Sunday Selections #554 (reposting on Sunday).

 

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files.

 

Huge thanks to Cie who gave me this wonderful Sunday Selections image.

 

The meme was then continued by River at Drifting through life.  Sadly she has now stepped aside (though she will join us some weeks), and I have accepted the mantle. 

 

The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to me. Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.  

 

I usually run with a theme.  I am taking you walking with me again this week.  Each year my city has a festival to welcome Spring - Floriade.  Last year Covid saw it cancelled.  This year it was going ahead, but a resurgence of the Delta Strain of Covid saw it cancelled at the eleventh hour.  Much of the planting had been done, but my city went into lockdown and the festival was cancelled.

However no-one told the plants that.  This last week some of our lockdown restrictions have been eased.  We can now go further from home (masked) and the time we can spend outside has been increased.

So we went to the Floriade you have when you are not having Floriade.  There were no shops.  No entertainment.  Much, much smaller crowds.  I did miss the quirky statues that are a usual feature but we spend a wonderful couple of hours on an absolutely beautiful day happily wandering.

Floriade is held in Commonwealth Park which is a short walk away from the city centre - and miles away from it in spirit.

Many photos follow (despite the fact that I am only showing a fraction of those I took).

This is a female Australian wood duck and her family.  I was impressed, but later we saw an even bigger family.  It has obviously been a very good year for ducks.

 

Do you see what I mean?  They certainly had their hands/beaks full with this brood.

I do like to see an 'aberrant' colour pop up in the displays.

I was pleased to see that I am not the only one to really like this statue (which is on permanent display).

Bluebells have naturalised very successfully here.

Another permanent statue.

It was a serene and lovely day and both of us felt much better after our outing.

I am reposting this.  I thought I had scheduled it to post today but instead had hit publish - which I didn't notice until the first comments arrived.  Oops.

I hope your week is happy, healthy and packed with beauty.