Mr Tait

As I ride pillion through this primeval forest, I don’t think
of the ancient trees, how they give us the smooth paper leaves
on which we love to press down with granite
made from the centre of the earth; 
nor of the fungi beneath, how one fruiting body brings us certain death
and another alters our consciousness
with its saprotrophic strangeness;
nor of the native bees, how their furry-bodied industries
sustain our food security and survival
as a species;

but instead

of Mr Tait, whose smile 
was a warning, and how he taught
us to bookmark a book with its own pages
without damage, and how he showed us how to mitigate
injury from possible falls when using a chair 
as a ladder, and how he use to call 
all the boys Fathead!

©️2020 K Price

Treasure Hunting

Shopping is one of my least favourite activities, so I usually try to avoid it. But when I’m travelling, I love to shop for small, unusual gifts for family and friends.

Shopping prep, Granville Island. Photo by Vi.

My husband’s not an easy giftee. He has everything he needs, and although he doesn’t have everything he wants (who does?), my budget doesn’t extend to Beneteaus and Breitlings. So his gifts from my travels are somewhat (ahem) eclectic. This is the latest.

Miniature Solar-powered RainbowMaker designed by David Dear

It’s an elaborate yet simple piece of engineering (to delight a child of any age).

Rainbows…go, catch some.

 

 

 

 

 

For Gabrielle Bryden – Perchance to Dream

Weekly Photo Challenge: Habit

It’s our habit, on a Saturday, to head out early for breakfast at our local, and then to the golf course for 18 holes.

We got more than we bargained for today – on the fourth, a thunderstorm so powerful in its rain and wind action that we struggled to run against it to seek shelter from the lightning spiking all around us. The golf course was flooded in a couple of minutes – it’s frightening how quickly the weather can turn deadly.

For more entries to the WPC Habit theme, see The Daily Post.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Fresh

I greatly admire people who reinvent ordinary everyday things as something revolutionary or breathtakingly wonderful. Parisian architect Jean Nouvel, French artist and botanist Patrick Blanc, and Australian landscape architect Keith Stead are three such people.Without their wonderful ideas and collaboration, One Central Park in Sydney might be just another (albeit luxury) residential apartment building.  However, when finished, OCP will don the world’s tallest vertical garden.

Now, that’s fresh!

(A bit of nominative determinism in the case of Mr Nouvel, perhaps? ;-))

For more entries to this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post.

My five favourites so far:

ThirdEyeMom

Chronicles of Illusions
(getting up early does have its rewards, Nancy ;-))

Pixelicious

Lucid Gypsy

Stories of the Wandering Feet and Mind

Weekly Photo Challenge: Nostalgic

‘Science of Nostalgia: It was first thought to be a “neurological disease of essentially demonic cause,” but it turns out that nostalgia is good for your brain. And there’s science to prove it.‘
More of this article in The New York Times

I took this (rather overexposed) photo of my nieces cooking dinner around 20 years ago when we all still lived on the African continent. We had given one of them a children’s cookbook for Christmas, and they invited us over for dinner—a three-course meal—which they cooked using recipes from the book. They were such sweet, funny munchkins – still are 😉

For more entries to this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post.

Sea of Creepy Monsters (Warning: Not Suitable for Tillys)

I don’t believe in god or Intelligent D, But if I did, it would seem to me, While creating things wot live under the sea, He was high on coke or LSD.

Sea of Creepy Monsters