Sunny Afternoon

As Ms Wuggle has indicated in her post of a few hours previously, we are not now intending to visit Australia this September. We had intended to come over for the World SF Convention in Melbourne -- only the fourth time the Worldcon has been held in Australia -- over the first weekend of the month, which would have provided an opportunity to meet up with lots of people we haven't seen for some years before going on to family-related stuff in the rest of the month; but, as Judith has related, the family-related stuff has fallen through one item after the other, leaving only the Worldcon. Which unfortunately isn't enough of a draw on its own.

Not visiting Australia in September, but deferring a visit until April next year, removes quite a lot of pressure in a number of areas. For one thing, it means that I won't be using my entire annual leave allowance in this calendar year, and will be able to carry an unused portion forward into the next. For another, inevitable slippages in the timetables for the various pieces of legislation that I'm shepherding through -- coupled with uncertainty about how the new government wants to see things done -- means that my absence in September could have been a bit awkward. For a third, we won't be absent during the first part of the harvest season in the garden and on the allotment, so can both rethink our planting plans and not have to worry about tasking someone else to look after the weeding and watering duties.

But, speaking of gardening: today was bright and warm; utterly cloudless (until early evening, when a thin skein blew in from the west -- and carried straight on; the night sky is a clear dark blue) and with temperatures several degrees above those normal for this time of year. A bit oppressive for Ms Wuggle (she says -- even though she grew up in the tropics) but just dandy from my perspective (I strip down to next to nothing and stretch out to "toast my buns", as we say here).

I also took a few photographs, which are below.

Change of plans

Things just weren't working out for popping down to see y'all around the SF Worldcon in Sep '10 -- so we have decided to save up our long holiday allowance and pennies to come over next April for kellie's matrimonial do -- when Leith and Jule's new baby should be available to say hello to and they should be settled down in one spot; when Z&P should be at home in Sydney for us to visit their new extended house (well, new to us); when Ros is clear of her final teacher training demands, and when Maureen isn't having to settle a new maternity leave person into her team at work. Not to mention volcanic ash randomly grounding flights and predictions of another eruption next door. Fingers crossed everything will work out better for a visit then!And we might be able to do a bit more catching up with Z,P and co while they're up this part of the world.

So -- us hanging about not getting around to actually booking flight tickets or Melbourne hotel all turns out to have been the most sensible strategy in the end.

Meanwhile, in these parts -- fine hot sunny weekend. Lots of gardening for me and DIY for JN. I've just planted 5 tomato plants out in the back garden (Gardeners Delight (2, red cherry toms), Tigerella (stripy yellow/red), Black Plum, Big Rainbow, and planted basil around their feet. I'm re-working the next door front garden I look after. It had climbers around the walls and fence (jasmine, virginia creeper henryana) but they'd got out of hand -- so have been all ripped out (though no doubt bits will have escaped to re-sprout). I've put in a deep velvety red William Shakespeare rose which is supposed to have a very strong real old-fashioned rose scent, and a stripy red-and-white Rosa Mundia against the front fence, with various pretty flowers going in below them.

Lots of flowers doing their stuff: end of forget-me-not season, foxgloves and roses just coming out, columbines, mourning widow, sweet cicely in full swing. Swifts arrived back from Africa last week -- just in time for the 'aerial plankton' of aphids that they feed on. And 'Springwatch' programmes start up for the next couple of weeks on TV, with cameras watching baby birds hatching. We just had the first fluffy baby great tit of the year -- sitting on the fence quivering its wings to be fed by its mum/dad. Aaahhh!

Hi - there

Just a quick post before zipping off to Uni.
Everything here is ticking along as normal. Kids zooming to and from school and then to sporting or social engagements. Mark is back home - not sure for how long - but we will enjoy him while we have him back.
The weather is sunny - as usual for Perth - it would probably be good to get some rain soon though.
Uni is busy - learning lots more about teaching maths and social studies and things I thought I would never have to think about again once I left school.
Exams in two weeks, a couple of assignment to complete, then my last long prac. and I have finished - officially a primary teaching (assuming all goes well).
I spoke to Zena on the weekend - and it seems that wedding preparations are in full swing now. Lots of talk of flowers, music, dresses and that sort of thing. All very exciting - but I think if I was getting married again I would just have a party on the beach for whoever wanted to come!
Anyway, best go.
I will have to download some of the hundreds of photos in my camera and post them to the site. Soon...

Pursuing the Cultural Programme

Blimey, but it's a long time since anyone posted anything here! To me, then, falls the, er, "honour" of catching everyone up with what we've been doing....

....except that I can't actually be arsed to trawl back through the past four months looking for the highlights. The rain fell, the sun arrived, the temperature went up, the sun went away again, it got colder, the volcano spewed more ash, und so weiter. Then, just as the gardening was about to swallow us up, Judith and I sat down with our diaries to map out a cultural programme for the next few months, to ensure that we at last get to visit the various places in and around London that we know we wish to see (and which have been on our lists of things to see for, like, totally forever, dude).

First up, a couple of weekends ago was a visit to the Linley Sambourne House and the Leighton House Museum, both in Kensington (follow the links for more information). The former is accessible only by guided tour, which had to be booked in advance and required an early start (on a Sunday); once inside, you realise immediately why only small numbers are allowed in at any one time, because it thoroughly exemplifies the Victorian fashion for filling one's home with unbelievable quantities of clutter. (The amount of dusting that would have been required to keep it all clean, in an age when open coal fires were standard, is perhaps best left to the most overactive of imaginations.) The Leighton House, by contrast, is much larger and airier -- purpose-built by and for the artist Frederic Leighton rather than a redecorated mid-terrace property, and emptier because his sisters (the philistines) sold off much of his art collection after his death. The date of our visit, however, was chosen to fit in with the recent re-opening of the house following its renovation and the lending back of pieces from his collection by the institutions which had bought them. (It must seem rather empty without these displays.)

Then, since we were in the area, we went to see the State Apartments at Kensington Palace, although much of the building is currently closed to the public while it (and its grounds) are refurbished as a full-on "visitor experience" (yeuch) in time for the 2012 Olympics (the quid pro quo presumably being that the tourist dollars hoovered up by the refurbished Palace will be a small recompense for the money squandered on the Games. Hem hum).

The Sunday just past we ventured further west, to see Kew Bridge Steam Museum and Kew Palace. The name of the former is potentially misleading: it has a short stretch of narrow-gauge railway on-site, but the building's origin was as a house for the beam engines which pumped water around Victorian London. The beam engines are still in situ, and have been joined by other steam pumping engines from around the country. On the day of our visit, there was a static display of old fire appliances in the museum forecourt, including (of course) a couple of Victorian-era horse-drawn steam pumps. None of this was of much interest to Judith, so she went off across the river to Kew Gardens ahead of me, leaving me to potter about taking photographs of all and sundry for another hour.

Kew Palace can't be visited independently of the Botanic Gardens, although they require separate tickets; it's a large house rather than a proper palace, and was first opened to the public in 1898. For much of the time we've lived in London, however, it seems to have been closed for one reason or another -- it was closed on my first visit to the Gardens, way back in 1990 -- and for the ten years 1996-2006 was shut entirely for a thoroughgoing restoration, which inter alia has put on display parts of the underlying fabric, showing brick and wood back to the seventeenth century: most interesting. (But the voice-overs from hidden speakers in several of the rooms, by actors pretending to be members of George III's family, are a bit annoying.)

Following the visit to the Palace, we spent a couple of hours meandering about the Gardens, which might have been more enjoyable if it hadn't kept trying to rain. By accident or design, we ended up in the Palm House shortly before the clouds were finally rent asunder, sending people scurrying into shelter in flurries of weatherproof anoraks and inappropriate summer footwear. I was up in the Palm House's gallery taking photographs as the rain started, and one could certainly hear it on the glass -- which, it turns out, has a few leaks here and there.

The journey home required a long wait for a bus, about which the less said the better. But below are some photographs of the Palm House, inside as well as out.