Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
I had another song planned, but I just need to check a few facts before I subject you to it. As luck would have it, I have a backup. Today the fam and I cast an early vote in Canberra’s local government election. The leaders debate was held last night. It was all very civil. Democracy in action. A fair contest. Nice. Should be more debates like that.
Canberra (Australia) – September keeps us guessing. We smell the spring flowers while we are still Covid-free. This requires a visit or two to the Australian National Botanic Gardens. It has been 80 days since Canberra (the national capital of Australia) has recorded a case of Covid-19. My month is filled with medical appointments, getting in while the going is good. Survivor-guilt sets in. The threat of magpies swooping hangs over our heads.
There is sufficient material for a blog post on each of those topics, so I won’t bore you with the nitty gritty details of my September shenanigans here. I might have to say something in future though about the Prime Minister, who after consulting with the Property Council, has issued an edict that public servants should return to the office (where safe to do so, consistent with Covidsafe plans, blahdeblah) so they can spend their hard-earned dollars on coffee and lunch at CBD cafes. I don’t know how in heck, the PM expects the workforce will transport themselves safely to the office.
Now where was I? That’s right .. the Botanic Gardens. My friend convinced me that we should go out for coffee. So I went out. We went to the gardens. It was lovely but I couldn’t be so rude as to take copious photos, so I went back another day. And then another. We’ve had many grey rainy days, some sunny days too, so many of the photos from the gardens are dark and moody. All the photos in this post come from those visits, so I hope you like flowers and birds, and bearded dragons.
Some Enchanted Garden
Spring in the gardens. Cacophony of sound. Air vibrates and rumbles, zips and whirs. Colours flash and tantalise, the smell divine. Senses say stay a while. My mind wanders. A world away.
How green, or black and white, is your garden?
Purple invites a closer look and calms the senses.
Pink delights.
Yellow thrums.
Red is generous and racy.
This September, the world lost some incredible women, champions of gender equality and inclusiveness – Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Australian singer-songwriter, Helen Reddy; and former Australian senator and minister, the Honourable Susan Ryan. Ms Ryan is Australia’s equivalent to America’s RBG. Susan Ryan fought for and secured the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1984. She also had significant public roles advocating against age and disability discrimination.
This is my response to The Changing Seasons – September 2020 photo challenge hosted by the lovely Su at Zimmerbitch. Why not check it out and join in? Su has photos of gannets nesting.
Sing it with me, ladies.
Stay safe, sane and kind, everyone.
Kind Regards. Tracy.
About The Photos I dragged my True Love to the Botanic Gardens one weekend. He is still recovering from his Achilles heel tendon tear, so he shuffled along with his camera. He took the photos of the bearded dragon with the purple flowers in the background, the bright yellow “Twistie” like flowers (Twisties are a type of cheese curl, corn-based snack food product), and in fading light, the shenanigans of a pair of gang-gang cockatoos. I took all the other photos.
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
Today I’m dedicating my song/tune choice to all the people in Melbourne, Australia, who are doing their bit to reduce the number of Covid-19 infections in their state of Victoria. It hasn’t been easy. Recriminations abound, but the rest of Australia owes a debt to Victoria. That’s what I think anyway. Others may see it differently.
Restrictions ease slightly from Monday. Stay cool, Melburnians. Stay smart. Stay safe. I’ve got an idea for you.
You know how dentists use a suction tube/straw? I wonder if that could be modified to attach to a coffee cup so that Melburnians could drink coffee with a mask on. This innovation could be called the Suck-cess. What do you think of that idea?
That was a bit of fun. As is the Melbourne Ska Orchestra. Enjoy.
Bird poetry – a pandemic distraction. Semi-infrequent opportunity to join in. Try it. Create a pingback to this post with your bird poem. Really awful poetry welcome. Good poetry welcome too.
As a bird lover, I feel slightly intimidated about venturing into bird poetry, particularly poems about gulls. This topic has already been covered by many famous poets over the centuries so I am unlikely to contribute any words that haven’t been written before. The inspiration for this short poem therefore comes not from those wonderful poets, but from the seagulls themselves and from my camera. That is as it should be.
As yesterday was a quiet day, I thought I would have a play with some photos for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge – Negative Space. The negative space is the unoccupied space around the positive space, the positive space being the subject of the photo. Now you are a probably thinking that a positive and negative make a negative, and I’m sure this is true in photography too, but overdosing on the negative in photography breaks that rule. You’ll see. In photography, harnessing the divergent properties of positive and negative space can create cohesion – a sense of calm, peace, contemplation, isolation and scale. Distraction and busyness are the enemies of positive. Hence I let these adjectives be my guide in selecting photos for this challenge. Of course, everything is relative and the relative can really complicate the selection process, especially if you have a mind as busy as mine. I’m speaking from experience, or lack thereof.
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
Music needs no words to speak to the heart. Beneath sharp edges, a fragile soul.
I offer my sympathy to all those from Beirut affected by the massive explosion that tore their city apart. Here is a lament from Lebanese son, Ibrahim Maalouf. It does seem to me that this piece could also translate to many other places these days.
Be kind to yourself and others this weekend and always.
Bird poetry – a pandemic distraction. Try it. Create a pingback to this post for the bird of your choice. Really awful poetry welcome. Good poetry welcome too.
Golden Whistler photos taken by my True Love.
Golden Whistlers
Shadow dancer rimmed in gold. Flamboyant, rakish, debonair. As he skips from tree to tree, eats a snack for energy.
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
Do you ever think about the future death of your loved ones, or your own future death? I try not to but this pandemic kind of got me thinking along those lines. Unfortunately, or fortunately, that led to a song popping into my head. Has that happened to you or am I the only weird one? And then other songs recorded and/or written by that person who sang the first mind-popping song, kept popping into my head too.
Canberra, Australia – Last days of winter. Mostly cold and wet. Still no Covid in town.
There have been no new cases of Covid-19 in Canberra for 51 days. Too good to be true or too good to last? As for the weather, it was mostly cold, wet and miserable with the occasional sunny day. It was a 3Cs month for me – cleaning, creativity and cranky. As usual, I took a lot of photos.
Reflections of An Untidy Mind 