Exploring

Exploring Brisbane

On our way back from Cairns last week, we stopped off at Brisbane’s The Treasury Hotel, and met up with Tess. The next day, Tess and I spent a very enjoyable daddy-daughter day, traipsing around Brisbane’s leafy or busy suburbs looking at possible places to live for when Tess starts off at uni. We ended up talking to some interesting people and, at the end of the day, finding a little gem of a place, 650 metres from the university. All Tess needs to do now is wait for the official announcement of the HSC results (the all-encompassing ATAR score, which nobody in a sane mind seems to be able to understand or explain), for Tess to accept the offer at Griffith’s, accept the offer of the room and start an exciting new stage in her life. We also dropped Tess’  CV off at a café called Lady Marmelade where she was immediately offered a trial – which she will take up when she comes back from Sydney (she’s off for a ten days to spend time with her bestie Maddie in Sydney tomorrow). Mind you, if in the course of that time Tess gets an offer from a renowned Sydney university, she may well change her mind still and go to Sydney after all, but she did seem to enjoy Brisbane, and the fact that it is not so anonymous and big as Sydney is. 

Yarrow’s frangipanni

A few weeks ago, I found an unplanted frangipanni on our front deck (given to me by Ton, with about ten others which I did plant). To my big surprise, the frangi was sprouting leaves – despite the fact it has been on the deck for about two months or so, just lying around. Talk about resilience! I offered it to Yarrow as a symbol of strength and growth, and we planted it alongside the pool where it will no doubt flower soon, like one of the others I planted along the driveway – isn’t it a gorgeous flower …. (Have since found this information here: In India the frangipani is a symbol of immortality because of its ability to produce leaves and flowers even after it has been lifted out of the soil.)