Geese galore

A few years back I was visiting my old home town of Cardiff. During a  stroll to Roath Park Lake, I was rewarded by the sight of a couple of Canada geese bobbing cheerfully in the water. They were imported from Canada, a local informed me. Obviously no one had bothered to tell the keepers of the lake that Canada geese reproduce – quickly.

Here they are in Oakville:

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In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit

Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to eat: it was a hobbit-hole and that means comfort.

And here is a piece of prime hobbit real estate: Bag-End.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe tree on top of Bag-End is fake and was assembled by hand at the cost of around $800,000 – so we were informed:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASamwise Gamgee’s house, 1 Bagshot Row:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe Green Dragon where I had some stout:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIf anyone is wondering what keeps the sheep out (there are a lot of sheep here), it is the electric fence:

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Byron Bay

Byron Bay is a sanctuary for hippies – many of them ageing. I feel quite at home.

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Whales that were a long way out:OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The most Easterly point of Australia:
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A bluebottle jellyfish. They sting; they also pop when you step on them:
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Spring

Has arrived in Oakville.

The Goldfinches are yellow:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd, although the tulips had not bloomed in Ottawa due, we were told, to the extremely cold winter (the insidious result of global warming, of course), they are now blooming here:

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