SUMER IS ICUMEN IN

Summer's coming and we've had the hottest day so far this Spring with a maximum of 33˚C. The parks are beginning to look a little parched already as we haven't had much rain lately.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

MELBOURNE CUP 2024

The Melbourne Cup is the horse race of all Australian horse races. Every year when this race is run around 3:00 pm, it literally stops the entire nation. Melbourne Cup Day is fixed on the first Tuesday in November and although it is a public holiday only in the Melbourne Metropolitan area, Australians all over the nation are glued to their television screens or listen on the radio (or more likely on the internet, nowadays, I suppose) to watch this historic race.

The race is held over a distance of 3,200 meters, the traditional two-mile cup distance, for horses three years and older and is the richest and most prestigious “two-mile” handicap in the world. It is held in Flemington Racecourse, located in Flemington, one of Melbourne's inner city suburbs, which is named after a butcher who lived there in the 19th century. I certainly hope he didn't sell horse meat - that would be grand irony!

The first Melbourne Cup was run in 1861. There were 17 starters and the prize was 170 pounds and a hand-beaten gold watch (this was the trophy given before the traditional Loving Cup which the Melbourne Cup is known for). “Archer”, the first Cup-winning horse, had been walked to Melbourne from its stable in Nowra, New South Wales, a distance of about 800km. “Archer” won again the following year to a prize of 810 gold sovereigns (£810) and a gold watch. “Archer” went on to win the race the following year once more, making him one of the five horses to win the event more than once.

This post is part of the Travel Tuesday meme

LET'S HAVE MUSIC

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme

And remember if you wish to hear some of my own musical compositions, you can find me under the handle: Otidorchestre

In Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, Deezer, Instagram, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Boomplay, etc

CHRISTMAS?

With Halloween barely over, the marketing machine of the shopping centres wasted no time and launched into the Christmas narrative. Is it just me or has this year just flown by like a big jet plane?

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme

MAGPIE-LARK

The magpie-lark (Grallina cyanoleuca), also known as wee magpie, peewee, peewit, mudlark or Murray magpie, is a passerine bird native to Australia, Timor and southern New Guinea. The male and female both have black and white plumage, though with different patterns.

John Latham described the species in 1801. Long thought to be a member of the mudnest builder family Corcoracidae, it has been reclassified in the family Monarchidae (the monarch flycatchers). Two subspecies are recognised.

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme

MOONSET

Looking towards the West at the Darebin Parklands, seeing the moon setting, while the sun is rising behind me.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

CAMPANULA

A self-seeded Campanula seedling growing and flowering amongst stones and rocks.

"One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity." - Albert Schweitzer

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme

URBAN GARDEN

The irises are in bloom...

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme
and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

IN GIPPSLAND

Gippsland is an economic rural region of Victoria, Australia, located in the south-eastern part of that state. It covers an area of 41,556 square kilometres, and lies to the east of the eastern suburbs of Greater Melbourne, to the north of Bass Strait, to the west of the Tasman Sea, to the south of the Black-Allan Line that marks part of the Victorian/New South Wales border, and to the east and southeast of the Great Dividing Range that lies within the Hume region and the Victorian Alps.

It is a farming and pastoral region many parts having become highly productive dairying and vegetable-growing regions. Gippsland supplies Melbourne with most of its needs in these commodities. Gippsland has no deposits of major industrial nonmetallic minerals, but it does feature the world's largest brown coal deposits and, around Sale and offshore in the Bass Strait, some of the largest deposits of oil and natural gas in Australia.

This post is part of the Travel Tuesday meme

HAPPINESS

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,

and also part of the Seasons meme.