- Just about all the men we know have grown beards, if they didn’t have one already, and many are sporting razor cuts or obvious amateur jobs. It’s desperate days when your husband gets his 16 year old daughter to razor cut his hair. It doesn’t look too bad, actually, despite my initial horror when he told me what the plan was.
- Zoom! We’ve been using this for Orchestra ‘rehearsals,’ book club, swimming club meets, Pilates class, cello lessons, musicianship lessons, family cooking sessions – chaos online with toddlers participating, and a Father’s Day celebration which included the spread below organised by all the kids. I’m so thankful we have this technology!
- Daily coffee runs – hubby and I usually go for a drive to one of three coffee shops with a 5 km radius (we can’t go beyond this unless for a Government-specified reason) then sometimes we have a short walk & head home and do a decent walk around the block later in the afternoon when he’s finished work.
- Families out & about – this happened in our first lockdown last year. Whole families came out of the woodwork and walked/biked around the neighborhood. It’s great & not something we usually see.
- I started another quilt, this time for my youngest. I made one for her older brother last year during the first lockdown. I’ve just got to put a border around this one and then it will be ready to be quilted.
- We had a snake visit from one of the local natives – Miss M was doing some artwork at her bench in the garage & heard a rustling just outside. The snake either was under a raised pot or sitting on top but it quickly slithered off into the neighbour’s yard. We don’t often see snakes out in the open as we have so many rocks and hiding places here. We think it may have been a non-venomous type, perhaps a green tree snake but it moved so fast it was hard to tell.
Now that spring is here I’d like to get out for a regular nature study focus. Last week I took Miss 16 for a driving lesson and we took our nature notebooks and sketching pad (for her) and spent some time not far from us overlooking the Hawkesbury River.
Trying out some oil pastels to draw the wharf area we overlooked
A pen sketch of the same area
A perfect spring day!
I dusted off my nature notebook and drew a Masked Lapwing, a type of Australian Plover. We didn’t bring coloured pencils so I tried the oil pastels – I’ll stick to pencils or watercolours next time.
I’ve just started reading Under the Sea-Wind by Rachel Carson, ‘an adventure in the ecology of air and water.’ The author said that she wrote it ‘to make the sea and its life as vivid a reality for those who may read the book as it has become for me during the past decade.’
journey & destination 
I never realised how many people were so precious about their hair until lockdown!
You are lucky to have such a lovely river view within your radius
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🙂 We’re in a large LGA – about 80% of it bush, so we have a good amount of choice!
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your neighborhood looks lovely… i commiserate re lockdown stuff, but it sounds like you all are coping quite well; zoom has indeed made life more livable… great photos and pictures!
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Although we’re in suburbia we have lots of bush around us. I do feel for those who are shut up in apartments.
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Thank you for the post. I laughed about the haircuts as my hubby looks rather shaggy but refuses to get my help with a haircut. We are in Bathurst and I enjoyed a walk around the river this morning. I heard raucous kookaburras, saw a male wren hopping from branch to branch and felt the very invigorating breeze! Water is so good for us, isn’t it? I think a nature study near the Hawkesbury River would be pure bliss. Cate Nunan
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Hi Cate, it was so lovely to read your comment. Yes! Water is very soothing. We were having some typical spring weather and then we had a cold snap – today it’s pretty blustery but some warmer weather in on the way again. I imagine Bathurst is quite cold at the moment. 🙂
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A couple of things: I love how you’ve organized your blog. I’m still trying to figure things out on WordPress, although I do like it better than blogspot. It was definitely time for a change.
Secondly, I do feel for you with the lockdown. I wonder when it’s going to end, because CoVid is now a virus that is here to stay with all the other flues. It’s not going anywhere. I’m not sure it justifies the police state we’re heading toward. I know that sounds extreme, but too many people really believe the government has our best interests at heart.
My aunt lives in Boise in assisted living and cannot even leave her room. I’m concerned for her mental health. I call her everyday and she told me she waits for that one call.
But, we do not live as those without hope because the present sufferings to not compare to the future glories!
Finally, is that a real pelican or a painting?
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Hi Sharon,
I played around with the template for a while but basically I wanted a ‘follow by email’ already on the template so I chose ‘Hemingway’ and I added another page ? I think ? that had a landing static page – mostly because my blog is a combination of book reviews, home ed topics & other random topics & it makes it easier to find what you want.
Sometimes I think I should go back to a more simple plan but it seems to be working ok at present & I don’t want to fiddle too much & lose stuff.
The pelican is a photo that my daughter took. It’s almost perfect, isn’t it?
It’s very difficult for people in situations like your Aunt. We have it easy compared to many.
We’ve used the ‘compassionate grounds’ clause to help out with family a few times & I’m grateful that my Mum didn’t have to go through all of this. She would never have understood it and we wouldn’t have had the precious times we did either. God is good.
X
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I’m glad to hear that you’re finding peace in these turbulent times! Thanks for sharing it!
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Hi Cleo, good to hear from you! Hope everything is going well in your part of the world. 🙂
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