S – The Annotated Ultimate Alphabet by Mike Wilks
This is a page from one of my most treasured books: The Annotated Ultimate Alphabet by Mike Wilks. The page contains over 1000 things that begin with the letter S, including the Semaphore alphabet.
See what you can find.
I’m in a city of 14.50 million
(give or take a few, including me)
souls. I know no-one
here. I’m a nano-human, a speck
in the smog. I make myself big
riding the subways with no-one
with light-coloured hair. No-one notices
the gweilo; the ghost-person, I think,
until I step into the deluge at Shanghai
Library, and a dark-haired
girl steps in time beside me, her umbrella
banishing the rain, her words, my ghostliness
“Where are you going?
Can I take you there?”
Shopping is one of my least favourite activities, so I usually try to avoid it. But when I’m travelling, I love to shop for small, unusual gifts for family and friends.
Shopping prep, Granville Island. Photo by Vi.
My husband’s not an easy giftee. He has everything he needs, and although he doesn’t have everything he wants (who does?), my budget doesn’t extend to Beneteaus and Breitlings. So his gifts from my travels are somewhat (ahem) eclectic. This is the latest.
Miniature Solar-powered RainbowMaker designed by David Dear
It’s an elaborate yet simple piece of engineering (to delight a child of any age).
Rainbows…go, catch some.
My husband and youngest niece are the most observant people I know, invariably picking up on details which other miss. (They should start their own detective agency). I’ve learnt to be more observant, particularly in nature, from them both. But I’m still no master at it.
I was so busy taking photos in the Butchart Gardens that I almost missed this wormhole in the hedgerow to another galaxy. 😀
Take care to notice the world around you.
Is it just my impression, or is technology making the human race less observant?
About 19 years ago, I spent two months working in Vancouver during the Summer but never got to Vancouver Island. However, in mid-November, I was fortunate enough to return to Vancouver for work, and my brother said I absolutely must try and get to Vancouver Island and see the Butchart Gardens and Victoria. So on a gloomy, grey Fall day absolutely deluged with rain, I made the 90-minute ferry trip to the island, and, although I ran out of time to see Victoria, I managed to spend a wonderful few hours in the Butchart Gardens, an extraordinary place of beauty.
Butchart Gardens
Change (sometimes welcome, sometimes not) is an inevitable part of life and is etched in our histories.
I live in Australia and have extended family on four continents. We were all born and raised in Africa and in our lives there, as well as in our migrant lives, have experienced our fair share of change.
My husband and his siblings grew up in Africa, too, but his maternal grandparents, mother, and uncle were migrants from Sweden, where they had previously landed as refugees after fleeing from their homeland of Estonia (Australia would refer to them as boat people), when the Russians invaded Estonia in the 1940s. In their family, migration and change is epigenetic: my husband now lives in Australia, his middle sister in Sweden.
We have long wanted to visit the birthplace of their mother and maternal grandfather—the island of Hiiumaa off the coast of Estonia—and finally got to do so recently. Change is not always as good as a holiday, but a holiday often brings a welcome change of focus and pace, and we had wonderful trip.
Our journey first took us to Copenhagen, where we spent a convivial weekend catching up with dear cousins of mine over delicious home-cooked meals and copious amounts of wine. 
And then we had a wonderful two weeks with my husband’s sister and her husband (a Swede, who she met when he lived and worked for a time in Africa) in their beautiful home in semi-rural Sweden, an idyllic place.
Viking Rune Stones
Stockholm was next for a few days, where we experienced the charm of the cobbled streets of Gamla stan, the marvel that is the Vasa Museum, and the strange art in the Stockholm subways.
Ship Detail – Vasa Museum
We caught the overnight ferry from Stockholm to Tallinn, worth it alone to experience the beauty and vastness of the Stockholm archipelago. 
Our few days in Tallinn left an impression of an aesthetic mix of the medieval, the modern, and the Soviet Brutalist. And the memory of the best coffee we had on our entire trip.
Old Town Tallinn
And, finally, we reached Hiiumaa – a place of wild beauty, ancient history, and, currently, peace.
Orjaku Harbour – Hiiumaa
Long may it remain unchanged.
When the sun turns
away to southern lands
we find ourselves awake
on a strange, familiar shore
where those who’ve gone
before sleep beneath moss
in forest graves, and wild apples
jump the fences
Across the Baltic Sea
history comes full circle.
Bob—my minion, courtesy of my husband—is a symbol of my excesses:
Too much chocolate and champagne: I, like Bob, am a candidate for the cakewalk rather than the catwalk.
Too much grieving: my father, who was affectionately called Bob (not his real name) by our extended family, died 13 years ago, but his ghost still looms at dawn.
Too strange a sense of humour: dark, subversive, and sometimes toilet.
And now I’m laughing too long and too loud.
Have a silly weekend.
😀
For more entries to this week’s WPC, see The Daily Post.
Stylish in Shibuya
I’m lazy technically when it comes to photography. Part of the problem is that I have two sets of glasses and never seem to be wearing the right pair when I want to take a photo quickly. Which is frustrating because my muse is most certainly ordinary people, and for this reason the photography that I most enjoy is street photography, which requires spontaneity.
These lovely chaps cheekily photo-bombed me as I was taking photos down this street in Tokyo and then happily agreed to pose. Of course, my camera was on the wrong settings.
The other people-inspired form of photography that I love is portraiture, but I don’t get much time to do it these days. My good friend Kim is always a wonderful subject.
For incredibly beautiful and technically perfect portrait photography, see Joshi Daniel’s blog.
For more entries to this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post.
Robot Restaurant Floor Show
For more entries to last week’s WPC, see The Daily Post.
Falls Creek is a ski resort in the Victorian Alps, Australia.
In the off-season (i.e. any time that’s not winter) it’s great for mountain-biking, fly-fishing and hiking, as well as high-altitude training for crazy extreme runners and cyclists.
Accommodation-wise, we’ve stayed at Husky Apartments and QT and can recommend both for couples, particularly if you want to self-cater most of the time.
Although many of the resort facilities are closed outside of the ski season, the local supermarket is open most days, and a few of the restaurants run skeleton staff – in our experience, the staff of Stingray and The Last Hoot do an excellent job.
Off-mountain in the area, afternoon tea at Treats in Tawonga South is a must. Run by a welcoming, energetic team, the café serves a wide variety of meals and cakes. And you can plan a flip at the local gliding club on the same day-trip (perhaps before you’ve eaten 
).
It’s the perfect place to give the lungs and the brain some fresh air.
For more entries to the WPC, see The Daily Post.
On the Way to the Theatre
For more entries to whatever-week’s-WPC-this-was, see The Daily Post.
I’ve lived in Sydney for longer than the annual Vivid festival’s been going, but this year is the first time I went down to the Harbour to take a look. It’s fabulous, the atmosphere, the music and the visual splendour. Tonight’s the last night, so if you’re in Sydney and you haven’t been yet, get rugged up, and head to Vivid tonight for a wonderful evening.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Circular Quay, Sydney
For those of you who couldn’t make it, you might be interested in these Vivid 2015 videos from YouTube.
For more entries to this week’s WPC, see The Daily Post.
I know what you’re thinking…
..but I haven’t taken to my husband’s head with a meat cleaver.
Being time-poor, I don’t cook much, but when I do, I like to try something new and recently attempted this MiNDFOOD recipe.
The problem is that the whole tap-the-pomegranate-skin-with-a-wooden-spoon-and-the-seeds-will-just-fall-out trick didn’t work so well. Hence the pomegranate bloodbath.
For more entries to last week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post.
This rather prettier Autumn mess is evidence
of another avian feaster
doing fantastic gymnastics in the Camellia bushes
to get some yummy nectar
nom, nom
Delicious!
A Sure Sign of Autumn in the Antipodes
On a windless day, a rustle in the plane tree on the verge…
..hmmm, the frangipani still has some buds and blooms…
..but the Tibouchina’s showing signs of an imminent purple explosion…
..and there’s that familiar plop followed by those chatty squawky squeaks…
..which can only mean one thing…
..I know you’re in there…
Aha!
And who do you think’s going to clean up your Autumn feasting mess?
That’s your problem; I’m eating!
Day’s End – Falls Creek, Victorian Alps, Australia
For more entries to the Ephemeral WPC, see The Daily Post.
Fresh Noodles – Tokyo
See The Daily Post for other takes on this week’s photo challenge.
Ground Zero – Hiroshima
“The rays simply destroyed body cells – caused their nuclei to degenerate and broke their walls.”
John Hersey – Hiroshima
Some lighthearted takes on this week’s WPC:
beeblu blog 
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