It was time for the Sydney 'Sculptures by the Sea' exhibition last week, I had been looking forward to this as we missed it last year because we arrived in Australia just a few days after it finished.
The sculptures are arranged on the rocks overlooking Bondi Beach and the way they use the background is taken into account when the judging takes place. Some of them were fantastic, others strange and a couple downright creepy but, all in all, an excellent collection of artwork.
We have got into the habit of 
taking the train when we go down to Sydney because it only takes a little longer than driving, it is ridiculously cheap and we can get right into the centre without having to think about parking, so we set off at silly o'clock and were in Bondi by about 10am. It was a bit blowy walking along the cliffs but the big waves just added to the drama of the backdrop to the sculptures and we had to hide in a cafe with about 500 other visitors as a sudden downpour took us all by surprise, but it was a good day nonetheless.

The Bondi Icebergs have their home at the Bondi ocean pool. I had to stifle a chuckle as I was reading about their proud boast that they swim every day of the winter, you can't impress me with that, my sister Gill swims in Hampstead Heath pond throughout the winter in England!
Back working in the garden the next day I was thinking what an upside down place this is with trees that shed their bark instead of their leaves when I heard the unmistakable, dreadful grunting koalas make. It sounded really close by so I scanned the trees and saw this chap in next door's front garden. He was huge and very active for the daytime, scampering around the tree, eating and grunting then he climbed out of the tree and bounded off down the road, we could hear him grunting at the top of his voice as he went, he was definitely out to try and impress the lady koalas!

We hit the road Tuesday morning and drove two hours north on the Pacific Highway to Forster. I had heard plenty about how beautiful the area was and it did not disappoint, it was gorgeous. 
Forster and Tuncurry are towns facing each other on opposite banks of the Wallumba River at the entrance to Wallis Lake, they are joined by a bridge and the first glimpse of Forster when approaching via the bridge from Tuncurry is memorable to say the least. The turquoise water and white sand beaches sit in front of an extremely smart looking town, which was much bigger than I expected and reminded me a bit of Poole in Dorset with its low level apartment blocks with blue glass balcony screens.
There was a huge ocean pool at one end of the beach and, of course, the obligatory drive through bottle shop, I am used to these now but it was a surprise when I saw my first one.
One of the things I am starting to discover about Australian towns is that there are nearly always old buildings to be found in amongst the new, Forster was home to this splendid little old church which was nestled between shiny new holiday apartments on the waterfront.
It was a glorious, sunny day but very windy as we went for a walk along the cliff road, so windy, in fact, that we saw a real life sea rescue! The small boat had broken down and the rescue boat battled through the choppy waters to save the crew. They had a bit of trouble getting close enough to attach a line but eventually managed it and the stricken sailors were towed to safety. We returned home a bit wind blown but vowing to add Forster to our list of places to take visitors to.
Back in Lemon Tree Passage the Lemon Jam took place on Sunday. This is a monthly event in the park at the marina with a band playing, a few market stalls and a barbecue at the milk bar. The organisers have been incredibly unlucky with the Lemon Jam over the last few months as it has fallen on one of our, very few, rainy days each time. Not so this week, the band performing were a bunch we hear rehearsing in a warehouse every Tuesday evening and they were pretty good and I was amused to see the very Australian behaviour of the audience, we Brits would be sitting at the front in the full sun but not the sensible Aussies, they are always gathered around the perimeter in the shade.

Now the warm weather has arrived it has brought with it the start of the country show season. It seems the smaller the town, the more peculiar the focus of the show, so Saturday saw us at the Karuah Wood and Oyster Show! A bizarre mix, I'm sure you will agree, but all the more fascinating for it. Karuah is a small town about forty minutes from us which the old Pacific Highway used to pass through causing a huge bottleneck but bringing plenty of business to the shops and cafes of Karuah. Ten years ago, the new Pacific Highway was built which bypasses the town and, although it is undoubtedly more pleasant to live there, the closed down shops and cafes tell the story of how this little town's economy must have suffered. So the show is pretty important to them each year.
The two main events were the woodchopping competition, which went on all day, and the oyster eating contest. The oyster company running the eating competition have been doing it for years but have not yet realised there is a major flaw in the organisation of the contest. They have a big stall selling oysters at $9 for half a dozen but the competition that runs alongside is against the clock, not a bunch of people racing at the same time. So, if you were unscrupulous you could just pay your $1 entry fee to the contest, you would get a plate of 12 oysters and as long as you ate them a bit sharpish, the organisers wouldn't notice you were just in it for a cheap feast.
Back to the woodchopping. We saw this at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney but because this was a much smaller affair, we could see the contestants getting ready. There was much polishing of axes but then they put on chain mail socks! I must admit I had wondered why there were not more accidents as the competitors stand on the log and chop between their two feet and the winner is the one who's log falls in half first.
The wood chopping fraternity take it all very seriously and it is quite alarming to see how young some of the axemen are, in fact there was a junior competition and some of the boys looked as young as 12. However they all seem to know each other and have fun, I have included a picture of wood chopping humour on one chap's t-shirt.
There was another type of wood chopping going on too with the Tae Kwan Do display. I find martial arts demonstrations terribly dull but this one was livened up considerably by one very fat exponent splitting his trousers.
Of course there was a stall selling that Australian staple, Showbags. Bags of varying prices pre packed with rubbish plastic toys and sweets which are a major feature of every show or festival and even some markets.
Back to the hard slog on the garden now, which is starting to look a bit like the beginnings of a garden at last. The drainage is now in place on the final two terraces and I have even managed to get some veggies planted.

The wildlife is waking up and getting more exciting, we hear koalas grunting at night and this possum turned up on our balcony a couple of evenings ago driving Monty crazy.
We have promised ourselves a day exploring each week and tomorrow we plan to go to Forster, I am quite excited because I have heard a lot about how beautiful it is there.

Spring has most definitely sprung here and it has caught me completely by surprise. Usually, in the UK, when winter is starting to come to an end I sow seeds to plant out months later when any danger of frost is over. Not so here, it was the first day of spring one day then, about a week later, our neighbour had fully grown lettuces in his garden! I can see I am going to have to join a gardening club if only to pick the brains of the other members to find out what to plant and when.

Another, very pleasant, surprise has been the flowering trees. Almost everything seems to burst into bloom at this time of year. Many people grow imported plants in their yards and some look very much like gardens I am used to seeing in England, they even grow roses, which can be quite a challenge in this climate.

But it is the native plants that I am enjoying the most, they are so different to any I have experienced before. Even trees and shrubs that look very ordinary for most of the year are out in their Sunday best at the moment. There are bottlebrush blooms of varying colours all around and the big Banksia trees have finger like growths which suddenly burst into huge fluffy things that the birds love.

It seems there is something new to see every time I leave the house. Interesting things are popping up in our own garden too, like this beautiful Amaryllis.

One less pleasant aspect of spring is the swooping magpies! They are nesting at the moment and they do attack, there are warning signs in particularly attack prone areas.

Apparently they really dislike cyclists and we have experienced this a couple of times already, as we are cycling along we hear a tapping on our cycle helmets which is the magpies swooping and pecking, bike helmets are compulsory here but I didn't realise it was to protect us from magpies!

We were looking forward with excitement to visitors last week. First, our old friend Tim was coming up with Virginia and their dog Monty (yes, our Monty was having a visitor too), then Zoe and Shaun were flying up from Melbourne for the weekend. 
Tim, Virginia and Monty arrived on Wednesday in the middle of a torrential downpour that pretty much didn't stop the whole time they were here. We had fun though, visiting local spots and winning the trivia night at the club by a huge margin! Pommie Monty and Aussie Monty got on famously, although it was hard to tell the difference if they were not next to each other. I do think we

were being a bit hopeful though when we drove up to Birubi Point to see if we could see any whales from the land. We did manage to show both sets of guests a koala (Ella in her usual tree) and a Tawny Frogmouth Owl who famously are so well disguised and difficult to find, if you are lucky enough to spot one, you can walk right up to it because they have such faith in their camouflage, so all was not lost.
The weather was not much better for Zoe and Shaun's visit, although the rain was not quite so torrential.

Rain has its advantages though, while we were showing them around Newcastle on Saturday, the weather became so unpleasant we had to duck into a pub for a beer. In the pub we discovered a complete sub section of Australian society that was previously unknown to us - there was a bagpipe competition going on!
There were posters for the White Heather Club Highland Outfitters dotted about and the room was full of people of all ages wearing tartan and cheering and clapping while pipers,

fully kilted and sporranned, took it in turns to play in front of the judges. There were loads of them all in their different tartan, some warming up outside and others admiring each others pipes. As for the competition it was hard to tell who was in the lead, although there was a frisson of excitement when one chap got up to play.

Some marched up and down a bit as they played but, apart from that, it was a bit tricky to pick out the good ones.
We dodged the showers on Sunday too and, as we drove Zoe and Shaun to the airport Sunday evening, it turned into a lovely, balmy evening and the weather has been glorious ever since.

Well, after what seems like years of research and visits from reps and getting quotes over the phone, we have finally joined the solar community! 
The final stage of the installation took place today and, as long as it all works ok - and it appears to, I would recommend GoSolar Newcastle to anyone. They were frighteningly efficient. They like to do the hot water and solar power on different days so they are not all tripping over each other on the roof so the hot water was installed a week or so ago then we were told the solar power panels would be put on the roof on Friday. The guys knocked at the door on Friday morning at 7.45am and they were finished before 9am, I didn't even have time to get my camera out to get a shot of them all scrambling on the roof for the blog! As they left they told us the person to fit the meter would be due in a couple of days then, half an hour later there was a knock at the door and there he was.
We are now having to change our habits a bit to get the most out of the free power from the sun. The government buy back scheme rate is so low these days that the way to work is to use your power while you are producing it, this means running the dishwasher or washing machine, charging phones and tablets in the middle of the day,for example, instead of overnight. It is surprisingly difficult to remember to do these things, we are obviously more set in our ways than we thought and the one thing I don't think we will manage is cooking while we are producing power, it feels like going back to the 1960s if we eat our main meal at lunchtime.
The most exciting part of all this is the little monitor which tells us how much power we are producing at any given time. I can't stop looking at it and telling Ian how many watts we are getting on an hourly basis, I find it completely fascinating and am becoming a real solar bore.
Zoe and Shaun are coming for the weekend - they have no idea what fun they have in store!

Spring, in this neck of the woods, is absolutely glorious. We are sitting on the balcony at the moment, the temperature is 24 degrees and there are Rainbow Lorikeets, Eastern Rosellas, Galahs and Corellas fluttering around. The koalas are peeping down out of the trees (well we can't see any from the balcony yet but they are only at the end of the road)  and Ella, in particular, is looking impossibly cute. Almost everything seems to be bursting into flower and we are taken by surprise by sudden wafts of scent as we are walking along with Monty. There is one house we pass where the garden smells really strongly of bubblegum but we can't see which plant in the garden is producing the scent, maybe the owners just chew a lot of bubblegum...
One thing I did not expect to see was this Blue Tongued Lizard appearing from under the house while I was painting the side balcony yesterday, it made me jump a bit because I thought it was a snake when I first saw his head poking out. He was about 18 inches long and just sauntered across the garden then under the fence to next door, it was lucky Monty didn't see him because the lizard was not moving very fast and I am sure Monty would have caught him.
We are now part way through our big solar install. The hot water is finished so plenty of long free hot showers now because, although we are pommies, we do shower more than once a week! We are just waiting for the solar power panels to be put in on Friday and, what with that and our free underground water for watering the garden, we will be paying for hardly any of it any more. We won't mention the cost of the installation and the pump for the watering, at least we won't be getting big monthly bills and it should all pay for itself within about four years.