Weekend Flowers: Rock Rose

I discovered this gorgeous little Rock Rose in my parent's garden. I love the crumpled petals. They look so soft & delicate - almost like tissue paper.

You can find more beautiful flowers here:

 Floral Friday Fotos   and


                       

A little bit of Victorian Heritage

My visit to Melbourne provided many opportunities to photograph many heritage listed homes both in the city and on the Mornington Peninsula. This house along the Esplanade in Mornington (on the Mornington Peninsula) was built in 1899 and originally called Glencoe House. It is now called Mulberry.
The house is "Heritage listed" and has been restored recently. The carpenter received a National Trust 2011 award for his "Heritage restoration skills".

Of course the gorgeous white picket fence just completes the picture.

And the owner is proudly displaying the Australian flag.

I love the timber fretwork and of course the two-tone picket fence - all perfect examples of the time period the house was built.

Sharing with:

        Friday's Fences with Jan & Jer
 

Texture Thursday: Ivy League

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Mellow Yellow Monday: A little or a lot

I am not a huge fan of yellow, so I don't photograph it much. I have never joined this meme because I assumed that the photo had to be predominantly yellow... until I read the rules!!

So here is a lot of yellow...

And here is just a splash of yellow...

Click on the link below to see more yellow:

Christmas Day in QLD, Australia

Having a very large blended family (9 children) consisting of mainly adults means that Christmas day is often missing a few of our children. This year my eldest daughter Sarah & son-in-law Oscar are in Melbourne celebrating with Oscar's extended family. My oldest prodigal son , his fiance and their 2 children (who we have not seen since March... their daughter Annabelle was born only a few days before Christmas).  Michael's 18 year old prodigal daughter was with her partner's family. And his youngest 2 daughters were with their mother.
I wasn't really looking forward to Christmas, especially after finding out only a few days ago that my second grandchild had been born and knowing I may never get to see her.

This Christmas day was celebrated with my youngest 2, Ben & Bec, and Michael's oldest 2, Amy & Tamsyn. It turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable & peaceful day.

I cooked the turkey breasts last night as our hot summer is not really conducive to a hot Christmas lunch. It's been Ben's job to cut the turkey & ham for so many years.

Bec loves creating salads so I was "kicked out of" the kitchen. The potato salad was a joint effort between Bec & me, and the tossed salad was Bec's.

Michael with Amy (23)

Michael & Tamsyn (20)

Lunch was delicious and was followed an hour or so later by my Mum's amazing Christmas pudding. I usually make Brandy cream to accompany it but, due to being sick all week, I opted for a pre-made Pauls Brandy custard (which was rather disappointing).

After lunch, we exchanged gifts. Michael surprised me with a Canon 50mm Portrait lens and so I embarked on doing something I had only done a couple of times - switching to manual mode and experimenting with adjusting aperture, shutter speed & ISO.

Here are the results SOOC. I was amazed at the sharpness of the images and quite happy with the results but I still have so much to learn.

Youngest son Ben (20)

Youngest daughter Bec (19)

Oldest step-daughter Amy (23)

Step-daughter Tamsyn (20) - love the light in this one

Great friends, Tamsyn & Bec.

Husband Michael

And me

This last image is credited to RAD Photography (Bec) over at Through the lens; RAD Photography

Around 5:30pm, Michael collected his youngest two daughters, Jess & Lizzie, from their mother's house and, when they were back home, I took a family shot (well, with 6 of the 9 children). I had no idea how to alter settings for so many people so on went the 18-55mm lens, set on Auto, with tripod & 10 sec timer.

Today, I am extremely grateful for celebrations with family

Linking with SOOC Sunday &

Fabulous Friday & Skywatch Friday:Chepstow Castle

I have been sick this week with my first bout of laryngitis & a chest infection in almost 6 years!! So, I haven't been out with my camera. As I have already done a couple of Christmas posts, I decided to do something entirely different.

What I love to do when I am house bound is go through old photos. Well, these aren't too old. They are from my around the world trip in September/October 2010 (USA, UK & Europe).

Built in 1067, Chepstow Castle is a Norman castle perched high above the banks of the river Wye in southeast Wales. Built for William the Conqueror by William FitzOsbern, Earl of Hereford. Chepstow Castle is the oldest surviving stone castle in Britain.

Thanks for stopping by & do have a wonderful Christmas weekend!

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Wordless Wednesday: Oh Holy Night...

Linking today with:

Wordless Wednesday @ Faith Hope & a whole lotta Love

Aussie WW @ My Little Drummer Boys 

                                                  

World Bird Wednesday: Australian Pelican

On my recent visit to Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula, my Mum & I took a drive out to Hastings Jetty so we could capture the Australian Pelican.

At first it looked like we were not going to have any luck with close ups... there was one preening himself on one of the mooring poles.

And another gliding effortlessly...

So we drove around to the next car park where the fishing boat ramp was and bingo...

All of a sudden there was great excitement - flapping of wings...

And more incoming pelicans and silver gulls...

A fisherman had stopped to feed the birds his fish waste... what amazingly large bills (the largest in the avian world)

He made pretty quick work of that one!!

And once fed, they went on their way...

I am always amazed that such large and cumbersome looking birds can get off the ground so easily and fly so effortlessly...

Thanks for stopping by & check out more birds at: