Weekend Coffee Share 15th October, 2016.

Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

Let’s just forget it’s after dark and switch on the sun. Why let reality get in the way of painting a picture? While we’re at it, we can throw a rug on the grass and smell the roses. Our rose bush has burst into Spring quite literally and is covered all over with luscious red roses and a multitude of buds. Just going to show that a savage prune can be good for the soul. Mind you, personally I say go prune the rose bush and leave me alone.

How was your week? What did you get up to?

This week, I had a truly special moment when I received a Facebook message asking if I still had any of the sunflower seeds I’d received from the MH17 crash site in the Ukraine. This woman was related to the pilot and she was desperately searching for some seeds to plant in their new home. MH17 was the passenger plane shot down over the Ukraine2 years ago and these seeds were salvaged by the Sydney Morning Herald’s journalist Paul McGeogh and photographer. They brought the seeds back to Australia via quarantine where they were planted and this is generation 1.

If you would like to read about the sunflower seeds, click here

I was too anxious to plant the seeds last year. Actually, this wasn’t anxiety but more of a reality check because I am a serial plant killer and our front yard is currently littered with dead bodies following my most recent splurge. I always vow to change but my track record speaks for itself.

Sunflower seeds from the Ukraine

So, I packaged up 5 of the seeds and today we planted twelve in a seed planter at home and I’m hoping to plant the rest in the greenhouse at my son’s school. If you’ve ever read The Little Prince and you remember how the rose was kept safe under the glass dome, you’ll know exactly what I’m looking for. Obviously, I can’t bubble wrap the sunflowers but a greenhouse is pretty much the same thing. Hopefully, we’ll get plenty of seeds and future crops will be assured.

While I haven’t thinking about seeds, I’ve been doing more family history research. By the way, anybody who thinks this is dull and boring, hasn’t met my family. This bunch are on my Mum’s Mother’s side. There are a couple of different branches but they basically arrived from Germany during the 1860s. My research started out with my Great Great Great Aunty Rose who had a sophistocated hair and beauty salon in Brisbane which served the elite…including General MacArthur’s wife while he was stationed in Brisbane.

Well, Aunty Rose was theatrical to say the least and she had a pet kookaburra “Johnny Boy” which she could get to laugh on command (not easy for a kookaburra apparently. I’ve never tried.) She also had a pet budgerigar called Romeo whose vocabulary was a very impressive 800-1000 words. While other women were knitting socks for the war effort, Aunty Rose organised fundraising concerts for the Red Cross featuring local entertainers and her birds. Aunty Rose, not unsurprisingly, was very in elocution and gave very dramatic renditions of poems. We actually have a recording of her performing on an old reel-to-reel tape recorder. She used to perform when my Mum’s family went round for a visit and apparently they found it very difficult to contain their laughter. Of course, these were the days when children were seen and not heard and they had to behave!!

Anyway, while researching Aunty Rose I stumbled across a startling little snippet. It turns out that her Uncle played the violin for Ashton’s Circus around 1870. This made quite a lot of sense. From there I strayed across another snippet about how members of the Wirth’s Circus band were bailed up by the notorious bushranger Captain Thunderbolt.

By this time, my creative juices are gushing like a fountain. Seriously, you couldn’t make up these characters.

So, as you can see, I’ve been well and truly spirited away from the real world this week and I’ve wandered off on yet another goat’s trail chasing the story. However, my stories are all very cold off the press. You could indeed say frozen but they’re so good that I have to perform CPR. Bring them back to life.

Anyway, that’s enough from me. I need to get to bed before the sun rises for real.

Hope you have a great week!

This has been another Weekend Coffee Share and please click on the linky to enjoy beverages from right around the globe. .

xx Rowena

Seized by a Ginormous Koala!

Forget all your fears of being attacked by killer drop bears out in the Australian bush.

There’s a new threat posed by the Australian koala population. A mutation in the eucalyptus leaves which the koalas eat, has caused these once small, cuddly critters to grow and grow and grow and grow, dwarfing tall towers and crushing anything in its path.

Miss and I were simply eating ice cream in Hyde Park when a huge paw swooped down from the sky and took us heavenwards. You could just imagine our horror. As much as I might love koalas, this was obviously no ordinary koala and not being able to get hold of any gum leaves in the city, it was a cranky koala as well…not at all like those sleepy koalas you see at the zoo.

Anyway, we were rescued and were much relieved to return to terra firma.

Take it from us, do not pat these koalas or even attempt to take photos. Instead, be afraid. Be very afraid. Miss and I were very lucky to escape and you might not be lucky!

xx Rowena