(tales from the birdgirl)
On one of my favourite bike rides,
I pass an empty field outside a GP clinic.
Most of the year, it’s just a bare field with long, uncut grass.
But in spring, it changes.
Such deceptive beauty!
These flowers, heralding from South Africa,
are considered weeds here.
They’ve spread far and wide, pushing out our own native flowers.
It’s hard not to admire them, though —
their abandoned spread;
their cheerful, bright colours …
… and their faces uplifted to the sun.
I took a walk through the bush again in late September.
Skinks rustled through the undergrowth.
Whistlers burbled; shrike thrushes sang; blue fairy-wrens and fantails darted about.
And there were wild flowers everywhere, including common fringe-myrtles;
paper flowers;
smooth rice-flowers;
and grevilleas.
Every month brings a new season in the bush.
Every month brings a new, different kind of joy.
Last year, I didn’t have much luck with my irises.
They sent up shoots, but there were no flowers.
This year …
… Yes that’s right —
there was one lone iris in amongst all the green shoots.
One is better than none, right?
Soup from my father’s kitchen
During winter, my father cooks up a weekly batch of vegetable soup,
which he and my mother eat for lunch each day.
The soup flavours vary —
pumpkin one week, tomato the next, broccoli and green bean the next.
And he always sets aside some for me.
Winter’s well behind us now, of course.
(In the first week of October,
the temperatures soared over 30 degrees Celsius.)
But I’m still enjoying my father’s soup,
which is tasty, warming and good …
… and which he makes, always, with love.
It’s that time of year again … at last.
twenty-one words 