Sunday Selections: Phillip Island

I think it's about time I did another Sunday Selections post. 

Sunday Selections is a weekly meme hosted by River at Drifting Through Life. 

The rules are very simple:-

1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title

2. link back to River somewhere in your post

3. leave a comment on River's post and visit some of the others who have posted and commented

    

You may recall my car was written off in an accident about a month ago. Well, two weeks ago, we bought our replacement: a 2010 Honda CR-V. We were on the hunt for a RAV4, but fell in love with this one instead and bought it the day we saw it. We got it at a fair price, which is to say market value.  We're not good at price negotiation, but we bought it from a dealer and I do believe they always sell you at the price they intended anyway. At least these days with online markets and so much information about used car values and shopping out there, the prices are fair.

It comes with a hefty loan of course, but I do love my new car.

So last weekend, Y had a rare full day and night off work and we decided to take the car for a spin to Phillip Island.

We hadn't been there in years, though once upon a time Y and I used to drive down there quite often.

We had lunch at a pizza cafe in Cowes, then drove round to the Nobbies to see the seal centre, and to the penguin area to watch the parade.

You can't take photos of the penguin parade, so I don't have any pictures of that, unfortunately. But there is an app you can download with lots of pictures and information in it, which is very good. There are also some great pictures at the Phillip Island site here. 

So these photos are all of The Nobbies, looking out over the sea or to Seal Rocks. 

All a bit samey, but lovely anyway.

The kids loved the whole place but especially, of course, the penguins. It is truly fantastic, and quite moving too, to see the little penguins tumble out of the waves, huddle hesitantly at the beach under the soft lights, and then make their (surprisingly fast) waddling trek up the dunes to their burrows.

The best part is walking back up the boardwalks and passing the little penguins on the way. Some of them zoom straight to their burrows, some take their time and seem to enjoy the commune with other penguins on the way. Some sit and stare up at the people staring down at them. A pair we saw obviously had gone the wrong way, or too far, and were waddling back towards the beach, looking around them and making little sounds and conferring with each other as they went, looking just like a couple who has forgotten where they parked their car. 

They were still wandering around, not seemingly distressed and still stopping occasionally to trade low squawks with others heading up from the beach, when we finally left. It's such a treat of a thing to see - you just want to stay there all night.

But evenutally we made our way back to the carpark, and made the trip home, the kids happily snoozing in the back, Y relaxing in the passenger seat, and me enjoying the quiet drive home in the dark, in my awesome new car! (Last time I go on about it, I promise - but I had owned my last car for 9 years).


This Sunday, a less relaxing fate awaits. When Y gets home from work this afternoon, we are stupidly, regretfully, unbelievably... taking the kids to the Royal Melbourne Show. Ugh!

Sunday Selections: iPad Art

Hey ho, it's me again - back after another little absence. 

And now, it's time for Sunday Selections! (Although it is now actually Monday morning).

Sunday Selections is a weekly meme hosted by River at Drifting Through Life. 

The rules are very simple:-

1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title

2. link back to River somewhere in your post

3. leave a comment on River's post and visit some of the others who have posted and commented

    

I was sorting through some photos on my hard drive this week and came across these. All of them were created by the kids.

This one's a family portrait: Y with hat and bouzouki, A with music player, M with doll and me with a book.

Not sure what this is, but pretty:

Friends or maybe a girl band:

Wanted, dead or alive!

Photobooth weirdness:

Painter's palette:

Spooky house:

Various:

Until next time: happy Sunday, or rather Monday!

Sunday Selections #185

It's time for Sunday Selections!
Sunday Selections is a weekly meme hosted by River at Drifting Through Life. 

The rules are very simple:-

1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title

2. link back to River somewhere in your post

3. leave a comment on River's post and visit some of the others who have posted and commented

    

I've been absent from Sunday Selections a bit of late, not through design but because Sundays have been fairly busy and by the time the evening rolls round I have thought 'ah well, next week' and trundled off to bed.  Tonight I am just making it, at twenty minutes to midnight.

This week it's another collection of 'slice of life' photos:

For my August resolution I resolved to be a bit more productive by curtailing time spent on my phone. One of the things I wanted to do with that time was clean out the linen cupboard.

Well mark that as done, y'all.

It went from this:

To this:

I can't work miracles. With only two shelves and that huge wasted space at the bottom for our old non-working ducted vacuum, it is never going to be amazing. But at least now I can open the door without a towel or two falling on my head, and I got rid of three garbage bags worth of donate-able and make-into-rags-able old sheets and towels.


I also cooked a bang-up meal yesterday: coq au vin!
Well, kind of coq au vin. I didn't have bacon so chopped up some ham instead; I didn't have mushrooms; I didn't have cognac; and I didn't have red wine so used white instead.

But still: bloody delicious!

Here is it simmering away:

And here's the finished pot:

A rather more prosaic mid-week meal:

Paving. Somewhere. Just because.

The dog has outgrown his tiny dog bed, so I splashed out on a new one for him. He loved it immediately.

Unfortunately so does the cat:

This from the cat who refuses to sleep in a cat bed provided for her.  Poor Harry gets a bit flustered when she parks herself here and only gets brave enough to bark at her when I come over to move her out. I might have to buy another one of these I think. 


Cartoon in today's paper (The Age), about the government's humanitarian aid to the displaced people on the Syrian-Iraqi border. Sadly spot on.

More from the paper. I enjoy this word challenge, but today I can only see one word here, can you?

How was your week?

Sunday Selections #178

It's time for Sunday Selections!
Sunday Selections is a weekly meme hosted by River at Drifting Through Life. 

The rules are very simple:-

1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title

2. link back to River somewhere in your post

3. leave a comment on River's post and visit some of the others who have posted and commented: for example:

    Elephant's Child

    Andrew at High Riser

    Gillie at The View From Here

    

Here is this week's collection of orphan photos:

Like Elephant's Child this week I have a few sky photos. We've had such beautiful sunrises and sunsets lately.

These ones taken from the park up the end of our street:

My daughter asked me to snap the next one when we spotted it from the supermarket carpark: she wanted to put it on her Instagram.

(Yes, my kids are now on Instagram - a post for another day perhaps)

I'm sorry (not sorry) for foisting on you yet more shots taken from the roof of my work building - but I just love these views

From the sky back to the ground. I love these views at Jells Park:

 

Before the rain really set in this week, we'd had some lovely winter days with good light - I love the play of light and shade on this tree trunk and these leaves, on our street and at the local park:

Here are a couple of shots of Harry on our walks:

Harry and Tia enjoying a bit of winter sun. Harry was here first and he looked a bit alarmed when Tia jumped up as well, but he stood his ground and they both had a long nap out here together.

How was YOUR week?