Home to chaos

This is just a quick post with no photos as I have not had time to download any yet.  I came home late yesterday afternoon to discover that the painters were due at 7am today to start painting the upstairs bathroom, toilet and storeroom!  It was amazing how quickly I managed to unpack and store suitcases etc - including what Bill had brought home with him a week ago!  Thank goodness I will now have about 10 days (I think) to pack up everything downstairs before they start there.

We had a wonderful time in Brisbane, then I enjoyed my stay in Buderim.  My sister came home from hospital a week ago and is progressing very well.  She is managing on her own now, the most frustrating part is not being able to drive, but she has wonderful family and friends available for that, and some of the jobs she really can't do on her own.

I had another injection in my eye today and the white background on the computer makes me very uncomfortable at present, so I shall come back in a day or so when I have downloaded photos.

Swamp Orchids and going away

I had to post photos of these very beautiful swamp orchids (Phauis Tankarvilliae) growing in the shade garden of our Botanic Gardens.  The spikes are as tall as I am.  Apparently the plant is endangered in the wild, but they are flourishing here.

Isn't this beautiful?

I will be away for a couple of weeks.  Bill and I are flying out tomorrow afternoon to attend a conference in Brisbane for Walking guides of Botanic Gardens.  There will be delegates from all over Australia and a few from New Zealand - should be lots of fun.

Bill will fly home at the end of the week, but I will go up to Buderim as my sister is in quite a spot of bother.  She has badly smashed the head of the radius of her right arm and is currently in hospital.  She is not allowed to move her arm above the elbow for at least another 4 weeks, so I will stay for a week or so to sort out what she can and can't do and do what I can to help.  Buderim is a beautiful location and Barb has a glorious garden so this will not be hard to take!  I may be able to post without photos while I am there but I am not sure.  Photos of the gardens we see around Brisbane when I return.

Another page sent

There is no doubt I am learning a lot from these swaps.  This month's theme was 'your own mola'.  I had to google that one, turns out to be a special type of  reverse applique from Central and South  America.  This was as close as I could get to my interpretation.  I hadn't realised just how difficult I would find it to see properly, but never mind, the intention was good.

Spring has arrived and the garden is blooming.  This Anzac grevillea is a hybrid and is looking lovely.

This flower looks great, but the callistemon it is on has been a big disappointment.  I bought the wrong plant in the first place but didn't realise till it was a couple of years old.  It has always been a bit scraggy, and the flowering is never profuse, but it fills in a corner of the garden where other stuff does not thrive either so I have not bothered to pull it out.

The parrots have arrived in this flowering Schotia.  They are so hard to see it is quite incredible.  You can always hear their screeching though, not sure if they are squabbling or just greeting each other, we don't always appreciate it at 5.30am however!