short wheel base

This is the view from our apartment on a hot August afternoon. The fact that there are almost no cars on the street can only be due to the majority of the population being on holiday. I can assure you there are plenty now!

Since we arrived I have had a fascination with les voitures (that means 'cars'). Perhaps it is all part of the culture shock after living for 3 1/2 years in places where AWD/4WD vehicles are almost essential. Or maybe it is just one of the adjustment processes that we are experiencing.

Apart from the ferraris, porsches, mustangs and jags on the streets here, there are a myriad of small cars, ranging from the swift and sporty to funky fiats to the almost ridiculous smart car. Here are a few photos from around town.

The smart car makes me giggle, and when driven at speed around a bend it looks challenging to keep four wheels on the road! I have even seen a convertible smart car - but didn't get a photo of that one. We've decided that our favourite is the fiat, but I am also paticularly fond of the mini coopers that are very popular here too.

The small cars do make alot of sense around the city where petrol is twice the price of that down-under and parking is at a premium. Last week I observed a car wedged between two others in a parallel park with approximately 6 inches clearance at the front and one inch at the back. But the real reason I suspect for the proliferation of such tiny vehicles, are the narrow city streets - yes they do drive up these!

First impressions

Finally the many months of moving are over and we have been in Luxembourg for two weeks, and in our flat for 10 days. We have waded through a mountain of paperwork and feel as if we can finally get on with the business of settling in. It almost seems surreal, living in this very old city.

First impressions are: 1. Lovely warm summer days and lots of green trees and parks to provide quiet and shade. Apparently 60% of Luxembourg is covered in forest;
2. Extraordinary prices on almost everything that make us very thankful we bought warm clothes downunder and keep us eating at home when it seems everyone else is sitting in quaint sidewalk cafes;

3. Extremely well behaved dogs that go everywhere with their owners - including a labrador in the china shop (V&B of all places), a greyhound in a shoe shop and very cute purse-size doggies!;

4. An incredible diversity of cultures and languages, such that it seems we are the only ones that speak one language fluently; most people in the city would speak a minimum of luxembourgish, french, german, and many speak english, dutch or portuguese as well, possibly italian;

5. More of what we down-underlings would class as luxury vehicles than we have ever seen in one place, to the extent that it takes a ferrari to generate minor excitement. Mercedes are as common as Toyota's. Even we drive an Audi - albeit a somewhat scratched 1997 version. More on cars in another post.

Apparently 'most' of luxembourg is on holiday for another week yet, so after that we will really see what life is like and how busy the streets are. However, we have already been to Belgium and Germany (just across the border at any rate).

a few of my favourite things

Wherever we live, there are always a few things that become my favourites. Of course such things can vary widely from place to place, ranging from food treats, to stunning views, to old buildings or special shops. Living in far north Queensland has been no exception. Here, I have three favourite things, and they are all places. First place probably goes to Lake Barrine, east of Atherton.

Lake Barrine is a picture perfect crater lake of crystal clear water hemmed in by dense rainforest. There is a quaint old tea house that serves Devonshire tea overlooking the water. Immaculate gardens flow down the hill to the water’s edge and overflow with Ulysses and Cairns Bird-wing butterflies in the wet season when the Calliandra and Claradendron are in flower. We hunt through bunches of Bromiliads looking for frogs. We walk the 5km lake circuit to see birds, and a couple of times we have taken the boat tour around the lake to view the snapping turtles, eels, water dragons, pythons and more birds.

My second favourite place is the Skybury coffee plantation west of Mareeba. From the huge café there is a spectacular view east across the tablelands. The coffee is good, and there are always lots of birds to watch, if not a wallaby or two. I could sit and look for hours here. Contemplate life. Watch storm clouds roll in, or out. I've often thought I would love a house right on this spot. In April we watched a great bower bird rearranging the bright pink bling decorating his substantial bower. That pink peg has to sit in just the right place. That red plastic ribbon must fall just so. It was quite a sight seeing his efforts to attract a mate.



My other favourite place is the Daintree Rainforest, about 1.5hrs north of Cairns. The Daintree is a luxury rainforest – the kind that you can’t even walk in because it is so thick with vines and prickly things you are better off not touching. Here the rainforest pours down mountains until it crashes into the sea and both are spectacular. They have carefully constructed boardwalks through the forest in places so that you can view it safely. At first I found this somewhat disappointing, as a keen bush trekker, but on considering some bush crashing I soon understood why the boardwalks are a good idea for both me and the bush.

On our last visit we even watched a cassowary having a bath, but I may have mentioned that before. I love all the tropical plants, the heat, the colours, the humidity, the feeling of it all. And of course the icecream place that uses unusual tropical fruits like sapote for a yummy icy cold treat.

Leaving behind favourite things is sad, but it opens the door to find new favourite things in a new place. It is the same with faces. Another voyage of discovery awaits us.

Metamorphosis – Change – Transformation - Metamorphoō

Some orange-eyed tree frog (xanthamera) tadpoles where in our backyard this wet season and so I had the privilege of watching them transform from tadpoles to frogs. Trying to document changes is tricky, they can occur quite suddenly, causing you to miss them. One day the tadpoles have no legs, and the next, they do. Even when they finally emerge from the water, change is still occurring as they finally take on their adult shape and colourings. The emergent frog can look very different to its final form, as is the case with this xanthamera.

Even though change is occurring from tadpole to frog, it still has the same DNA. It is still the same animal! A different form means different abilities and activities, but being the same animal, it has the same ultimate goal or purpose.

We too are about to embark on yet another change as we move from sunny far north Queensland to Luxembourg. Change isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and it isn’t exactly ours either. Change is stressful. Change can also be detrimental. We heard recently that up to 90% of a plant’s roots die when it is transplanted from one place to another. We had a beautiful orchard butterfly lay eggs on our mandarin tree in January. The caterpillars grew and transformed into chrysalis’. Attacked by parasites, they never survived this stage, and so never became butterflies.

Some people have told us that it is easy for us to change, that we don’t have kids or responsibilities such as a mortgage. They couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s just that we are willing to change; Willing to not hold onto the past and to go back to the beginning. Willing to let go of familiarity and share ourselves with someone new at our own expense.

Similar to the orchard butterfly, we are vulnerable. Similar to the frog, our whole lifestyle will change in Luxembourg and we will function differently. Similar to a plant, we will make a loss and parts of us will die during the change. We do not relish change and often wish that we could remain planted in familiar soil. Change, however, is what we have been called to do. We look forward to Luxembourg for the new things we will experience. We will not dwell on the losses.
So life for us at the moment is all about researching shipping companies (again), learning French, and making the most of our last few months in this stunning part of the world.

Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a servant and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God. He was even willing to die, yes, even to die on a cross. Philippians 2:6-8

Vacation Time

What do you like to do on vacation? For me it is a jigsaw or two. With family helping this year we managed to get through 6 of them. we even did one of the MillaMilla falls which are from around here. A particularly fun series was from the Americana paintings by Charles Wysocki.

Once the family left it was time for a little hiking and looking for wildlife, although it were the leeches who found us!

Here is a Litoria xanthomera (Orange-eyed tree frog) and a little dragon (Diporiphora).

The rains have come in fervour this year. There has been some flooding around and about but nothing that has caused any problems for us.

Christmas at our place

Well this is the first time in 15 years that we have had Christmas at our place! So this is a big deal for us. In celebration we have gone all out and found a real Christmas tree - a caribbean pine with very long needles, but it seems suited to the climate up here.

We have family coming from Perth, Nelson, Cochabamba and Dublin, so we are very excited. Phil has been very busy with his "nursery' of plants in our tiny back yard, and has even put up a platform for the bird feeder, which keeps falling into the neighbours yard every time we get strong winds. Here you can see a white cheeked Honey-eater feeding while the Lewins Honey-eater waits patiently for him to finish.

The wet season has started along with thunder storms and we recently discovered that lightning is nitrogen fixing, which is partly why the grass seems to have grown about 10cm in the last week! It has been very hot and humid, and we have been loving it.

I have finished yet another quilt (on the wall below) and have had to pack away all my sewing gear to make room for family to stay.

Finally, what are we getting for Christmas? A weber bbq! We have been doing trial runs to make sure that we know how to use it effectively. We have already cooked steak, a roast chicken and a leg of lamb and are very happy with the results.

So that is it from us - Happy Christmas everyone! May you find time to reflect on the reason for the season.