Deep winter, July 2015

Seven in the morning.  It's minus 4 centigrade. Yesterday morning it was minus 6. Really cold and beautiful. Even the dog hesitated before going out. His nose, my nose, both numb.

We waited for the sun to rise before going out for our walk.

   It was still very cold!

The marigolds have kept blooming as the winter has been mild until a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

It was icier, more frosted and slippery, outside our protected garden. We had to walk very, very carefully.

Last fruit

I'm eating the last fruit from the garden now. 

Perfumed quinces 

and equally perfumed feijoas.

also the last handful of tomatoes from the wilting vines.

Intentions for this Winter

Autumn is just about over. It's refreshingly cold, rain has fallen every night for a week, and some days as well.  I always revive a bit once summer really ends.
I've been feeling miserable, tired and incompetent the last few months. It's not just been the summer heat. I've let the research project take over all my time, got too tired and have been diagnosed with, among other things, an allergy to sunlight - not really surprising for a woman who is not fond of summer!  So I have done my yearly winter review and decided to  slow the research project down a bit, and pick up the blog again.
I began this blog to keep in touch with family in Melbourne and Cairns. I soon discovered it was a very satisfying way to keep in touch with me. So as well as sewing again, pottering about the house, writing stories and visiting friends, I am going to put up at least one post a week. I don't know why I  stopped doing such things!
Tomorrow and Saturday I'm catching up with good friends over the best coffee in Ballarat. On Sunday Yin and I will drive to Kyneton and visit friends in their new house and garden.

This is the quilt, put aside for over a year that  I am going to finish by the end of April.

In June I am flying up to Cairns to spend some time with my eldest son. The tickets are booked.

now frost

Each night this week has been colder than the last - 2 degrees below zero, 3 degrees below - I'm wrapping up my aloe vera  plants in old, woollen doggy rugs to keep them alive overnight.
The washing is snap frozen on the line and the dog sniffs his water bucket in a worried way and comes back inside to drink. He doesn't know what to make of the ice in his water  bucket.

I love this weather. It's so sharp and sparkling. I've got woolly socks and jumpers and gloves, and with the days beginning to lengthen again, the dog and I catch the dawn as we crackle over frozen grass and leaves on our morning walk. No wind.  It is foggy and mysterious when we set off, and I love that too.

Snowy walk

(Click on these photos - there is more to see)

My yearly wish is granted - in August, as usual, with the last fierce blasts of cold from the Antarctic.

Snow.

I was walking down Sturt St for a university event in the old Ballarat Trades Hall, when  the spatter of rain became a snow fall.

and as always in Ballarat when it snows, all the shops and cafes emptied of staff and customers, and people laughed and took photos of themselves and their friends.

I took lots of photos. Snow augurs a good year for me. 

The Unicorn Hotel in the snow from Camp Street.

Walking across Sturt Street to Camp Street

The Trades Hall, Camp Street. It is flying the Eureka flag, of course.

The snow got thicker. This is the old Masonic Hall.

People gathered outside the door of the Trades Hall and took more photos before we went inside for the signing - everyone had a phone out but I had brought a real camera and there was some envy.

The snow was softer when I left and went off to have lunch at the dumpling restaurant, 3 doors down in Camp Street.

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Snow, green tea and dumplings. Bliss!

Pink Umbrella & Snow

First day of August, Camp Street Ballarat

more umbrellas... you can just about see the pink one up on the right 

watching snow through my umbrella

Wintry day in August

Winter is the season when I can be quiet, think about things, calm down.

This morning was chilly,  thick with fog and drizzle.  The dog and I rugged up and walked around the lake.

Only a determined fisherman and a mad kayaker were out and about. Flashes of orange in the grey morning.

There was no sign of the town surrounding the lake.

Even the ducks were invisible. But we heard them quacking madly in the dense reeds and brush of the islands.

Visiting bookshops and temples in Bendigo

A few days ago I made another trip over to the north east of Ballarat to the beautiful and still flourishing goldfields town of Bendigo.
Bendigo is just far enough away to be drier, hotter and sit in a different landscape.

I went with a friend to see the old Joss house, which sits a bit outside the city centre near the former Ironbark Chinese Camp. It is still a working temple, small and beautiful. Sadly, none of Ballarat's old temples  have survived.

My friend's father-in-law was the caretaker at the temple for for many years and she told me some stories about his time there over a delicious Italian lunch, in a restaurant just down from the best book shop in Bendigo.

After lunch I went off to the Golden Dragon Museum with its beautiful new garden precinct, traditional walled Chinese garden and two more working temples. I love Bendigo!

 Traditional and modern sit happily together in the museum's grounds.

 The brilliant colours of the elegant and baroque gateway sets off the nineteenthe century Victorian streetscape around it.

 A modern pavilion across the road is surely second cousin to the little pavilion in the museum grounds.

We finished up in the best secondhand bookshop in Bendigo which is less than five minutes away from the museum, in Farmer's Lane.

Where I bought a centenary history of the Australian Natives' Association 1871 to 1971. Then we drove home,  and it was still sunny when we got back to Ballarat!