for the love of dogs, travel and plant – based food…
When I read that Ailsa’s theme this week was Soft, thoughts of my travels through France with my darling son Rob came to mind.
The softness of his being coupled with the beauty of Annecy and it’s surrounds is captured I feel, in these images: I hope you agree…
I live in suburbia, well Australian coastal suburbia, which is probably vastly different from suburbia elsewhere.
On one side of my house, cars and people pass on the street.
On the other side, it is kangaroos who pass by.
The houses on my side of the street back onto natural bushland and within, a family of kangaroos reside. They roam from property to property as there are no fences between each.
I find their presence unique and beautiful, we share a space peacefully and happily.
This morning as Stanley and I watched them graze, I noticed a new addition, a young joey now makes them a family of four.
Please excuse the image quality…
In a previous post I wrote about my ‘mad mower’ incident when I owned acreage in the stunning Sunshine Coast hinterland. Whilst that post was about the humorous and somewhat dangerous moments I experienced living there, this post is quite different.
The Weekly Photo Challenge theme this week is Silhouettes, which reminded me of a particular morning there when I watched a group of birds gathered on the stumps of a recently cut tree.
I watched them for some time and later one of them flew over and sat upon the railing of my verandah, not more than a metre from where I sat.
Maybe he felt it was time he watched me, just as I had spent time watching him and his friends.
On display… many thoughts danced in my mind with Ailsa’s travel theme this week, then I remembered some time I spent with a Bedouin man in the UAE and I was reminded of his wares that were on display. I spent a few hours with him, drinking beautifully flavoured tea on a very warm day, whilst lazing upon coloured cushions and listening to tales of wives, camels and life as a Bedouin.
The years I worked at as a flight attendant afforded me many exciting experiences, here are just a few of those moments that I feel fall into this weeks photo challenge, big.
Posts that highlight my loveable friend Stanley have frequented my blog and when Ailsa posted this weeks theme of animals, well I felt Stanley needed to star once again. Stanley’s typical day includes a fair amount of ‘travelling’ i.e from the couch to the bed, to the car, to the pool, to the table, to the beanbag, watching our resident kangaroos… ah yes, Stanley’s daily travels.
Happiness is family, friends, travel, exploration, love, tears, laughter, sharing, giving, losing and being. Here is my visual representation of those words…
Earlier this year I did a quick trip back to my hometown of Melbourne. The weather was superb and seeing Melbourne is known to be ‘the city of 4 seasons in a day’, I was grateful it decided to be spring for the entire day. I had also just commenced my photography course so I was eager to try out some of the techniques I had learnt, particularly some night shots as I had not used a tripod before so the night shots below were my first attempt.
I’m starting to get a little worried. Do I have a penchant for collecting strange dogs?
I wonder.
For those of you who follow my blog you may recall my story of my beloved Sausage who disliked walks immensely and you may also know that after her sad passing I adopted another wire-haired dachshound of whom we named Stanley. Sausage always amused us with her absolute refusal to walk and her many other strange behaviours, now it is Stanley who has us wondering if we have a strange effect on our 4-legged friends.
The other night my son and I were happily gnawing on freshly cut watermelon when his Dogship, who not wanting to miss out on any human activity, jumped on the couched and sniffed excitedly in the direction of the watermelon. ‘Stanley, it’s watermelon,’ I said. ‘You won’t like it’. At those spoken words he inched his way closer and having nearly finished my piece, I offered him some.
To my surprise, he ate it. No sniff, no slurp, just one big grab and swallow. And there he stayed, hovering and salivating until he was offered and subsequently devoured more watermelon.
It gets better, or should I say gets stranger. As a vegetarian I eat a lot of vegetables (funny that). So the night following the watermelon night, I had made a delicious stir fry of chinese cabbage, carrot, potato and leek sautéed in a thai flavoured spicy sauce. Accompanied by a glass of Pinot and a good movie, I curled up the couch to enjoy my simple meal.
Enter Stanley.
Taking a leap onto the couch and in very similar fashion to the watermelon incident, he once again sniffed excitedly. And once again I said, ‘No Stanley it’s cabbage you won’t like it’.
I really don’t need to say what happened next do I? Yep, he ate it. And the pièce de résistance? The night following the night of the cabbage, I was eating an apple. Yep, he ate that too, straight from the core.
And I could continue, as there are many, many more strange incidents and events. Making love to the broom, sleeping in, not on his doggy bed, playing with unwilling cockroaches and mistaking a dropped piece of rocket lettuce for a strange yet unique looking bug.
So the question remains: Strange dogs or just a strange owner?
stanley & bear 