Well - do YOU know what this is?

There were about 6 small cream balls lying in the soil. John poked one with the fork, splitting the casing - and the interior expanded into a polyhedron of gooey filaments inside of which was a nasty-smelling brown substance. Yukk!! It was amazing to see, straight out of a Dr Who sub-plot. I was 96% sure it was a rotten golf ball until I saw the tiny fungal roots in the ground. In the library I found a fungi book and inside was this 'THING!' It is "Basiomyceta Gasteroneycetes" or "Ileoictyon gracilis Phallales." Do click on the photo to see it enlarged and so see the "Thing" in all its glory.

Flying.

Yesterday we had a wonderful time, flying over our house and land! In 2003 we hired a plane and flew over the house when we were buying it. This time a friend flew down from Rockhampton in his Cessna 182 Turbo RG and on Saturday took us up and away. It was interesting to see how much the trees had grown. You can see our cottage, garage and land just about in the centre of the photo. John flew an aeroplane again for the first time in four years!

The sky was clear and there was little wind so I could take some photos fairly well, though the wing seemed to get in the way at times. I was impressed how attractively laid out the landscape seemed. The farm properties had lovely patterned paddocks from ploughing or cropping on the contour - and with some recent rain it was quite green and gentle.

Almost 5 years! Wow

Yes, just about 5 years since I came to live over here. Quite an adventure as you can imagine. Life has had it's ups and downs, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I never really had much of a spirit of adventure, I think I was too worried about life to bring it on board. It must have been hiding somewhere! I have crossed the world many times now and once was worried about flying. A nip of confidence goes a long way!

At the beginning of 2002 I was challenged by a quote from Goethe that my mother had stuck on her wall, and carried that with me for that year of change; "What ever you do or dream, you can do it. Begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."

Here is a recent photo of myself with John.