Glorious Xmas

 
 

From Terrigal looking towards Wamberal Beach Dec 24th

After an abysmal start-cool and wet-sunmer has really lifted its game the last 6 days. Hot-well into the 30s -and beautiful clear days albeit very humid. Xmas day was almost perfect apart from the humidity.

Over in Western Australia it really has been a little too hot with a record 43ºC on Xmas Day in Perth and the same forecast for today.

 Below a friendly local spotted on my early morning walk Dec 24th

Stormy weather

 

 

A very hot and humid day here- Sunday -34.6ºC-not comfortable for people or cats. Big storms in the area this evening and this rainbow.

Now a big girl

 It's only 5 months since I adopted, from the local RSPCA animal shelter, a little ginger female domestic short hair cat already named Marvel. And what a little marvel she has turned to be-affectionate, playful and often just silly.When she was found as a stray she was described in the shelter notes as skinny. She has certainly filled out and is far from skinny today.

Her latest toy is an egg bed given to her by lovely friend Laura whose cats did not want to know about it. At the moment Marvel loves it although being a cat that could change any minute.

Photo taken this morning. Marvel has a new bestie, my housemate Cheryl, and Marvel can hear Cheryl's car coming up the driveway when Cheryl returns home from work in the evening . The problem for Marvel is that she hears delivery vans and cars turning at the bottom of the driveway and thinks that they are Cheryl-any time of the day.When I took this photo a van was turning this morning when Marvel's ears pricked up and she was ready to jump up to take a look.

Photo taken with my Leica X Vario -now an almost vintage camera- I purchased it in 2014-and which I have not used for ages. It is a lovely piece of gear and the files are beautiful including the straight from the camera jpegs.

Good riddance 2021

The year 2020 was terrible but 2021 was much worse.  This year I lost my lovely wife, Phoebe, my beautiful old cat and suffered 4 months of appalling lockdown over the winter months. Even now -early December-the year is fighting on. The weather here is almost wintry-wet and cool-the new Omnicron covid variant is looming as another threat and the federal government ends the year in total disarray. 

Against this background it would not have been surprising if 2021 was a photographic dud for me but in fact the year has surprisingly produced a few 'keepers' most coming from my three week road trip in late April/early May and my really cute new cat, Marvel. Perhaps my eye is improving.