More holiday photos

I have taken so long to come back with another blog, blogger wasn't going to let me in! I had to shut down the computer and restart to see the sign in bar.
Here is a selection of a few more photos from our trip and I won't bore you after that. Inland Australia has the most marvellous sunsets, especially in winter.

I loved the textures of this grand old paperbark tree in the Sydney Botanic Gardens, perhaps it has been there almost as long as the Gardens have existed- well over 100 years.

This tree sculpture was also in the Botanic Gardens, notsure if the tree is completely dead, or how they got the stone up there, but it is a great talking point.

This is a dripping wall in the grounds of Gunners Barracks and is how the soldiers got their drinking water. The rain ran down the grooves and collected in the hollowed out containers in the stone wall below. There were about a dozen of them in the wall - I am glad we don't have to depend on that today.

The camellias were coming into bloom everywhere, but would have been better a week or so after we left - of course! The ones we saw were beautiful however.

We really did have a wonderful time, and I learnt a lot more about my family history while I was away. What a pity we don't seem to take enough interest in history till the previous generations have all passed away. I often find myself saying "if only I could ask Mum". I did ask here lots when she was alive, but foolishly did not record it and my memory is very faulty.

When we were driving north along the NSW coast we were advised to go a bit off the highway to see the wonderful new development at Harrington. Well, we did and could only gasp and say we did not like the new development - about 90 million dollars worth - one little bit. Thank heavens we continued as we were hungry and there was nowhere else close for lunch, then we found this beautiful old fashioned seaside village. The view above is what we saw while we had an excellent fish and chips and salad lunch with a very good cup of coffee as well! I hope the new development keeps working backwards towards the highway, and leaves the coastline alone.

The news of our dog Jack is not very good, even though he is looking sprightly at present. He almost certainly has a form of leukaemia and has a very limited life span. He would need wedge biopsies to be 100 % sure, but we can't see the point as we would certainly not go through chemotherapy with him. So now we are just giving him lots of spoiling and as much quality of life as possible till he gets distressed again then it will be time to say goodbye. We have had 7 wonderful years with him, not nearly long enough, but that is the way the dice have rolled.

I still have not managed to get back to my workroom for any creating. The airlines managed to wreck my suitcase on my return flight, so I have visited the sales and purchased two new lightweight suitcases. Now I have been spending a few hours using little squeeze bottles painting flowers and squiggles etc on them so they are easy to identify at airports. I will post pictures when they are finished. I can identify my case at 100 metres with ease - amazing how many cases have the same or similar ribbons, but none has the same painted bits we have!