Thursday 29 November 2012

Awsome Weather

When I first moved to Dubbo from the coast my husband told me that one of the most amazing things I would see here would be the storms. The central west of NSW was deep in a drought that had so far lasted about 10 years (don't quote me on that as I'm just going on local folklore with this figure) so I was a bit sceptical about getting awesome storms, plus I had seen some pretty awesome storms on the coast although were I lived was pretty lucky that it tends to get the tail ends of the nastiest storms. How wrong I was, the storms here often don't produce much in the way of wetness but what they lack in actual precipitation they make up for in wind and lights.

I've tried a few times to catch the fierceness of these storms in photos and failed with my little point and click camera to catch much of interest. I can't catch the lightening even though these storms usually hit at night, my camera turns out very grainy pictures when I try to open the shutter for long enough to catch the flashes. Or maybe it's just me.

The last week or so we've had some amazing high temperatures that hit us very suddenly. We went from comfortable mid 20's to the high 30's pretty much overnight and that's just a perfect recipe for a roaring storm. Which hit us yesterday. As I cooked dinner yesterday evening Terry called me outside to come look at the clouds that were building up.

I ran back inside for my camera.





I couldn't decide which photos I like the most so get ready to see a lot of pics!!






These pics are all taken of the Eastern side of the sky, the sun was setting behind me and reflecting off the tops of the clouds on the other side of the sky, the effect was amazing.






Those clouds rolled almost straight over the top of us, we got a bit of wind, not enough rain to touch the meter and an amazing light show up high (which I didn't even bother to try to photograph). On the other side of town about 3 km's from us they got hit hard with rain, wind and lightening and about 40km's away they had a huge hail storm.






On this side of the sky the sun was setting just below those clouds.






And lighting up the clouds from behind almost giving them a halo effect.






When I turned back around after checking out what the sunset was doing I was confronted with a bank of storm clouds that was building to something special.

 






Then I went back to my front door and got this last shot before the sun went down and I lost the effect.



Monday 26 November 2012

What I Saw at the River Recently

Gizmo the amazing Staffy and I have been taking leisurely strolls by the river in the afternoon for the last couple of weekends. Here's some of the stuff we've seen.

A Sandy Beach (yes that's what it's called) complete with a fisherman on a log and kids in swimming togs.

 


A river with water and rocks and trees.


Some Cockatoos playing round.


A really big Tree ( I think these are River Red Gums).


Some Galahs just sitting round.


Saturday 24 November 2012

When Did I Get Old?

I've been wondering lately what all those wonderfully intriguing thoughts are that I thought would be so great to share. I've been trying to think of something to write about here and have come up totally blank for the last week since I decided that I had stuff to share. No that's a lie, I've actually thought of stuff but I've either forgotten it two minutes after I had the thought or I've decided that tis not really worth sharing.

Let me show you what I mean. I originally started to write this post about how I'm getting old, or at least how I feel like I'm getting old. I was going to wax lyrical about how you tell that you are getting old, is it when your hair in the places that don't show starts to go grey too?  Or is it when someone only about 5 years younger than you tells you they have gotten tickets to something called .. (hmmm I have no idea what the name was that she said but I'll talk bout that later) .. and you ask 'who's that?' just to be told 'it's a Music Festival ya old fart'. So I Googled it when I got home to see what music festival it was and how I was losing touch so easily .. couldn't find it. It doesn't exist. Or if it does exist it's not really that well known if Google doesn't even know it and I cant find it in my event finder or Ticketec .. so screw you 'youngster' I'm not old, I just don't have the time to keep up to date with all the unimportant events happening in this hick town! ( Damn it I just know I shouldn't type this cause somewhere along the line I'm going to find out it was some huge festival that is held every year and attracts millions of people).

And then we come to the other thing that is making me feel old before my time. I'm deaf as a doornail. It's nothing new I've been going deaf since I was born, tis a degenerative nerve thingy that there's nothing can be done about and I've lived with it for forty years without an issue. It's just that the people I'm working with at the moment all seem to have soft, high pitched voices and they all talk at about a million miles an hour. So they are treating me like a geriatric who can't hear and I'm getting fed up with being treated like that and acting like a grumpy geriatric who can't hear and just not communicating with them at all.

There are other things that are making me feel oldish ... the nurses back that means I grunt when I bend down, the lack of interest in the music of today (in my own defence a lot of it is trash but then there's always been a lot of trashy music out there and I've always ignored it and gone my own way). But as much as I feel these things are making me feel my age plus some, I can't help feeling that I'm projecting this on myself because of some completely different reasons to the ones I've mentioned here.

One of them being a weirdness in my moods since giving up smoking, the drugs I took to help me with that were basically an anti depressant, and that was OK while I was taking them, but once they stopped my mood just plummeted. I have a funny feeling a lot of these feelings are related to that let down side effect of stopping those drugs.

One of the good things about it all though is that I'm actually starting to feel healthier now. I've been walking the dog by the river every weekend for the last couple of weeks and I've been a lot more active around the house and the yard recently too. Of course one of the other effects of giving up smoking is a double edged sword, your sense of taste becomes so much better. I love food, always have and I love good food, now that I can taste things better it all tastes great!! And wow has my waist shown the effects of that, so now I have to diet :(

Can you see now what I meant about being unsure about whether to write about this stuff or not? I've managed to dribble out quite a few paragraphs about stuff that I'm pretty sure no one is going to be interested in. I'm not even sure that it's written well enough for anyone to understand let alone make it through it all to this last paragraph. Oh well I guess everyone has to start somewhere, it's funny I was always thinking that I should write about my random thoughts and now I don't seem to be able to think of any. It'll come one day ... maybe.

Saturday 17 November 2012

Purple

I've never noticed before that Dubbo is so intensely purple.

Dubbo has these Jacaranda trees around a lot of it's streets and I've lived here for nearly 6 years now and never noticed them.

For the last week I've been driving down one particular street that is lined with them to get to work and I've been amazed by them. This morning when I suggested breakfast at our favourite cafe I was also thinking 'ooh I'll get the GoPro to take some pics of those Jacaranda's'.




I'm convinced they are not normally so prolific with their flowers so I wanted to get a pic of it. Terry wasn't keen to ride the bikes today though, so we took the car and I took my camera, Terry said they wont last long and I didn't want to miss that pic.

I got into the street and stopped at the side of the road ... jumped out camera in hand and stood in the middle of the road on a tiny median strip while the traffic buzzed round me. Yeah OK Dubbo traffic isn't that busy .. but there were still more than a couple of old blokes who gave me the look that said he was wondering what the silly broad in the yellow dress was doing taking photos of them as they drove toward her.

Anyway I got one pic that I liked.

Dubbo being purple!

Friday 16 November 2012

This is a Random Thought

Well I started up this blog a week ago, I was thinking it would just be somewhere to stick my pics that aren't bike related but that I like enough to want to share. Then I thought about that, and I realise that I promised not to clutter this blog up with words but, I decided that there are stories to go with some of those pics that just have to be told. Then I also realised that sometimes I have something to say, it may not be thrilling, stop the world stuff .. a lot of the time it's pretty likely to be nonsense that no one is interested in 'cept me, but well why not share those thoughts too. So the nature of this blog has evolved.

I changed the name, do you mention that in the blog when you do it to the blog? I'm not quite sure of the etiquette here. I came up with this whole idea when I was in the shower this morning, it's amazing how many of my great ideas are born in the shower, I think it's because it's a place where I'm completely relaxed and can just let my mind wander. And I realised that the name of the blog wasn't going to fit so I came up with a new name too. It's early enough in this little blogs career for a name change I thought. I'm just not sure whether I'm supposed to mention it, or do I just change it and pretend that it was always like this. Wow I don't even remember what the first name was now, and I only changed it half an hour ago!

So this is a random thought, something that really doesn't need to be shared but I've thought of it so I'm going to share whether you like it or not. I don't normally do that, I'm not usually one of those people who will share their thoughts, I feel shy and nervous that others will think that what I have to share isn't worth knowing or sharing, so I normally keep it to myself. 'Cept to my long suffering husband who gets all the rants and raves and random shit that goes through my head all day that I've been bottling up. So this is a way to share and I don't have to feel that I'm forcing my ramblings on you cause if you don't like it you won't have even got his far I'm sure.

Some days I really feel like writing stuff down but I haven't cause I didn't have anywhere to write it, unless it was in my diary which is pathetically empty really. I always start those things with the best of intentions and then after a week or so they just fade away to nothings. But the thoughts are still there, and now they'll be here. Think I've made the point yet? ..... yep 'tis now officially a ramble!!

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Spring Time in Our Aussie Garden

We are putting together a native Aussie garden (and when I say we I mean Terry, I just supervise in the garden). Where we live is prone to drought so planting native Aussie plants makes sense, they are already drought resistant. Not to mention some of them have the most amazing flowers.

I went and took a bunch of photos in the garden a couple of weeks ago.

Red Bottlebrush



Pink Bottlebrush



White Grevillea



Creeping Grevillea



An Orange Grevillea Bush



Resting in the shade of the Bottlebrush



No idea what this is but it's fantastic for a couple of weeks a year.

It makes our boring driveway interesting for a while.



South African Diosma surrounds the Mulberry Tree that was here when we moved in.

Sunday 11 November 2012

Gizmo the Amazing Puppy ... Relaxing

When we got to Mudgee the other day Terry had stuff to do at council .. boring work stuff. Mudgee seems to be full of cool little coffee shops and boutiques stuffed with middle aged country women's wear that is kinda scary but you never know what you will find eh. So my plan was to browse around the shops, maybe find a cafe with a table outside that me and Gizmo could park at.

It wasn't to happen ... When we got to Mudgee we had nearly an hour to spare before hubby's appointment so we decided to lunch together. We found a cafe with a table that Gizmo could sit at and not annoy other people .. and she was really very good ... and we had a nice little lunch and some great coffee. I kinda looked at some shops while Terry paid the bill but then decided that I didn't really want to shop. Gizmo agreed and it was decided that we would go hang out in the park across the road while Terry had his appointment. Luckily I had my book with me .. and my camera.

We found this lovely little arbour with a comfy looking bench.




So I made myself comfy there with my book, and before too long Gizmo did too.




I was just daydreaming .. this is what I was looking at most of the time, the book was mostly for show.




It was just too relaxing ... wasn't it Giz?




She snuggled up next to my legs and watched the world go by ...




This is the first time she's been allowed to sit so close to me since she was a puppy, she's been banned from getting on lounges and chairs since she got too big for my lap ... I think she was really loving this :)



Yes ...



Post Number One!!

Well this is kinda exciting!! I have another blog, started about December last year just after I bought myself a motorbike and started learning how to ride. That's a whole other story and if your interested go over and have a look. What's going on here is just a bit of nonsense really, I've found that I've got all these pictures of stuff that's not really bike related but they are things that I'd like to share. I've thought about posting on the bike blog with them (and I have with a couple of things) but well ... it just doesn't feel right, so I'm starting up a new blog.

How exciting!! I said that before didn't I?

I promise I'm not going to clutter this one up with a bunch of words like I do with the shadow blog sometimes. This is just going to be about the pictures ... well with some short explanations maybe.

So the first post has to be exciting doesn't it ... something thrilling and that will make you all gasp!!

Oh well I'll just show you a few of the pics I took on a recent trip Terry and I made to Mudgee the other day with Gizmo the amazing puppy in the back seat.


We had to stop in a place called Dunedoo on the way to see a client of hubby's, this is the street we eventually found his house in, this is pretty much the middle of town, the main street is bout 5 or 6 blocks that way. Yes that's a goat watching every move we make.




He so wanted to come play with us!!



I took off with Gizmo while hubby did his work thing, we went down to the main street to get a drink and eat a muffin I had stashed earlier in the car. We shared, then went for a wander down the street.


We found these silo's, I don't think these ones are used anymore.




It looks pretty derelict but looks can be deceiving can't they.







Across the road from the silos was this pub.



 
With signs like this across the front of it.