Australia · Changes · garden flowers · in my garden · In My World · Mount Warning · renovations · spring · sugar cane · sunrise · Tweed Valley

A Week of Flowers

Pierre de Ronsard rose

I spent most of the day in my office at the computer today, keeping out of the way of the lovely man who arrived first thing this morning to replace the floor coverings in my main living area. It’s been a massive job dismantling the room, emptying cupboards, removing old skirting boards, taking down the curtains, moving most of the furniture into another room, but we finally got there at around midnight last night.

Hydrangeas

I planned to spend the day reading through blog posts, which I mostly did, aside from the times when I was needed for something else. I had so much catching up to do! And now I have ideas whirling around in my mind about blog posts I must write. But where to begin?

Cathy, at Words and Herbs has invited us to join her in posting A Week of Flowers, which I thought would be a great place to start. I have spent way too much time indoors this past week, so any excuse to go outdoors is a good excuse. Plus, who doesn’t love flowers? I know I certainly do, and as Cathy said, flowers are sure to brighten the days of people in lockdown.

Evening Primrose

I missed Day 1 of Cathy’s week, so today is Day 2, for those who would like to join Cathy in sharing some floral happiness around the blogging world. 🙂

A touch of morning mist

First thing this morning, the valley looked sparkly and clear, with just a touch of overnight mist lingering at around 6:15am. Sunrise is at around 5:45am these days as we approach summer, and so far I haven’t managed to get up early enough to see the first rays of morning sunlight touch the top of Mount Warning. Too many late nights, I think!

Steam from the sugar mill

The sugar cane harvesting season is nearing the end, but the mill was still pumping out steam in the early daylight hours of this morning.

A work in progress

So now, as the day draws to an end, my family room has half a floor. We waved goodbye to our faithful twenty-six-year-old carpet this afternoon as the floor man drove up the hill with a neatly bundled stack of carpet in his trailer, which has served us well, but has definitely seen one too many teenagers’ party! Our floor man will return tomorrow morning to finish the job, which is very exciting. I’m looking forward to arranging all of our uptuned and askew furniture into its correct position again. 🙂

Australia · clouds · fiction · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · quotes · reading · spring · sunrise · sunset · Tweed Valley

The Misty Mountains

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.
~~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit.

The mist is below the mountain actually, but what a glorious sight it is! I’ve been looking forward to daylight savings so I could rise an hour earlier, which at 5:30am – in real “Earth” time, even though the clock says it’s 6:30 – is right on sunrise. It’s a magical time of day, when the valley has an atmosphere of belonging to another world at the break of day.

I haven’t heard of any dungeons in the valley or the mountain ranges, but I’m sure many “caverns old” could be discovered there.

If only the kookaburras could talk, they could tell the tales of caverns they have discovered in the valley.

Looking east towards the coast as the sun was rising, I could see the clouds catching glimmers of sunlight – more magic!

There are no dragons from Middle Earth guarding this “pale enchanted gold” at the end of the day, just the sparkling lights in the sleepy town below. 🙂