the old and the new

This blog is now virtually superseded. I'll probably post on it from time to time, but my main blog is now part of my website is god real?

If you want to read any more from me, please try the is god real blog.

Thanks for your interest!

the last post?

Photo: Australian Government

I started this blog almost two years ago, as an experiment. I've made 150+ posts in two years, which is 1-2 per week. It's been fun, I've learnt a lot (both about blogging and from the research I've done to prepare the posts) and I've had some interesting comments.

But I think I've run my race. There are supposedly a hundred million blogs out there, so what distinguishes mine to make it interesting to anyone?

So this may be the last post. I will leave the blog online for a while, because people still find their way to it from the search engines, and because it contans some information useful to me. And if something moves me enough, I may post on it. But don't hold your breath.

So if anyone reads this, and for those who've visited over the two years, thanks for reading and best wishes.

a prettyish kind of a little wilderness

We live on a small suburban block with a main road behind. But there are plenty of trees around and we have retained as many as we can. So we attract some wildlife .....

Our yard.

Rainbow lorikeets - loud, sassy and generally fearless.

Sulphur crested cockatoos - comical, persistent and messy eaters.

Eastern rosellas - shy and only rarely seen.

Crimson rosellas - also shy and not commonly seen.

Pigeons and doves - I don't really know the difference.

And my favourite, the magnificent and gentle king parrot.

With so many different birds, there are bound to be the occasional problem, such as a messy deck, and the occasional fight. Here two rosellas face up to an aggressive noisy miner.

And there's not just birds, but spiders ....

..... autumn leaves .....

..... and possums. This old brushtail mother possum was so blind she came out in daylight. She successfully reared a succession of babies until she died recently.

When I was a boy, living not far from here, there were few trees and most of the birds were small - sparrows, blue wrens, silvereyes and willie wagtails. But in recent years, the drought and the increased number of trees have brought the bigger birds into the suburbs.

There are organisations which can help us make our gardens more friendly for native birds, especially the smaller ones, such as finches, pardalotes and wrens. You can check them out - Birds Australia, Flora for Fauna, and Backyard Buddies.

beautiful scotland (and northern england)

Holiday photos aren't really the purpose of this blog, but I can't resist sharing these. (The pictures are small so they loader quicker, but you can see a slightly larger version by clicking on each photo.)

The Lakes District (Cumbria) on a frosty morning.

The waterfront at Portree on the Isle of Skye.

Thirlmere in Cumbria.

Coniston Water (Cumbria) - the house is Bank Ground Farm, the model for
"Holly Howe" in Arthur Ransome's well-loved "Swallows and Amazons" books.

Eilean Donan castle overlooking Loch Alsh.

The stark beauty of Skye - you can just make out a remote farmhouse dwarfed by the mountains.

600 year old building in the walled city of York.

The 17th century harbour at Portsoy on the north coast of Scotland.

Many neolithic (around 4000 years ago) stone monuments remain in Scotland,
including this burial cairn and standing stone near Inverness.

The village of Crovie on the north coast of Scotland - established as a fishing
village during the "highland clearances" in the eighteenth century, when the
conquering English forced many Scottish farmers off their land. But it is not
suitable for modern fishing, and is now a remote holiday village.

Windswept Iona.

where's that wally, unkle e?

I'll be away from my computer for a little while, so blogging is unlikely. Back in a few weeks, maybe tell you about it all then. Ciao.

a smoother pebble or a prettier shell

"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Isaac Newton

inner and outer space is one person's response to the "great ocean of truth" that lies before us all. There is so much I would love to know about and explore, but realistically, I must settle for pebbles and shells. Here aresome of the smoother pebbles and prettier shells I will be diverting myself with:

• the latest discoveries in the amazing cosmos in which we live,
• the human brain and the mystery of consciousness and free will,
• human society - the good, the bad and the ugly; the serious and the silly,
• the world around us and how it works together to sustain itself, if we will only let it,
• the spiritual - God, Jesus and the alternatives.

That should keep me going for a while! If you too would enjoy such explorations, I'd love you to join in.