with all the medical appointments and emergencies. Carefully, I guess.

I don’t suppose my True Love (TL) and I would have gotten out of bed before noon during January if it weren’t for the week of doggy diarrhoea from the red dogs, followed by days of hospital visits to take our other dog (Makea) from the emergency vet (for nighttime care) to our regular vet (for daytime care) and back again, then repeat. Meanwhile, the vegetable garden continued to need tending despite the veggies refusal to grow. Rainy, grey days put a dampener on the veggie patch. Our pumpkin vines have not produced a single pumpkin and many tomatoes have split as a result of the last downpour. The most delicious looking tomatoes have been consumed by hungry rodents. However, the grass is green and nearby dams are full so that is something. As the month ends, all is well.

January was all about small pleasures and golden waves, and making photos when the sun finally shone.

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Up Close And Personal

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – It’s A Small World and Ragtag Daily Prompt – Assignment.

Guest host of this week’s Lens-Artists challenge, Anne Sandler, has invited photographers to focus on the small things and she has provided a number of useful tips for macro/micro and close-up photography. Thanks, Anne. Unfortunately, I got carried away and so I might not have stuck strictly to the brief, preferring once more to go with arty-farty rather than teeny weeny. Thankfully my True Love had something up his … oh, never mind!

I have redeemed myself though with some wee poetry – haiku, of course – and some vulgar photography humour. My friend has asked me to keep writing and who am I to refuse?

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The C Bird – Crested Pigeon

Bird Weekly Challenge – Birds That Start With ‘C’

Gee, my post title is a bit punny, don’t you think? I amuse myself. This week I am dropping in a quick contribution to Lisa’s Bird Weekly Challenge. I’m too busy on my hols at the moment to sort through photos, so I will limit my contribution to just one bird, the Crested Pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes) or crestie for short. It is an easy one for me since the cresties are regular visitors to my garden.

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