Theme Day - Animals

This is an Australian (short snout) Echidna.

Did you know that Australia has egg-laying mammals called monotremes. An Echidna is one such, as is the Platypus.

When I was a kid - many moons ago - we owned a black'n'tan kelpie called Darkie. We thought long and hard about our animal names in those days! Echidna would send Darkie around the twist.

You see, they roll up into a ball when under attack to protect their soft under-belly. The dumb dog would set up a racket to wake the dead, trying to roll the tightly wound ball of echidna over to get at the weakness. For his efforts, of course, he collected many a sharp quill in the nostril.

Today is the first of the month and Theme Day for the City Daily Photo Blog community. Click here to visit participants from around the world

Man's Best Friend

They were neant to be playing Touch Footy with their mates, late on an Autumn Sunday afternoon, as the moist air rose from Rushcutter's Bay and wound its way up the escarpment to Paddington.

But he was so enthusiastic, and there!

Australians are a faithful mob

These are not British Bulldogs. Nor are they French Bulldogs. I think they are Pugs. They appear to be of Chinese origin dating back centuries.

This pair was waiting outside the grocery shop at Five Ways, Paddington, about 9 o'clock. I have seen them about many times before. Many people in my area, select 'designer' dogs of small stature, often opting for two.

Today is 'Australia Day' upon which we celebrate European settlement of our land. The indigenous people have lived here for milennia. Europeans settled here in January 1788, establishing a series of colonies under the British crown. These disparate colonies federated under a constitution on 1st January, 1901.

It is forecast to be very hot today, ranging in the city from 33 - 39 C. I have chosen to cover the 'Welcome Morning' ceremony in Farm Cove commencing at 8am. Story tomorrow.

Autumn in the park

Sleeping rough

Concerned, I asked the security guard posted at the base of the southern pylon of the harbour bridge whether he knew there was a rabbit on the grassy slope. He smiled in a benignly condescending manner: "They have been there about four years. There are quite a few of them". I only managed to sight these two and they are most certainly not wild rabbits.

When I was a kid living on a farm, rabbits were pests that we had to trap to prevent them decimating the grasses meant for the sheep. In the Great Depression in South Sydney, unemployed men would wander the laneways calling "Rabbito" trying to sell rabbits they had trapped in the wild to earn money to feed and clothe their family.

Knowing the breeding habits of rabbits, "quite a few" is probably an understatement!!

Man's best friend ... phooey!

Dogs are nowt but status symbols on a leash! If you want an animal who worships the very ground you walk upon: share your life with a cat!


How can Fido give unbridled love and adoration to an owner who walks him in pink fluffy slippers and meets friends wearing thongs ... some folks have questionable taste, I tell ya! How can Fido look up to anyone who half strangles him whilst doing endless thumb exercises! And she can't even see that the bloke on the receiving end is not really into her!

Mogs rule!

The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner

Although I shelter from the rain Under a broken tree, My chair was nearest to the fire In every company That talked of politics, Ere Time transfigured me.
Though lads are making pikes again For some consiracy And crazy rascals rage their fill At human tyranny, My contemplations are of Time That has transfigured me.
There's not a woman turns her face, Upon a broken tree, And yet the beauties that I loved Are in my memory; I spit into the face of Time That has transfigured me. William Butler Yeats

All images taken at Centennial Park last Saturday.

Young, serious and passionate

Self-contained and magnificent, she indulged her controlled passion together with, but separate from, the giggling girties. The mirror in her mind's eye continually adjusting the image of horse-and-rider that was presented to the outside world. The pleasure of the promenade balanced with the responsibility of the rub-down, the preening, the feeding and the mucking-out.
With the sun beaming into us and an afternoon thunderstorm just a bubble-of-cloud over the distant ocean, Dad and I slurped our coffee adjacent to the dressage field in Centennial Park, about 7 minutes equidistant from my home, his home and the centre of the city. We reminisced about the numerous methods he employed as gate-closers on the farm that we owned in the Hunter Valley in the late '50s.

Good to be alive

An autumn morning Soaking up the warming sun Content and at peace.

Old possum's book of practical cats

Sylvie, aged 8, sunning herself in the rear courtyard

... from ... The Ad-dressing of Cats Before a Cat will condescend To treat you as a trusted friend, Some little token of esteem Is needed, like a dish of cream; And you might now and then supply Some caviare, or Strassburg Pie, Some potted grouse, or salmon paste - She's sure to have her personal taste. (I know a Cat, who makes a habit Of eating nothing else but rabbit, And when she's finished, licks her paws So's not to waste the onion sauce.) A Cat's entitled to expect These evidences of respect. And so in time you reach your aim, And finally call her by her name. ... Thomas Sterns Eliot (1939)

Their beauty might declare

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Do you love me? Really ... ?

The sounds were entrancing.

Camera clinic

I was trying out my home-made diffuser over the weekend while also boarding my son's young cat, Piper, who today I took to the vet to be spayed, microchipped, vaccinated and immunised. I also insisted she have her fingernails cut!

I will give him a vial of Advocate to give these fleas "curry", when I take her back to him tomorrow evening