Catching up: part I

The city, looking pretty

And now for all the other gleeful stuff that's happened lately. Can I remember it....C'mon, weary brain. 

Oh, yeah. Big changes are afoot at work! I will be taking on more responsibility and shedding some much-disliked mundane tasks, and I'M GETTING UNDERLINGS TO BOSS AROUND! Wooh! The topic hasn't been broached yet, but I expect some extra dollars will also be forthcoming. Money's not my prime motivator, but a little more in the pay packet is always welcome. 

I'm hoping these changes will ease the sense of ennui that has been creeping into my working days for a few months now. I had actually been toying with the idea of looking for a new job, but I realised in the last week or so that I now feel like I've settled into the firm - I know plenty of people outside my own team now and I've gone beyond small talk in the kitchen. I feel comfortable and I like it. I'm not naturally a serial job-hopper.  I was thinking it would be a shame to leave after just over a year and have to start making myself comfortable somewhere else, so the new developments are well timed. 

Gimme more hot towels

I had a Thai massage after work Friday, the second I've had recently. (I can't remember if I blogged about the first one.) It was 70 minutes of fabulous. It hurt, but it was good pain. I love the hot towels at the beginning and end. I could seriously spend a whole day lying face down with hot towels on my back, as long as there were someone there to replace them as they cool. If I ever strike it rich, I'll pay someone to do that.

New specs

I have my new stripey spectacles! The frames are black, with black and white vertical stripes on the arms. I like them very much. I'll post a photo soon. I think it's time I had a new avatar actually. I've had the same photo, which I also use on Facebook and Twitter, for years. Clearly I'm not a compulsive selfie-taker. I've also been cultivating my quiff - it's longer than I've ever worn it before and stands up better without the aid of product now than it ever did before with product.  

Two herons

Remember me saying that I liked to think there was only one Nankeen Night Heron that I passed on my way home from work? And how we almost had one of those nodding relationships you develop with people you see on the train platform every morning? Well. THERE'S TWO OF THEM! TWO! Or perhaps even more. They were stalking the shallows about 10 metres apart when I walked past on my way home on Tuesday night. I don't know if they were together together, like Mr and Mrs Plover always are, or just in each other's vicinity. 

Hello, gardens; it's been a while

I made an unplanned visit to the Botanic Gardens on Sunday. I was nearing my front door after a walk up the street, thinking about how I couldn't wait to get back into bed because I felt really average (sensing a theme?) and *scratched record sound* I realised I'd locked my keys in the flat in my other bag.  Waaah. I had at least three hours to wait for Luke to get home from work. 

It was a sunny afternoon and I hadn't been to the gardens for a while, so off I went. I visited the Californian garden. 

 Moss and lichen. Not sure that's particularly Californian...

I walked through Fern Gully

 I can't recall the last time I saw water in the gully

I visited the Fern Gully resthouse especially to find and photograph fungus on the timber roof. And...bingo! There were several of these tiny fungus there, only a few centimetres high. The roof is mostly covered in moss, which is quite dense in places and, not surprisingly for moss, very moist. I had water dribbling down my sleeves as I reached up to take photos. 

The rest house

 This tree is half bare and half hanging on to its autumn

 leaves. Quite striking

 The echinacea is hanging on 

I also went to the herb garden, which has become another of my must-visit places in the gardens. Winter isn't its best time of year, although the lemon verbena leaves still smell divine. 

My (proper) camera battery died and it was quite cold by this stage, so I went to the Observatory Cafe for a hot drink (and ridiculously overpriced tiny cake), then I wandered over to the Shrine of Remembrance, just in time for the lowering of the flags and The Last Post, which I always find affecting. I had the idea of warming myself on the Eternal Flame, but I couldn't get close enough to it, dammit. 

By now I knew Luke was going to be late home so I headed into the city, thinking I'd find somewhere to warm up before heading home, but I found the Light in Winter Festival in Federation Square instead. 

This is the Helix Tree, which lights up at the sound of human voices. They have a choir singing at the base every day at sunset in June, and I heard the Melbourne Mass Gospel Choir. Although I'm a heathen, I do enjoy gospel music.  

And then I headed home and Luke was there and it was warm. 

My second remarkable tree

Remember my book of Australia's remarkable trees?  Today I visited the Algerian Oaks in the Botanic Gardens planted by Australia's first Governor-General, Adrian Louis Hope, and his family in 1895.

The largest one was planted by the G-G's then four-year-old son, Charles Melbourne Hope. It's a giant - 24 metres high and with a canopy 37 metres across. Algerian Oaks are semi-evergreen, which is why it still has plenty of foliage.

Adrian Louise Hope was the Earl of Hopetoun, and the steep grassy slope which the oaks stand watch over is called Hopetoun Lawn.

There's also a remarkable tree in the grounds of the Shrine of Remembrance, but I forgot to check what it was and where it grows before Luke and I set off for the gardens. I looked in the book when we got back and the tree is noteworthy indeed. It's a Turkish Pine grown from a cone off a single pine tree that grew on a plateau of the Gallipoli Pensinsula until it was destroyed during WWI (while it was a lone pine, the book doesn't say explicitly that it was the pine tree that gave Lone Pine its name. I'm assuming...).

An Australian soldier took the pine cone as a souvenir and carried it with him until the end of the war. He gave it to his aunt after he returned and she grew four seedlings from it, one of which was planted at the Shrine. Next time I'm over that way, I'll visit it.

I feel quite lucky to live a short walk from three of Australia's remarkable trees  - four if you count the Separation Tree, which has historical significance for Victoria, but it's not in the book. This river red gum, estimated to be 400 years old, also grows in the Botanic Gardens and was the site of celebrations to mark the separation of Victoria from New South Wales in 1850.

Luke and I wandered back through the gardens and saw this tree. Prickly! No need for possum guards on this one, eh?  Don't know what sort of tree it is; Luke dubbed it the F--k Off tree.

I also spotted a little patch of these fairy thingies lit up by the sun on Huntingfield Lawn. I spent five minutes lying on my stomach taking close up shots. I'm obsessed with taking photos of these things.