Merry Christmas!

We're missing the big skies and great colours of an Australian Chrissie, but looking forward to a fantastic day! There's a massive pile under the tree, there's a feast to come, and, later, friends to visit.
There'll also be one or two Aussie cricket fans in this house trying with all their might to get to watch, or at the very least, listen to, the Boxing Day Test match between Australia and India. No comment ...
As Dave and I got up just over an hour ago, it had just passed midnight in Perth, and our thoughts turned to all our family and friends back home as their Big Day ended. We'd had a great afternoon yesterday talking to everyone as they got together for lunch and prezzies, sheltering from another festive sweltering: 41C (105.8F).
The weather will be much more amenable here in sunny Cal today; we've got the heater on at the moment, but it will soon warm up to a gorgeous 20C (68F). It couldn't be better!
Merry Christmas, everyone. Have a wonderful day.

* The lovely pic of one of our native Western Australian wildflowers, Eucalyptus rhodantha, at the top of the page, was taken by photographer Jen Grey Wilson, and I hope she won't mind my pinching it today — just had to have some local WA colour!

Getting warmer ...

:: Spring begins officially here on March 21 and the weather is just perfect. It was about 32 (C) yesterday, and today it's a beautiful 28. Yummy. Every day the sun gets a little higher and reaches more of the pool. With its dark surfaces, it starts to warm up very quickly - so every day I stick a toe in to check whether it's ready for a plunge! (Not quite - but it sure feels good.)

:: I like setting things against the pool, so here's a bowl of avocados and passionfruit that were a gift from a wonderful couple we met yesterday, Kevin and Betsy. Kevin is a former Quairading lad, and Betsy his San Diego-born wife.

They live in a beautiful region to the south-east, in the hills at Ramona, where they have started an Australian plant nursery and wholesale business. Dave and I went to check it out with a view to getting them to provide wildflowers and plants for the Bondi.
This (below) is a view of their property. They have about 5 hectares, with about a third of it under cultivation and the rest being prepared. Kevin has even built himself a corrugated iron shed-cum-shelter-cum-shop, just for a laugh.
It was really beaut to see all their hakea, banksia, kunzea, dryandra (sp?), eucalypts, grevillea and so on in the Californian sunshine, looking very healthy and happy. Kevin says his only problem with growing them is the gophers, which take a fancy to tender young plants just like rabbits do back home. Otherwise, they take off really well.
There are also avocados on the property, which he sells to Mexican restaurants, and a passionfruit vine - yay! Passionfruit are pricey here - about $3 each.

:: Which reminds me - how's the price of bananas in Perth now? Here they are 2 lbs (about a kilo) for $1.

:: This banksia is a bit frostbitten on the very top from a really cold night recently:


On the beach ...

:: On Saturday, Dave and I walked on the beach at Del Mar (about 3 km from where we live) with the dogs. You can walk on the sand with the dogs on leads until you get to the very end (where you can see the sandy cliff), where there is a very popular and well-used dog beach.
There was pretty good surf on Saturday - this is the break where Will used to have school surfing lessons three mornings a week.

:: This (below) is a view of part of Del Mar looking east, from the beach. It's just gorgeous, but very expensive. San Diego and Los Angeles have the most expensive real estate on the planet.


:: The homes right on the beach are the most expensive of all. Last year, Jenny Craig - of the weight-loss fortune - bought the three houses on the very left of this picture for a cool $25 million.
Will heard that the white one on the extreme left - you can just see part of it - was at one time owned by Brad and Angelina!

:: Lily's coming home next Sunday, for her spring break. So I'm sorting and cleaning and getting ready!

Oy, oy, oy ...

:: Look how brilliantly Australian plants do here! This huge wattle bush is down in the canyon where I walk the dogs, just at the end of our street. The place is full of birds and I have no idea what any of them are yet, apart from the hummingbirds.
Things rustle in the undergrowth here just like they do back home - only here you have to watch out for rattlesnakes. And after dark, coyotes will venture through the canyons and into ordinary quiet suburban streets just like ours. It's odd living where there are predators.
And among all the other Australian native plants that are thriving here - eucalypts (Americans don't know the term gum trees, and seem to have little awareness of gumnuts), tea tree, roo paws, bottlebrush - are these ...

... and they are almost everywhere. They are put to great use on steep banks along the freeways and just as a sort of universal groundcover. You see way more of them here than I ever saw at home.

:: And while I'm talking of walking the dogs, here they are ...


... Nipper squinting in the sun this morning, and ...

... Yoshi (coyote-bait as we call him) trotting along on the sandy path.

:: Well, I do know from the odd comment and emails that a few of you are reading this! I was wondering ...

:: On my bedside table: Next to all the vitamin pills ('Hers Over 50'), fish oil tabs, glucosamine tabs, Caltrate pills (to help stave off incipient osteoporosis), tissues and hand cream is The Memory Keeper's Daughter, which I bought to read on the plane home from Chicago. The writing is spellbindingly good. It was number one on the NY Times bestseller fiction list, I saw today.
And my new Oldie arrived today - so that'll keep my weekend happy.

:: Dave's just got in from work - so I'm off to fry a steak or two. See ya!

A sense of occasion...

It's not even March and already the stores are winding up for St Patrick's Day. And Easter. And Passover. I saw these beauties in Ralph's today. Mmm mmm. See the creamy ones? They're not even stacked in the fridge. They're all on a table by the Guinness display.
I was hoping there'd be St Pat's Day M&Ms to show you, but no such luck. The Valentine's Day pink and white ones have been replaced with Easter ones, some of which are speckled and egg-shaped. You can always tell what you're supposed to be celebrating by the nature of the M&Ms in the supermarket - or at least by their packaging.

:: While we're thinking of green icing, or, more accurately, green blobs on synthetic cream icing, I want to share with you a recipe I heard recently for a summery dip for strawberries: equal parts of strawberry cream cheese and marshmallow cream. Yep. I had never heard of - or even imagined - either of those ingredients. The second, it was explained to me, is 'like liquified marshmallows'. Bear in mind that the strawberries in this part of the world are sensational - as big as ox hearts and SO delicious and flavoursome. And sweet. All they need is a bowl of REAL cream.

:: Okay - I have turned the heel on sock number one. Aren't you all excited? And that's the pattern for the cardie I'm aiming to knit next. From a Debbie Bliss book.


:: I have a pot of roo paws by the pool and they never cease to amaze me with their gorgeous colours and velvet stems. I had a banksia, but it died - I don't think banksias take kindly to being out of Australia. The kangaroo paws, on the other hand, just love it.


:: The forecast for Wednesday, when I arrive in Chicago, is now a maximum of 6 degrees Celsius, with falling snow! The minimum forecast is zero, and as I get in at 10pm, that's probably what I'll be dealing with. Brrrr! I shall be packing tomorrow and getting out all my old woollies!