Happy New Years Eve

Happy New Years Eve to all of my friends , whether you celebrate this occasion by partying with family and friends, a quiet night at home, if like some of us you are alone or those who are fortunate enough to have someone special in their life to love and with whom to share a traditional kiss at midnight...whatever your plans have a lovely evening.
Blessings to you all for 2010, I hope the New Year brings you peace, good health and happiness... ♥

A Beautiful Gift from K9

Thank you dearest K9 for my beautiful Christmas CD cover, you are so thoughtful and kind. The 'golden yellow flower' Christmas tree, my favourite colours, is so pretty... you have captured me well, alone as usual but unlike the painting of The Lady of Shalott by Waterhouse and the poem by Tennyson, I am not about to float dowstream and die, life is too precious....instead I am floating in a sky of deep blue on a sea of stars of the glorious Southern Cross...charting a new course for my life and moving in a new direction.
Thank you for your friendship and for being the protector of my heart ... ♥

A Thing of Beauty is a Joy For Ever

For a Friend

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,

With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end!
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

From John Keats epic poem Endymion, 1818

Keats found that beauty (something of beauty) is a source of perennial joy and happiness... it leaves an indelible mark on our mind and provides us with eternal happiness whenever we think about it... our joy increases as we keep on remembering the beauty ... it is just like Endymion looking for Cynthia as his everlasting love ...(according to Greek Mythology)

Still from film 'Bright Star' ... Jane Campion.

Merry Christmas Greetings

Christmas Greetings to all of my friends and followers, wherever you are in the World!

I wish you all the Blessings of Christmas, whether you are alone, with your families, loved ones and friends as you celebrate this day in your own special way.
I had wished to come to your blogs and give you all a personal Christmas message, unfortunately I have not had the time to do so ... but please remember I am thinking of each and every one of you on this special day ... ♥

First Flower

The first flower of Summer
Like the blush of new love
We know it's there waiting
Just to grow and burst forth.

And one day it delights us
With petals in full bloom
Like the love in our heart
It can't come too soon...

Dianne D. ♥

There is pleasure in the pathless woods

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Lord Byron (George Gordon)

from Childe Harold, Canto iv, Verse 178

Going Home

This moving song 'Going Home' is a Celtic song, it features on a DVD I have been watching of the Civil War, 'Gods and Generals', this film is a profound insight into the values and spirit of humankind under extreme conditions and watching this made me think of the futility of war and in this context I am writing this post.
War is a sad, destructive thing, and though some wars have to be fought for the freedom and equality of the oppressed and minorities who are unjustly treated, it comes at a high cost.
My opinion here might seem naive and uninformed but from what I have seen and from my perspective is that it separates families, loved ones and often sets brother against brother in a battle where no-one really wins ... where a great majority are killed and don't return or are maimed and scarred both physically and emotionally for the rest of their life...
I mean no disrespect to any servicewoman or serviceman, who has in the past or is presently serving in harms way, I have the greatest respect for you and because of this I just wish there was a better way, as so many lives are lost or ruined in wars that cannot be won or never seem to end.
It is a shame that all of this might and power can't be put to a more passive use and unite us all in the name of Peace and being optimistic, all wars could end... ♥

They say there's a place 
where dreams have all gone 
They never said where 
but I think I know 
It's miles through the night 
just over the dawn 
on the road that will take me home 

I know in my bones 
I've been here before 
The ground feels the same 
though the land's been torn 
I've a long way to go 
The stars tell me so 
on this road that will take me home 

Love waits for me 'round the bend 
Leads me endlessly on 
Surely sorrows shall find their end 
and all our troubles will be gone 
And I'll know what I've lost 
and all that I've won 
when the road finally takes me home 

And when I pass by 
don't lead me astray 
Don't try to stop me 
Don't stand in my way 
I'm bound for the hills 
where cool waters flow 
on this road that will take me home 

Love waits for me 'round the bend 
Leads me endlessly on 
Surely sorrows shall find their end 
and all our troubles will be gone 
And we'll know what we've lost 
and all that we've won 
when the road finally takes me home 

I'm going home 
I'm going home 

somwehere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands.

e e cummings

A London Garden

A London Garden - Thomas Matthew Rooke - 1904, oil on canvas

This is such a pretty space with soft grasses and trees and shrubs of many shades of green. The path invites you to walk past gardens filled with a variety of foliage plants and many flowers such as purple and mauve iris, English bluebells, flowers of many shades of blue and the occasional soft peach coloured flower... I very much like the tree with its white blossoms.
Please enlarge the image as there is so much detail to admire ... ♥

Thomas Matthew Rooke 1842 - 1942

A painter of a variety of subjects, including architectural, biblical, portraits and landscapes. In his younger days closely associated with Ruskin, Burne-Jones and William Morris and heavily influenced by them. He worked as an assistant to Burne-Jones at the William Morris company for many years.

For Alexander

In My Lime - Leafed Bower

There is much to enjoy

In my lime - leafed bower

A place to ponder

Wile away the hours

Watch the leaves as they change

In the sunshine’s aspect

From shades of lime green

To the deep green of shadow

Listen to the leaves

As they move in the breeze

Their song is as soft

As the fragrance that surrounds me

Feel the cool of the water

As it pools in the pond

Trickling ever slowly

Past me and beyond

So on a warm summer’s day

If you cannot see me

Look for me there

That is where you will find me … ♥

Poem by Dianne D.

My lime leafed bower is a large shrub which is called Durante Erecta 'Sky Flower', it has pretty purple flowers in Summer, I have let mine grow wild so that it is very large and has formed an arbor, a place to sit under the canopy, it is near my 'Secret Garden 'where the water pools and forms a pond.

I have fragrant liles as underplantings, so it is a very pleasant place to sit.

Morning Sun in my Secret Garden

White blossoms on Angophora Hispida - Dwarf Apple Gum

Morning sun shining through canopy of Blueberry Ash

Blueberry Ash

White flowers on Blueberry Ash

Yellow flowering Aloe with ferns and Hakea leaves

Yellow flowering Aloe with Sacred Bamboo and Hare's Foot fern

Lichens on sandstone bush rock

Traveller's palm or Giant Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia Nicolai) not sure until it flowers; left Sacred Bamboo (Dwarf Nandina) ;Fiddle Leafed Ficus and Hakea Laurina at right.

Just a few morning photos from my 'Secret Garden', I will have more flowers and plants to post in the future; it is lovely here for once the trees cast their shadows it is cool and fresh and as it is the lowest part of my garden it fills with rain after heavy showers, a lovely place to sit and run your fingers through the cool water or to dip your toes.
I am still hoping to get a really good photo of my lime leafed bower, with the sun illuminating the green of the leaves and little flecks of sunlight appearing through the spaces between, it looks so inviting and is a great place to sit in the heat of the day.
We have had record temperatures over the last couple of days, it is now after 11pm and the temperature is still 33 degrees C/ 91.4 F, today we reached a temperature of 41 degrees/105.8F; a cooling southerly wind was predicted but it didn't come so it's still very hot.
Hopefully it will be cooler tomorrow, you can see why shade is welcomed here and if any of my Northern hemisphere friends would like to send a cool air blast down here or some snow I will be waiting to catch it ... ♥