Just a jump to the left . . .

. . . of the International Date Line, that is. Samoa  (formally “Western Somoa” in the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean) is . . .  . . . skipping Friday and going straight to Saturday as it shifts its time zone forward by 24 hours in a bid to move into line with […]

The Jet-set Puppy turns three

Three years ago on the 24th December, Rosie (AKA The Jet-set Puppy) arrived in this world with a lot of excess energy. She hasn’t stopped moving since. If you missed the original series about how we came to adopt her, see The Jet-Set Puppy series: Buying a puppy via the Internet A year of chaos […]

Postcards from Australia: Sydney via Notes from Africa | Photoblog

The photographs in this post were taken on a recent trip I did to Australia to attend a forestry conference. After spending a couple of days in Sydney, I flew to Canberra to start the pre-conference tour – essentially a road trip between Canberra and Melbourne, stopping off to look at forestry areas along the […]

Dream survey – the results

So the day that at least some of you have been waiting for has arrived – the discussion of the result of my dream survey. The rest of you might have forgotten what it is all about, or are maybe new to this blog. It started off with me talking about having somebody else’s dreams. […]

Befriending Mr. Sandman

A guest post by Lu from The Unwitting Traveller for Notes from Africa Firstly, I’d like to thank Lisa for inviting me to guest blog here on Notes from Africa. I consider it to be a huge compliment to be putting forth words to be read by Lisa’s audience – so I hope I don’t […]

Mystery plant a mystery no more

Thank you to Bob Rutemoeller and Mary Sue Ittner (from the Pacific Bulb Society) for identifying my mystery plant. The mystery plant has been identified as Phormium tenax or New Zealand Flax. According to Wikipedia Phormium tenax (harakeke in Māori, New Zealand flax) is an evergreen perennial plant native to New Zealand and Norfolk Island […]

Mystery plant – do you know what this is?

Thank you to Bob Rutemoeller and Mary Sue Ittner (from the Pacific Bulb Society) for identifying my mystery plant. The mystery plant has been identified as Phormium tenax or New Zealand Flax. According to Wikipedia Phormium tenax (harakeke in Māori, New Zealand flax) is an evergreen perennial plant native to New Zealand and Norfolk Island […]

Tree ferns in Australia

In case you didn’t see enough of tree ferns in my previous post (very predictably titled Tree ferns!), here are some more. These photographs were taken in Australia by Willie. He is currently there for a forestry conference – where he is hearing about, and talking about, and seeing lots of – you guessed it […]

Tree ferns

In my last post Animal or vegetable, the “tree” that was featured is in fact not a tree, but a tree fern. According to Wikipedia: Some species in the Cyatheales have tree-like growth forms, but others have creeping rhizomes (stems). Some species have scales on the stems and leaves, while others have hairs. However, most […]

Animal or vegetable?

Any idea what this could be? No idea? . . .  Oh okay, I’ll tell you. Have a look HERE and for more information see this post.