Sunrise, Spiders and Flowers.

It’s  been a good few days – no medical emergencies, no hospital visits, peaceful and quiet. Wet and windy at times but that’s fairly normal here.  However, I have still managed to get Benji out and about. This morning, for example, Benji and I were out at 6am. Quiet and peaceful with hardly a breath of wind. An absolutely brilliant sunrise.  Seven am and we were back home and by 8am we were in the middle of a thunderstorm – the first of three that came and went throughout the day. More are forecast for the next few days  I had a look at my plants outside and found a

creature with a web. I had no idea what it was since it was like no spider I had ever seen. Turns out it was a Golden Orb Spider. To be honest I had never even heard of it before. I did check up on it and they are common in rural areas and I realised that this was one of the plants I bought at the Arid Lands Botanic Garden. However, it is fairly harmless and a bite can cause temporary localised pain but it is not  toxic.

Also  on my walk this morning I had an unusual sight – a mother feeding her young.  I carry a plain Oat Bar in my pocket. Sometimes when I am out a magpie will land beside me and I will crush part of the bar and  let the magpie have it for breakfast. This does not happen every day. It did happen this morning and after the magpie

started feeding what looked like a second magpie landed close to it yelping its head off. The first Magpie lifted some food walked over to the second one and fed it. It kept doing that all the time I was watching. Magpies mate for life and I believe this was either a mother still feeding its young, or a male feeding its partner. I told Annabell and she thinks it was the former, a mother feeding its young. It really was interesting to watch and it’s something I will look out for.

During the week I spent some time with Benji at the Ada Ryan Gardens. I

remembered seeing a plant on  a post recently and I think we established it was a South African plant. Anyway, as I was wandering through the gardens I  came across what I think is the same plant. There was no identification but I’m sure  it is the same plant- if not then it is something very similar.

I really must commend the council and the gardeners at the Ada Ryan Gardens for the great job they are doing. The gardens are well looked after and cared for and really are a credit to the  work that the people do there.

Annabell has been good this last week and long may that continue. We have no hospital appointments until December. We were given a choice of two dates for day surgery – 10th December or  20th December.  Since we didn’t want to take the risk of being  “out of action” – so to speak – so close to Christmas,  we opted for the 10th. Depending on what they want to do at  the clinic, we could be another four days away, which was another reason for not going with the 20th.  Any reasonable luck we should drive down on the 9th,  day surgery on the 10th and drive home on the 11th or 12th.  Well,  that’s Plan A  :o)   Haven’t got a Plan B yet…..