Thoughts And Recollections Of A Tree Spirit

Green Day Live at Acer Arena, Sydney 2009

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

After work on Friday (11 Dec) Mat and I had to abandon our newly arrived guests (Squealer and Mally from Stroud) for we had our long-awaited gig to go to – Green Day :-)

After leaving a little late and then queuing for half an hour to buy t-shirts we missed the support band, Jet, unfortunately. I then queued for another fifteen minutes to buy chips and pies as we hadn’t had any food before leaving and were both pretty hungry. However, it was all timed really well because as we were just finishing the last chips the lights dimmed and the crowd errupted.

The first thing I noticed was, even though the tickets said no photography or filming equipment allowed, there were camera flashes going off left right and centre. I’m glad I had decided to take my camera anyway and I took a few shots and video clips here and there to capture the moment. We had pretty good seats; although they were right at the side of the stage, so the acoustics weren’t as good as they would have been in the centre, we were at the front of the first level above ground so got a really good view of everything.

The whole concert was (more…)

16.12.2009 Beats, Personal, Pictures, Videos 6 Comments

We’re Going To See Green Day!

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Following the recent release of their long awaited new album, 21st Century Breakdown, Green Day are now on tour. They are set to play in the UK around the end of October and Sydney, Australia in December.

As soon as I heard this on the radio I decided this would be one concert Mat and I would not miss out on (previously being too late to score Neil Young tickets and also dibbing out on the Foo Fighters back in 2007). Tickets went on sale at 9am on 30 June and as Mat was off sick with food poisoning I was able to persuade him out of his sick bed long enough to hound the website until he had secured a pair :-)

Here is sample. This is their current single in the charts from the new album:

10.07.2009 Beats, Personal, Videos 5 Comments

Cardiff Bay and Torchwood

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

I’m going to try and post about my holiday in the UK now that I am back in Oz and settled into the daily grind once again. It may take a while though so don’t hold your breath!

After spending a couple of days in Clydach with Chris et al, me Mat and Seb left on Thursday morning (23/5/09). We decided, as pre planned, to take a slight detour on the way home via Cardiff Bay so we could have a look at where Torchwood (off shoot from Dr Who starring the enigmatic Captain Jack Harkness as the main character) is filmed and take a load of pictures of the famous water tower.

We were a bit worried about finding the place as we didn’t have a map but we pretty much found our way straight there and then parked up in a muti-storey just down the road from the National Assembly for Wales building.

Me & Mat by the water tower Seb & Mat by water tower Cardiff Bay Water Tower

As you can see by the two pictures of Mat and me, then Seb and Mat, standing in front of the water tower on “the step”, the perception filter was clearly out of order that day, lol. Though on closer inspection (more…)

23.05.2009 Personal, Photography, Pictures, Videos 1 Comment

Warriewood Blowhole

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

Last weekend we all decided to go on a mission to check out the Warriewood Blowhole properly as it was such a nice day. Mat and I have been before but to see it properly it involves climbing over the edge of a cliff down a rope and I didn’t have the courage so always waited behind.

This time I was determined to conquer my fear of heights and go for it, as nothing could be as bad as the fifty metre Diamond fire lookout tree I climbed in Western Australia, which I am yet to write about. The Blowhole is located on the south cliff of Warriewood beach and is a tunnel going all the way through the cliff which you can swim through. You get to it by walking through a reserve and ignoring the danger sign that warns of a dangerous cliff edge and advises to keep away etc. etc. There is a path that goes down to the cliff and then all the way round the cliff to the other side. To get down to the blowhole you have to climb down two ropes onto ledges further down the cliff which then enable you to scramble down to it.

There is then a little ledge about fifteen feet above the narrow inlet that you can jump off, into the water, making sure you time it correctly so you jump into a wave as it comes through. I think you have to be careful about height of the tide as well, but it was fine when we got there. The rope descent was no where near as bad as I thought it would be and in actual fact was dead easy.

Here you can see Mat preparing to jum off the ledge into the water with Nick and Kat in the background. The second picture shows the height of the cliff behind and also some people in the background climbing up the bottom rope:

Here you can see (more…)

17.01.2009 Beats, Kazakhstan, Personal, Pictures, Videos 2 Comments

Swimming in the Elements

Monday, January 12th, 2009

So far I have gone swimming every day before work. I am really enjoying it and go into the office every morning beaming like a cheshire cat. It has taken the place of my daily walk up Leckhampton Hill before work in the UK.

Going the same time daily (just before 7.30am) it has been interesting to observe the slowly rising tide each day. The beaches here are nothing like the ones in the UK with their vast difference between low and high tide. I haven’t ever noticed much difference in amount of beach to the sea unlike Britain where you might need binoculars to see the sea at low tide.

On Monday the rock baths were like normal swimming pools with only the occasional big wave causing a little splash at the end. Tuesday and Wednesday saw a lot of seaweed gathering on the bottom of the far end where it had been washed in. So much so that instead of doing lengths I did widths at the nearest end to avoid getting it all wrapped round me, not to mention the unpleasant tickling sensation that made me wonder if it was something else creepy crawly like.

On Thursday the waves were more ferocious, sweeping over the pool edges and causing the water to swirl about in conflicting directions. I found myself racing the last couple of metres at the end so I could turn round before another wave threatened to hit me in the face. That was nothing compared to Friday though; as I walked down the beach I could see the level of the water had submerged the path leading to the baths and instead of putting my things on the stone bench at the side I followed others’ examples and left them on a sheltered ledge of rock further up.

It was like swiming in a washing machine. Waves were coming in from the bottom then hitting the wall and coming back again meeting more waves and clashing in the middle. I had to be careful not to swim too near the edge incase I got swept against the sides. After I got out I took this mini video:

What I really like about swimming in the rock baths is the raw experience of the elements. It’s all there: the air around you, especially when it’s windy; the fire from the sun, even in the early morning it can be very powerful; the sea and the waves encapsulating you in water; and the surrounding rock and cliffs for earth.

I find it a very powerful experience and go to work feeling charged and full of energy. Nature’s energy is all around us and I think if you stop and take notice of it, you can tap into it and absorb it into your own energy field. It’s like an infinite reserve available to everyone if you know it’s there, consciously or not.

12.01.2009 Personal, Videos No Comments

Cockatoo Invasion

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

Monday morning saw Mat and I getting up early to make our first trip to work from the new house. I had not had the best night’s sleep and had been woken before the alarm again, first to the sound of maniacal laughs of the resident kookaburras and then to the screeching of cockatoos.

After Mat had left and I was just about to go into the kitchen to have some breakfast I realised I could hear a strange pattering of small feet on our balcony. It sounded like a small band of gnomes having a party out by the barbequeue so naturally I went to investigate. This is what met my eyes:


[click on the thumbnails to enlarge each image]

Of course I ran to get my camera and took as many pictures as I could before the battery went dead. At first I was worried they would all fly off on sight of me but unlike the other birds I try and photograph these cockatoos were true to their nickname – cocky! I was able to get up very close, within a foot from their faces, though I was not willing to try any closer due to (more…)

24.12.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal, Photography, Pictures, Videos No Comments

Baby Currawong Not So Baby Anymore

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Some of the things I will miss most when we move is our resident Lorikeet and Currawong families.

I mentioned back in October that we had a pair of Currawongs nesting in a neighbouring palm tree and they kept visiting our balcony for extra food.

Well, not long after that, Baby left the nest. Mat noticed that the incessant cawing was no long coming from the top of the palm tree but from the bottom and when we looked we could no longer see the big black blob amongst the fronds. Mat was a bit worried that Baby had fallen out of the nest and was unable to fly but I assured him it would be ok; I had just recently read an article in the local paper about WIRES (The NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue & Education Service) being inundated with baby currawongs and magpies where poeple had thought they’d fallen out of the nest by accident and needed “rescuing”. Wires sent out a plea to leave them where they fell as it was completely normal and all part of their flying lessons.

By the evening we were relieved to hear Baby cawing from the safety of our Umbrella tree at the bottom of the garden and from there, there was no stopping him. He is a very noisy baby and even now, two months later there is no sign of the distinctive “currawock, currawong” adult call that presumably gives them their name. He just continues cawing repeatedly for food and can be heard from various surrounding trees regularly throughout the day. Saying that, I think this last week must have been a turning point as I haven’t heard him for a while now. Maybe he has finally taken off to find himself his own terriory away from mum and dad.

Anyway, for the first time last week, Mum (or maybe it was Dad) brought Baby with them to visit our balcony. He started screeching at the top of his voice for food and (more…)

18.12.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal, Videos No Comments

Elf Yourself

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

Check this out, it’s rather funny:

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

06.12.2008 Personal, Videos No Comments

Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree…

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

…Merry, merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh Kookaburra, laugh kookaburra,
Gay your life must be.

I remember the first time I heard the call of a kookaburra and it was an amazing experience. I thought it sounded a bit like a chimpanzee and it also brought to mind the above little song that my friend Alix Daley taught me when we were about ten. We must have sung it a fair bit for it to stick in my head all this time, even though neither of us had been to Australia or knew what a kookaburra actually sounded like. We lost touch a long time ago but I wanted to mention it, just in case she ever happens to stroll past this post (unlikely i know), and say that whenever I hear the kookaburras laughing it reminds me of her and this little song. Good friends are never forgotton.

Anyway, back to my main reason for this post. I have been trying to capture the call of a kookaburra on video since I arrived in Australia but somehow every time I got my camera out they would tail off and go quiet. Then I was finally rewarded back in July when Mat, Tom and I were on our campervan tour of Albany to Perth, Western Australia.

I took this video clip just after we’d set up camp at Alexandra Bridge on our way from Pemberton to Margaret River. It had just gone dark and we were in the middle of cooking our evening meal when the most amazing cacophany ensued. It started in one tree, then a kookaburra from another tree joined in and so on, until we were completely surrounded by maniacal laughter. I listened for quite a while before I remembered to grab my camera and start filming. Fortunately they were in no mood to be quiet and I got a good example before they moved further away.

After the kookaburras’ main show you then get a demonstration of other animal noises (lol!), and Tom’s opinion on the fantastic birds! Please don’t judge him on his bizarre ideas about wildlife though, he is a lovely lad really :-)

29.10.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal, Videos No Comments

Nesting Season For Our Pied Currawongs

Sunday, October 19th, 2008

One of the most exciting things of being in a different country for me is all the different wildlife. This is something I have meant to make many posts on but have not really done the topic any justice yet.

I thought I would make a quick post on a wonderful, truely majestic type of bird that is common to our area in the Northern Beaches and that is the Currawong. To be specific, the Pied Currawong. It is a corvid and is somewhere inbetween a British Magpie and a Crow. They have the most wonderfully sleek clean lines and a strong powerful beak that is long and full with a slight hook to the tip.

We have a pair nesting in a Palm tree near our balcony and every time we feed the lorikeets (they need a post of their own) they come and watch closely until they think we aren’t watching and then dive in and steal the food. We decided to start feeding them too, bits of bread dipped in leftover meat fat and juices, to encourage them to leave the lorikeets alone and now they are in regular attendance on our balcony. One has even got close enough to snatch a bit directly out of our hands.

However, the common is for us to throw the bread, which they then snatch out of the air as they dive past. I tried to capture this on film to demonstrate but had varying results:

(more…)

19.10.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal, Pictures, Videos 1 Comment

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