What’s now my heart place?

Tags

Potato Point, villanelle

I'm about to return to Warsaw and my Polish family: a summer Warsaw and twins who are now 7 months old. I'm torn two ways. I've just managed to reclaim Potato Point after fivemonthsinwarsaw and now I'm off again to spend 55daysinwarsaw, in an apartment close to my daughter's family and Łazienki Park, a favourite place during my autumn / winter stay.

My morselsandscraps blog is now in recess until the end of September, and my blogging is migrating to

http://55daysinwarsaw.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

What's now my heart-place? Jury's out!

Sea or city? Sand or cobblestone?

Six months ago I didn't have a doubt.

 

Since then, Warsaw's packed a clout,

And not just Warsaw-town alone.

What's now my heart-place? Jury's out.

 

I do not even have to cast about.

The reason's simply shown.

Six months ago I didn't have a doubt –

 

The twins were born. Shared genes are hard to flout.

My certainties are more than doubly blown.

What's now my heart-place? Jury's out.

 

Headland, bush, beach, lakes, whale spout,

Tides, orchids, spotted gums were once my zone.

Six months ago I didn't have a doubt.

 

Suddenly I've become a twin-devout

Maja and Janek fix fists around my bone.

What's now my heart place? Jury's out?

Six months ago I didn't have a doubt!

 

 

 

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Potato Point treasures

Tags

ABCOpen, Potato Point

 

I've just learnt how to use iMovie and the movie camera on my iPad, thanks to Vanessa and ABCOpen. You can see my tribute to Potato Point on Vimeo at this address

 

ABCOpen provides opportunities for regional Australians to showcase their lives and their area in words, photos and video and offers free workshops that develop the necessary skills. The site is as full of treasures as Potato Point beach.

https://open.abc.net.au/

 

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Visiting Queensland family: a photo journey

Tags

Girraween, Mt, Mt Tamborine, sea star, Stanthorpe

In a rest area off the Pacific Highway

 

Stuart's Point

 

Bellinger River sky

 

Mist rising from the Bellinger River

 

Car part camel at the Buttery, Bellingen

 

Quartpot Creek, Stanthorpe

 

The Junction

 

The Junction, Girraween NP

 

Football field on Tamborine Mtn

 

Cudgen Creek, Nthn NSW

 

Tweed Beach

 

Banyan

 

In the mangroves

 

Technology v the real world

 

Dinner at Eagle Heights

 

Emperor penguins at SeaWorld

 

Ray in the SeaWorld aquarium

 

SeaWorld sea star to pat

 

 

 

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Little things give great delight

Tags

illuminated stair well, parsley

I don't need much to give my mind delights that I can revisit in deep night with deep pleasure. Mind you, I also wonder about a mind that finds such easy, minute enjoyment.

Stair light

It all began when the light above the stove blew. Over three days of greasy groping, I worked out how to slide the cover off and remove the dead globe. My confidence grew.

At the bottom of my stairs I have a very blingy mini-chandelier. For ten years it has been globeless and I've fumbled my way upstairs in the dark, or made a huge effort to remember to take my head-torch on a rare after-dark journey. Why didn't I replace the globe? It looked like an odd size and I didn't want a collection of misfits. To peer under the chandelier skirt required me to balance on a milk crate on one of those turning-corners, wedge-shaped stairs. All too hard!

Until a recent return-from-Warsaw access of fix-the-house. I risked the balancing act; ascertained that it was a bayonet pin I needed and risked spending $5 on a globe that might be wrong. I balanced again, vicariously this time, dragooning a passing visitor, and watched as he twisted the globe into place. Suddenly the dark abyss of the stair well became a warm pool of light, and I developed the habit of switching the light on every time I passed the top of the stairs, gazing into the light pool as I do into rock pools.

Having had the let-there-be-light experience, I became addicted. Three outside lights had also gone dark, so I called the electrician to check and re-illuminate them too.

 

Parsley

Driving home from book club and a sleepover, I decided I'd better buy the two new tyres that I probably needed for my Queensland trip. I didn't want to. I was in the middle of finalising flights and accommodation for Warsaw and I needed an uncluttered mind for final decisions. But I didn't want a blow-out on the Pacific Highway either.

So I pulled into Glasshouse Rocks Rd, and at the trye replacers I found an unexpected outdoor office space where I could sit at a table in the sun under my straw hat and make those decisions and bookings via my iPad. I even tracked down the link to information about applying for a 10 year Polish visa, confident that my one-year Visa D was in the mail. I had time to soak up the sun and watch the passing parade: the man, strapped for cash, weighing up options at the counter in a slow drawl: the woman with black nail polish on her toenails and mobile in hand; the car that stopped and five minutes later engine-coughed; the old couple who had to release themselves from their vehicle slowly and uncertainly.

As I sat idly and a bit sun-dopey, I saw a flourishing patch of parsley in the most unlikely place. It was growing out of the paving hard against the brick wall. It matched my gold standard for parsley, in the garden at the Blue Earth cafe in Bodalla: thick, green, tightly curled, watered occasionally by hand but mostly by heaven, and obviously finding that place in the sun as congenial as I did.

I left with two new tyres and a bunch of parsley to sprinkle thickly over Saturday morning's steamed veggies.

 

 

 

 

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Sea wrack

Tags

crinoids, driftwood, Potato Point, sea lilies, sponges

 

Last weekend after particularly heavy seas the high-tide line was thick with smelly debris, a whole new collection of treasures. There was no need to go out amongst the rock-pools, or to dive deep. The sea itself brought in (amongst the familiar seaweed) sponges, crinoids and driftwood, and laid them out for me along the beach in a strip about 40 cm wide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The crinoids (if that's what they are) are completely new to me At first sight they looked like the paintings on the walls of my daughter's rented Warsaw apartment – a representation of raw entrails – or some alien creature from a sci-fi movie. It was hard to imagine what kind of sea dweller they were, but a scurry through reference books suggested a sea lily, beautiful when complete with tentacles, and not at all like intestines. It was interesting to note that they have an extensive fossil presence.

 

 

Drawing of a sea lily by Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). From Wikimedia commons

 

 

 

My old obsession with photographing bark took on a new dimension when I picked up two beautiful pieces of driftwood: bleached to a purity of white, cream, grey and almost apricot; worn away and pitted by their time in the sea; twisted-lacy and smooth-coiled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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House companions

Tags

antechinus, diamond python

I spent the weekend with a friend and his 2013 house companion. Last winter it was a lively antechinus, hopping energetically around, peering at me from the top of the broom handle and leaving footprints on the foggy glass of the living room window.

This year's companion moves more slowly and is considerably larger: maybe 2 metres long. Sometimes she (or he) curls up like a rather elegant cowpat on the heater pipes from the fuel stove in the laundry; sometimes on the planks my friend has placed hospitably on the top of the stove. It's a disappointment to find the kitchen bereft of the diamond python.

Not everyone would agree with “bereft”. Most people I tell about this new guest shudder and recoil and beg me not to send photos and say “How can you bear to share the kitchen with a … ssssnake?”

I love sharing the kitchen with a snake.I enjoy watching the slow uncoiling, the stretching across gaps, the flicker of the tongue, the glossy gold-on-black diamond patterns, the creamy underbelly, the sense of deliberation in all movement.

He (or she – the complexities of sexing a python are beyond me) pays no attention to our presence, unless we scrape metal chair legs on concrete, and is not particularly interested in our conversations or the curry bubbling away or even in the bashing of the blockbuster splitting wood for her (or his) fire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Would I like to be a sea-star?

Tags

Potato Point, rock pools, sea stars, SeaWorld

Sea stars are beautiful. They are thickly embroidered and their shape is pleasing. They rest at the bottom of pools, which are also beautiful, with emerald green and mauvey pink weed, orange lichen and ripples, splashes and shadows. Their companions are anemones, camouflaged crabs and rambling sea-slugs with iridescent backs and seeking horns. However, their world is limited to this one rock pool: unlike me they can't wander around peering into other rock pools, stroll along the beach or amble through spotted gums or casuarinas. Nor can they blog, settle down with a good (or not-so-good) book, visit art galleries or go to the movies. The pleasures of grandchildren are unknown to them

Their capacity to regenerate when they are hurt is enviable, especially as I age and fear the losing of bits, but I think I prefer sending my food to my stomach, rather than extruding my stomach to search for and ingest food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the whole I'll stick to being what I am. There isn't much chance that I'll be wrenched from my home in the tiny rainforest of my front yard and transported to SeaWorld, plonked in a barren pool and made available for passers-by to stroke, although come to think of it I may be carted off to a nursing home.

Feel free to pat me! A SeaWorld starfish

 

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