You may or may not know that I just got back from 5 weeks back in Europe. While I was away, my bougainvillea, after 3 years of slowly growing up a shady wall, hit the top, found the sun and flowered. My Brisbanite friends tell me I am mad to cultivate such a thorny aggressive beast but I just love them.
When I took this photo last week, riding along in the Citycat, the sun was glaring so much that I didn't notice the figures in the picture. I'm happy they just about made it in, giving it a sense of perspective. What you are looking at is a detail from the new pedestrian Kurilpa Bridge about 2oo metres from yesterday's post. It's due to open next month linking West End with the city.
The kids' Zorba dance soon became a free-for-all and once the pace of the music picked up... well there were people going in every direction, it was hilarious.
Yesterday and today see Musgrave Park in South Brisbane transform into the home of the long- awaited Paniyiri, Brisbane's Greek festival. More honey-puffs, moussaka, souvlaki and Mythos that you can throw a plate at. And to work off all that food and drink? Mass Zorba dancing! Hurray!
This is the last one in my sky series taken on Wednesday morning. For a playground in a park by the river at 11am on the third day of school holidays, it was eerily quiet.
I really dig these Aussie skies. It's great to be back!
This was the view that greeted me as I left my house yesterday morning. Isn't it amazing? It was endless and really dramatic. Another one tomorrow!
I was wandering around Queen Street today and outside one of the banks they have tacked up these big sheets of paper with people on hand with red and black pens. People were busy drawing and writing all over it. It turns out Brisbane City Council are running a program of activities called Big City Draw as a way of bringing people together through drawing and music (now that I think of it, I could hear some music). The initiative is part of Brisbane's 150th birthday celebrations which are going on throughout 2009. The activities also include colouring in magic carpets, designing the tree you would be and decorating totem poles with your own designed leaves and hearts. If you fancy expressing yourself, it goes from 11am-2pm daily until July 9th on Queen Street Mall.
Sorry I just can't help myself.
I've featured this shop before - it's the Libertine purfumery on Hardgrave Road in West End. At night, when all is quiet, they leave the lights on for you so you can press your nose up against the window.
The artist, Alicia Lane, writes:
This one is from the archives but it still gracing the corner of Merivale and Melbourne Streets by artist Simon Degroot who seems to have painted the most signal boxes in Brisbane by far. Here, we have two for the price of one. Splendid.
Taken from Riparian Plaza on a lazy Saturday...
Here are the dancers that the accordian players from the last few posts were accompanying.
When I was at the Brookfield Show I came across a bunch of Morris Dancers in the weirdest outfits. I thought it was all supposed to be white shirts, white faces and a few coloured ribbons... but I'm no expert. Anyway... the musicians were just as good to look at as the dancers.
You see these trees in parks all over Brisbane.
One of the most prolific flowers in Brisbane is bougainvillea. This particularly fine example was taken back in January and looks like it is beating the wall into submission.
Lovely Queenslander houses.
West End.
This white wall is part of Naldham House on Eagle Street, home to the Australasian United Steam Company, now known more commonly as The Polo Club. It was opened in 1889 and so has first-hand experience of Brisbane's three great floods... with markers on the wall to prove it: from the bottom up: 1896, 1974 and way up there is 1893. Accounts of the 1893 flood are biblical in proportion. All sorts of debris floated down the river. Houses, lifted off their stumps and furniture crashed loudly into the Victoria Bridge causing half of it to be washed away. The Indooroopilly Railway bridge was carried away too.
They must have all been asleep in the Queensland Parliament the day this got approved.
Completing the triptich of CBD views from hills around the city... this one, taken one evening in 2007, was donated by Nell. I love the rosy light on the buildings set against the moody blue clouds.
This is the view from Bartley's Hill Lookout in Hamilton, a well-heeled suburb of Brisbane.
Today's title is from the main headline of the local paper. This year's Greek Festival, Panyiri, was due to take place today but has been cancelled at the last minute due to the dodgy weather we've been having such as a third of our annual rainfall on Tuesday. They're going to hold it in July instead.
It's like babies with christmas presents. You spend time and money on the gift but all the kid wants to play with is the box. Despite the wild rides, junk food, stunt racing and all the rest of it, this hill was where all the fun was to be had. Sliding down the hill on bits of cardboard. Excellent!
Everyone went bananas. It was an absolute show stopper. Did I get a clear shot of either of the motor cross riders? No way!
