CASTLE LIZZADRO

Another of William Tolliday's masterpieces. He created this castle in 1984 as a memorial to James "Chris" Lizzadro, a grandson of the founder of the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art .

On a large slab of Brazilian agate, the 18ct gold castle rises from specimens of amethyst, malachite, azurite and vanadium. His signature diamonds are set as windows. The sculpture in in the museum rotates slowly to music and at the push of a button, the sound of preparations for battle are heard.

WILLIAM TOLLIDAY, MASTER GOLDSMITH

This is William Tolliday working on one of his fairytale castles. He was born in 1915 and worked his entire career at Garrard & Co., London. In the late 1960s he began creating his fairytale castle of gold, sitting in, on and around the most beautiful mineral specimens.
He said he inspired by the look of the Houses of Parliament and the buildings of Venice with the golden light of sunset behind them.
He first paints a water colour of his design then selects a foundation mineral base to suit the 18ct golden towers and bridges he constructs piece by tiny piece. He blended red, yellow, soft white and oxidised white gold to develop depth and perspective.
The reflective properties of the minderals change the light of the gold as the towers are added and soldered into place.
He used diamonds for windows which gave a life-like flash in the high towers.
Everything is in miniature ith amazing detail from the flags flying on the turrets, the rigging on the ships or the tiny trees hidden in the crystals.
He signed each piece with his name as a fine sprinkling of gold dust.
As it takes, on average, 12 months to execute the planned sculpture, only three or four are completed each year from the first water colour sketch.
Below is the first version of Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, made in 1969. It's crafted of 18ct and 22ct red, yellow and white gold. The courtyard is made of the mineral barite. The natural rock base is formed of tourmaline and lepidolite minerals. Several of the turret windows of the three towers are set with baguette diamonds. It measure 6 5/8 inches by 5 1/4 inches in width.
It has no flat base and the gold battlements seem to perch precariously on top of the specimen instead of blending into the rocks.

This 1980s version of the Royal Castle Neuschswantein has the golden towers fully part of the amethyst geode on which it sits. Once again, there are diamond insets in the windows and the agate base balances the whole structure. Nestled inside the geode are tiny golden fir trees.

The whole sculpture is 23 cms tall.

MONDAY

Just when I thought I had a handle on my fraying nerves, I have my mother and ex daughter-in-law on the same day and in the same room.

Pardon me while I slip into the next room and find a bigger bag and a lot more panic pills.

Ahhh, that's better and just so you lot know that I'm dealing with crazy here, really crazy.

She wanted her bed re-made because she didn't like the bed-making girl last Wednesday.

Mutter, swear, mutter and I'm in the wardrobe looking for a pillowcase and the wool doona which has mysteriously disappeared but that's a whole 'nother crazy. I pick up a pillowcase and it was heavy and dropped on my foot. So inside the pillowcase is a towell, wrapped in another towell which is wrapped around a 14 inch ceramic plate. By now, with the hurting foot and all, I'm not muttering I'm swearing loudly.

I'm trying to imagine what could be wrapped and hidden in a single bed woollen doona.

I'm going to need a bigger bag and a lot more pills.

EGG SUNDAY AND I HAZ THREE

And I'm too tired to eat them.
I spent the day moving bluestones and believe me, I'm all blue-stoned out.
I will be so sore tomorrow I don't want to think about it.
So now I have three small garden plots instead of one long weed-infested bed.
I suppose there's something I have to do with the dry sand, like mulch or organic goodness that must be dug in before I can plant.
I'll think about it tomorrow, tomorrow is another day.

It's been a craptacular week. I have not had a nervous attack like this for twenty years. It's like the 'Clayton's heart attack', the one you only think you're having. If I was going to have one, it would have been today lugging around bluestones. Insomnia, heart beating so fast it felt like trying to jump out of my chest, nausea, dizziness and not wanting to eat. I knew I was bad but not wanting to eat.

This was a mother induced panic attack of monumental proportions. Easily fixed after I worked it out. Up the little green panic pills, place paper bag over head for hyperventilating and an hour later things were calming down. I still have the shakes but I also have chocolate eggs, I just don't feel like eating them.

I can't believe it took me a week to work out what was wrong and get back on track. I can't believe I didn't blog for a week either. I didn't even turn on the computer for three days, in fact I don't think I did anything except look at the inside of a paper bag and pop pills.

I'm feeling better now, mentally. Physically, some one has stolen all my leg muscles and replaced them with foam rubber.

IT'S RAINING IN MELBOURNE!

But the rain held off yesterday for the Sills Bend afternoon wedding.

Unfortunately it didn't hold off today and I was forced to abandon the gardening.
I moved two bluestones, potted 15 cuttings and half grubbed out the rotting stump of the walnut tree.
I hate gardening. There are crawling things in the dirt.

Weeds spring up like weeds. I went to all the trouble of putting down newspaper and mulch under the lime tree which is supposed to stop weeds but there's a fine crop just waiting to be pulled up....again.

My triumph is that the lemon geranium I filched from somebody's garden is flourishing.

My defeat was trying to dig a hole to put it in. I can't dig the spade into the ground so out with the bread knife to cut a square in the grass and see if that works. That's the thing with gardens, they expect you to go knee down and worship. Not with my knees.

Bluestones are a lot heavier than they were 8 years ago or my heart attack threshold is getting lower.

Keep raining Melbourne.

THE TASMAN FRACTURE

Enlarge the map for a good view of the Tasman Fracture around the coasts of Victoria and Tasmania. This fracture is a trench that drops nearly 3 miles below the surface of the Southern Ocean. Up to now, it has only been explored to a depth of 5,900 feet but with the aid of the remotely operated vehicle Jason from the research vessel Thomas G. Thompson, researchers were able to see images down to 13,000 feet. The ship mapped the region, which has not been touched by fishing trawlers, during December 2008 and January 2009.


Jason captured images that showed this l.6 foot tall carnivorous sea squirt which uses its funnel-shaped head to capture prey in the same way that a Venus Fly Trap plant does.

And this newly discovered soft coral called a gorgon's head. (which looks rather like the love child of a witch and an archaeologist)

A RETURN VISIT

It's the Great Blue Hole on Lighthouse Reef Atoll off the coast of Belize and I've blogged about it here in one of my first posts. The image was taken by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite on March 24, 2009. It's one of the most popular and dangerous dive sites in the Carribbean. It's almost 1000 feet across and 400 feet deep and was once above ground during the ice age when stalactites formed inside the cave.

I still wouldn't go there. Deep dark water terrifies me. My past life catching up with me as I went down on the Titanic and tomorrow is the 97th anniversary of the big boat setting off from Southampton on its maiden voyage. Southampton is building a museum to be opened in 2012 (providing the Mayan Calendar is wrong about the "we're all going to die" prophecy) for the centenary of the collision with the iceberg. They plan to reconstruct part of the liner, a walk down memory lane without the ice.

I might be the only person in the world who loves the theme song from the film and you're all lucky I can't Youtube it. Even through Celine's mangled English, the words are great

(shut up, for me they are) but don't watch the movie in winter, you'll freeze your buns off.

MOUNT REDOUBT 1989/90

This was Mount Redoubt's last big eruption.

This was also me, yesterday.

Is it psychologically sound to know one is half an inch from a complete mental breakdown?

CHOICES, CHOICES

I'm forced to get another set of steps instead of going up that stupid ladder. A dozen times today just to wash the curtains, well it has been mmm...mumble...mumble...two years since I had them down. They're 30 years old and fragile, too much washing takes away the holding power.

The operating procedure is to mark where the holes have appeared then cut that whole width out and pray that the upteen metres left don't shred in the washing machine. I was lucky, one tear and a small patch of shreddy bits that got a lace flower glued on to hold it all together. I think maybe another 12 months should see them out.

The thing was, the ladder. It's now making me very nervous to go higher than a foot off the ground. My knees are shouting abuse at me. Before the ladder, I had to move two tvs and a cupboard. My back is joining in with the knees. So, it's off to Bunnings for a two-step step and they cost $30 and I need an outside ladder as well, $60. I sat down and counted the ladder fund of 5c and 10c pieces, $13, running a bit short there. The Harry Potter fund has $21, not touching that.
The running away from home fund which I counted first after this morning's vicious, vitriolic, bitching Mother phone call, has zero. $15 in the Avon teapot but I really need that mascara, not touching that.

I think I'll steal it from Mother. I've just found that four of the Royal Albert 'Country Roses' mugs have disappeared from the glass Armoire, given to someone more deserving than I apparently. I bought those for her, they're mine, damn it and they were $50 each, way back then. I must have been flush because I bought six and I must have liked her or I'd have kept them. So I'll just be borrowing against my expectations.

FOR THE BLOG CONNIESEWERS OF BLING

And I fell in love with this pendant by Carrera Y Carrera. I mean who wouldn't? It's made from a combination of quartz and diamonds set in 18k white gold. The larger butterfly connects the pendant to the chain, followed by a round diamond in a pave setting which is followed by another smaller diamond encrusted butterfly, then another round diamond and finally the briolette shaped quartz attached to an engraved white gold dome.

Apart from the fact that I love butterflies and briolette shapes, this is just more bit of bling to add to the ever-growing wish list.Perhaps I could move the Prasiolite drop from the last post and pop it on this necklace just to make it more luscious and I'd make this briolette into an enhancer for my pearls. Just thinking.

I WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING ELSE

But I found this and I had to share.

It's Prasiolite, a form of green quartz (silicon dioxide SiO2) also know as vermarine but not green amethyst or greened amethyst considered misnomers by gemologists. It is usually produced artificially by heat-treating amethyst to over 900 degrees F. but natural deposits have been found. Since 1950, almost all natural prasiolite has come from a small Brazilian mine, Arizona and some from Poland. Recently quartz has appeared on the market that has been turned green by irradiation.


It has a Refractive Index of 1.55 and Specific Gravity of 2.65 with harness of 7 on the Moh's Scale, making it a durable stone for jewellery.
Intensity of colour and fine clarity are the most important aspects when buying a cut gem. The colour variations go from a pale yellow-green to a deeper, more lustrous green.


And this is going on my wish list along with the three or four hundred other gems I'd like.

Not yellow, not too dark a green and looks as though it was dropped into a clear pool of ice water.

The Mystic Lore:

Intuitive sources say that Prasiolite helps to link the physical and spiritual aspects of life, activating the heart as one's centre of conscious. It is said to strengthen one's mind, emotions and will, and to attract prosperity.

AND.........

And Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were great days for insanity central.

And No matter how I feel, I can deal with 3 kinds of crisis before 9 o'clock.

And I am crook.

And I'm sure the anti-biotics are laced with LSD.

And if I was a writer I could turn those wild dreams into a great screenplay.

And if you buy a raffle ticket, pray for lst prize so you and run away from home. $6,000 will take me a loooong way.

And if Ma says the stray dog in her house was the size of a small horse and you know it was a black staffie, don't bother telling her it's not true. She'll deny ever saying it.

And if Ma says the Meals on Wheels are giving her the same meals every single day from now on because they said so, don't tell her it's not true. She'll deny ever saying it.

And if Ma says the housekeeper is being taken away from her for having a coffee then check with the council and don't bother telling her it's not true. She'll deny ever saying it.

And if you try to explain to the Bouvier Sisters that she can't be believed, don't bother. They have the same denial genes.

And it's a good thing I'm not a hard drinking woman or I'd be too pissed to turn on the computer 24/7.

AND ANOTHER BLOWS THE DUST

This is the top vent at the summit of Mount Redoubt in Alaska on March 21. Two days later and the volcano had erupted five times, sending an ash plume more than 9 miles into the air for the first time in nearly 20 years.


The ash from Alaskan volcanoes is like a rock fragment with jagged edges and has been used as an industrial abrasive. It can injure skin, eyes and breathing passages. Airlines have cancelled flights and the Air Force Base in Anchorage has moved planes into shelters to stop any damage.


The 10,200-foot volcano is roughly 100 miles southwest of Anchorage and in the last eruption sent ash 150 miles away into the path of a KLM jet causing its four engines to flame out. The jet dropped more than 2 miles before the crew was able to restart all engines and land safely. The plane required $80 million in repairs.


The glacier on the slopes flows into the Drift river and the raised temperatures have increased the melt water run-off. The heavier ash falls fairly quickly but the fine ash is suspended for longer and is easily blown for miles by any atmospheric wind.

AND IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH......

I washed the blankets I put in the box up the side for the stray cat.

I put an old mat down for him.

I washed his dishes.

I blame the outbreak of kitten ownership and posting of photos.

I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW.....ALMOST

MEMO: To Self

Before you start washing your smalls or in my case, my larges and panic about what you can hock to buy a new washing machine, CHECK the dial and see that it's on WASH!


I knew this cleaning up lark would have a bad effect on my brain.
It's all the tidyness.
Who can find things in tidy?


I'll be polishing potatoes with Marveer next.

IT'S ALL IN THE LACE

Half of the book shelves are neat and tidy, dusted even. Another bag for the op shop is filling rapidly and I have been ruthless. I mean, for me I've been ruthless. My granddaughters will be here for Easter so the sofa bed will have to stay down for the moment which puts off the culling from the lace cupboard and the moving of another bookcase in the other bedroom.


Nothing from that bookcase is leaving the house. I have 25 years of wedding magazines, a treasury of wedding fashions. I'm not fussed about the naked shoulder look of weddings these days, low slung dresses always make me nervous especially in the presence of booze and groomsmen. This gown is gorgeous but look at the disaster in waiting, the tulle, the train and the straplessness.


The Italian books have the most outrageous and the most beautiful beaded gowns, the American books have the best bridesmaid dresses, the British mags have the most traditional but I have favourites marked in all of them.


It's not just that they're wedding dresses, you all know how I LOVE weddings (upchuck) but the fabrics, the laces, the designs. It's my comfort food for the eyes. They're staying, even if it takes me two weeks to move the lot to their new home, after I make a diagram of how they all fit into the shelves. I'm not taking them out without doing that, I remember the last magazine avalanche.


I did find treasures lurking on the shelves in the study, a history of Paisley shawls, 18th Century fashions in underwear, what there was of it, and how to take care of vintage clothes in case the colours came from potions like arsenic. A 5th Doll Fashion Anthology featuring that much maligned creature "Barbie". The book goes into great detail about how Mattel mirrored real life and television shows with each edition doll.


I never had much time for her but I don't know why she's always held up as a bad role model for girls. I never wanted a figure like hers nor did I want to play with Barbie. It was too much like hard work, all that role playing, undressing and dressing up, keeping her amused with pianos and ponies, talk about 'high maintainence'. But I loved the fashions, I really loved the fashions. I didn't want them on a doll, I wanted them on me. I made a dress for Barbie, once, and once was enough. Fiddly doesn't describe the torture of making that pissy little outfit so I'm always astonished at the high fashion gowns that are designed and made for the plastic princess.

I'm not into collecting ratty old dolls either. I only have four, um six, damn, seven, I forgot the porcelain baby doll which is still in the drawer away from the cats who used to take it in turns to sleep on it. I do have teddies, tiny teddies. One is sitting on the printer holding my glasses. See, I collect useful things.

TRY SURFING WITH THIS

The biggest marine reptile on record is a 21m-long ichthyosaur which I blogged about last year but this giant fossil of 15 metres long had a bite force of about 16 tonnes, enough to crush four wheel drive car.

The creature's partial skull was dug up in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. The Norwegian-led team from the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum thinks it might belong to a new species of pliosaur, a group of large, short-necked reptiles and that "Predator X" lived in the ocean 147 million years ago.

Researchers say the shape and proportional size of the brain resembles that of a great white shark.

SURTSEY, AN OLDER BOOM

This is the island of Surtsey, Iceland which started to form 130 metres below sea level and reached the surface on 14 November 1963. The eruption lasted 4 years when the island reached its maximum size of 2.7 square kilometres but erosion has taken the island's size to 1.4 square kilometres in 2002.

The first evidence of Atlantic Puffins nesting on Surtsey was found in 2004. Insects had already arrived via wind and water borne driftwood by 1964. Seals and Orcas swim in the waters and starfish and sea urchins colonise the submarine slopes. (I love Puffins)

This is Surtsey in 1999. The loose tephra from the initial eruption has been eroded but the remaining island material is made up of hard lava flows. Erosion or global warming might see it disappear again by next century.

Images and information from Wikipedia.

A BIGGER BOOM

This is the same undersea eruption off the Island of Tonga, one year later. Geologists and vulcanologists are waiting to see if the eruption continues to form a stable island.

This is the view from sea level. While the ash fall has wiped out vegetation and animal life on an uninhabited island nearby, this will be the beginning of a new land form if the debris consolidates before any storm or wave action breaks it down.

THINGS THAT GO BOOM

NASA's Aqua satellite took this image off Tonga in March, 2008.

The bright blue green of the water is due to suspended particles with the bright white patch likely due to released steam. Above this is a raft of pumice, the stuff we use for keeping our feet smooth. It's very light, made from solidified ash and floats on the surface.

The columns of steam and ash shot 10 kilometres into the air.

I ASKED FOR IT!

Just one more thing, I said.

The fecking earthquake last night ate my phone.

Telstra thinks I'm a nutcase because when I ring the line is clear. Well derrr! When I rang with the line crapola they couldn't hear me. Techie coming tomorrow....again.

I spent four hours in the afternoon downloading security only to have the computer refuse to allow its installation. Fecking computers.

While it downloaded, I moved books. Did you know that books talk? I heard them. I moved 20 books out of one bookcase and I could clearly hear the others, "move up, move up, expand before she jams another load on the shelf." That shelf is dusted and tidy and there's no way I could get another 20 books to go there.

I need a bigger ladder..... with safety rails. I tried to replace the bulb in the ceiling and it was scary up there and the replacement globe was the wrong size and I'm standing on the second top rung with the old globe in my mouth and the new one down my bra and one hand on the roof like a gecko and I'm thinking I need a bigger ladder.... with safety rails.

JUST ONE MORE THING!

Telstra tech arrived in the rain so took his boots off before walking on my carpet. Hahahahaha!

It was the point in the other bedroom. When he unscrewed the cap, the copper wires had oxidised to a lovely green colour. I don't know if he replaced them or not. He did something and said there might be a water leak in the wall so I should take off the covering every month and dry it with a hairdryer. He says water leak and I'm thinking cat leak and trying to remember how long ago little Sir Pissington passed to the big litterbox in the sky.

That cat determined that that room was his personal space and sprayed every surface including books, walls and desk. He was particularly adept at pissing upwards so that the underside of anything would be coated and because it couldn't be seen, it dried over time. Weeks later, the pungent wafting would begin and so would the search for the source. The sliding door that went up the side last week still had dried spots on it from where I couldn't reach to clean it. I kept the Nilodor and Fabreeze factories in the black. I finally moved the books to new bookcases and ripped up the carpet and he had done the job so well that the concrete took weeks to dry before I could put down new coverings. That was in 1989. Would it take that long for copper wires to corrode?

I'm not going on the roof to check the spouting which usually leaks over the front door. I will take my chances and use a hair dryer. It bothers me that I didn't ask if he'd fixed it. I was busy putting back the answer phone and connecting the internet. Memo to self: wipe the ex's handwriting from the memory buttons especially the number connecting to one of his girlfriends.

Then the van comes from the Op-shop and loads 20 years of craft magazines and anything else I could find that I don't need. I didn't know he would have a mate with him so I dragged it all out of the house so he wouldn't have a rupture but I think I did something nasty. It will go with the bruise on the left one which I probably copped when I tripped on a hole in the carpet while carrying a load of books. I remember pain and swearing and having to pick up the books.

Then Ma rings. Why haven't I called in with the groceries? Well that would be because it's Tuesday and I shop for her on Thursday. Yes, I'm sure it's Tuesday because yesterday was Monday and I remember the trauma of it all very well. Disaster sobbed down the phone in the morning. The pointy thing that goes in the square thing that plays the round things had broken and the round things wouldn't play. Translation, the plug from the transformer that goes into the player for the DVDs had finally given up the ghost after two years of Ma pulling it out instead of turning the machine off at the power point.

Nowhere in Southland stocks this particular transformer. I have to find the distributor and see if they'll sell me one. Thanks to the sweet young thing in Tandy who told me, very seriously, that I could just solder the copper wires (them again!) together. Do I look like the soldering type? To sweeten the blow I gave the old girl a custard tart for lunch but it was gloom all around as she lay staring at the ceiling before remembering she had a television to play with.

Phone call from the BrickOutHouse last night and all was well. He was a soldering type of person and had fixed it all. She'll still pull it out but he's wrapped enough tape around it so it won't matter. My heart sings.

And the eco-globe in the lounge room blew this afternoon. The replacement globe looks too big to screw in and I have to climb the ladder. Good luck that I didn't send any candles to the op-shop.

It must be in the stars. Stuff March, bring on April.

OH HAI

I haz internet......for now.

No phone for Saturday and Sunday but this morning when I ring Telstra, clear as a bell. The technician is coming tomorrow morning between 8am and 10am which meant moving the sofa bed and the treadle machine with the heavy electric sewing machine on top so he could get to that phone point.

There was a message when I rang faults saying this number is still under investigation. I've been noticed.

I hauled a bag of stuff down to the op-shop and told them there was probably another two loads to come so they're sending a van. There's going to be some throwing out now that I don't have to carry it. I have empty boxes and empty shelves and books all over the floor but what else to do when there's no internet, no blogs to read and no way to deliver an insult to Sedgwick.

Don't even ask about the mother.

AND SO IT CONTINUES

• Bureaucracy and mother, what a combination. I'll do this in dot form.
• No joy with Tuesday's experiment and internet connection.
• No phone at all 24 hours Wednesday. The snap, crackle and pop on the phone line was insane.
• A mildly clear line on Thursday morning and a super intelligent FEMALE at the call centre meant I was given useful information.
• A change of phone at the Telstra shop and the purchase of 17 metres of brand new line at Tandy. $29, if you don't mind and I could have bought a handheld phone for not much more. The fun part was me trying to convert 47 feet of line into metres.
• Full of hope, I connected everything up to have two hours of sloooooooow internet where I collected emails and read three blogs before I gave up when I was disconnected again.
• Before this, there was a phone call from Aunt Patty. Ma had rung her to ring me to ring her because my phone wasn't working. My phone was working, clear as a bell (before internet) but the speed dial daughter button on her phone has died after 3 years of sterling duty.
• This morning another call from Aunt Patty to ring Ma which I had been doing for 20 minutes.
• I walk over in muggy heat to re-do another speed dial button and put a sterile dressing on her leg which she'd forgotten to tell me about on Tuesday. This ulcer treatment is really important but I'm not a mind reader and it's not my fault I don't have x-ray eyes to see through clothing.
• I leave after screaming match about meals on wheels. I don't care if she doesn't eat them, they're in the fridge and they're paid for and that's that. I am never going back to cooking for her again. Buying her an apple cake at the bakery on the way over is the limit.
• I was heading for the pub when my shoe broke so I came home instead, Friday 13th, I can read omens.
• I am now back where I started. Computer is hooked up to the phone jack in the lounge and the bedroom phone is new and hooked up with the expensive new line. It's also crackling but mildly. The phone in the lounge is a tiny thing I used to use in my workroom but it does have 15 metres of line which I drag round the house and outside.
• Mother wants new phone as well. She can't have it because the new ones don't have speed dial buttons, they have memory and I haven't worked that out yet so lord knows what she'd do to it. They don't have speed buttons because everything now is geared up for text messages and that sort of crap from mobile phones.
• I sincerely hope that when Yankee Sol takes his ill-gotten gains from Telstra and heads home to sod's own country, he trips on the first step and breaks something vital, like his wallet.

THE SAGA CONTINUES

I'm trying a new tack. I've disconnected everything from the point in the lounge including the line to the computer. Then I ran the line all the way into the bedroom phone connection. So as of 6.10pm I'm online. If this works then it's the point that's gone and it'll stay gone until I can afford the excessive Telstra call out fee.

There will be no betting on how soon I will trip over the phone line running through the house.

Memo to self - lift your bloody feet.

BLOGGING INTERFERENCE

The answer phone is unplugged but the main Telstra phone is still buzzing, squeaking and squealing but not all the time. My download speed this afternoon was 24kbps and at the moment it's 31.2kbps ?????? I could be disconnected any second. I'm in a very bad mood.

I have a bruised finger, black and blue. Stinking Ikea furniture with stupid little studs that can't be removed to re-arrange bookcase shelving and when I did remove them I had to bash them back with a hammer. I caught my finger in the pliers.

I have bruises on my legs, both. But I do have the six foot solid pine bookcase in the wardrobe in the study. I moved the treadle sewing machine and the sofa bed. I'll let you guess which one ran over my foot. Did I mention about the bad mood.

Now I'm going to try and publish this but I have a feeling blogger is punishing me for ditching their following widget. Blogging used to be so easy.

TELSTRA UPDATE

Telstra's been already and the technician thinks it's the handheld phone with a misfiring battery.
Doesn't anything last these days? I've only had that since 1993 and it's had 3 batteries in it but this last one is dying much faster than the others. I haven't used the answering machine part of it since 101 messages came in which is a shame since I recorded when I had a bad cold and I sound smokey and all Nina Simone-like.

Fortunately I've kept the old phone so that's plugged in but I'm getting an extension cord. If I have to get up and down 5 times a night for calls from the Peter Sellers Memorial Call Centre, my language is going to get a bit ripe.

MOTHER NATURE GAVE A PRESENT

A 4.6 on the Richter Scale present. The epicentre was Korrumburra, coal country.

It rattled the old girl's teeth and frightened the cat. The BrickOutHouse rang and said the whole house swayed and shook for ages and so did Ma.

My house is on a very thick concrete slab and even that rocked. I get more noise than shaking although this time the boom was really loud. I could see the chandelier in the bedroom swinging.

The cyclone centering on northern Queensland is heading for a category 4 rating. So it's fire for us, floods for them, now an earth tremor and all on top of a recession. I didn't mention pestilence, Costello's been around for years.

Mother Nature's pissed.

DISCONNECTING AGAIN

Thank you Telstra for my wonderful dial-up connection which isn't. Another phone call this morning and someone will check the lines for the third time since December and maybe this time they will actually fix it.

It made this morning's phone call for the birthday very difficult, nothing new there. All week she's been confusing me with Aunt Selma and denying that Aunt Selma is her twin. Sis walked in last week as Aunt Patty was yelling down the phone line (it's not only me) because she couldn't make mum believe she had a twin. This afternoon she said she'd finally got the birthdays straight but I'm not sure about the twin thing yet.

My computer, my solace, has been denied me not only by the disconnects but by running so slowly it could be on pedal power. So in a last ditch, after I've taken off everything else I rarely use, I'm getting rid of blog following. It took two hours (on and off) yesterday to delete 12 blogs, that's how slow it is. But when I first put blog follow on, I'm sure I only had to use a delete button when a couple of blogs had the wrong URL. Now it's more complicated and where did the Google friends connect thing come from? So if one anonymous follower disappears from your list, it's only me. I clicked on the dial-up and the incoming was 3 times the outgoing bytes and I wasn't even web browsing so hopefully this will speed things up. It should only take another week or so to get the job finished. Except for Lord Sedgwick who seems to have a permanent sticking charm on his blog, I haven't been able to 'stop following' his blog at all.

WHEN DID MARCH CREEP IN?

Today's the 2nd which means a birthday on the 6th. She keeps telling everyone she's made it to 80. I'll tell her on Friday, she's only 79. The shock could carry her off. Who am I kidding? Ma and cockroaches will fight it out to the end.

After my battles with Telstra. Bye Sol, make sure the door hits you in the arse as you leave. With your millions. Bastard. Where was I, battles. This time with AGL and Ma's $612 gas bill which meant a call to the Peter Sellers Memorial Call Centre.
The good news is, they overcharged $95 on the last bill. The bad news is, due to some computer glitch, LAST JUNE, the direct debit was cancelled and not by me.

Also last June, there was a glitch with the bank and a statement wasn't sent out. I found a print out which I got over the counter at the National Arsehole Bastards, Southland branch. I was ill for most of July and August so the double checking of accounts was a bit slack.

But how did AGL let this account go until February without asking for the money? And why didn't they check the cancellation of a direct debit for gas when the direct debit for AGL electricity was still going through?

Talk about multi-tasking. I had all the gas accounts in order and the other hand was trying to find the bank statements for yelling ammunition and the other hand was full of phonely accented gentleman telling me I was wrong. Bad day to do that, what with Ma in full "I'll do whatever I want to even if I fall down and break something doing it" mode. AGL are sending another account and it better be right.

Also in the news. I had to turn down a wedding invitation in England, Hindu and English ceremonies and carriages for the guests to go to the receptions. That hurt. A man asked me out for coffee. That astounded me. I carried another 20 scoria rocks safely, walked inside and dropped a kitchen table on my foot. The same foot that copped a brass clock two days ago, not the foot that got pronged with a branch. Nothing unusual there.

A TURTLE NAMED MYRTLE

Biomimetic robotics, rolls off the tongue nicely. What it means is observing nature's solution to a problem, distill it to the basic underlying physics, and apply to an engineering problem.
This brings us to Myrtle, a 500 pound sea turtle at the New England Aquarium who was studied for her maneuverability. Marine animals use their bodies comfortably near obstacles and dynamic flowing water, using this flow to escape predators near reefs. Dolphins use these dynamics to surf on the bow waves of huge ships.


Myrtle's flippers were filmed from various angles and the results applied to this autonomous underwater vehicle called Finnegan. Finnegan has four flippers, known to engineers as flapping foils that roll and twist through the water. It's designed to change direction quickly, make sharp turns and back flips to avoid underwater obstacles. Most AUV's have a single screw propulsion which is great for back and forth surveys in long rows but Finnegan's foils are ideal for using the robot in chaotic conditions such as the waters near reefs. Seals swimming at 2.4 metres per second need only one-tenth of their body length to turn completely around and while Finnegan can't turn anywhere near as fast it's much more able than conventional AUVs.

Unfortunately for ocean research, Finnegan is in dry dock waiting for further funding and another engineer to do more work on its underwater acrobatics. Why do I feel that if it could carry a bomb, the project would be swamped with money?

TELSTRA CALLED

And only two days after I complained about the phone line. As per Murphy's Law, every time I picked up the phone to call in a fault, the line was perfectly clear except on Sunday when it sounded like aliens were using it to skip rope. The accented call centre chap ended up shouting down the instructions but he was defeated in the end and said so. He also said if it was inside the house, it would cost $125 call out fee and whatever the repairs were. That came across loud and clear. At least it hadn't increased from the last time.

It wasn't my line, inside or out. It was a line connection 145 metres around the corner and down the street. I have my suspicions about the Optusnet work that was done at the beginning of December. So hopefully now I won't be disconnected from the interwebs every time the wind blows.

NASA IMAGES

These images are from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA's Terra satellite from February 17.
They're false colour images, using a combination of visible and near-infrared wavelengths of light to make the smoke more transparent and to highlight burned areas.
Unburned vegetation is red, while burned areas are charcoal. The top image shows a close-up around Marysville which sits near the centre of the immense burn scar.

Wildlife experts have predicted that millions of native animals have lost their lives and more will go before their habitat renews itself. I watched vets at work last night, gently helping animals from koalas to tiny possums and the tears flowed again.

The stupidest thing to cry about is my son. He's been dead for nearly 14 years but I kept looking at his portrait and thinking that he'd be right in the thick of this if he was here. He loved those forests and animals and he wouldn't have stopped fighting for them. So stupid me is crying because if I lost him now when I need him more than ever then I would be more heart broken than I was all those years ago. It's not rational but then when were mothers ever rational about their kids, so I'm still bawling at every sad or uplifting story I see. I'm old enough to be hardened to this but I go to pieces at the sight of a child hugging a new teddy to replace one lost in the fires. If anyone looks at my heart when I die, it will have 'softie' branded all over it.

DE-CLUTTERING

I've been going through every cupboard and drawer since before Christmas and I've already taken a large box and bag to the op-shop. I'm now on the second large box but haven't been near the kitchen cupboards or pantry yet.

I don't move fast. Under my slothlike exterior, the brain is on the move, thinking about what and where to move or change until it's fixed in my mind like a lego set.
My Queen Anne chest of drawers in in a delicate conditon after being opened and banged shut for 30 years by "he who is gone, thank the goddess" so it's filled with fabric and lace I won't need anytime soon. Except for the bottom drawer which was home to my handbags for evening and going out to grand places. 'cue hysterical laughter'

First out was a faux Oroton which was always too big for a clutch but always slipped off my shoulder because of the thin strap. The next was a grey clutch, no marks but because it's vinyl is now begining to get that sticky touch. I bought it for the first holiday withthe boys where we changed out of salty, sandy clothes and dressed (casually) for the nightly hotel dinners. Two in the box now.

My lovely pewter coloured clutch, still without a mark, went into the bag with the matching shoes. A nice set which, even after 15 years, is still stylish for this old bat.

My first ever silver leather evening bag with the glitter clasp. What ever did I carry in something so tiny? I had silver leather shoes in the Louis Fourteenth style complete with silver leather flower bow. I would have kept those shoes forever if the dog hadn't eaten one, not both, I could have dealt with that, but just the one. The bag remains as part of my fashion collection. (it's a good excuse!)

A black velvet fold over clutch which came with a bottle of Opium perfume. It has to stay. Folded out flat, it took 12 handkerchiefs which I gave out to the boy's grieving friends at his funeral. I'd stitched the satin bow to the front and still pinned to it was his last gift to me, a rose brooch.

Wrapped in tissue was a white and silver bag which my grandmother had made. The nylon strips were woven through a stiff net backing and she lined it with moire satin and finished it with a silver clasp and chain. It's not something I would use but I wouldn't part with it.

A little square zip black bag is next. Another give-away with perfume and now I remember why I never used it. The zip goes right the way around and when it opens up everything drops out, never a good option with one of my bags. I keep that as it's just the right size for CD cases which are always sliding over the computer table. It holds an even dozen, woot!

Right at the bottom are two slim black clutches, one leather and the other suede which belonged to my mother and I can still see her heading off to the races with them. She wore black stilletoes, a black dress and a marvellous hat of pink cabbage roses on a stretch knit cap that covered her entire head. My sister wore the hat to a fancy dress party and threw it out because the roses were crushed. I raged about that. I knew to hold the roses over a steaming kettle until they regained their shape.

The suede bag has developed a bad case of hairyness. Back in the days, I would have had a peice of glass paper to sand that off but now a pedi-file did the job in a few minutes. We had to work hard back then to maintain shoes and bags, vaseline on the patent leather, shoe cream rubbed into ordinary leather, it was just like being in the army but nothing was 'throw-away' then. But I digress, back to the bags which were both made in Melbourne not China.

I open the suede one and the brown stain is still there on the silk lining. It takes me back to a Autumn night when six friends had just enough money for dinner and a film which ended early. None of us had to be home until 12.30 but where to go? No boozy clubs in those days but we ended up in the end carriage of an old red rattler train and rode to Frankston and back, having a great time until the last train stopped at our stations. I got out of the carriage, dropped my clutch, stood on it and broke my newly bought bottle of Rimmel eye liner. In those money tight days it was a monumental disaster.

My sister throws out every thing six monthly and starts again. She's not a magpie hoarder like me, even our memories of the same event differ according to our personalities. So while I am having the luxury of deciding what to keep and what to throw, I'm thinking of the families of the last week who didn't have a choice. I hope they're like my sister who can pick up from yesterday and not think about ten years ago. I have a feeling that it won't be as easy as that.

I'VE GOT A FRIEND

Friend and freeloader. I had my breakfast outside before the smoke haze became too bad and she (that's a he up there) landed on the table, walked up to the plate and waited for the toast to be given up.

Our magpies are from the Shrike family, which are agressive hunters, rather than the crow family. They're attracted to shiny things, no wonder they like me. In Greece they're sacred to Bacchus the God of wine so they're associated with intoxication.

It was interesting to watch the bird up close and personel. All I could think of was Sam Neill in Jurassic Park, explaining how birds evolved from the velociraptor. The head moved the same way as the raptors in the film and this one's beady eyes never left my toast for a minute.

Her mate turned up but wasn't as adventurous, he stayed on the roof while she finished the crumbs and stood on the back of a chair.

They both started to carroll and it was the best part of the morning. The eyes were upon me though and I was compelled to hand over the rest of my breakfast. Freeloaders.

SEVEN DAYS ON

The nightmare still continues even without the flames.
People were taken back to Marysville in buses today to see the destruction of their town.

I wonder if ASIO has taken this on board. That a terrorist cell doesn't need explosives, bullets or germ warfare to destroy this country, just a box of matches.

I HATE FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS

I never watch the show, it's cruel not funny. They show the event but they never show the yelling in pain after bit.

So I was lucky no-one had a camera phone in the book section of Big W this afternoon. Fat lady down agin.

Somebody had dropped a floor coloured drink on the floor and with pushing the trolley in front of me, it wasn't visible.

Picture me with the right foot firmly on the ground but the left foot went sliding backwards and I went down on the knee in an inelegant split that would have looked great with Jane Torvill doing it but not so great with me. Oh, the right leg was still upstanding.

There was a lot of yelling but no four letter words and my biggest worry was that people might think I'd peed myself since I was sitting in water. I got up the usual way, with an audience all ready to help but I always think of the hernias I could cause. Checked the knee cap, still there, spine okay, no shock (yet) but bruising starting already.

The young man took my name and address and very apologetically asked for my age. Don't worry lad, I'm grateful to get to this age and proud of it. After five minutes of sitting with an icepack, I grabbed my book and gingerly walked off.

I didn't shop but did pay all the bills in a sort of winding way down to the taxi. Straight to bed with another icepack and pain killers and now the other bits are starting to hurt. I used to be able to do the splits in my young days but it stretches a lot of things now that don't want to be stretched. The bruise will be a beaut tomorrow.

EVEN FROM SPACE

This was taken yesterday by MODIS on the NASA Aqua satellite. Kinglake and Marysville were completely wiped out with Marysville being declared a crime scene as police went in to recover bodies which were still lying in the streets.

I'M NUMB

I'm still being disconnected frequently but in the wake of what's happened this week, it's not a big deal.

On Saturday, I had 15 birds sheltering under the apple tree. If I went out to check their water they flew into the heat so I just surrounded the tree with containers of water. They almost burrowed into the grass to stay cool. My eyeballs felt as though they had dried up after trip to rescue a cutting in a pot in the corner of the yard. That corner was like the Sahara desert, I could see waves of heat rising.

If my eyes were like that in just a few minutes then I feel for the firefighters out in it for hours. I have nothing but admiration for the men and women who put themselves in harm's way. When the fires are out, the images will start to crowd in and they'll need a different courage to continue with their lives. They all deserve the respect of the entire country.

TELSTRA ARE BASTARDS BUT WE ALL KNOW THAT

Just putting this up quickly before Telstra decides to disconnect my internet again.
It's the phone line that they insist isn't at fault.
It is the phone line.
It's swinging in the wind again.
Pack of misbegotten curs.

THE CUTTLEFISH MYSTERY

The opening of the article on cuttlefish said, “Evolution’s a bitch.” It is if you start out with an outside armoured shell during the Jurassic Era which decides to become an internal skeleton leaving you with no protection against toothy predators.

The cuttlefish developed camouflage using chromatophores, sacs of red, yellow or brown pigment in the skin. Cuttlefish can turn from completely invisible, to visible and back in about 2 seconds and not just by changing colour. They can also change the texture of their skin by using bundles of tiny muscles to go from smooth to spiky. Underneath the chromatophores are leucophores, which reflect light across a wide wave length range, and iridophores which combine platelets of reflectin (protein) with layers of cytoplasm to produce iridescent reflections the same way a butterfly wing does. This optical effect shifts the light towards blue and green wavelengths but the cuttlefish combines this with the chromatophores to make a wider range of shimmering colour.

This is not only for disguise but also to send signals to other cuttlefish. In experiments the cuttlefish would either disguise itself or run depending on the type of predator it was facing. The signals it sent were for their own group rather than trying to engage the predator. Scientists were surprised at the ability to discriminate between species and to apply different tactics in dealing with any threat.

Another trick is to use polarised light to communicate with other cuttlefish. Sunlight is polarised when it hits water, some of its electric and magnetic fields are filtered out so the fields oscillate in only one plane. Cuttlefish can see these patterns and send polarised signals from their iridophores through the chromatophores while remaining camouflaged. In this way they can warn others without attracting attention. They also use postures and movement, such as liting their arms and waving them when hiding in seagrass.

They also use “kinetic patterning”, making a pattern of dark waves move across the body which disorients a pursuing predator. The moving pattern makes it difficult to process visual information such as, how fast the cuttlefish is moving, which way it’s going or how big it is. They can even camouflage at night using an encoding gene, in the skin, for opsin which is a light sensitive molecule.

One of the unanswered questions about cuttlefish is how they match their backgrounds so effectively when evidence suggests they are colour-blind, only seeing in shades of green. (Don’t ask, I haven’t a clue how scientists would do that experiment)

Enjoy this post, it's taken me three days to get it here. I'd like to shove a telephone pole right up Sol's all too large salary package.

WE'RE HAVING A HEAT WAVE, DAMN IT

I'm using that heading because it's as far as I got when the internet connection went bust for the fourth time.

It was such a fun week.

Mother survived, again.

Miss O'Dyne was up early in this morning's comparative coolth to give my garden some CPR. (Her opinion of my gardening credentials is unbloggable)

I came out of Southland on Friday to see a huge pall of smoke seemingly close to home which worried me but it turned out to be the fire near the power lines in End. Hills.

Southland movie theatres were 'House Full' on Thursday night.

Sight of the week. A large Magpie under the apple tree, gasping for breath but waiting until the tiny green parrot had drunk its fill before diving in.

I did put the air-conditioner on but as the house cooled, adjusted the temperature up to 25 degrees instead of leaving it on refrigerator chill.

Miss O'Dyne accosted, berated and planned several tortures for the idiot who decided to walk his small dog on a hot footpath at midday on Friday. It was very remiss of me not to have the several metres of rope she required for the 'Revenge of the Dog Lover'. The plan involved him being tied up, taken miles away, shoes removed and made to walk home on a tarred road.

People are morons, and animal lovers should not be provoked by morons.

CONTINUING THE THEME OF THE EVENING

Sometimes two loves come together in a perfect package (not the tart, the headdress).

This is the Snow Queen Tiara by Lorenz Baumer, a finalist in the 2004 Bombay Sapphire Prize.

This is awarded by the Bombay Sapphire Foundation to promote outstanding artists, designers and architects working with glass.

I should be in the running, I work very well with a glass of Bombay in my hand.

I want that tiara, really really want that tiara.

ON A HOT NIGHT

One's thoughts are easily turned to the delights of Bombay and tonic over ice especially if it comes out of this luscious container, photos of which I have emailed to Miss O'Dyne lounging on the patio at Chez Copperwitch.


This is the Revelation Bottle designed by Rashid Karim, fashioned by crystal maker Baccarat and bejewelled by Garrad's.

The top of the bottle is set with sapphires and diamonds. The 10 principal hand-cut facets represent the 10 ingredients that make this gin soooo special. It's a snip at $200,000 a bottle.

It's the first of a five piece collection. While it's pricey, a portion of the profits go to a children's charity that performs cleft operations in third world countries.

THE RUG

I checked the pattern book and 600 squares is supposed to measure 60 inches by 40 inches. Mine seemed to be a little bit bigger, in fact to photograph it I had to put in on the couch and the ironing board. There's no prize if you're bored and start counting to see if there really are 600 squares. I did go through it and I've only repeated the colour combination in 30 of them.

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER BLOW-OUT

That Chilean volcano, Chaiten is still kicking up a storm.

On January 19, this year, the dome collapsed in the centre of the volcano blowing a thick plume of ash and steam from the summit.

The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this false-colour image which includes visible and infrared light.
Vegetation is red, bare (possibly ash-covered) ground is brown, and water is deep blue.
The plume from the volcano appears off-white.

HO HUM JUST ANOTHER FROCK

This is one of Her Majesty's big occasion gowns being readied for the Bendigo Exhibition. The photo shows the low satin bow at the back. The black gown to the left belonged to Princess Margaret and has the most beautiful jewelled shoulder straps.

This is a sample panel of the embroidery design by Norman Hartnell. The gown was made for a state visit to France in 1957. On a bouffant skirt in ivory Duchess satin, the emblems of France were embroidered in sparkling topaz, white and coffee coloured pearls, tiny amber beads, silver sequins, moulded golden acorn cups with an amber pearl acorn.

Representing the flowers of the fields are poppies and marguerites, acorns and sheaves of wheat represent the harvest and the two bees with pearly wings represent Napoleon's symbol of industry.

Maureen Markham, one of Hartnell's team of embroiderers who spent 3 weeks working on the gown, hoped that The Queen always sat on plush chairs so that the embroidery did not get squashed. The embroidery on the actual dress became more elaborate, building on the basic sample design.

It really is an occasion gown and worthy of its royal status.

STILL IN BENDIGO

I took one look at this Jean Desses evening gown of 1953 vintage and could almost see the tall blondness of Princess Diana wearing this in the late 80s, still fashionable nearly 40 years after its creation.
This strapless red evening gown highlights his signature draping and pleating of silk chiffon. The skirt is draped in softly gathered swags with a long tie crossing over at the neck to fall down the back.
The pleating across the bodice is a technique he favoured for early evening and formal occasion gowns. While it appears to be soft and unstructured, underneath it had the typical 50s sewn-in figure shaping boned lining.

Desses would often put two similar vibrant shades in the same dress but would soften the intensity by using matt chiffon fabric. He worked directly onto a dressmaker's mannequin, forming patterns by twisting, plaiting and draping the chiffon.



This was not in the exhibition but is owned by the NGV.
It's a Desses evening gown circa 1954 and once again shows his mastery of draping.
It's made of pale pink chiffon over silk taffeta and has tightly gathered fabric over a corselet bodice with a deep horizontally pleated waistband and gathered chiffon straps.
The full length skirt is softly draped, forming an apron-style front with a fall each side making a bouffant shape at the hemline with a kick frill around the edge.

COME UP AND SEE ME SOMETIME

The doctor's letter said something abnormal showed up in the blood tests but not to worry, it's nothing major, don't hurry down, anytime in the next two weeks.
I had the blood tests on the 15th and the letter was sent on the 16th and I wasn't supposed to ring for the results until today.
What, me worry?
Doctor's appointment on Thursday morning.
Mother hysterical.
I might die before her and escape.

BENDIGO FROCKBLOG

This evening dress was such a joy to stand and stare at which is what Antikva and I did at the Bendigo Art Gallery yesterday, frequently backing into other bloggers doing the same thing.

The dress was by Antonio del Castillo for Lanvin Castillo, made in silk zibeline by Staron and embroidered by Lesage in Paris, 1957.

If you put it up as wallpaper, you'll be able to see the chenille-work, with sequins, beads and stones.

It is timeless and could easily be worn on a red carpet today but by only a few 'stars' with the class to carry it off. We aren't talking Paris or Britney here.

Before slathering over the frocks, our little blogging group gathered in the park behind the Bendigo Art Gallery. Unfortunately for me, we were sitting on the ground, not the type of thing I do with any elegance. I don't care what Lord Sedgwick said, the rotunda down the steep slope was preferable to the elephant hitting the pine needles on top of the hill.

It's always nice to put faces to blogposts and find out we are all mad, artistic, fantastic, absurdly thin in figure and fabulously beautiful enough to make the Gods of Olympus jealous. Well, really! Does this blog ever lie?

The gift shop had book on jewellery and fashion but I was good and only bought the catalogue of the exhibition. Such shiny pages, so much drool.

A thoroughly lovely day and no animals were harmed by the driving of Miss O'Dyne.

PS. never miss an opportunity to hit the cafes and cake shops of Malmesbury. The orange and coconut flourless cake almost came up to the perfection of the exhibition. I should have asked if they deliver.