Happy Birthday to Me!

I had a birthday recently, held a party to celebrate. This was my chocky cake ...

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I still had a bit of huff and puff earlier in the evening...

But it all good a bit hazy from there on in!

(That's me on the right.)

Hills at Dawn

I took these photos through the upper kitchen window at dawn on 23 September 2006 - a very enjoyable and long day for me.

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This was a good start!

I used the flatscreen viewfinder on the camera to line this up and compose.

These photos are unaltered (except for reduction in resolution to make them more internet friendly).

Stobie Pole Dawn

Despite evidence to the contrary provided by this photo, South Australia suffers a distinct lack of tall straight trees. This made it hard for laying out electricity and phone wires, as well as street lights. A bloke called Stobie designed a substitute made of steel and concrete. They now litter our skyscape, another of Adelaide's little idiosincracies.

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Starlings

At dawn starlings are frequent visitors to the electricity wires which run past our home.

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They look quite rascally, which typifies their character.

They are rightly regarded as a bit of a pest, plunderers of gardens.

Nesting Dove

This dovebird has recently moved in to a tree just beneath our balcony. She's invisible from ground, and neatly sheltered from the strong winds around. Here she is at 19x (a 3 Megapixel picture originally, rather than the standard 9).

... Here she is at 12x (the maximum zoom of the camera with full 9 Megapixel resolution)...

Here's a view of her nested aspect within the tree (3 megapix).

Duck Family

A couple weeks ago I took these photos of this little family of ducks. I'd first seen the ducklings a week before then. Then, there were twelve of them. I think at the time of these photos, there were seven.

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They were making their way downstream from their daytime feeding zone to their night time haunts.

It would be interesting to see them climb UP the waterfall...

Site update

I have just moved all of my blogs over to the 'new' blogger. That means that I should be able to access new features to make this and my other blogs more user friendly, perhaps even better. I have waited a little while before doing this as the new 'beta' blogger was having a few problems. We shall see (and hope) that Blogger has sorted out most of the problems they had to begin with...

Study Views

This is the view from our study, looking across the front/court yard to the balcony. It was taken when we first arrived out our new abode.

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This view is through the back window of the study at sunset. Again, in late winter.

City Views

The following three city views are taken from our balcony. This first one was taken in twilight.

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The next two were taken in late afternoon. You can see the full vista in this first, together with the street light which is further down our street.

This last was the first time I tried to 'force' the zoom on the camera beyond its 'natural' 12x. It is achieved by taking a lower resolution shot, and leads to an effective zoom of 19x - without any digitial trickery. I'll explain further if anyone's interested...

Spring Rainbows

In the first week after we'd finished moving from our last home into the present we saw three rainbows on three days. Unable to help ourselves, we took the following snaps.

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Nancy took these first two photos.

And I took this last (which is included for the sake of completeness).

For previous rainbow posts, click here and here.

Sunset Clouds (Early Spring)

Nancy took the following photos (including the post below) of the skyline looking towards the ABC building you can see towards the West from our balcony. These types of cloudmass are a fairly common sight here in the evening in early spring.

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Louring Clouds

This was the view the other way, towards the hills from our study window.

'Lour' is a classic word, look it up.

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Bus Stop

I've almost always relied upon public transport for my regular commuting. Over the years I've caught a lot of busses, travelled on a lot of routes, waited at a lot of stops. This is the one down the road where I catch a bus every morning to get to work. It is about the most pleasant bus stop I have ever had the pleasure of waiting at, and perhaps one of the nicest stops I've even seen. The fact it is only a couple minutes walk away from the front door only adds to the pleasure.

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Torrens Vistas

The Torrens River and its Linear Park provide ready access to natural beauty to us urban dwellers. It's especially good living within walking distance, and you can see views like this of a spring eve.

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This is the same viewpoint, but different camera alignment. Not as cool a photo, but a wee bit more detail (how many birds can you see if you expand the picture?)...

Linear Park

I now have the pleasure of being able to walk our dogs through a local section of nearby Linear Park. Lots of people do this, but it never seems crowded.

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There's plenty of crossing points over the river (as we South Australians call this creek)...

And plenty of interesting views. This one is from the bench the dogs and I first see if we take the direct route to Linear Park (see below) ...

Linear Park Bench

About half a kilometre from our home lies Linear Park, a long stretching parkland which winds along the Torrens River on its course through suburban Adelaide. I will eventually feature quite a few photos taken there. This picture is of the park bench overlooking the river, conveniently located near the point where I gain access on my several-times-a-week walk of the dogs.

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Here's a more detailed view of the riverside trees from the bench...

Torrens Tree and Trunk

This is one of the trees you see from the Linear Park bench (above). It's one of many. The reason I give it special feature status (besides its inherent beauty) is that I took a series of photos of its trunk.

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And stitched them together into a vertical panorama...

This picture is composed of four photos.

Our (latest) Humble Abode

We were recently given notice to vacate the property we had called 'home' for over five years (such are the joys of renting). Undaunted, we searched and found this place to settle into after the trauma of moving out of our previous home. I took a few photos of the new abode on our first evening there, before any of our goods and chattels were moved in. Here is the view from the 'front yard'.

... The place has lots of interesting features - I hope to share some of them sometime soon on this blog. Until then, please be satisfied with this view from across the street...

And the following post on the pool (click here)!

To see my photoblog, click here.

Pool and pool life

Before moving on to show you around the place we left in California Street (below), I feel I should show you what most defines the present abode to most of those who have visited - the pool. This photo was taken the evening we moved in. You can see the 'rust stain' at bottom right, and the machine that collects most of the leaves which sink to the bottom.

...Living on the edge of the Torrens Valley, we have a fair few ducks passing through or over our yard. Some just can't resist enjoying their own private pond for awhile...

These two appeared to be considering the local environs for their new family home. Even though I have a fondness of ducks (see here and here), I hope I have dissuaded them. Visitors, I don't mind. Ducklings in our pool during its first summer would be a bit much!

Our House on California Street

This was our previous home. We had over five good years here. It will be the subject of the following series of posts. The pictures are mainly taken either when we first knew we had to move (before packing), or on the last night I was there, after we had finished packing, shifting and cleaning.

California Orchard

I spent a lot of balmy afternoons in this seat in our orchard beneath our large walnut tree (see below). To my mind, the orchard was perhaps the most unique feature of living at California Street. It made for a big block and a fair bit of garden maintenance, but it was worth it to have a retreat like this.

... From my orchard throne I had a good view of various fruit trees, including our orange tree...

California Walnut Trunk

This flash photo of the trunk of the walnut tree at the end of winter was taken on my final visit one night last week.

California Porch

This was the front veranda after we had removed most traces of our passage. You can see some old hanging wind chimes which we left behind still there. It all looks a bit barren and sparse in this photo, doesn't it?