Sweet peas, salvia and lavender

Spring has sprung!

I picked these this morning.

There's a crazy un-seasonal cool easterly wind blowing, so they are a bit battered looking.

Sweet peas are nearly my favourite, right up there with pansies.

They flower later up here on The Darling Downs than what I am used to in the sub-tropics.

The great thing is that they self seeded, so they came up just where they were last year and the trellis was ready and waiting, but the crop was much thicker.

The salvia was dormant throughout the long cold winter but has sprung into action the last couple of weeks and is nearly at its peak now, however will flower well until April I would think. Then I will cut it back again, it will lay dormant and the cycle will repeat.

As for the lavender, it loves the cold and flowered all winter.

After a good pruning at end of winter it has surged ahead and all the bushes

are laden with beautiful lavender heads.

The fragrance wafting throughout the house......sweet peas mixed with lavender is just heavenly.

It's a very respectable 19c here today and I wish it would never get any warmer.

Oh I do dread the summer.

However I have heard that the La Nina weather pattern has returned (I think it only briefly disappeared for a couple of months in winter) and it's looking like we could be in for a cooler and wetter than normal summer (just like the last year with the terrible flooding experienced in Queensland and some other Australian states).

 Let's hope that we do not experience the devastation of flooding and all the negatives

that come with it again this year.

The people, the local, state and federal governments and the economy

just would not be able to take it again.

Chatting to neighbours

Well I set off for my walk this morning and 1 hr later arrived home. I spent 45 mins talking to a neighbour so will try walking again this arvo so I can my miles up. It's always pleasant talking to a neighbour especially when new to a town. This particular fellow has lived in this same street his whole life so has plenty of interesting tales to tell.
 He was good to have around this January 2011 when record floods hit the area. Even though he has been here for over 50 yrs he was somewhat worried about the flooding, as at a certain point in the day the flood waters surpassed 1974 levels which until that day had been the yard stick all other local floods had been jusdged by. Anyhow even though we were very worried and had packed over night bags a small group of us (about 7 houses) were not in-undated. However some houses just down the road from us and across on the other side of the creek were and some are still awaiting completion of repairs, some 6 months later.

On the morning of 10th January 2011 the creek could be clearly seen from this point outside my house. The creek is normally a fairly innocuous waterway. It is set down low between 2 very deep banks either side. In essence, the sight of a raging torrent of water from this view was very scary and something I wish to never experience again. As I said we were spared any damage, unlike so many who did, not to mention the tragic loss of life. This period of Queensland history is something that we hope will never be repeated.