A mixed bag today !

Hello everyone,

Well, the movie "Love Actually" was on telly last night so Christmas is definitely near!  It's one of my 3 favourites that I can watch again and again.   The others are "My Blue Heaven" and, I can just hear my darling groan  (in a painful way) when he reads this... "Out of Africa"  lol ;D)

My selection of photos come from another one of our recent walks and we were greeted firstly with the happy squeals of a toddler learning to fly his kite.  A happy little scene:

A flying fish no less !
A bit different to our paper and string kites of eons ago :D)

Gall-ing
We were walking around the bush to the left of the kite flying family and I decided to take a photo of these things that were on certain trees we pass when we walk in this area:

I wondered if they were some kind of bush fruit perhaps, so decided to take some photos and investigate.
Silly me, turns out they are galls caused by a special kind of wasp.  The tree is a coastal wattle Acacia longifolia.

Just happened to see this little fellow on one of the leaves near the galls. All in all, by the state of the Acacia,  I guess it's not feeling the brightest !

Rubbish... grrrrr
Further on, we were walking right by the water and I saw this:

... and this:

the movement in the water kind of distorts what it is but, yeah, more rubbish into the beautiful lakes system.  Takes all kinds doesn't it!


More Sweet Swans
Anyway, moving on, we turned the corner and saw a sight that put a big smile back on our faces:

Mum and Dad Swan and their little one

I could almost imagine the cygnet was playing a game of peek-a-boo:

So sweet.

My Artwork and Photos
At the suggestion of my good friend Vicki of Eucalypt Habitat I've been creating a portfolio of my artwork and photographs on one of the online sites she suggested.  I decided to give it a go and so chose Redbubble.  I remember Deb of Ramblings of a Square Peg in a Round Hole suggesting the same spot a few years' ago but I never followed her up.  Well, now I have paintings as well as pics, so why not!!

It's been a learning curve... so much to learn but lots of easy tutorials are there to help.  Lots of helpful technical advice for taking photos for specific purposes and products too.
They seem a very professional site with a good reputation and copyright matters are a high priority. While it's the first time I've ever done anything like this, I'm happy that I've started:

If you'd like to pop over sometime you'd be most welcome, here's the link to my portfolio which I add to every few days: susansometimes on redbubble

Well, that's about all for this post.  I shall pull Froggie out of the archives so that he can spread some Christmas Cheer on the header.  See you over at yours ...  :D)