Glacier Minutes

Here is another snapshot of South America. This one is of the Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina. This glacier, which is 30 km long, is part of the South Patagonia Icefield, the world's third largest reserve of fresh water. I spent a whole day at the glacier, first approaching it by boat. The wall rises up to 60 metres high, but there are another 170 metres of ice below the surface of the lake. Pieces are regularly falling from it. Even being right there it was difficult to get a good idea of the scale and the pieces which fell only looked like small chunks until they hit the water and made a great crashing sound. The glacier terminates in a very narrow part of the lake so it is possible to climb the bank opposite and get an excellent view of the glacier from above. From here, without the sound of the boat's engine, it was possible to listen to the glacier cracking and creaking as it moved slowly into the lake. It sounded like there was a war going on. This is one of the few glaciers which is not retreating and sometimes it advances to the opposite shore and damns the whole lake.

A World First the BananaCam

If you thought watching paint dry, grass growing or perhaps even cheese going mouldy is exciting nail biting stuff well, have we got a treat for you. Yes, it's the BananaCam. At great expense and risk to personal safety our intrepid cameraman has penetrated the depths of a western Sydney suburban backyard rainforest to bring you these images.

Here we see the quads slowly emerging in to the world and being looked after by their brothers and sisters in the big bunch above them.

Here we have the latest arrivals, soon they will be coming out of their purple pod. Watch out for the next exciting episode of BananaCam.

Spring in the Garden

By Alan Itcharse

Now is the time for all fair-weather gardeners to venture out in the garden without a fleece. After the winds and frosts of winter the garden looks like a bombsite so get out your secateurs and loppers and hack away at the overhanging branches and the trees that fell over the path in the gales. Grab all the brown dead bits and pull them off and stuff them in a bin bag or a green wheelie bin if you have one. Chop off the messy bulb leaves about 1” from the ground because they look messy. Collect all the fallen leaves so you can see where the dandelions are, then dig down a bit and pull them out. You know they will come back because you haven’t got all the root out, but never mind, you will have something to do next year.

Get a long pair of rubber gloves and a hand rake. Dredge the pond to remove all the long grasses that have fallen in and discover the little blackbird that sat on the edge of the pond and mysteriously disappeared over the winter has been hibernating at the bottom. A bit paler than last year so obviously it’s now a female blackbird. Remove all the big pebbles at the back of the pond so you can dig up that beautiful grass which has had about 11 babies and is trying it’s best to go for a swim, making sure you knock off 2 or 3 branches from the lovely purple acer in doing so. Put a plant from a pot in the hole so that it won’t die if you don’t get to water it enough in the hot weather. Replace the pebbles

Remove the ornamental millet that was a beautiful sight last year but now is a huge, 6ft-tall brown feathery object blocking the view of the things behind it. Put another plant from a pot in its place. Tie up the honeysuckle, vine and clematis to train them over the pergola, which you have noted has moved during the dark months and is now slanting down a bit. Plant the mahonia that your boss gave you for your birthday last December before it gives up the ghost.

Fix trellis to fence panel at the back for the winter jasmine that is creeping along the floor since the old panel blew into the garden, making sure you rip yourself to pieces on the firethorn at the side of it and also make sure to tread on the white flowered thing in front. Cut off the underneath branches of the salix so you can see the hibiscus behind it.

And last but not least, secure the tree peony whose upper body was far too heavy for its spindly legs, having a wondrous 9 huge blossoms this year. And don’t forget to hit your thumb several times whilst hammering in the stake.

There, that’s better isn’t it?

Spring has come to Healey Dell

Here I am doing one-upmanship on Carole! I have counted 13 heads on one tulip stem. Can anyone beat that? The squirrel is only allowed to use this feeder. All the others are squirrel-proof.

St George's Day Parade and Slapped Cheek

Just a little note to say that Ben had his St Georges Day parade at Beavers last weekend, despite suffering from slapped cheek syndrome. Details and photos are on my blog if anyone wants to read, link to the left....

Big Big Falls

I have finally been getting round to arranging all my photos from my trip to South America, into albums, so I have picked a few out. This first one is from Brazil, last September. The Iguacu Falls are bigger than Niagara and compare only with the Victoria Falls, in Africa, in volume and impressiveness. They are on the Parana River, on the border between Argentina and Brazil and reach up to 82 metres in height. The name Iguacu means "big water" and at some places along the falls it is possible to be surrounded by 260 degrees of waterfall (and get quite wet too!) Iguacu is actually made up of about 270 individual falls, the biggest of which is the Devil's Throat, into which the river pours from 3 sides.

To see the falls, and get this shot, I went over in a helicopter which was very impressive. It was like being in a big bee and I got fantastic views. It was great to see just how the falls appear in the massive cleft in the land over which the river flows. It was also possible to walk right alongside the falls on the Brazilian side. There were beautiful rainbows all over the place and the noise was incredible. I love waterfalls and this is certainly one I will never forget!

Yes, We Have No Bananas

Here we are at the start of autumn and we have bananas growing over the back fence. Yues's dad's place backs on to ours, he planted the trees years ago and they seem to thrive on their own.

The purple looking pod contains the next bunch of bananas due in a week or so. Last year cyclone Larry devastated the plantations in northern Queensland where the majority of our bananas are grown. Prices went through the roof, they were worth their weight in gold. Sydney is a bit too far south to grow bananas commercially due to us getting frosts.

The banana plantations are now back to normal after the cyclone, the things must grow like weeds. We call Queenslanders a bunch of "Banana Benders".

Toorooloo for now.

Some Pics of QM2 arriving Sydney

Have sorted through the heaps of photos we took on the day here are a few of the best. This first shot was taken as the QM2 came around Bradley's Head in total darkness, I am amazed that we managed to get some kind of image.

Whilst this is a rather dark and grainy photo I do like it because it portrays what we saw on the day. Everyone on our cruise boat said "Crikey she's huge".

This shot gives you an idea how big this ship is, we were about to see the Harbour Bridge and Opera House blocked from view as she turned around Fort Denison.

Having rounded Fort Denison she is heading to her berth at Garden Island Naval Docks. Nice view of the city skyline, it was rather surrealistic in the early morning light. We were deafened by the helicopters overhead. They were swarming around like angry wasps. You can see the fire tug which escorted the QM2 down the harbour shooting huge jets of water from her fire monitors.

Hope this works, have tried out your suggestions Suzy with placing pictures. Not sure if this is in draft form as intended, anyway it is about to launched, so cheers for now with all our best wishes.

Siamese Tete et tete

Mum is having trouble logging in, but sent this lovely photo of a double headed daffodil for us to see.

Well done you posters!

Really chuffed that everyone is happy to continue our newsletter on line! Thank you for the posts so far, its easy enough to pick up how to do it isnt it. When it comes to photos, as I mentioned in Bobs post - they automatically upload themselves at the top of the box, so if you want them placed in a certain spot, you have to click and drag them down to where ever you want them.

I probably wont upload much here as it will probably be a duplication as I already have a blog (link to the left) and youre all very welcome to pop by when you like. I will of course alert you all to anything exciting though that may happen over there..

So, have fun!

G'day from Oz

Trust everyone had a enjoyable Easter. As is usual it rained for us over the long weekend. We are in drought conditions but it there are always a few drops left for holidays!!!

Thanks for putting me off my tea Kelsie, I suppose hampster would be OK with half a bottle of HP sauce.

Back in February we had this storm pass by just on sunset, it was moving quite fast, we were lucky as the storm fronts passed either side of us and it looked like the sky was on fire. The funny looking clouds are known as mammatus, they look a bit like cotton balls.

Going to keep this first post short and sweet, not sure if I have got it all figured out. (edited by Suzy, photo now in the right place Bob, you just need to click and drag them as when they upload they automatically place themselves at the top..)

All the very best from downunder

Day at the Beach

This is my first post - so I thought I'd keep it simple just whilst I get used to things. Hope you are all well.

Here's a quick pickie of Kate on Easter Sunday on sunny Bournemouth beach trying out her new sun hat and bucket and spade which Grandma Norma bought her. Later on Grandpa George bought her a balloon with Noddy on it. Altogether a good day.

Just a "taste" of South America

I am planning soon to post on the blog some pictures and bits of information about some of the things I saw and did while I was in South America for six months. Meanwhile I thought everyone would like a little taster...so here is the guinea pig I ate in Peru.....

Squirrels of Formby - from Dorfy

Here are some pictures of the lovely red squirrels to be seen at Formby. The beach is within walking distance of the squirrels. The area is owned by the National Trust. Parking is £2.

Formby village is worth a visit, not only because it has a very nice cafe called Left Bank. Here they charge £1:95 for main course lunch. Superb value. Lots of other local shops too, including a Waitrose.

Queen Mary visits Sydney By Bob

On 19th February The Queen Mary 2 visited Sydney. She has a cruise cam so you could see some live views of the harbour. Well the ship came in an hour early before sunrise. We were looking forward to meeting the QM2 outside the Sydney Heads. So we ended up meeting with it in the dark halfway down the harbour, was a little spooky seeing this giant ship appear from around the headland.Also, a belated congratulations to Yues for getting the job! (Although it was a month ago now!).

Christmas Down Under

This should have appeared in the February newsletter, had there been one - better late than never....

Message from Down Under

Trust everyone had an enjoyable Christmas and we look forward to news on how the Austrian holiday went. We spent a quiet Christmas this year, had Yues’s folks over for lunch. It was a grey old day, not much sun, which brought a welcome cool change from the heat.

We still have drought conditions in the eastern states and of course this does not help the bushfire problem. There were some extensive fires in New South Wales and Victoria. Lives and property was lost in these fires. The threat has eased for the moment but the place is tinder dry and no significant rain in sight. The way things are going it looks like Sydney is soon to get a water desalination plant on Botany Bay to help out with drinking water.

Just to prove that this is a crazy country, would you believe it, we had a white Christmas.

Snow fell in three states-Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. The photo taken on Christmas Day shows a fire crew in front of their tender on Mount Bullah in Victoria. They were a little bemused at having to fight bushfires during a snowfall! Meanwhile in far north Queensland they had to batten down the hatches when a couple cyclones passed through the area. They are now recovering from extensive flooding.

Couldn’t resist including a photo of the fairy on our Christmas tree.

Yes, it’s Mister Bean’s teddy, his name is Warren. It’s a long story that I best relate when items of news are thin on the ground. All I will say for the present is that Warren was fostered to us after I lost my Voodoo Doll. It was Helen’s idea I think she had just started high school, so it’s a few years back. Talk about the “Perils of Pauline” well, that was nothing compared to what Warren went through. One day the story will be told.

And, finally, there is some beauty in bushfires. I took a photo at sunrise from our back verandah, it looks like we are on a tropical island. The photo was taken the day after we had some bad fires on the north side of Sydney. The vivid colours are due to the smoke and dust in the air.

All our very Best Wishes to you all from the land downunder.

Dorfy and Geoff In Cambridge

Geoff and I spent a couple of days in Cambridge last month, and enjoyed it very much. We had good weather, saw some beautiful buildings and ate some very good food. The college buildings are more like cathedrals really; very old and very ornate.

Whilst we were there we visited the University Botanic Garden and saw the best winter garden we have ever seen. It was full of heathers, hellebores, snowdrops, aconites, quince etc; really lovely. One of the glass houses was given to orchids, and we certainly saw them at their best. Some of the colours were amazing. The city is well worth a visit, but I think I still prefer Oxford.As it was term-time we risked our lives getting across the road. There were literally hundreds of bikes coming at us from all directions!

From Dorfy

Our New Family Blog

Hi all

Its with some sadness that I have had to give up producing the Family Newsletter. Not only is it a struggle to find the time to plan, layout and print it, but we are all so busy living our lives that its not always possible to have stuff to put in it.

Instead, bringing us in line with technology, Ive created us our own little blog, for which we can still record and enjoy all that is happening in our busy lives. I hope you take it as a compromise - it would be tremendous shame if we didnt all keep in touch by one way or another, so at least with this blog we can do that.

Not sure how the mechanics of it will work, or whether it will work at all but we will see. It will be possible for anyone wanting to post something on here to do so, I can set up several users, much the same way as my website. I will post later the stuff I have currently, that would have gone into the February/March newsletter to start us off.

This will be a work in progress, accessable from any computer, any where in the world - updating will take a fraction of the time the old newsletter did, and hopefully will mean its updated in real time, instead of a month apart.

I will spruce this place up, make it look a little more homely so that you will enjoy visiting. Just watch this space.

I hope everyone is well - keep in touch x