Another month has flown by, with limited time to post or read other blogs. I aim to participate a bit more in the coming months, as our days draw in towards autumn and winter.

February included some unexpected travel. My flight over Tasmania revealed intriguing circles of green on the land below, where some paddocks and crops have been watered.

I had a weekend in Sydney with torrential rain and storms, trees down, roads closed, power cuts that lasted days. We take electricity for granted. I missed my regular cups of tea. The choices for meals were limited. When offered a cheese sandwich, my son-in-law asked “Do you mean a raw Toastie?”

Then a road trip to Dubbo in NSW. The drive took us through huge landscapes with big skies.

Through bush fire impacted areas and communities, with miles of burnt out trees on both sides of the road. There were tinges of green after the rain but still a devasting sight.

We stopped at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, usually a place filled with tourists. It was very quiet following the fires and now the travel ban on Chinese tourists due to the corona virus. I was glad we could stop, shop, have lunch and support their local economy in just a small way. The Three Sisters Lookout was in the clouds, a beautiful eerie feel to the view.

This was the view when we were there last May.

Back in Tassie, we had weekends to relax and reconnect, to enjoy our local waterfront, summer drinks and beach walks.

This is my contribution to Su’s Changing Seasons Challenge.

What happened to January? I don’t know where the days have gone since we returned from our New Zealand holiday. As I look back through my photos for the month, we were busy, making the most of each summer weekend.

We went blueberry picking at a local farm. My first time. The berries are delicious and are “easy pickings” almost falling into the pot as you run fingers gently over the bunch. The bushes are a reasonable height so it isn’t back breaking work either. As well as enjoying fresh berries each day we also have a few kilos in the freezer.

As we passed another farm shop we bought raspberries and cherries a few metres from the orchards. All these fruit have so much more flavour than shop bought produce.

As we are thinking of changing our front garden to natives, we visited the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens and Inverawe Native Gardens for some inspiration.

We are on water restrictions and the landscape is parched, fortunately we have had reasonable rain in this recent days.

This is my belated contribution to Su’s Changing Season Challenge here.

December begun will cool days and snow on the mountain, a cold start to summer. My photos for the month show many with a Christmas Tree theme.

Also, our office elves returned, bringing smiles to all colleagues. Staff organised a reverse advent calendar this month, donating items for Foodbank, Toy Run and “Share the Dignity”.

We’re now on holiday for two weeks, so we’ve relaxed. We went to the beach on Christmas Day morning. This is my fifth summer Christmas and it is still a novelty.

This week has seen the 75th Sydney to Hobart yacht race, with 157 yachts of varying size and age arriving in our city. We have enjoyed our view from the Eastern Shore. It is also time for the annual food festival, The Taste of Tasmania. We spent a delightful afternoon, eating local produce and welcoming the boats to our city.

Yesterday, Tasmania joined every State and Territory in Australia, having temperatures over 40 degrees. We have a total fire ban and are on water restrictions. Such contrasts during December.

I am linking this to Su’s Changing Seasons Challenge.

I’m a few days late with my monthly “changing seasons” post. September has been “alphabet month” in my photo a day group so I’ll share a few of my photos to summarise my month.

We’ve enjoyed a visit from our daughter, son-in-law and two year old grandson, so some letters reflected toddler activities.

A – artwork – toddler originals on our fridge
B – blossom
C – clock tower
D – daffodils
E – eucalyptus flowers
F – fire – back burning on hills behind our house
G – grass through glass
H – hay on hillside
I – ironwork
J – jetty
K – key hole
L – lilies
M – museum
N – night out
O – orchid that I’ve kept alive for 3 months
P – playground
Q – quiet toddler
R – reading
S – slide
T – toddler and friend
U – looking up
V – view
W – white wallaby and brown joey
X – XO noughts and crosses
Y – yachts
Z – zebra at the zoo

Changing seasons

My initial thought was that August was a totally wet, cold and windy month here in Tasmania. However, the photos I’ve taken in the past thirty one days give a different impression.

Between showers, we did get out for walks at Pipeclay Lagoon Conservation Area. I’m not sure what the wood spikes were for, perhaps remains of an old fence line or jetty.

Also a walk on nearby Clifton Beach. Although we had to rush back to the car as the rain fell again.

The mail boxes at this beach always make me smile.

All the rain created spectacular waterfalls where I experimented with long exposure photos.

Despite the weather, August is a colourful month here. The bright yellow wattle is a winter highlight.

There has been snow on Mount Wellington all month but the days are getting longer so it is now still light when I get home. I don’t need a torch to get the post from our street side mail box. Oh the memories of having post pushed through a letter box in the front door. They don’t do that here!

My crochet project at the moment is this spiral square blanket.

I’m linking this post to Su’s Changing Seasons series. Have a look at how other bloggers have spent their month.