A good match: raspberries and chocolate. Dark chocolate cake with white chocolate ganache topping, filled with berries and ganache. Image (and cake): Su Leslie, 2017.
It was the boy-child’s 19th birthday yesterday, so I made him this chocolate raspberry cake to share with friends and workmates.
I’m not a particularly confident cake-maker, but am told this one went down well.
Raspberries and white chocolate, definitely a good match. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
The boy-child and his skateboard; inseparable. Image: Su Leslie, 2010
Having fun at Mt Ruapehu. Image: Su Leslie, 2011
The boy-child enjoying Peking Duck at Auckland restaurant, Love a Duck. Image: Su Leslie, 2009
“two peas in a pod?” The big T and our boy-child. Image: Su Leslie, 2009
Apologies for posting some old images to this challenge. The boy-child turned 19 yesterday and I’m feeling nostalgic.
Seen at the Helensville A& P (Agricultural & Pastoral) Show; young boy resting on his calf after judging the calf show. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Hydrangea; seen at Hamilton Gardens. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Milkweed seedhead, Image: Su Leslie, 2017. Edited with Snapseed and Stackables.
The walnut and cranberry sourdough bread I baked a few days ago is still fresh enough not to need toasting, and was perfect with my morning latte.
In the spirit of mindful eating, I’m trying to make food more visually appealing, using our more interesting crockery, and setting the table with a cloth hand-embroidered by my paternal grandmother — whom I never met.
I’m sharing my breakfast contemplation as part of Desley Jane‘s RegularRandom challenge. If you’d like to know more about Five Minutes of Random #regularrandom (or just want to see some great photography), check out Musings of a Frequently Flying Scientist.
Milkweed seed head. Image: Su Leslie, 2017. Edited with Snapseed.
I’ve become a gardener. Not just in the literal sense of having a garden; but more in the way that my garden has become a filter through which I see the world.
I grow flowers for the bees, set beer traps for snails, chase wasps from the swan plants and am the Big T’s eager accomplice in Monarch butterfly husbandry.
When I grow hungry, the contents of the vege patch are as important as the contents of my fridge.
And when the annoying TV weatherman casts impending rain as a villain swooping in to spoil the party, I want to shout “sod off! Think of the plants; think of the gardens.”
The thing about gardening is that you become part of a cycle; birth, life, death, decay, re-birth. Compost as metaphor!
I have become connected. Though my little patch of cultivated dirt, I feel a sense of belonging to the Earth that is not only new, but surprising in its intensity.
Milkweed seed head. Image: Su Leslie, 2017. Edited with Snapseed.
I found this poem yesterday and realised that where once, if asked about my attitude to life and death, I’d have quoted Dylan Thomas’s Do not go gentle into that good night.Â
Now I think Willam Soutar‘s Song might be more apt.
End is in beginning;
And in beginning end:
Death is not loss, nor life winning;
But each and to each is friend.
The hands which give are taking;
And the hands which take bestow:
Always the bough is breaking
Heavy with fruit or snow.
All images by Su Leslie, 2017
Old hibiscus flower. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
What are the chances, eh? Twenty-first century Aucklanders present at the official opening of Cornwall Park in 1903. Image: Su Leslie, 2015.
While actual time-travel remains in the realm of science fiction, photography and film do give visual glimpses into the past. The black and white photo above (1) is of the official opening of Auckland’s Cornwall Park in 1903. The white-haired man on the balcony is Sir John Logan Campbell, one of Auckland’s wealthiest and most prominent early citizens. In 1901 he had gifted the park –comprising 230 acres of his estate — to the city.
Cornwall Park is still one of the largest and most popular parks in Auckland. It includes the volcano Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill), the summit of which is the resting place of Logan Campbell, who died in 1912 aged 94.
Daily Post Photo Challenge | against the odds
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