Elsa Schiaparelli

Elsa Schiaparelli - 1890-1973

Italian fashion designer

Thinking of Italy, where we'll be next month, I remembered the first gift of perfume I received in 1960 when a teenager; a very tiny vial of Shocking de Schiaparelli. I thought the scent a little flowery back then but, 50 years later, my taste, or rather, sense of smell, may have changed.

Elsa had a fabulous following and some of her loyal clients included such names as Marlene Dietrich, Wallis Simpson, Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Crawford and Zsa Zsa Gabor.  I found much more about Elsa at Candida Martinelli's Italophiles site.  

I must look for Shocking at the duty-free shop before we fly!

The vintage bottle of

Shocking de Schiaparelli

in the shape of Mae West

Farewell, 'La Stupenda'

Dame Joan Sutherland

7 November 1926 - 10 October 2010

I had several other photos to share
of the wonderful career of Dame Joan
but, unfortunately, my image uploader
isn't working!  Please enjoy the following
from Lucia di Lammermoor; Joan and
the inimitable Luciano Pavarotti.

Pavarotti made his American début with the Greater Miami Opera in February 1965, singing in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor opposite Joan Sutherland on the stage of the Miami-Dade County Auditorium in Miami. The tenor scheduled to perform that night became ill with no understudy. As Sutherland was traveling with him on tour, she recommended the young Pavarotti as he was well acquainted with the role.  Source: Wikipedia

Haiku Error Messages

Kitagawa Utamaro

I was surfing around recently and came across the following message:

You step in the stream,

but the water has moved on.

This page is not here.

- Cass Whittington

I went looking for Cass and found that she had entered a Haiku Error Messages Contest run by Salon Magazine.  Some of the entries are amusing, others would infuriate me!  Here are some more:

The website you seek                            A file that big?

cannot be located,                                It might be very useful.

but endless others exist.                        But now it is gone.

- Joy Rothke                                                                      -  David J. Liszewski

I ate your web page.                             Windows NT crashed.

Forgive me.  It was juicy                        I am the Blue Screen of Death.

And tart on my tongue                           No one hears your screams.

- Unknown                                            - Peter Rothman 

Yesterday it worked.                             Three things are certain;

Today it is not working                          Death, taxes and lost data.

Windows is like that.                             Guess which has occurred.

- Margaret Segall                                                             -  David Dixon

More here

I'm loving this tea...

~  soothing  ~

refreshing

would be lovely

ice cold on a hot day.

~ I'm having a break ~

I can hear the grass and weeds growing!!

~ By the way, our pigeon guest ~

now lives up the road

with three lovely, white, female doves!

Time to go home, little one...

Last Sunday I noticed an injured pigeon in our courtyard.  It was practically crawling towards the bird bath.  One of its legs was badly injured and I noticed that it had tags, an orange one on the left leg and a green one on the right.  I threw some wild bird mix out to it and it was eating happily until a crested pigeon came along and started attacking it.  It flew up on to the roof.  Then a dozen or so cockatoos flew in and started shooing it.

The next morning it was still here, so we enticed it down off the roof with a little bowl of seed and a bowl of water, well out of sight of our 'residents'.  Hubby managed to pick it up, we got the numbers on the tags and, after several phone calls, later that evening the owner contacted us and said to let it rest for a few days and then it will fly home, or we could keep it.  It is a racing pigeon and was released last Saturday hundreds of kilometres away in New South Wales.

'Stooly' has so enjoyed his recuperation in our barn and now we have the big clean up.

I just managed to get him in flight as he flew out the door of the barn, heading for the shed roof.

An hour later he's still here, flying from one roof to the other, so we've left the barn door open.  Happily his right leg is now healed and he's standing on it without pain. The owner said that they get attacked in flight by hawks and eagles.

Update:  He flew around in short bursts for a couple of hours and went back into the barn.  I think he loves this place!

Bird

It was passed from one bird to another,

the whole gift of the day.

The day went from flute to flute,

went dressed in vegetation,

in flights which opened a tunnel

through the wind would pass

to where birds were breaking open

the dense blue air - 

and there, night came in.

When I returned from so many journeys,

I stayed suspended and green

between sun and geography -

I saw how wings worked,

how perfumes are transmitted

by feathery telegraph,

and from above I saw the path,

the springs and the roof tiles,

the fishermen at their trades,

the trousers of the foam;

I saw it all from my green sky.

I had no more alphabet

than the swallows in their courses,

the tiny, shining water

of the small bird on fire

which dances out of the pollen.

Pablo Neruda 1904-1973

Mad Men Blog

Elisabeth Moss as "Peggy"

Hoping the drought has broken....

After 14 years of drought, we're certainly hoping it has broken.  We had non-stop rain last weekend and floods have been extensive in some parts of Victoria, forcing hundreds of families to evacuate.  In some areas the water has yet to reach its peak and, with another week of rain expected, the inevitable is very worrying for some.

See that row of trees at the base of the mountain?  They fringe the Goulburn River, which has temporarily been 'switched off'', so as not to exacerbate the plight of the flooded areas further up country.  It is the main irrigator to the 'food bowl' in central Victoria and has been filled from the man-made lake, Lake Eildon, since the 1950s.

We are a couple of metres above the flood plain here so basically high and dry.  Three little ponds appeared  last Saturday so I took a few shots for the record.

The autumn leaves you see in this pic are left over from autumn.  The tree is beginning to bud, so they'll soon drop off.

In two days we had 92ml in the rain gauge, which is just over 3½ inches.

Half an hour away is the little town of Bonnie Doon at the Northerly stretch of Lake Eildon.  A time worn catch cry from people in the big smoke is, "Is there water under the bridge at Bonnie Doon?"  We'd heard a whisper there was, so yesterday we drove up to see for ourselves.

A bit of a mess after the heavy rain.  This area has been dry for years and the rubbish has been pushed to shore.  Looks like a letter box lying there in the flotsam and jetsam!  The lake is presently at 54% capacity and is 45 metres below full supply level; the fullest it's been since 1996.

The swollen Rubicon River down the road broke the bridge!