IT's OFFICIAL!! First of September is the first day of SPRING!!
It was a lovely start too, warm sunshine - if only I hadn't been so worried about the bigbird....I fretted all day over it, then thought a walk at dusk for a beautiful sunset would be the way to go - but I missed the light - Doh!! still, I took photos anyway.....




The swan was grazing on the bank but I have auto-corrected this one because really it was black-on-black and all you could se was a yellow eye and a bit of red beak in the original!!
Today, Sunday, is the second day of Spring, and another pleasant day - I went my usual walk but once again only a single swan...and a gaggle of seagulls...

I am hoping this means that the other is sitting in the reeds on an egg...but as they are identical I don't know if I've seen the same bird twice or both birds once....???

While I'm on the bigbird theme, I guess I have to add that clearly only one bigbird has been sighted in NYC this week, and a rather glum one at that...curious quacking has been coming from him as well, and clearly all is not well in  FPCL... I anxiously await developments, but seriously, is this  a 'happy face?'...I think not (and THIS is after he WON... don't want to see him sad, then....)
..Mind you, he's looking at the reporter who asked him a tricky question about changing his coach which seemed to catch him out rather and had him babbling none-sense until he eventually got himself into a right old lather...Hmmm...something's up there - he began in a twist and clearly stopped himself from saying something he wants to keep private...poor Marat, he's really not a happy banana right now in spite of what he says...(sends him a comforting hug because boy, does he look like he needs it at the moment....) WHERE is Sasha, I cry - and I'm inclined to pout.

Well, a couple more shots of my afternoon perambulations along the river - went right past the Pipeworkers Park and out the other side of the Living Museum of the West - took a couple of shots of the remaining stone buildings that were part of the Hume Pipeworks....


And then on the way back I saw a wattlebird swooping from the tree and trailing it' s feathers in the river before flying back to the branch and flapping it's wings - these birds have the most raucus cry - almost like a sulfur-crested cocky - I watched it for ages but only got a pretty ordinary shot..although I quite like it..


Then I got home and did laundry and mopping and vacuuming - my house is now clean and fresh but I still have three weeks worth of Clean laundry on the spare bed - so of course my darling boy had made his bed in it - and as spring is here and both of them are beginning to shed their winter coats, now is the time every piece of clothing I own is covered with fine grey or white hairs...but really, how can you disturb him....looks comfy, huh!! awww...loves the babies....
especially when he makes adorable little baby snuffling snory noises.......

So that;s your lot for this week - topsy turvey as ever, but tomorrow is another day, lets have a good one, everybody!!

I went in search of something that I thought was lost...then found....

I wasn't GOING to DO this, but, well....I can't help it and I'm not sorry. Given Marat's somewhat unwise
decision to combine yellow, with...er....MORE yellow...the comparison WAS inevitable...




ok, OKAY!! I know it's old, I know it's tired...but WHY, Adidas...please...WHY???

On a more positive note, there follows some photos from my Sunday perambulation along the river - the Maribyrnong River, flowing West through Melbourne and into Port Philip Bay at the Docks - my backyard. It was a lovely grey, chilly day, perfect for a walk.....





Aren't they beautiful?

And here's the point...the pair of Black Swans, who had to abandon the 'wetlands' that dried up in our drought last summer, have decamped up river..I was very relieved to find my swans....enjoying the deeper water west, upstream.

Then I started thinking...'Big Birds' pair for life....when they find their mate, they stick to them, and you know what they say, "birds of a feather stick together" and I remembered the Rome and Roland Garros pics.....Awwwww.....bless!


and THEN I saw THIS pic, from Washington DC.....

EVERYBODY is looking somewhere, except Marat - Marat, yet again, stares contemplatively, you might say, somewhat plaintively, into the middle distance, and yet AGAIN...clasps his phone in his hands at practise.

WELL, it's hard not to think the big bird is missing his mate, and wishes he was there to share his shirts with.....he sends his text: "Wish YOU were here...QUAX"