One of the colourful boats on a canal on the island of Murano.

At the Chinese Gardens in Sydney.

I’m getting a lot of pleasure from growing some veges this summer. The beautiful subtle colours in these red cos lettuces are amazing. The camera only captures some of them.

Just out of Canberra on the Kings Highway to the coast, especially on the part between Queanbeyan and Bungendore, there are lots of teddies and other soft toys nailed and tied to trees. Often they are quite high up, and some of them have been there for some years. Its easy to drive along and not see most of them, unless you are particularly on the lookout. I’ve heard there are some down near Moruya, too.

It’s curious, and although there a few theories around, no-one really seems to know why they are put there or who puts them there.

I find them interesting and quite thought provoking, and I would like someday to photograph more of them. Overall I find them rather sad and poignant, as teddies should be loved and cuddled, not tortured and abandoned to the elements. Do the nastier teddies on the market deserve this, or should I remember that for the most part kids can imbue even a mere cloth or stone with character and lovableness? Is there a war going on in teddy land? Are these teddies free in spirit even if their bodies are nailed to one place? I also like that it is unexplained, and that the number is growing gradually, an silent unordered social activity. And I am interested in the weathering patterns and process on the teddies, and how it changes their character.

More in my photoset at Flickr. LaRuth also has a couple more.

I’m posting some favourite beach photos to celebrate my birthday today. These first two are of Carrickalinga North Bay, alternatively Dame Roma Mitchell Bay, in South Australia, taken by my son, Tim Raupach:

Kids always have favourite colour, but as an adult you often don’t. After years of not having a specific favourite, I realised that this almost-not-there nearly transparent turquoise is mine. I find it almost achingly beautiful.

Then there is this one taken on the wild east coast of Tasmania on the northern beach of Macquarie Heads, looking out to … South Africa. The straight is called Hell’s Gates.

A cool mural on the side of the Middleton pub in South Australia. These Southern Right whales used to be hunted nearby at Victor Harbor, just out to sea from the place we often stay at at Christmas time. They are endangered, but have been coming back in recent years. I’ve seen humpback whales off Eden on the south coast here, but we’ve never been at Victor in the winter to see these. Michael has, though: a mother and calf close-up, when he was boy, and he and his grandfather were out in a boat off Wright Island. They thought it was a reef at first! It’s a family story now.

Not sure why I thought of this photo this morning. It was taken about 18 months ago at Middleton in South Australia, and I love the washed out summer look with the orange and blue.

I had the pleasure of having lunch with fellow Canberra blogger Ampersand Duck a couple of days ago. I really enjoyed it — thanks, AD!

That day I also picked up a copy of Northern Lights, the first in Philip Pullman‘s trilogy His Dark Materials. I’ve been intending to read it since blogging about the theatrical production which featured puppetry daemons designed by Michael Curry, and now by the news that it’s being made into a film, The Golden Compass, which has a release date at the end of this year. I’ve already dived in, and I’m finding the story engrossing.

I wonder how the daemons will be done in the film?

We have had some amazing clouds over Canberra recently. These mammatus clouds rolled over our place last Saturday evening at sunset.

An action shot of Joh Bjelke-Peterson welcoming guests to the launch of the Campaign – Federal Elections exhibition at Old Parliament House yesterday! Here is a slightly clearer one of him with Malcolm Fraser. Old Parliament House had a collection of the photographic masks of politicians, but I was asked to make the cartoon Joh last week.

The exhibition itself consists of photos by Andrew Chapman; you can see some of them here. They are wonderful ‘fly on the wall’ glimpses of electioneering politicians and political events from the Fraser years onwards. I was most amused by the ones of Beazley, because he so often looked like a jovial dag, but others were arresting.

These are are some of the beautiful spotted gum trees where we sometimes stay at Guerilla Bay.