A little bit of daylight
06 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: 12WBT, autumn, Daylight Savings, fall, Spring
There have been many many letters in our local paper this week about the commencement of daylight savings. For the last few years daylight savings has run from the first weekend in October through to the first weekend in April – 6 long months! Quite a number of people are complaining about having daylight savings at all.
I like daylight savings in Summer. I enjoy the long days and having lovely sunny evenings to get things done and to enjoy time with the boys and friends. What I don’t like is daylight savings in early Spring and Autumn. This may work well if you live on the coast, but in the Nations Capital it is just too early.
I have really been enjoying the mornings. Waking up early to exercise, seeing the sun finish rising over the mountains behind my house and hearing the birds waking up. But this week…….
Tuesday was tough – it was just daybreak when I took off for my warmup walk. This morning was nearly impossible – 5.30am and it was pitch black. Yep, the birds were starting to wake up, but I couldn’t see the magpies eyeing me off to swoop. It was difficult to be motivated to get out of bed in the dark, after the lovely mornings from last week. And it was still dark when I arrived home. I really didn’t get the same enjoyment this morning as I did last week.
Daylight savings at this time of year is great for those people who do things in the evenings, and an evening walk is a beautiful way to end the day. But for those of us who are morning people – it is just tough going. I feel like I am being penalised by a government decision to align us with Tasmania – why couldn’t they change to align with us???
I know in a few weeks it will be fine again – but why couldn’t daylight savings start then????
My Autumn Garden
25 May 2010 1 Comment
in Garden, Home Tags: autumn, fall, garden, home
After many years of very dry Autumn’s we are finally having one with some rain. This has meant that some of my plants have really not had beautiful leaf colour for quite a few years. One of the things I love about living in Canberra is that we really do have 4 seasons. So while today is wet & grey, I wouldn’t consider it to be a typical Autumn day. Our Autumn and Winter days are crisp blue sky days, often accompanied by a very icy wind. But I wanted to share some of the colour in my garden.
The above is a flowering plum. For the last few years the leaves have kind of just fallen off in March without changing colour as it copes with heat and dryness. I am loving the fact that we have had leaves all the way through to May.
This is my Silver Birch. Again for the last few years the leaves have just dropped off in April. And this year they are gold. You can tell from the grass that we are still in drought conditions though. We haven’t been allowed to water grass for over 3 years, and in the very hot Canberra summers it has really suffered.
And one of my camellias in flower. I love the colour they add to my Autumn garden.
In my front yard at the moment I have the red of the new growth of photinia, the gold from the Autumn leaves, the pink camellias and tiny lilac flowers on the rosemary bushes. Who needs Spring?
Now all I need is more time. Time to do a spot (or a lot) of weeding, time to plant the new westrangia that I have hiding around the corner and time to prune.
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