Social Media workshop

Well, I have just completed a two day workshop on the use of social media to promote organisations, run by representatives of the State Library of Queensland!  I would never have believed I could find that fascinating, but I did.  Most of the participants were representing heritage collections and museums - I was there to represent our botanic gardens as a living museum.
Did you know there are over 750 million people using facebook?  There are even more people blogging using a whole lot of hosts I have never heard about before!

I really went along to learn a bit more about posting photos and events to facebook as I often struggle to get that right when I am posting for the Gardens, I mostly just read and click 'like' on my personal page!

We also heard about a site called historypin which is really interesting.  You can pin a historical photo to the map (google maps or google street view) and then ovelay it with a modern photo of the same location.  We saw several examples around Mackay - fascinating!

I will eventually set up a wordpress blog for the Gardens, but the internet access unfortunately dropped out before the workshop finished and now at home I am too tired to think properly as to how to set it up.
That can wait for a few days as I am due at the hospital at 6.45am tomorrow to have cataract surgery on my right (good) eye.  Hopefully I will be able to see contrasting colours much better by Friday!
I was going to post a photo of my lovely flowering orchid, but the rain started before I could go out to take a photo so that will need to wait a few days also.
Back soon with much better vision - I hope.

Almost caught up - and Margaret Olley

Yeeaaah, I have caught up with the ironing.  That is the worst thing about going away to a conference - there is always a mountain of washing followed by lots and lots of ironing!
I have had a week of doctors' appointments, meetings with subsequent minutes to write up, and now an unexpected but pleasant brief visit from our younger son.  So there has not been much spare time to edit photos.
I really do want to show you some of the photos I took at the Tweed Art Gallery, which now houses two rooms of iconic Australian painter Margaret Olley's house in Paddington in Sydney.

 Everything except the flowers is original.  They had to reproduce the flower arrangements as the originals disintegrated when touched, they had been there so long - Margaret never threw away any of her arrangements for painting!

 She was a wonderful painter of still life, but a very eccentric lady, who lived and painted in the most amazing clutter.  After she died, curators photographed and catalogued everything in these rooms, then packed everything up and transported them to their present home in the Tweed Gallery.  Margaret had her palettes set up in front of every window in the house and worked on whichever one had the best light at the time.
Apparently she was also a very good cook, but in later years if her friends were offered lunch they said they had already eaten.  This is the kitchen, so no wonder.

 I am amazed she could manage to cook anything in the middle of this!

These rooms have only been open for a few weeks and we were lucky enough to see an exhibition of about ten of her paintings, which will hang there for the next couple of months. 
To see some of Margaret Olley's paintings here is a link:
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=margaret+olley+gallery&rlz=1T4GGLL_enAU356AU356&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=YXlsU96EAYf-lAXp4ICADA&ved=0CDwQsAQ&biw=968&bih=668

The gallery itself is magnificent and in a wonderful location.  This is the view from the balcony

 I didn't notice the sign till we were leaving - it says OLLEYWOOD.

This visit was the highlight of the week I think.

Home from the conference

We are back home again and almost back to normal - the washing is all done, but there is still loads of ironing.  That is the worst about going to a conference - all the clothes you need!

The weather was very kind.  There was some rain, but only when we were inside so it did not hamper us at all.
The first night we were at the Gold Coast, we attended a performance of Shen Yun, a classical Chinese dance company, which was incredible.  No photos were allowed, but you can find out about the company here:
https://www.shenyunperformingarts.org/chinese-dance

Our son Stuart drove us around the Gold Coast, which we had not visited for about 35 years, so we could not recognise anything much!

 We visited the Purlingbrook Falls at Springbrook in the hills behind the Gold Coast - not much water spilling down at present, but a very long drop.

 This is Point Danger, at the mouth of the Tweed river, named by Captain Cook for the dangerous shoals nearby.  Click to enlarge the photo and you will see the dangerous bar at the opening to the river. The concrete structure you can see in the background when you enlarge the photo is for pumping sand back onto the beach.  many of the Gold coast beaches have been badly eroded over the last couple of years during the storms, and of course that is not good for the tourist industry.  

 Blogger has put some these photos in the wrong order and I can't seem to move them!  The ladies were taken on a tour to Mt. Tambourine, again in the hills behind the Gold Coast.  We had lunch at Cedar Creek winery, which also has a man made glow worm cave.  This was the scene outside the cave.  The tour through the cave was interesting, but I could only listen to the commentary as I could not see the glow worms.  Possibly if I had been in the dark cave for another 30 minutes, my eyes may have adjusted, but never mind, everyone else said they were wonderful.

 This was the scene we looked at while having a very delectable lunch.

 I had to take this photo of one of the desserts - tiramisau, yummy.

 For the conference dinner the theme was Elvis in Vegas - I was not looking forward to it, never having been an Elvis fan.  How wrong I was, the night was fantastic.  Three of the committee had dressed up in Elvis lookalike costumes.  The one on the right of the photo is a complete extravert, and a ton of fun.

 Elvis was assisted by two dancing girls as well as a very good band.

 Elvis had everyone - well most, but not me - up rocking and rolling - and Genevieve was even up on the stage adding to the chorus!

 Out of order photo, but no matter.  We walked along the gallery walk of shops at Mt. Tambourine, these cloth figures were sitting there to entice people into the nearby shop - full of lovely antiques.  Fortunately I knew nothing more would fit into my suitcase to fly home so I was not tempted!
Lots more photos still to come, we visited the Tweed Gallery with the new Margaret Olley display - and we were allowed to take photos of her rooms, quite incredible.
I need to do some watering now.  There was no rain at all here while we were away and it has turned quite cold.  I love this time of the year, but it is still a shock to the system when I haven't got our warm clothes out yet.
Back soon

A very relaxing Easter break

I hope you have all enjoyed the Easter break as much as we have here.  The weather could not have been better, cooler nights and lovely sunny days.  I had planned to spend most of the time gardening, but somehow that did not happen.
Bill is making a miraculous recovery from the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or whatever it is that he has had for the last six months.  He is actually able to go out into the garden and do some pruning and a little bit of building again.  Yippee!
We are going away to the Gold Coast on Anzac Day, heading off to a conference down there.  There will be a lot of walking and standing around so I am very relieved Bill should be okay.

 I did a Gardens roster yesterday, then went for a wander with my camera.  The Gymnosperm garden has grown so much.  I should look for a photo from a couple of years ago to show how bare it was then.

 I never tire of this view

 Thankfully for a short while the lagoon is almost clear of all the water lettuce weed and is looking much nicer.

This skewiff photo shows the latest piece of felt I have made.  It is only small and will go into my section of the souvenirs stand at the Gardens.  Hopefully someone will like it.

i don't seem to have much of interest to say these days, but I should have some lovely photos after we have been away.

Now I really am going out into the garden to throw some fertiliser around.

Where has the time gone?

I seem to be having longer and longer gaps between blogs; I haven't even had time to read many blogs lately and I am missing you!

However I have had time at night to do some hand stitching.

 I didn't realise how similar these two pieces are till I put them together. 
The second one is quite a bit smaller however.  I have had so much fun with this course of Jackie's.  I have another couple of pieces waiting for stitch.

 The Oticanthus in my garden bed decided it liked the sunny side much better and has managed to creep through to the other side of the trellis.  It is really bluer than the photo shows, and is such a happy flower.

 It is really good for picking too as it lasts for well over a week - and in our tropical climate, that is very good going.

 I haven't shown a photo of Jock for ages.  We had just come back from a walk in  the Gardens, which he loves.

 I really do know where most of the time has gone - visiting doctors!  Bill is very slowly improving, but still needs to have a long rest (or sleep) after any physical exertion.  We are pretty certain it is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, so the road to recovery is likely to be long.  At least we know he can't possibly have a fatal illness.  He has had so many tests and scans there is nothing left to look at - and everything comes up showing nothing abnormal.  Frustrating from the point of view of diagnosing, but good to know all the same.

I had better get some dinner - and I will try to be back sooner next time.

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.

At last - something to show

At last I have had a chance to play a bit with the felting.

 These bits were fun to lay out using prefelts and then felt.  Now I need to stitch to bring out the relief.

 This is the stitching on the first piece I did - without using prefelts.

 My eyesight has really deteriorated and I found I had enormous difficulty seeing what I was machining, so there is nothing very elaborate there.  I cut the piece up and made it into specs cases and bookmarks - much more in my comfort zone!

Look what we have flowering in our back garden!  The Golden Penda (Xanthosteman) which we planted three years ago has finally put on this magnificent display.

 The close up shows the wonderful golden orbs

 and this one shows how they are a pale greeny yellow when the buds are coming out.

This tree is a native of the North Queensland tropics, but has been hybradised to grow as street trees.  They are planted all round Mackay and are making a really wonderful display.  The honeyeaters, large and small, love them.
I am not sure how much longer the flowers will last as we are forecast to have heavy rain for the next three days, as well as strong winds.  I just wish the rain would reach some of the droughted areas of Queensland - 80 % of the state is now officially drought declared, the highest percentage ever recorded.  We are dry here, but keep getting enough to keep us going.  Some of the areas in western Queensland have had virtually no rain for the last two years, which is really heartbreaking for them.  Life on the land can be pretty tough sometimes.