Last night's dinner

Before - Looking good

After - Yummy

Ah! Frangipani!

As I walk along Railway Parade I pass under two or three frangipani (Plumeria). Native to Central and South America – at least the northern countries thereof – frangipani has a strong and beautiful scent. For me, it’s one of the key signs of summer in Sydney. 

Wikipedia states:

Frangipani (Plumeria)

The genus “Plumeria” is named in honour of the seventeenth-century French botanist, Charles Plumier, who travelled to the New World documenting many plant and animal species. The common name “Frangipani” comes from an Italian noble family, a sixteenth-century marquess who invented a plumeria-scented perfume.

Frangipani is related to the oleander family. We mainly see white ones (pictured) but there are also pink and pink and yellow plants to be found.

If you want to propagate it, you simply cut off a piece 300 millimetres long and leave it on the ground in the sun for two or three weeks, preferably in winter. This allows the sap to dry out before planting in potting mix. It will take root within weeks.

Sometimes I collect a few fallen flowers, carry them carefully home because they bruise easily and place them on our bathroom windowsill. Althouth they only last a few days, the fragrance is wonderful.

Putting the right foot forward or starting out...

After reading a recent post by CompostWoman, I decided to get back into writing, or, perhaps I should say, start writing! So I was thinking about blogging as I set out on my morning walk.

 Firstly, I took a picture of the garden bed that’s sprung up in the Brenan Street verge, at the bottom of the Housing Commission and close to the bridge over White’s Creek. It’s only been there a few weeks, but already the plants are up and thriving. Must be the fresh soil and constant watering.

Next, I noticed the flow of the tide. The water was flowing quite fast up White’s Creek, under the bridge. When I get to the park and cross Johnston’s Creek a few minutes later, the flow is much slower, but not because the tide is slowing.

My walk is, as almost always, from our home in White Street, along the streets to the harbourside park. The goal is the second of two enormous Moreton Bay figs that mark the end of Glebe Point Road. So, my walk each morning (or nearly every day) takes in three suburbs – Lilyfield, Annandale and Glebe.

Edible flowers

Here's a photo I took yesterday of part of our edible garden. Beautiful peppery nasturtiums - flowers, leaves and shoots - all good for Spring salads.

And please enjoy the jigsaw!

Click to solve jigsaw

Oh happy day!

Today I went to see my physio again. Actually, I've been going every week, since 7 April - the night when I'd sat at the PC too long, sent my foot and leg to sleep then stood up, unaware, and rolled my ankle.

It was just after six in the evening and Jim rang the physio practice and I drove myself straight over there. Luckily, my car is automatic and the injury was to my left foot.

First the strapping, then the x-Ray, then the big black boot held on with velcro straps, then the MRI... Now so many weeks later the news is good. I'm only to wear the boot for two hours a day and will be able to give it up next Friday, all being well. That means that I must do every exercise I've been set and spend 10-15 minutes a day walking - something that I've really missed.

They're a good bunch of people at the physio practice. I've been seeing James, who is physio to the Wallabies, and also Suzie, who works me hard and is delightful!

I've been Sprung

The existence of this very intermittent blog has been discovered by one of last month's Blogs of Note! He has been posting four times a week for years, so is very profilic - to say nothing of funny. The Badger's blog is Vienna for Dummies. So, perhaps, he will inspire me to write more frequently than has been the case so far.

As we settle into the winter months, we have finally succumbed to the need to install reverse cycle aircon. This will happen on Friday and we have a team of three Chilean blokes coming to make it happen. They've said they'll be here early, 7-ish I think they said. When I mentioned that we wouldn't have had our breakfast, the eldest suggested that I should be making breakfast for five, bacon and eggs would be good.

It should be installed by 1 pm, they said. But we will wait and see. Trouble is, I think that we won't need to keep calling them back to fix things, which is a shame as they are a trio of good guys.

Aircon, however, is only one of the services they offer so they may try to get their feet back in the door and line for breakfast before starting on ventillation and pest control!

All this means that by Friday evening we should be warm, instead huddled over an electric heater, swathed in blankets. Here's hoping, anyway.

Sir David Attenborough - Plastic Oceans

Plastic is forever. Don't forget this when buying packaged products and when disposing of plastics of all kinds.