Thursday 31 January 2019

MINI ROSE

Parade Roses are miniature, fragrant, potted roses meant to be grown indoors. They are hardy and will also do well out in the garden in temperate climates. Poulsen's Nurseries of Denmark have developed a series of about twelve Miniature Roses with 'Parade' in their names. They have called them 'Rosa Nova' to distinguish them from similar roses from other breeders, just as Meilland's of France have called their Miniatures 'Meillandina' or 'Sunblaze'. The 'Rosa Nova' series are all very small, bushy growers that are suited to pot culture. They are all excellent pot plants with good continuity of bloom.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

Wednesday 30 January 2019

DANCE

Turkish oriental dance is referred to in Turkey as 'Oryantal Tansi', or simply 'Oryantal'. The Turkish style of bellydance is lively and playful, with a greater outward projection of energy than the more contained Egyptian style. Turkish dancers are known for their energetic, athletic (even gymnastic) style, and their adept use of finger cymbals, also known as zils. Connoisseurs of Turkish dance often say a dancer who cannot play the zills is not an accomplished dancer. Floorwork, which has been banned in Egypt since the mid-20th century, is still an important part of Turkish bellydance. Another distinguishing element of Turkish style is the use of the Karsilama rhythm in a 9/8 time signature, counted as 12-34-56-789. These photos were taken at a show we watched when we visited Turkey in 2007.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.




Tuesday 29 January 2019

PHILLIP ISLAND, AUSTRALIA

Phillip Island is an Australian island about 140 km south-southeast of Melbourne, Victoria. Named after Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, Phillip Island forms a natural breakwater for the shallow waters of the Western Port. It is 26 km long and 9 km wide, with an area of about 100 km2. It has 97 km of coastline and is part of the Bass Coast Shire. The southern coast of the island lies exposed to the ocean of Bass Strait and can experience some wild weather, which doesn't seem to deter the avid surfers.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.






Sunday 27 January 2019

PERISHABLE PAPER

Paper may perish,
Book may be torn,
Print may fade,
Libraries may burn,
But the ideas therein are for evermore.
                                                             NJV

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

Saturday 26 January 2019

WET DOG

We had a very hot Summer's day yesterday in Melbourne, with the temperature climbing up to 43˚C (that's 109.4°F). All the dogs wanted to do was swim in the creek... I was tempted to join them!

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme.


Wednesday 23 January 2019

POLEMONIUM

Attractive, dense ferny foliage makes Polemonium pulcherrimum 'Blue Dove' (also known as Jacob's ladder) a valuable plant for all year round interest in the garden. As an added bonus loose sprays of open bell shaped flowers in a soft shade of blue can appear from spring right through to and including autumn. Its 'lacy' appearance makes it a useful plant for softening hard lines and edges created by rocks, garden edging or paving.

Polemonium is a genus comprising of around 30 species of mostly perennial herbs which are native to regions of North and Central America, Europe and Asia. An excellent plant for general garden use and suitable for most colour schemes. 'Blue Dove' looks particularly at home in woodland type settings or in the cottage garden. It may be grown in semi shade although this may decrease flower production. This, however, is not necessarily a reason to avoid planting it in such locations as the attractive foliage alone will lend a visual appeal to these often difficult landscaping zones. To accent the foliage further create a foil of foliage behind it using larger, broader leafed plants or those with tall slender foliage such as that of Irises.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

CITY

New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 784 km2, New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States.

Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the centre of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area.

A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important centre for international diplomacy.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

Tuesday 22 January 2019

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of approximately 2.3 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of more than 3 million.

The Brisbane central business district stands on the original European settlement and is situated inside a bend of the Brisbane River, approximately 23 km from its mouth at Moreton Bay. The metropolitan area extends in all directions along the floodplain of the Brisbane River valley between the bay and the Great Dividing Range. While the metropolitan area is governed by several municipalities, a large portion of central Brisbane is governed by the Brisbane City Council, which is by far Australia's largest Local Government Area by population.

Brisbane is named after the river on which it sits, which, in turn, was named after Scotsman Sir Thomas Brisbane, the Governor of New South Wales from 1821 to 1825. The first European settlement in Queensland was a penal colony at Redcliffe, 28 kilometres north of the Brisbane central business district, in 1824. That settlement was soon abandoned and moved to North Quay in 1825. Free settlers were permitted from 1842. Brisbane was chosen as the capital when Queensland was proclaimed a separate colony from New South Wales in 1859.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.







Friday 18 January 2019

EERIE SUNSET

We've had some semi-tropical weather in Melbourne today, with humid overcast skies, heavy rain showers, heat and at sunset a rather eerie orange-yellow sky...

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme.

Wednesday 16 January 2019

BAYSIDE, MELBOURNE

The City of Bayside is a Local Government Area in Melbourne. It is located in the southern suburbs, with an area of 36 square kilometres and an estimated population of about 100,000 people. It comprises the City of Brighton, City of Sandringham, City of Moorabbin, City of Mordialloc and City of Bayside. As well as having quite exclusive and very expensive real estate by the seaside in Brighton, for example, it also has areas of industrial and business park usage, as in Moorabbin.

Lately we have had hot Summer weather and we went for a drive down the coastal road, visiting Elwood, Brighton, Hampton and Sandringham. The sea was perfect and there were many bathers, sail boat and motor boat enthusiasts, as well as the jet ski devotees. Many lovely beaches exist along this stretch of Melbourne's suburban coast, so it is a popular are for fun in the sea and sun. Add to that large numbers of great cafés, restaurants and all sorts of other eateries and you have the recipe for a perfect weekend outing.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.




Tuesday 15 January 2019

SYDNEY SHIPS

On February 20, 2007, tens of thousands of people packed Sydney Harbour's foreshore to witness a historic reunion of two queens of the sea. The Queen Elizabeth 2 and the Queen Mary 2 greeted each other with the sound of their whistles as the QE2 sailed past her sister ship docked at the Garden Island navy base.

The Queen Mary 2, one of the world's largest passenger cruise liners, majestically sailed through the harbour shortly before dawn, followed by a flotilla of boats and watched by thousands onshore. Too tall, at 23 storeys high, to sail under the Harbour Bridge and too long to berth at the International Terminal at Circular Quay, the $1 billion grand lady of the sea, on her maiden visit to Sydney, docked at the naval base.

In the evening, her sister ship, the QE2, was also welcomed by large crowds as she sailed through the harbour to dock at Circular Quay. As she passed near Garden Island, the QE2 sounded its whistles, prompting a similar response from her big sister and rapturous applause and cheers from those watching on the foreshore. It was a sight not seen in Sydney since the two ships' predecessors - the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth - greeted each other in the harbour as troop carriers in 1941.

The 345-metre-long QM2 weighs in at 151,400 tonnes and caters for up to 3090 passengers with the help of 1253 crew.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.





Sunday 13 January 2019

AIRPLANE

Melbourne Airport (IATA: MEL, ICAO: YMML), also known as Tullamarine Airport, is the primary airport serving the city of Melbourne, and the second busiest airport in Australia. It was opened in 1970 to replace the nearby Essendon Airport. Melbourne Airport is the sole international airport of the four airports serving the Melbourne metropolitan area.

The airport is 23 km from the city centre. The airport has its own postcode—Melbourne Airport, Victoria (postcode 3045). This is adjacent to the suburb of Tullamarine.The Melbourne–Sydney air route is the fifth most-travelled passenger air route in the world and the second busiest in the Asia Pacific region. The airport features direct flights to 33 destinations in all states and territories of Australia in addition to numerous destinations in Oceania, Asia, Africa, Europe and North America.

Melbourne is the most common destination for the airports of five of Australia's seven other capital cities.N1 Melbourne serves as a major hub for Qantas and Virgin Australia, while Jetstar Airways and Tiger Airways Australia utilise the airport as home base. Melbourne is the busiest airport for international export freight as of August 2011, while second busiest for import freight. Domestically, Melbourne serves as headquarters for Australian air Express and Toll Priority and handles more domestic freight than any other airport in the nation.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme.

Thursday 10 January 2019

TWEEDIA

Oxypetalum coeruleum is a species of flowering plant, native to South America from southern Brazil to Uruguay, in the Apocynaceae family. The synonymous name Tweedia caerulea is also used. Growing to 100 cm, it is a straggling evergreen perennial with heart shaped, gray-green, downy leaves.

It is grown for its clear pale blue, star-shaped flowers, which are long lasting and cut well. The summer flowers age to purple and are followed by 30 cm long, boat-shaped seed pods. The seeds have downy parachute-like tufts (cypsela). The cultivar 'Alba' has white flowers, while 'Rosea' has pink flowers.

Oxypetalum coeruleum requires full sun in a well-drained soil that is dry. Propagation is via seed. With a minimum temperature range of 3–5 °C, it can be grown outdoors in a frost-free, sheltered environment. Alternatively it can be grown as an annual. This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

Tuesday 8 January 2019

PISA, ITALY

The Piazza dei Miracoli (Italian: Square of Miracles), formally known as Piazza del Duomo (Italian: Cathedral Square), is a wide walled area located in Pisa, Tuscany, Italy, recognised as an important centre of of European medieval art and one of the finest architectural complexes in the world. Considered a sacred area by its owner, the Catholic Church, the square is dominated by four great religious edifices: The Pisa Cathedral, the Pisa Baptistry, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the Camposanto Monumentale (Monumental Cemetery). 

Partly paved and partly grassed, the Piazza dei Miracoli is also the site of the Ospedale Nuovo di Santo Spirito (New Hospital of the Holy Spirit), which houses the Sinopias Museum (Italian: Museo delle Sinopie), and the Cathedral Museum (Italian: Museo dell'Opera del Duomo). The name Piazza dei Miracoli was created by the Italian writer and poet Gabriele d'Annunzio who, in his novel "Forse che sì forse che no" (1910), described the square as the "prato dei Miracoli" or the "meadow of miracles". The square is sometimes called the Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles). In 1987 the whole square was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italian: Torre pendente di Pisa) or simply the Tower of Pisa (Torre di Pisa) is the campanile, or freestanding bell tower, of the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa, known worldwide for its unintended tilt to one side. It is situated behind the Cathedral and is the third oldest structure in Pisa's Cathedral Square, after the Cathedral and the Baptistry. The tower's tilt began during construction, caused by an inadequate foundation on ground too soft on one side to properly support the structure's weight. The tilt increased in the decades before the structure was completed, and gradually increased until the structure was stabilised (and the tilt partially corrected) by efforts in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The height of the tower is 55.86 metres from the ground on the low side and 56.67 metres on the high side. The width of the walls at the base is 2.44 m. Its weight is estimated at 14,500 metric tons. The tower has 296 or 294 steps; the seventh floor has two fewer steps on the north-facing staircase. Prior to restoration work performed between 1990 and 2001, the tower leaned at an angle of 5.5 degrees, but the tower now leans at about 3.99 degrees. This means that the top of the tower is displaced horizontally 3.9 metres from where it would be if the structure were perfectly vertical.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.