long-toothed hinterland dweller

Two funerals and a wedding

It's after 1 a.m. and I can't believe I've just devoted an entire evening to Charles and Camilla.  I began by idly tuning in to catch some of the televised coverage of their wedding,  but then discovered that the local channel was interspersing the BBC's live film with an amazing, no-punches-pulled documentary covering the history of their sordid affair and its disastrous effect on Charles' first marriage.  Most unexpected, and in rather poor taste, I thought, to broadcast it simultaneously with the historical wedding event - but I watched it just the same!

Not having followed the marriage lead-up events with any real interest, I picked up some information that was new to me - like the fact that the Queen Mother loaned the couple her home so that they could meet secretly - and the suggestion that the Queen has done a deal with Charles, allowing him to marry Camilla in return for an agreement that he won't ever expect to be King.

It was worth staying up late to enjoy a touch of pomp and ceremony.  The Pope's funeral had not appealed to me as a spectator event, so I was quite fresh for taking in a ceremonious occasion.  The choirs and the other chapel musicians who performed were magnificient, and as a side interest I tried to identify the various royals and studied their fashion choices.  I gather that Camilla's wedding garments met with fairly widespread approval - despite her problem with the avian head-gear that wanted to take flight.

Although Prince Charles delayed his wedding by a day to attend the Pope's funeral, I understand that he won't be interrupting his honeymoon to pay his respects when Prince Ranier is buried.  No doubt someone else in the firm will take on that task.

Now that the wedding is over I can go back to being a republican again.  I have no wish to see this sad, irrelevant couple as our King and Queen.

Small pleasures, great riches

I am up late again tonight.  It is so tempting to take a quick run around to visit some of my favourite blogs from the other hemisphere and to read what some of the early post-ers have to say while their words are still warm off the press.  I read Ronni's thoughful piece on cyber friendships at Time Goes By and then stopped by at Cop Car's place to see what she had been up to.  How I enjoyed reading  her account of a few days ago, when she went shopping for an outfit for her grand-daughter's wedding.

Having just been through the same exercise, I shared her sense of that special thrill when you find just what you need and much sooner than you expected.  Not having to pay an arm and a leg for it is an added bonus.  Having last week found the dress to wear to my daughter's wedding, today my mission was to find the shoes - having been warned sternly by both daughter and sister that my old faithful party pumps just would not do.  Something elegant and strappy, they said, and with a heel!  I could see some serious compromising looming.  Not so long ago I had decided that where my feet were concerned, I would never again sacrifice comfort for fashion, and that high heels were henceforth definitely out.

Well someone up there was looking after me today, and in store number three, there they were - pretty pewter sandals with a neat one-inch (sturdy) heel and at a third off the original, fairly steep price!  I came home feeling very pleased at my luck.  Later when I opened the box the docket fell out and I discovered that my purchase had been marked down again by half.  It's little wins like this that can make a day!

I'm off tomorrow for a training course and (I hope) a useful and interesting couple of days at Coffs Harbour, the banana capital.   There I will meet up with a number of old and familiar work colleagues, some of whom I have not seen for more than five years. 

I sent a friend a birthday card today with the caption:

                   Where there are friends there are riches.  (Titus Plautius) 

And that refers to my new cyber friends too!  And I'm drinking to that Jean, at THIS TOO, with a bed-time cup of jasmine and rosemary tea, brewed with mint and ginger.

Stachytarpheta mutabilis

View this photo

Well that's the name of the 'mystery ' plant I wrote about a few days ago - the one I collected more than two years ago from a garden in Murwillumbah, in Northern NSW.  It's a Stachytarpheta mutabilis of the family Verbenaceae, my friend C was finally able to tell me.  I had given cuttings to three of my friends - all much more knowledgeable about gardening than I, and all had enthusiastically taken up the challenge of identifying it.  C came up with the answer first, but she had sent photos off to her expert colleague, 'Steve', who located this description in a nursery catalogue:

• Stachytarpheta 'Coral' is a member of the verbena family, but picture
  verbena-like flowers on snaky green whips growing on a 5-6' tall plant. Not
  your average verbena! The snaky green whips are the flower stalks, and while
  flowers are never produced en masse, there is a constant supply all summer
  and fall as the 1/2", rich coral-pink blossoms open up the stalk. Crinkly,
  medium green foliage makes a perfect foil for the blossoms. Narrow at the
  base but 5' wide at the top ...

You can see more images at these two sites: 

http://www.singingspringsnursery.com/page6.html 
and -  http://www.barbadine.com/pages/stachy_mut_lien.htm

Already my specimen is almost as tall as I am, and continues to flower away.  I need to pot some cuttings soon, in case it should suddenly turn up its toes, as some of my plants can inexplicably do.

Meanwhile I am still trying to get my tongue around its name - so far I can only remember it as 'stachy-something' and have to keep it handy written on a piece of paper.

Picking pineapples

Just look at this succulent, ripe pineapple in our garden, just as it was about to be picked this morning.  We have a pineapple patch of a dozen or so plants, all of them being planted-out tops of fruit we had purchased and eaten. 

This is the first we have brought to maturity and have been able to pick before it was either gnawed or completely hollowed out by a possum or a bush rat. 

Time and time again we would watch a developing fruit, waiting for a tinge of yellow so that we could bring it in to ripen.   But every time some fruit-loving creature would beat us to it.  Until now!

This is a picture of the same pineapple as it was, a few minutes before, completely enveloped in a wrapper of wire gauze - recycled from an old window screen.  I am sure they could smell it, but none of our fruit-loving friends were able to get their teeth into this one.  It's good to have found a solution as there are 4 or 5 other small pineapples now coming on.

Out in the midday sun

I'm just in from a spot of topless sunbaking on a banana lounge out in the garden.  [Sorry, no photo available this post.]  Choosing to be out-of-doors in the middle of the day is not something that I readily do in summer, clothed or not, but the autumn sun is much milder and today is bearable for 10 minutes or so at a time.  My aim is to achieve an attractive, evenly tanned decolettage to suit the plunging neckline of my M.O.B. outfit, to be worn at CM's wedding in less than 3 weeks. 

The bride herself will be wearing strapless - much to her mother's dismay - I was always taught that a bride should dress 'demurely'.  But as she pointed out, nine out of ten brides are wearing strapless gowns these days.  So much for individuality!  At least my older daughter chose to be married in her favourite colour, red, while I myself opted for a casual 60's style, slightly hippie dress in an aqua floral print.   

CM has been treating herself to twice weekly trips to a Melbourne solarium to perfect her tan.  How much luckier I am to be able to do it for free outside in the open.  It's the same with the free sun that we use to dry our laundry and to whiten and sterilise the linen - and to ripen our tomatoes.  You can't beat living in this part of the country.

Other people's gardens

As well as poring over gardening books and magazines I am always on the lookout for inspiring blogs of others who garden.  Trouble is, all the most interesting writers seem to live in the northern hemisphere, so while I love reading all about their gardening pleasures and adventures, sometimes I feel as though they could be writing from the moon.  Deer trampling crops, crocuses peeping through snow, fruit trees growing indoors, blooms on window-sills and vegetables in green-houses are experiences that I will never share.  (Although plants in shade-houses are very familiar).  Right now I am glad that our long hot summer is finally drawing to an end and it will at last be possible to plant some seedlings without them shrivelling up within two days and to venture out to do some digging at noon without suffering sun-stroke.

So I was up at 6 this morning (sipping rosemary tea, thanks Jean) and while reading more reports from joyful bloggers about the disappearing snow and their first spring bulbs flowering, I was contemplating the fact that the three frangipani trees in the front garden have almost finished blooming and the heady, almost sickly perfume that fills the house on a breezy day will soon be gone.

Speaking of other people's gardens, it goes without saying that we all love to be given a pot-plant, a cutting or some seeds by a friend and to forever have a special memory of that person attached to their plant.  I have a begonia given to me on the birth of my now 25 year-old son.  Cuttings from this have accompanied us on 5 or 6 house moves since then, and while I still have the original happily blooming in the same pot, there are numerous pieces tucked into gardens wherever we have been.

The biggest thrill of course is to acquire a cutting from an unusual plant in a distant place and breathlessly transport it home hoping it won't wilt too badly before it can be potted. Many of my geraniums made it here after a three day car trip from my parent's home interstate.

One of my most interesting acquisitions has been what I have been calling for more than two years, my 'Murwillumbah Mystery' plant.  I was paying a business call to a lady in the town of Murwillumbah when I spied an amazing flowering woody shrub in her pretty cottage-type garden.  She said she had no idea what it was; she had had it for years and knew it hated having wet feet, but it was otherwise quite hardy.  The flowers were coral pink and growing on stiff arching canes up to 18 inches in length.  The plant itself was perhaps 10 feet high.  She snapped off two pieces and assured me it would be easy to grow.

One cutting survived for 12 months in a pot until I finally made up my mind where to put it.  Once out of the confines of the pot it was away!  Then MY visitors began to notice it and wanted to know what it was.

Just last week I finally found out its name. There is no time to post the details and include some links about it now.  I'll leave that for another day.  But now for my second cup of tea.  This time rosemary with a touch of winter tarragon, mint and chopped lemon grass.   Bliss.