Category: birthdays

Australia · autumn · birthdays · blessings · clouds · colours · Mount Warning · rain · Tweed Valley

After the Storm ~ Eerie Morning Mist

Joanne2 Comments

The photo above of Mount Warning was taken this afternoon. The mountain spent a good part of this morning, however, hiding behind mist and low cloud.

During the night, at something-o’clock – it was too dark to see what time it was – I was rudely awoken by a massive thunderclap. The rain teamed down, thunder crashed, lightning flashed … and I fell back to sleep.

By just after 6 am – a far more respectable hour – the rain had stopped. In the distance I could still hear thunder grumbling, and as for the sky, it looked dark and eerie, colourful, patchy, and cloudy, all at the same time.

The photo above shows a patch of colour, as if a rainbow was attempting to appeared, but had collaspsed before it could form an arc.

As I clicked photo after photo, the sky changed before my eyes. Dark clouds rolled in above; more mist appeared in the valley.

Suddenly, thick mist began billowing up from the valley floor, huge amounts of mist, covering the whole area within seconds.

The last two photos above were taken just a couple of minutes apart. The mist increased until the valley was completely hidden, and it remained misty for the next couple of hours.

So that was the early morning of Tuesday, 11th May, 2021. A memorable morning in many ways …

Australia · birthdays · blessings · clouds · Mount Warning · pets · remembering · summer · Tweed Valley

Remembering Phoebe

Joanne8 Comments

Almost two years have passed by, and I can talk about her now with fond memories, rather than the raw saddness I felt the day she left us.

My indoors girl, fourteen year old Phoebe (2013)

 

One of the few times when Phoebe and Tabitha were on the same page, or in the same room! (2014)

 

Gazing outdoors, remembering carefree days of prancing around the garden chasing butterflies perhaps? (2015)

 

Phoebe’s last birthday. She made it to 20. (2019)

The 3rd of February will always be a day when I will pause and remember my Grand Queen Phoebe.

03-02-1999 ~ 29-04-2019

Today’s Misty Morning

Australia · birthdays · clouds · family · grandchildren · Mount Warning · photography · rivers · Tweed Valley · winter

A View of Mount Warning from Two Tweed Valley Towns

Joanne5 Comments

We spent the morning at a park in a seaside town called Casuarina, about ten minutes drive south, where our beautiful little granddaughter, Aurora, celebrated her 2nd birthday with a few friends. It was a lovely change to go out, and being in a large park we were all able to “social distance” successfully. Not that there’s any Covid in our area, but we cannot become complacent.

After the party, I asked my husband if we could stop off at a couple of different places so I could take photos of Mount Warning. I thought it would be a change from my usual back yard photos.

Our first stop was at Kingscliff. Rain was predicted this morning and thankfully it held off while the party was happening. There were masses of clouds lingering over the mountain though. My first photo of Mount Warning is taken looking across Cudgen Creek at Kingscliff.

From Kingscliff, we drove to a small village a few minutes away called Chinderah. My husband wanted to see if a roadside fish monger was there today, and he was! So we came home with a kilogram of fresh king prawns and two pieces of deep sea Tasmanian fish (which I’ve forgotten the name of). I took my next photo looking across the Tweed River from Chinderah to the mountain.

I probably take the names of our local towns and villages for granted because I’m so used to them. They are very odd names though, mostly Aboriginal words I believe, and difficult to pronounce if you are not a local, so I will try to sound them out –

Casuarina is pronounced Cassa-rina. Cudgen is pronounced Could-jen. Chinderah is Chin-der-a. Kingscliff is an easy one, it’s just Kings-cliff.

The other day I mentioned two other places Murwillumbah and Tumbulgum. They are pronounced Mur-will-um-bah and Tm-bul-gum – the first u is silent. So many people mispronounce Tumbulgum, calling it Tumble-gum which is totally wrong! I’ll try to remember in future to add the correct pronunciations when I mention our strange sounding place names.

And here is my precious little granddaughter, Aurora. She had a wonderful party and was completely exhausted by the time her mummy and daddy got her home. 🙂

P.S. Between me and my son-in-law, we took 450 photos of the party this morning. There are a few extras on Facebook.

birthdays · blessings · family · gratitude · pets

Portrait of a Twenty-Year-Old

Joanne8 Comments

She made it! The Queen of my pets, beautiful Phoebe, celebrated her twentieth birthday on Sunday. Or should I say her people-family celebrated for her. I’m sure Phoebe thought it was just another day of sleeping, eating and having snuggles with her people.

Phoebe gave us quite a scare just over a week ago. We thought she wouldn’t see her twentieth – that’s ninety-six in human years – but after spending a night at the vets on an intravenous drip containing fluids and antibiotics, she came home again the next day. She amazed our wonderful vet by pulling through! He was convinced we’d all but lost her.

I wasn’t convinced. I needed to find out the problem before I could make that unmentionable decision. And I’m so glad I did.

She’s still on medication for a severe infection, but look at her now – bright-eyed, happy, and purring with contentment.

Phoebe was born on the 3rd February 1999. My kids – who were all still little ones at that time – found her in a pet shop. How could any of us resist her? We brought her home with us in April 1999, and she’s ‘grown up’ with my children, various dogs, birds, cats who have lived here temporarily when one of my children have moved back home, and she takes our busy household in her stride.

For the first ten years that we had Phoebe she was an outdoor cat, venturing out every morning, returning home either when it rained, or it was time for dinner. After she came indoors for her meal, that’s where she stayed for the night, usually curled up on the end of my bed. When we started to notice her panic when we let her outdoors, we decided to keep her inside. We’ve been told that she probably started to lose her eyesight around that time. And in the last couple of years we’ve noticed her hearing isn’t the best either. When the arthritis set in, she stopped jumping up onto my bed at night, but she still loves to curl up on a comfy chair.

It would be lovely if Phoebe made it to another birthday, and maybe she will. But for now, I’m just so thankful she’s well. And happy. ❤