AN OUTING

Despite our very cool, rather grey and often wet Spring weather, occasionally we have a beautiful day and everyone who can gets out into the parks and gardens to enjoy the weather.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme.

LORIKEETS

The rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus moluccanus) is a species of parrot found in Australia. It is common along the eastern seaboard, from northern Queensland to South Australia and Tasmania. Its habitat is rainforest, coastal bush and woodland areas. Several taxa traditionally listed as subspecies of the rainbow lorikeet are now treated as separate species.

Rainbow lorikeets have been introduced to Perth, Western Australia; Auckland, New Zealand; and Hong Kong. Rainbow lorikeets are true parrots, within the Psittacoidea superfamily in the order Psittaciformes. They include two subspecies: Trichoglossus moluccanus moluccanus and Trichoglossus molucannus septentrionalis.

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,

and also part of the Camera Critters meme.

SUNRISE

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

ROSA 'FRIESIA'

Rosa 'Friesia' (synonyms: 'Sunsprite'; 'KORresia') is a rose variety developed by Reimer Kordes and introduced in 1973. The rose was derived from the cultivars 'Friedrich Wörlein' × 'Spanish Sun', and is one of the most successful floribunda roses. It was named 'Friesia' after the region Frisia (Friesland), the home of the breeder, and was one of the first roses to be given a code name (KORresia for Kordes).

Its sunny yellow blooms are large and flat with 17 to 25 waved petals, reaching an average diameter of 8 cm and have a very strong fragrance. The high-centred flowers appear solitary or in small clusters in a blooming period lasting from June to September. Their bright yellow colour hardly changes with age.

The flower is not well suited as a cut flower as it has short stems and only lasts for a short period of time after cutting. The plant has light-green, glossy leaves, forms upright, bushy shrubs with about 40 to 75 cm height and up to 60 cm width, is very disease resistant and hardy (USDA zone 6b) and can be grown on the ground or in containers. It is used as a parent rose, leading to cultivars such as Rosa 'Sun Flare' (Warriner 1981) and 'Morden Sunrise' (Davidson & Collicutt) 1991.

We have a couple of these rose bushes in our garden and they have given us many years of pleasure, producing abundant crops of exquisite flowers during their long blooming season.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

OP ART

Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions. Op art works are abstract, with many better known pieces created in black and white. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibrating patterns, or of swelling or warping.

The antecedents of op art, in terms of graphic and colour effects, can be traced back to Neo-impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism and Dada. László Moholy-Nagy produced photographic op art and taught the subject in the Bauhaus. One of his lessons consisted of making his students produce holes in cards and then photographing them.

Bridget Louise Riley CH CBE (born 24 April 1931) is an English painter who is one of the foremost and most influential exponents of Op art. She currently lives and works in London, Cornwall and the Vaucluse in France.

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

MELBOURNE TOWN HALL

Melbourne is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia and Oceania. The name “Melbourne” covers an urban agglomeration spanning 9,992.5 km2, which comprises the broader metropolitan area, as well as being the common name for its city centre. The metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley.

Melbourne consists of 31 municipalities. It has a population of 4,725,316 as of 2016, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians. Founded by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemen’s Land on 30 August 1835, in what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837. It was named “Melbourne” by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, in honour of the British Prime Minister of the day, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne.

It was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria, to whom Lord Melbourne was close, in 1847, after which it became the capital of the newly founded colony of Victoria in 1851. During the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, it was transformed into one of the world’s largest and wealthiest cities. After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as the nation’s interim seat of government until 1927. Additionally, it was the host city of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

Melbourne rates highly in education, entertainment, health care, research and development, tourism and sport, making it the world’s most liveable city (for the seventh year in a row in 2017), according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. It is a leading financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region, and ranks among the top 15 cities in the world in the Global Financial Centres Index.

Referred to as Australia’s “cultural capital”, it is the birthplace of Australian impressionism, Australian rules football, the Australian film and television industries, and Australian contemporary dance. It is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a major centre for street art, music and theatre. It is home to many of Australia’s largest and oldest cultural institutions such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the National Gallery of Victoria, the State Library of Victoria and the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

SEASONAL

Some flowers in our garden, which is now all abloom with springtime vigour:
Geranium 'Johnson's Blue'; Krantz Aloe; Pansies.

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

SPRING SKYSCAPE

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme.

DUCKLINGS

The chestnut teal duck (Anas castanea) is a dabbling duck found in Australia. Males have a distinctive green head. It's duckling season now and the proud father is looking after the children...

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,

and also part of the Camera Critters meme.

SUNRISE, FROM MY WINDOW

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.