Friday 21 March 2014

Gardens update

I don't have anything more to show from my felting yet, but I am steadily hand stitching away on one piece.  I am itching to find time to make some more, but our days seem to be filled with medical matters lately.  Bill's health is still an ongoing saga and he developed shingles last week on top of everything else.  They developed mainly on his forehead and around his eye and nose.  Thankfully there was a checkup scheduled with the opthalmologist, who took one look then immediately wrote a script for ointment to prevent the shingles from getting into his eye - which it didn't.  The GP wrote a script for the antiviral tablets which make such a difference if you get on to them quickly. Ten days later he no longer looks as if he has been in a massive punchup, but is left with neuralgia which can apparently last for ages.
I had time to take a few photos at the Botanic Gardens a few days ago

 Don't you just love this bat wing plant?  The flowering is fading now, but they have been looking spectacular.  I think the plant is native to one of the Central American countries
 The backscratcher gingers are flowering again

 I didn't think to take a photo (from quite a distance) of the very tall foxtail palms, native to Cape York in North Queensland and only rediscovered about 15 years ago.  Now they are in cultivation all round the place, but I think really grow far too tall for small private gardens.  The photo above is the flowering and below is the fruit - a very showy red.

This photo is looking across the lagoon to the areas which we planted last year.  Thankfully they are growing well and will hopefully soon hide the monstrosity which the Council foisted on us.  It is an amphi-theatre which opened last July and has only been used twice so far!  The Garden staff and Friends were very unhappy as most of the money had to come from the Gardens budget and that meant we had nothing left to build the education centre which we really wanted.  However, what is done is done, and next year there may be a very exciting event there - Opera Queensland is trying to bring an Opera in the Park event to Mackay.  It would be a free event and hopefully would awaken more interest in fine music so that people would perhaps be prepared to pay to see the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and suchlike playing in the Theatre.
I had better get off my hobby horse and get dinner - to the sound of very welcome rain.  Everything was getting quite dry again.

6 comments:

  1. Poor Bill, all he needed was shingles.

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  2. Wonderful photos and the amphitheatre looks very impressive. I do hope it gets used more often. Poor Bill, but what a good thing he got treatment quickly. I had shingles about 5 years ago but still feel the pain when I am very tired - to a far lesser degree thank goodness. Tell him to be kind to himself! Enjoy your stitching when time allows and I look forward to seeing the results. Take care.

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  3. So sorry about shingles - give him my commiserations. That neuralgia is awful, particularly on the face. Hope it is soon relieved.

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  4. So glad that Bill was able to get his shingles treated quickly - a nasty condition. The amphitheatre does look rather incongruous there so I hope it gets used more often to justify it's presence.

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  5. Thank goodness it didn't affect his eyes! Shingles is a horrid condition I do hope he is sensible about taking plenty of pain relief! We've had health problems here too - my Bill's had a fever that spikes all the way up to 103.something every now and again, so I've been playing nurse and not getting on with my felt either Robin. We'll just have to be the 'late workers'!

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  6. I believe shingles can be very painful, so glad Bill was able to get help quickly. I was told the wheels would fall off the trolley when I turned 55 and sure enough that was when it all began only to escalate in the 70's....

    thank you for sharing the pictures of the gardens and lovely flowering plants. It must be a joy to see the hard work paying off.

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