It has been far too long!

I really have no excuse for being absent for so long, though I was having technical problems with my computer software for a while. Then I just seemed to keep running out of time as I am pretty slow at loading anything using my Magic software - and of course I need that to see!
So much has happened I am not sure where to begin.  We have been to Brisbane for me to be fitted with another artificial eye - looking just as good as the first one.  The socket apparently takes several months to settle down and this one is marginally larger than the previous one.  Thank goodness I won't need another one for at least three years, but I will need to go back annually for the eye to be cleaned and polished - that is a great excuse to take a holiday.
We had a lovely ten day break, visiting family and friends.  I did not even do any shopping, apart from grocery shopping, but we had lots if luscious morning and afternoon teas and lunches and dinners out - I must have done much more walking than I thought as the scales said I had only gained one kilo after all of that!
We visited my sister at Buderim after a few days in Brisbane.  While there we finally got to visit the beautiful Maroochy Botanic Gardens.  These gardens have been carved out of natural woodland and are just so peaceful.

 As you can see, the paths wind through thick scrub

 There are some brilliant sculptures placed within the area

This was one of my favourites.  I could have stayed for hours but of course there was not time, and the weather was quite showery, so we headed for cover.  Actually, we were extremely lucky with the weather all the time we were away.  South East Qld had been having some fairly unpleasant weather, but we did not get caught with rain or high wind whenever we wanted to go out at all - quite amazing.
Just before we went to Brisbane, the Garden Friends had an excursion to Rowallan Park, an environmental reserve which was gifted to the local Scouting Association about 60 years ago.

 It is a beautiful area with a lot of history attached to it and is only a twenty minute drive north of Mackay, so is very easily accessed by lots of community groups.

 This lovely gum tree stands just near where we had our lunch.

This is the drive in, with many sites available for camping - our boys spent lots of happy weekends there when they were scouts and now our grandchildren are following on.
My poor garden has been sadly neglected, but  despite this, the shrubs have flowered.

 The birds just love this Calliandra, which has finished flowering now, but I couldn't resist showing you the photos of it in its glory.

 My swamp orchids had to be tied up as the wind was blowing them over.  They looked wonderful.  Apparently there used to be acres of them in flower in swamps neare Caloundra on the sunshine Coast sixty years ago - though sadly not in the places we visited as I had never seen them till they were planted in our botanic gardens.

 I finally persuaded Bill that this Happy Plant had to go - I wanted it gone after the tree fell over about six years ago - it was only about a metre high then!  Look what happened, obviously the soil or something must have been what it wanted!

This is the after photo - actually that was taken about three weeks ago and I should take another one as there are about ten shoots growing out of the stump!  I will definitely be pruning it severely in future to make sure it stays a reasonable size.
Bill purchase some tree loppers after we saw them demonstrated on Gardening Australia and they are the best thing ever!  Now I can get the garden back into shape without having to wait for Bill's strength to chop back the shrubs.  Everything has got so overgrown in the last couple of years, we really need to cut back to waist height, then fertilise and add compost and start again - provided we get some rain to water the plants.  That is not looking very promising as a very strong el nino event is forecast for this summer.  Hopefully we will get a few storms.
I had better sign off before I bore you too much.