Words for Wednesday

The lovely Delores at Under the Porch Light has been running this meme for a considerable period of time, week after week.   Computer issues led her to bow out for a while and I took over.  When Delores' absence looked like being more permanent I begged and cajoled for other volunteers to share providing the prompts, and Words for Wednesday became a moveable feast.

In July River from Drifting through Life hosted, Jacqueline at Randomosity in August. During September the challenge has been posted by Susan at the Most - - of Every Moment, and this months prompts were created by Margaret Adamson and her friend Sue, but published here.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write.  Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image.   What we do with those prompts is up to us:  a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...
Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog.  I would really like it if as many people as possible joined into this fun meme.  If you are posting on your own blog - let me know so that I, and other participants, can come along and applaud.

This weeks prompts are familiar phrases - where will they take you this week?

A Little of What You Fancy Does You Good

  

And/Or

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

 

Sunday Selections #245

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.
 
The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.
 
Like River I usually run with a theme.  This week, and probably while the skinny one is on holidays I am going to run with a 'home and away' theme.  My photos from home, and the ones he shares with me from away.  Iran again this week, though he is heading to Russia sometime next week.

Starting with home.  And staying in the garden.

I adore this blossom tree, and wait for it every year.

One of many freesias.

Love these 'different daisies'.  I have planted a pink one too.

A different type of grevillea

Looking up the garden towards the back deck and door.

We had some rain (and hail) on Friday - and the cherry blossom is forming a confetti carpet.

And now to much more exotic photos.

The framework apparently is a representation of the tomb of a famous Persian person from antiquity and is carried in a procession each year in the town of Yazd.  The hotel he stayed at there can be found here.

The last three were taken at Persepolis.  The earliest remains found there apparently date back to 515BCE.

The last two were taken at Shiraz.  Beautiful aren't they?

Contact with him is still difficult and sporadic, but he seems to be having a wonderful time.

Author Shout Out

Most of you know I am a bookaholic.  A greedy guzzler of books, both fiction and non-fiction and across  most genres.  Here in the blogosphere I have found plenty of other readers, and also writers to tempt my weak-willed self.  R. Mac Wheeler is one of those writers.

He is a prolific and varied writer and has just released his 28th publication.   I really don't know how he does anything else but he does.  He tells me that Timmy needs new crutches and he really needs to sell some books.   

The 28th book in question is Book 3 of the 6 Ways Series  I have read them all, and realised how much I had invested in that reading when I found myself arguing with him about Mar, the protagonist for the series.  Not about the way he had written her - but who she was.   It really is a bit embarrassing when you argue with an author about their creation.

And I still insist that he is wrong.  She isn't even a border-line sociopath.  She cares for way too many people.  She is difficult, and she is certainly damaged by her up-bringing and her experiences but a sociopath or a psychopath (and he has described her as both) she is not.

So, without further ado, here is the blurb about the helter-skelter rides which make up this series.  I hope that some of you will visit him, will read one (or more) of his books - and would be interested to know whether you agree with me, or with him. 

Book 3 of the 6 Ways Series

At eighteen it’s tough to decide a life path when the threat of pandemic hangs over the world, your brother is the genius who engineered the plague, and you’re repeatedly drawn into the fight against the terrorists spreading it. Plenty of people would kill an Abernathy on sight so it would be wise for Mar to visit the dojo, otherwise play invisible, but her brother is manipulating her into another adventure.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015WNJJBU
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/1122714188
Read an excerpt here

If you haven't read Book 1 or 2, and like to start at the beginning...

BOOK 1

Alcoholic parents treated Margarite as an unwelcome stranger, then left her at fourteen with her thirty year old autistic brother. At sixteen, things really sour, thanks to her brother. A medical researcher, Reggie engineers the ultimate plague. Fanatics seek to control him. The government pursues them as terrorists. Margarite witnesses ruthlessness, compassion, and competence she couldn't imagine from her brother, but the world needs a miracle. The best she and Reggie can do is wing it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010E8N0Y0/

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/1122198437
Read an excerpt here

BOOK 2

Nightmares. Panic attacks. Depression. Margarite is hammered by the typical issues of a seventeen year old loner, whose parents sympathized with insane people intending to collapse civilization. The few who care about Mar have more concerns. Her drinking. Fighting. Jumping out of airplanes.

Her brother engineered the plague that’s breaking out across the globe and she holds a little guilt for not stopping it. Or being one of the first to die. Still, conspirators behind what they call The Correction are not done with her.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015WNJJBU

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/1122714188
Read an excerpt here

The Author

R. Mac Wheeler writes about characters with a lot of baggage, men who make many men look like wimps, tough chicks that can whip most men...puts them in situations that push them to the edge...in worlds that don’t overly stretch the imagination.

A former IT professional,  he now focuses full time on suspense, paranormal, science fiction, and fantasy  that leverages the quirkiness and baggage of real life more often than the far fetched.

Visit his Home Page: WWW.RMACWHEELER.COM

Words for Wednesday

The lovely Delores at Under the Porch Light has been running this meme for a considerable period of time, week after week.   Computer issues led her to bow out for a while and I took over.  When Delores' absence looked like being more permanent I begged and cajoled for other volunteers to provide the prompts, and Words for Wednesday became a moveable feast.

In July River from Drifting through Life hosted, Jacqueline at Randomosity in August. During September the challenge has been posted by Susan at the Most - - of Every Moment, and this months prompts were created by Margaret Adamson and her friend Sue, but published here.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write.  Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image.   What we do with those prompts is up to us:  a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...
Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog.  I would really like it if as many people as possible joined into this fun meme.  If you are posting on your own blog - let me know so that I, and other participants, can come along and applaud.

This weeks prompts are:

Balancing

Epic

Caustic

Ubiquitous

Warmth

Film

And/or

Despondent

Publican

Equanimity

Set

Blunder

Gate

 

Sunday Selections #244

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.
 
The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.
 
Like River I usually run with a theme. This week?  I am cheating a bit.

These aren't my photos.  They are ones from the smaller's portions holiday.  Before he left he purchased a global roaming SIM card.  We tested it.  It worked.  In Iran it doesn't.  He can send and receive texts.  No phone calls.

So far he is enjoying himself immensely.  On his first day in Mashad he was sitting at a 'bench looking at my map to see where I was and met a retired artist and his friend.  Had an interesting chat about Iran, they ended up giving me some nice dates and then showed me where the hotel was.  Typical Iranian hospitality'.

I doubt that a foreigner in Australia could expect such kindness. 

The first two photos are from Mashad,

He then moved on to Isfahan.

 Sorry I can't give you any details.  I am a bit surprised at the statues though - not what I expected at all.

This next one came with the notation:  'The river was dry'.  Very dry.

My final photo for the day is completely off topic.  Andrew had a post yesterday where he discussed gooniebags - the bladder from within wine casks.  I mentioned that we have a statue in town which has been given that name, and he asked to see a photo. 

I have seen people blow up the bladder and use them as pillows too.

Tulip Top Gardens 2015

Last week we headed off to Tulip Top Gardens to complete our pilgrimages to celebrate Spring.

Tulip Top Gardens are a little way out of town (and in the next state) and they are open each year at the same time as Floriade.

Both are celebrations of spring.  Both feature tulips by the hundreds.  Both are in spectacular locations.  And they couldn't be more different.

Floriade is free to enter, and is becoming increasingly commercial in nature.

Tulip Tops charges $15 admittance to people over 16 (seniors get a discount of a dollar).  Included in that fee are unlimited cups of tea and coffee and for those who would like it a sausage sandwich (the skinny one had mine as well).

Floriade is a government initiative.

Tulip Top Gardens are the work of a single family - who put over a million bulbs in the ground each year by hand.

I go to both of them each year, but Tulip Top Gardens is first in my heart.  Like Floriade, when we went a lot of things were yet to bloom.  Just the same it was beyond beautiful.

Many, many, many photos follow.  And there are more which I won't inflict on you.  Yet.

Walking down the path to the gardens.

Looking to the right.

Looking to the left.

Looking straight ahead.

Now come wander with me to the waterfall.  Classical music is playing from the trees.  There are frogs in the water way.  The air is perfumed.  Birds are singing, and I came across one gentleman who was saying, wow, wow, wow.  And I wouldn't argue with him.

 

 Still walking, still revelling.

Love those pansy patterns..

To the glorious forsythia avenue, with an underplanting of pansies and violas.

Blossom trees (there are over 1000) and the walk to the lookout which I wonder each year whether I will be able to manage.

The reason I do that walk.

And just a few more shots from the ground again.

I liked those quirky flowers.  They are made of corrugated iron, and similar ones can be commissioned and purchased.

 

How clever that the underplanting of violas went right around the base of the tree.

Do you wonder that I love it?