While Not Working

Back when we first arrived in Adelaide we sniggered at all the Adelaideans who rushed to the beach and donned their bikinis and budgie smugglers at the first hint of a sunny day and a temperature above 20C. As it turns out we may be more acclimatised than we had thought, because what did we do on the first sunny day of (almost) summer but rush off to the beach to enjoy the sunshine, even if we weren't going to traumatise the public by wearing bikinis or budgie smugglers. I had worn my legs out walking all around Belair NP as well as clocking up in excess of my goal of 200km on my bike for the month, so on a sunny Saturday Roger took off to zoom down the hill by himself.  I followed by car a sedate couple of hours later, to go paddling at the beach and then meet him for an ice-cream at Glenelg. I went for a walk on the beach.   A large number of Adelaide's denizens shared the gentle and family-friendly beach with me. Toddlers littered the waterline and small children dug holes,...

On a beautiful spring day Roger dropped me at the top of Belair National Park as we drove home after an excellent lunch with family. I hadn't done as much walking lately, being busy with other things.  Non-exciting things I might add, like spending two days of virtual learning which left me with square eyes and a sore bottom as the current house-sit did not excel in the office chair department. Happily not sitting down, I followed a hiking trail down the hill through bushland, stopping to listen to kookaburras and watch caterpillars doing busy caterpillar things.   Birds tweeted, the sun shone, the grass was brilliant green: I glanced casually to my left and there it was! The Eastern Mantis Orchid, Caladenia tentaculata.   Often called the Spider Orchid. Once I started seeing ground orchids I couldn't stop. Donkey Orchid Diuris corymbosa .  Yes, with an application of imagination it looks kinda sorta like a donkey.  Maybe. This one cam with a bonus spider. Pink ...

A week or two ago I stumbled upon the Watchman House while riding my bike, and there I partook of a sumptuous morning tea provided by the good band of National Trust volunteers who take care of the House.  While I was there they lamented that morning tea was no longer provided weekly: indeed, the Watchman House morning tea was only monthly, balanced out by afternoon tea at Gamble Cottage to ensure no more than 2 weeks go between repasts  "Where's Gamble Cottage?" I asked, my spidey senses detecting the possibility of another feast even if, like last time, it would come at the additional price of a bottle of guilty marmalade. In no time at all I had a pamphlet all about Gamble Cottage and a timetable for all afternoon tea related activities. I went home and put the afternoon tea date in my diary, regaling Roger with tales of scones, jam, cream, and the best home baked cheese biscuits ever. The earth turned as expected, the third Sunday of the month arrived, and off we went...

  Back to Belair: the pencil pine and (yet another) walking track up a hill.   There I stood in Belair National Park, with a choice of three pathways all to the same place. On my left the Saddle Hill road, curving gently up the contours of the hill to the western boundary of the park. On my right the Melville Gully/Cherry Plantation road, following Minno creek gently up the increasingly narrow valley to the western boundary of the park. In the centre, Saddle Hill Track aka the Ridge Track, following the spine of the ridge up to the western boundary with a steep rocky trail section at the start and the promise of more to come. Of course I chose the ridge track, didn't I? Up, up, I went, and more up. Heard but not seen, a freight train roared through a tunnel under my feet because yes, Belair NP was bisected by the train line and had two tunnels, protected by high anti-trespassing fences, for both the passage of trains and for the pleasure of people who like tunnels and trains. ...

In our current house, the owners installed a cat flap in their bedroom door. "It's so the cat can get into the room", they explained, "without having to leave the door open and have to heat the space." They left a fancy little heated cat mat on their bed and that was where the cat spent most of the day, apart from coming out for lap time in the evening and running late night zoomies up and down the hallway. The cat also has asthma, which means she is prone to coughing fits at times. "Don't worry about the coughing fits" said the owners, so we didn't. Begging for a scratch at lap time.   One day the cat had a particularly persistent coughing fit with a grand finale consisting of prodigious amounts of cat vomit spread over the cat mat and the owners' bed. Roger, home alone at the time, held his nose and frantically stripped linen and washed off vomit. The cat, obviously much relieved, took herself off to have some dinner and I arrived home t...

There I was, riding (or more accurately sitting aboard while gravity did its thing) my bicycle beside Minno Creek in the Coromandel Valley, enjoying the sunlight and shadows of a day where the temperature (21C!!) promised future summers,    when I saw a handwritten sign propped against a small stone cottage right next to the bike trail. "Morning Tea" said the sign. "$5. Marmalade for sale." A small lady in a pink cardigan popped out of the cottage, followed by a portly fellow (his cardigan was blue) who hovered on the edges of our conversation and offered historical corrections as Pink Cardigan elaborated on the history of the cottage. "I'm here for morning tea," I said, visions of a teapot with scones and cream floating before my eyes. "Yes, come in! We've got marmalade too! Let me show you around the cottage!" We explored the cottage, this being the unspoken morning tea tax.  The Watchman House much to my dismay, didn't watch anythi...