Tomato Festival

Another colourful beauty in my Twitter feed Monday morning, again from Australia. This Mandala design from Jimmy Turner, Director of Horticulture for Royal Botanic Garden Sydney: "The @RBGSydney Horticulture staff did an amazing job interpreting my coloured drawing into a masterpiece." The vibrant vegetable Mandala was created for the Tomato Festival Sydney 2020 held on...

Bottlebrush Flowers

These are Australian flowers (Callistemon species) but so familiar to New Zealanders too, and perhaps to most the rest of the world - it's not unusual to see them in photos on other people's blogs, normally the standard red-flowered species. I've been familiar with bottlebrush flowers since I was a kid growing up in Northland...

Small Keepsakes

After cleaning the stained glass lightshade I dealt with the mantelpiece I've been ignoring for ages! What a great opportunity to share with you some of the things that are special to us 🙂 At home in our Tapanui cottage. New Zealand. This metal poppy art is above the fireplace. We bought it just before...

Bright and Beautiful

The light in our passage at home died a couple of nights ago. I decided to take down the stained glass lightshade yesterday and give it a clean and got a new light bulb. What a stunning difference! I guess it was already fairly dusty when we moved in because we've never seen the colours...

Royal Wolf

In Dunedin on Christmas Day we were taking photos of a mural by a carpark but I also wandered over to a shipping container to look at the Royal Wolf logo. I've often admired these but never had the opportunity to be so close. Having photographed the logo I got interested in the marks around...

Silent Night, Holy Night

We'd driven over to another part of town late on Christmas Day to photograph a sign that we'd wanted to see lit up at night. Driving back to the motel we spotted colourful lights outside a church and stopped to take a closer look. That's me looking at the nativity scene. It was peaceful and...

Ostriches

We visited Invercargill today and before leaving for home went to First In Windsor for refreshments. They'd done a great job in decorating the cafe/restaurant for Christmas and we found it cheerful and welcoming. What really caught my attention though was a picture on the wall. Love this! Three separate photos taken by Nigel, edited...

White and Blue

I really enjoyed the white and blue colour beds when we were in Dunedin Botanic Garden on Sunday 08 Dec 2019. These two beds are at one end of a row of five colour beds. Opposite is the long border with large silvery cardoon plants and a great variety of colourful flowers. It's a beautiful...

Colours of Roses

In Dunedin Botanic Garden on Sunday 08 Dec we enjoyed seeing many different rose blooms on display, and so many different colours! Dunedin, New Zealand. Photos taken by Nigel (N) and Liz (L). Click on ANY photo to enlarge. N N L The next two photos are of a rose we thought was very special...

Having New Eyes

I'm all enthused about 'landscapes' which is unusual for me. The word 'landscape' gets way overused, appearing in all sorts of contexts that have nothing to do with real landscapes.  November Square-A-Day Landscapes  by Jill Kuhn is a wonderful exception - this is my reblog of her 02 Dec post. Thank you Jill Kuhn for...

Electrifying Colour

Brilliant colour from the azaleas at Maple Glen. If you love bold and bright colours then you really mustn't miss seeing what's on offer at D’Illimination, Jardin des Plantes, Paris. Damien visited on 26 November and has posted nearly 40 photos on his blog under the heading Oceans of Colour - lots of marine themed...

Old Adverts

For what seems like ages, I've been wanting to photograph these old advertisements that were done up in 2017 and look stunning. The building is the former Ravensbourne Store which you drive by when travelling between Port Chalmers and Dunedin City. New Zealand. Photos taken by Liz and Nigel, 24 Nov 2019. Click on any...