the running wave

Always a positive thinker, but also a realist, here is my message for New Year! I have a sinking feeling that we are in for a rough ride in 2019 - Brexit, continual poor judgment and posturing around the world, and so it's down to you and me to make sure we get through it all with humour and the knowledge that this too shall pass. Happy New Year running wave readers - thank you for visiting the blog, and I look forward to finding lots more photos to share with you next year.

Merry Christmas everyone from the running wave All good wishes for a peaceful and happy day

As we lurch towards the end of the old year, and Christmas looms large, I was thrilled to spot fresh new buds in the hedgerows this week.  They brought such promise and hope that I thought, with the world as it is at the moment, my vase this week would serve as a reminder that all is not lost!!   All looking ahead, sharp green points of flowering red currant, shiny, sticky buds of horse chestnut, and hazel catkins, mixed in with fragrant clusters of tiny pink viburnam flowers.  We can always rely on the plant world to demonstrate and affirm that life is a wonderful thing!

but the memory of Australia lingers on.  The warmth and thoughts of family and friends left behind.  Here is a last selection of photographs from this trip, taken during the course of last week, when I visited Prahan Market off Chapel Street, walked my granddaughter to school when we saw colourful cockatoos in the bottlebrush trees, recorded a playground rainbow since washed away by rain, and finally revisited South Melbourne Market - one of my favourite places on the planet.  And then, after a fourteen and a half hour night time flight from Melbourne to Qatar, a distant glimpse of Doha from the plane before taking off for Edinburgh, the happy sight of North Berwick below seven hours later, and finally the three bridges across the Firth of Forth as we came into land, safely home.

Hot colours in my vase this week, although very cold temperatures outside!  I am preparing this post in a sweltering 38 degrees C in Melbourne, and know that I will be travelling back to very chilly Scotland at the weekend! I bought this bunch of Australian native flowers for my daughter-in-law as an early wedding anniversary treat.  I will be home by the time that celebration comes round next week.  The colours are hot, rich and lovely.  Kangaroo paw, wax flower, grevillea, leucadendron and (I think) a fine leaved gum.