Dip your toes in this water.

The Mid-Cayman Rise in the Caribbean has hydrothermal vents which spew out super-heated chemical-rich fluids into the cold depths, some 3 miles deep in places. But various life forms have adapted and thrived in the harsh conditions.
The Mid-Cayman Rise is part of the mid-ocean ridge mountain chain where volcanic eruptions creates new oceanic crust that pushes tectonic plates apart but scientists theorize that along some slow-spreading ridges the sea floor becomes unusually thin.  That allows water to percolate down to rocks heated by volcanism below. The water picks up chemicals from the rocks and re-circulate and vent at the sea floor.

One of the deepest sites, the Piccard vent field (3.1 miles deep) has fluids gushing from the vents at a temperature just above 400 degrees C (750dF) which are amongst the hottest vents known but  different mineral compositions of the seafloor here produce many kinds of vents. This area displays the broadest range of geological processes all active in a small area of seafloor. After the vents had been mapped the researchers used two devices to collect samples. 

The SUPR (SUspended Particulate Rosette) sampler is designed to gather dissolved and particulate samples from warm water plumes rising from the vents. The analyzed samples provide chemical, microbial and mineral composition of the plumes and what effects they have on the surrounding ocean water.
Also used are isobaric gas-tight samplers which collect high-temperature vent fluids and maintain them at the high pressure of the deep sea when they come to the surface.  They prevent compounds such as methane and hydrogen sulfide, which are liquid at high pressure from becoming gases as the sample is brought to the surface. The idea is to capture gasses before they can interract with the sea water.

Scientists found three species of shrimp, two of them new to science.  The females of one species were full of orange eggs. Usually there is only one species of shrimp and tubeworms and shrimp never colonise the same vent.
Tubeworms are usually found at hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean and at cold seeps in the Atlantic, whereas shrimps dominate hydrothermal sites on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Biologists now have to answer how both animals came together.

The remotely operated vehicle 'Jason' (barely visible at left of centre) found "furry walls" of microbial growth near the hydrothermal vents. The chemosynthetic microbes use chemicals from the hot waters for energy to produce their food which other animals consume. Since this is a place without light and without light, no plants, the microbes are the base of the ecosystem.
'Jason' also used its manipulator arm and vacuumed up snails, anemones, starfish,crabs, fish, shrimp, and tubeworms.

These researchers study this environment as they believe that life may have originated in the mineral and organic rich fluids at hydrothermal vents and hopefully they will recognize similar environments on other planets, if and when we find other planets beyond Earth.

I know there's none at the North Pole...

Here's an oldie but a goodie for Elephant's Child

It's from my first Christmas of blogging and I still laugh at it.

What's that saying about Angels hiding at Christmas?

I debated about whether Southland would be good today or better tomorrow.  Would my leg be worse than today? It would have been okay if I hadn't stretched the tendon stepping onto the scales, right foot first then the left, dumb. Weight is stationary at humongous.  A clue, I needed a clue so I rang for a taxi and got straight through, good, the drunks are home from last night.

I get money from the bank for mum, have breakfast/lunch and wander downstairs for the paper and food but the cherries aren't in yet.  Maybe just two mince pies for afters on  Christmas Day, so it's limp, limp to Bakers Delight and what a struggle to ignore all the lovely loaves of bread and the wafting smell of baking.

Then right in front of me is a golden haired munchkin that barely came to my dodgy knees.

She was holding a bunch of pink flowers wrapped in cellophane and was giving them to me. I looked around for parents, thinking she just wanted me to hold them for her but her mother just shrugged and said the child insisted I should have them.  When I thanked her I was rewarded with the most wonderful smile.

I am now thoroughly spooked. Two moments of unexpected kindness in a week.  There be Angels abroad in the world.

'Tis the season......

I thought I must try and get into the Christmas spirit despite wanting to shove the family up the chimney and brick it so I went looking for trees and I found my ideal trees and I want both, now.

 This 20 ft. tree belonging to the Soo Kee Jewellery store was decorated with 3762 beads made from crystal, 500 lights and featured diamonds totalling 913 carats!
Of course, I would want some cheap tat, it was valued at US $1.55 million back in 2007 and had a final weight of just over 3000kg. It's okay though I have a concrete floor and it holds up even with me dancing.  20 feet, a tiny bit over the top for a small Oz brick veneer, I'll take one in a 6 foot version but I want all the diamonds.

 

I could really go for this little tree.
18 Carat solid gold was used by Steve Quick when he created this Christmas tree in 2008.
He then gilded the lily, you might say by sprinkling  200 carats of diamonds to look like snow, before topping it with a 4.52 carat stone set in platinum and shaped like a star. 

 Oh, it's just me isn't it? 

The longest week.

I was sitting at the taxi rank at Southland with 3 other oldies, like we have all the time in the world to wait for a cab.  One, a little older than the other 3, said, "Do you feel as though Christmas has already happened and we're just catching up?"
We all looked at each other and agreed.
Personally I think I'm only catching up on the last six months.
If I dropped anything on the floor in July, you can bet it's still there.

And a thank you to the kind gentleman who bought me a bottle of water on Tuesday when my Achilles Tendon went out in sympathy with Kath Lockett's. The right leg this time not the left. He said I looked distressed. And no, I didn't take the water, I had a bottle in the bag but the thought was worth a Christmas wish for him.

I always buy some chocolate for my Christmas Day but this year I think I'll buy Black Ice Vodka to alternate with the Bombay Sapphire.

A good home for the doll.

The Christmas party went well except for two people who caused chaos and believe me, the girls down there don't get enough money for putting up with them.  I forgot about Friday night, office parties and rain so I couldn't even get on to the Taxi line but a friend drove me home and pleased I was to get home.

The lady who won the doll doesn't usually come to the Home but she thought she'd be able to help out.  When they said her name and "You've won the doll", she couldn't think what she'd do with a doll.  Then she saw it and burst into tears and she was still teary when she thanked me later.  Apparently her mother collected large dolls and when she died, the collection went to the younger sisters and she didn't have one.  She said she felt as though her mother was there and made sure this time she collected her doll. So we were all happy, someone really nice won and no-one we didn't want to win, did.

Next relatives and residents meeting, I'll be making a suggestion that the party is held between 3 and 5 p.m.  4 to 6 is far too late and the jostling for getting to bed first was worse than running the Monash Freeway in rush hour.  It was well after 7 before mum was settled and I could leave.

Mind you I could have happily left at 4.10 but cunning that I am, I wedged myself in a corner where I couldn't be called on to look after any wanderers or pests.  It's taken 3 days and every pill I could shove down my throat to get rid of the tension, stress and loathing of all things Christmas.

I do have one decoration up, consider me festive.

Cat laughs (I hope)

If this works, it's my first Youtube upload.

Laughter is the best medicine

What is it about cats and boxes?  I have a photo of my Kitty curled up in an Easter egg basket that could only have been about 10 inches across. And it was nothing to see 3 of them curled up in my wool basket.

And for more cuteness, bunny ears hat.

Where did our grogblogs go?

I set this as wallpaper and after looking at it for a while, had a giggle.  It looked so like every grogblog I'd ever been to and I started to pick out penguins who reminded me of us old time bloggers.

Miss O'Dyne and Lord Sedgwick would agree with me.  The rather cliquey mob on the right hand side, probably the literary types.  The sharp beak penguin having a go on the left with his victim, leaning back from the blast.  I'm sure I recognize a notorious wine lover about to go a step too far over the side of the berg. A shame I can't see the flippers, the overly large ones would belong to MiLord S.  Rh always threatened to turn up but we never saw him and the running joke was that he was disguised as a potted palm as there always seemed to be one lurking.

The more I look at this, the more I remember about those days of early blogging. We all knew each other online, romances blossomed, dislikes intensified with face to face meetings. The funny bloggers were just as funny in real life, the earnest ones just as earnest and sober bloggers, I doubt there were too many of them.

Now there are big blog affairs and big discussions in big venues but they'll never have quite the atmosphere of those hole-in-the-wall up an alley way bars where seats were hard, wait staff non-attentive and the sound level would drown the noise of a 747.  All it took was an email with a secret squirrel address and we'd be there.

We've all moved to Facebook for virtual meetings (not me) and we've all added years and grey hairs and in Sedgwick's case, longer feet.  Oh for the good old days of younger livers and more supple bodies. In Miss O'dyne's case, she did a medal winning slide off a bench seat, went under the table and emerged smiling on the other side.  Shame about the broken wine glass we had to hide in the flower arrangement.  But thank goodness for the absence of camera phones.

The countdown is on.

It's only 21 days til Christmas.  TWENTY-ONE, do you realize?

I'm ready.

There's gin and bubbly in the cupboard.

I have two of my favourite authors hidden so I can't read them until the day.

I have one of my favourite stories, The Wind in the Willows, ready to watch on a new dvd I was lucky to find on ebay.

I have bought exactly one present.

I do have several lined up waiting to be sewn but I keep changing the colours.  I'll have to stop, time is running out. Still there's nothing wrong with a New Year unexpected gift.

All I have to do is survive the Residents Christmas party and the Residents Christmas dinner.

Fortunately, Christmas Day is three days from the full moon.

Every year it feels less like a celebration and more like a memory and some of those memories I'd like to forget.

I'll be really upset this year if the ex doesn't send me an email of his garishly decorated abode including The Blonde with her nose so bright (a fondness for Christmas booze) hanging off the rooftop.

He was no slouch at the nose so bright either, having been born on the 24th which meant he was pissed from that day until January 2nd. 

I didn't manage to get the Christmas brooch tree up for this year but that's okay there's no room for it in the mess of boxes that are cluttering up the lounge because I'm still trying to organize my mess from the BOH's mess.  My Christmas wish is for them to get a house and move it all away.

I don't have a Christmas wish for me, I've lived another 12 months, it's a gift.

Let's talk about the fat problem.

No, it's not me but this is what 25 stone, 300 lbs or 151 kgs looks like and that is what I weigh  and this is what I look like.  The body actually belongs to and English woman who has lost 13 stone.

'I knew I was bigger but it didn’t really bother me. I was a bubbly person.

'When you’re big, you never think: "I best not eat that take away." You just eat it.

And eat she did, in her words, she loved kebabs and MacDonalds but a normal portion wasn't enough so at age 25 she weighed in at 25 stone.

She had a gastric bypass and it wasn't painless, it's an operation on your insides and comes with pain. 

 

Before the operation, she had to go on a liquid diet for a month to help shrink her liver - and she shed three and a half stone. 

'The next few months were hard. I had to get my head around the new eating plan. For the first two weeks, I could only drink fluids.
'Slowly, I started eating food but much smaller portions.
'Eating out wasn’t easy. I had to watch my family tucking into a nice meal while I had soup or a salad but fitting into a smaller dress size felt much better than any food could make me feel.'

 

Laura, who is now a trim size 12, warns surgery isn’t an easy way out and she has worked hard to maintain her figure.

  

She said: 'Everyday is a battle. I’ve joined a slimming group to take control of what I eat and I go to the gym four times a week.

Sounds like fun, doesn't it?  If you read it carefully and between the lines, she's fitting into a smaller dress size but she's had to alter her entire personality to do it.  Personally I think she was talked into doing this and if she could lose three and a half stone on a liquid diet and had the willpower to do it for a month then the doctor should have encouraged her to keep going.  So everyday is still a battle with food and it will be a battle for the rest of her life.  Food will always be at the forefront of her mind.  That bubbly personality has been chained by surgery to be replaced by a dress size state of mind.  

 

Apart from the physical problems I always have with any abdominal surgery. I mean you could play snakes and ladders on my body using the stitch marks.  I would not be happy living my life in fear of food, I have enough anxiety about blubber now.  And to top it off, scientists have found that genetic markers for obesity also share genes for happiness.  Suck it up skinny hoomins, your constant harping is depressing me and making me forget where I hid the biscuits.

How terribly twee!

I think they're so sweet and everyone has time on Christmas Day to do this, make Christmas Tree Potatoes.  This is why they call it the 'Silly Season'.

I'm not really a believer but.....

I've been following Link's astrology on her blog and she's been spot on lately.  We all know that astrology isn't science buuuuut, my stars this November were all about house and home.  

Strange things have been happening and I swear there is a black hole in the universe of my bedroom.

1.  I dropped the lid of my lipstick at my feet and it's disappeared. It must be under the bed but a sweep with the broom revealed nothing.

2.  Last night my small night stand wobbled a bit then the one screw holding the whole lot together appeared to unscrew itself and I now have two pieces of night stand. The screw is not screwing back so I have to find another of the exact size but also somehow glue it in.

3.  This morning while putting on my earring the clip of one went ping and disappeared. I looked in my slippers, the bed and down my bra, nothing.

4.  A week ago my dressing gown caught the small photo of my son that stays on the nightstand so I looked on the floor, the hem of the gown and the bed.  It's gone, I haven't found it yet. I tried the sweep under the bed thing again, nothing. And no, I can't lay on the floor to look with a torch, I'm not that fond of pain.

And then we have the house.

5. I wondered how I managed to get wasps inside the bathroom.  The window is open but there's no screen. As the Bwca would say, bad men did it and ran away.  I think the storm did it which means the little doodads holding it on have broken and I need a whole new screen otherwise the bathroom will turn into mould central.

6. A sunny day, great, hang out the washing for a lovely clean smell. Holding the wire on the Hills with one hand and reaching for the sheet with the other and the wire breaks and I go flat.

Which reminds me I haven't brought the washing in yet and the wire is still trailing through the grass. 37 years that wire has been there, doesn't anything last any more?

7.  This might not qualify since it happens regularly. My chair fell off its bricks, while I was in it.

You want frustrating? Try lining up four chair legs with four bricks and centre them.  It can be done but only by using words of four letters and repeating until finished. Why is it on bricks, I hear you ask?  It was on wheels but I fell over, hit the chair which fell over and the wheel splintered the wood it was jammed into.  I tried putting a couple of books under the wheeless leg but the other wheels kept spinning round so I took all of them off and brought in the bricks.

And all this after the lights fused and the dustbuster fritzed.

And my sister cracked a fetlock walking home from work Saturday night, not applicable to me really except that Karma's a bitch and just bit her on the fibula.

It might be time to break out the Tarot cards, take a look at the Angel Oracle and find my essence in the Druid Plant mythology.  On the other hand Link could give me better stars for December and find my earring clip.

Oz wins again.

This image was taken by Thierry Legault in Queensland and it worked because he had the rising moon behind him.

The Wallaman Falls has a moonbow from moonlight shining through the mist just like a rainbow.  Above the ridge is the horizontal streak of an aircraft and the bright downward streak is a meteor.  Behind the meteor are the stars, nebula and the band of the Milky Way Galaxy circling the sky.

And for anyone interested in more shots like the last post this is where you'll find them.

A real cracker.

This is my current favourite desktop wallpaper and it was photographed over our own Corio Bay by James Collier.  He said the crack of the lightning was so loud he almost fell out of his car and wasn't sure if he even clicked the camera.  I'm so glad he nailed this shot, fantastic. 
If I ever had a tattoo, it would be this, my true nature. 
And for those who are terrified of lightning, tomorrow I'll post tarantulas to calm you down.

GO CLEM!

Lookee here, only Tuesday and I'm ready to curl up in a corner and cry until I read this.

I'm sitting in my usual spot, taking tea and a muffin (small) after a particular harrowing morning when my health educators decided to beat me over the head with threats of laproscopic surgery as a cure for all ills.

A largish girl sits beside me with a bottle of water and a sandwich and mentions how brave I am to eat "fat food" in front of the wandering Southland population.

I nearly swallowed the muffin whole, it was that small.

She never eats like that because she always scared that someone with a mobile phone will photograph her and she'll end up on a Farcebook wall, shamed without being named.

I very nearly got up and bought another muffin in retaliation for the nation of morons that think it's okay to do that to someone half my size and we all know how much I can fill out a bench seat.

When I think back 20 or so years before we all found out how evil Macca's was to eat, I'm appalled at how much of that I would eat in one meal and it was only once a week. If I added up the kilojules in today's money I'd probably have a heart attack on the spot. It was a Saturday ritual.  After shopping out Southland, we'd grab a load of take-away and head for the beach and eat.  We didn't think anything of it, never questioned how much salt, sugar or what the burgers were made of, it was cheap, quick and great to eat watching the waves.  I wouldn't do it now even if they say how much everything has changed regarding the ingredients. 

But if I want to sit and eat a muffin, with black tea or an ice coffee and if I'm really hungry, add a sandwich then I'm going to.  I just wished that girl hadn't been so frightened of social media that she couldn't enjoy a small treat.  I was too polite to ask what she did in the privacy of her own home, stick with the water or hit the fridge in a Friday night ice-cream binge.  

I am so sick of people's opinion of the "obesity crisis", "diabetes scourge" and how we're all going to die because the fat people are breathing too much air.  

As for the surgery, let me know when they invent a lap band for that part of the brain with the big red button that screams "eat" whenever I'm stressed, depressed and fed up with people.  

Gone with the Wind and thank goodness.

 Once again I forgot to take the
before shots with the old clothes
but this is our doll with just her
cammies on.

The hair is just not able to be
combed so I just cut off the
scraggy ends and made sure
there were no spiders.

The trick is to make the clothes then decide
what goes on first. In this case it had
to be the hair up and the hat made.

 Here she is in all her finery and showing her the soft
green silk petticoat which went over the cream silk
petticoat which went over three layers of tulle.
And I can tell you I'll never make a ballet tutu, I hate handling tulle unless it's pure silk tulle and that's a whole other ball game. That ruffle was hand stitched.

At seven of the clock this morning, I decide, half awake, that she isn't finished without a trailing bow.
And here you can see the back of the finished hat. It was finished with just a silk bow but it needed a ribbon rose.
Her hair is now in a net fastened with pearl and diamonte pins.

Not a good photo of the hat but it's made from the green lace in the overskirt with off white feathers and while I hand stitched every inch, I drew the line at plucking chickens.  There are hand made ribbon roses, pleated georgette and pleated dress lace.  Around the brim I stitched pearls.

 This didn't show up as well as it should have.  The lace is pleated down the bodice of green velvet, finished off with a strip of guipure lace and stitched with loops of small pearls.
The bottom of the bodice jacket is also stitched with pearls as are the sleeves.  'Leg of mutton' sleeves at the top, pearls and tapered sleeves at the bottom which had to be the last thing stitched.
The brooch can be taken off and worn by the next owner.

 Don't look at the floor, by the mess I should have been
completing an entire Paris couture collection instead
of one doll. Trouble was sometimes I needed her to be high up then low down.
The lace in the overskirt is fine net with embroidered
flowers and silver spinkles.  Around the bottom are
diamonds which had to be glued on leading to an
unfortunate experience involving my hair and the glue
stick I was holding in my mouth.

And back where we started with the hat.

Don't look at the floor, didn't I tell you.

She's now safely at the Home, behind glass and hopefully will make a lot of money for the activities fund being first prize in the Christmas Raffle.  The girls are canny, they have decided on a cash grab by having a small lottery on who comes closest to her name

which hasn't been decided yet, Scarlett or Charlotte.

Wasn't there supposed to be a "Rapture"?

Not the grey rapture everyone is reading but the other one where all us saints ascend into the great but glorious "Above".

I must be going there because I've been to hell.  It's full of little old ladies with a multitude of personalities that take turns.  Sweet one minute, Chucky the next.  Speaking of Chucky that doll I'm dressing is turning into Bride of Chucky.  While I was updoing the hair this afternoon, its arm fell off and I spent the next hour sewing it back into the rubbish stuffing of the upper bit and ended up glueing the damn thing in.

Little old ladies, you've heard the tales of Annie Joyce and Eva, henceforth to be known as Butch and Sundance.  Mother is not well, she's in pain in the spine, goddess knows why, she's taking enough painkiller to knock out Black Caviar so I go down dragging sundries she needs.  

Quiet afternoon until Butch and Sundance decide to make a break for it.  There are three doors to get through and one has to be unlocked by a code.   

'Can you reach the handle?'

'No.'

'If we could just reach the handle  I could help you across the road'

'But I'm not going across the road, I'm going to the bus stop'

'But you have to cross the road for that unless you're going the other way'

'You don't have to look out for me, you've got further to go'

'No I haven't'

'You don't know where I'm going so how do you know you haven't got further'

(let me interrupt and tell you why they can't reach the handle.  Both of them have their walkers in front of them, between the door and the handle)

'Are you sure you can't reach the handle?'

'No.'

'If we could just get the door open, we'd be on our way home'

'Well we can't reach the handle'

'If we go round the corner where the window is (nurses' station) we can go down the stairs (concrete floor) and come up the other side and we wouldn't need the handle'.

Butch and Sundance turn their walkers in synch like cheer leaders at a football match and make for the stairs.

Half way there, Sundance comes to a dead stop, 'where's my bag?'  

Butch denies having seen it.

They both agree it must be down the stairs on the other side of the door.

Slightly further on.

'I could do with a cuppa'

'Is it tea time?'

'We could go and find out if we don't go down the stairs'

'The tearoom is better on this floor'

'Oh well, if you say it is, I wouldn't know about the tearoom downstairs'.

My mother can't hear a word of this and can't understand why I'm sprawled across the table trying not to laugh out loud.  I wouldn't dare laugh anywhere near them, they'd have me run down in a minute flat or ten.

Don't bother leaving comments about how unkind I am, it's the only laugh these two have given me since they arrived. 

I love LOLcats!

Who needs Alfred Hitchcock or Stephen King when there are LOLcats that say it all.

Beware the witches and boggarts.

Hey blogmates, it's ghouly night!

Miss O'Dyne

and

your very own Witchy

will be out trick or treating and we like

treats so we'll be driving this

because we like a lot of treats.

Stock up peoples

or the truck gets you.

HAPPY SAMHAIN

ALL HALLOWS EVE

AND LIGHT OUR FIRE