Etegami, etegami, etegami...Not a Royal wedding in sight!

The mailbox has been very good to me the last few days and I have a heap of interesting stuff to show you. Before that let me say that my last etegami was a bit of a FAIL. I am still having trouble mastering the colour application using the gansai paint on what is akin to blotting paper. I  think I was displaying a fair amount of hubris when I ordered the postcards with maximum 'nijimi' or absorbency as it is probably beyond my skill level. I am pushing on though and in the interests of not posting only my successes, the above is my latest attempt which did not go so well.

Contrast that with this one from the excellent Debbie (DosankoDebbie) which arrived yesterday. Beautiful. The subject is soramame or broadbeans commonly called in Japan 'skybeans' as they have the appearance of looking skyward. Isn' the green ravishing?
Just coincidentally when in Japan five years ago I bought a set of chopstick rests that are the absolute image of these, I do like the colour.

More tomorrow on the contents of my mailbox and why I am on a government watchlist........

Raining etegami

What is it they say? 'It never rains but it pours'? Well after an etegami 'drought' I have managed three in two days.
It is the Easter break here and life has  wound down for most people. Good Friday is the one holiday that people seem to treat with some respect, almost all of the shops are closed and folk spend the time with their friends and family or doing etegami. LOL.
Traditionally it has been a time to tidy up around the house, do those little DIY jobs and paint sales go through the roof prior to the long weekend. In the spirit of home renovation we have decided to replace the silicon joints between the wall and our hand basins, riveting stuff eh?

Gardening and harvesting our chokos (enough for us and the neighbours) prompted the first etegami.

The wombat seemed to be  a good subject to follow in my series of Australian birds and animals, the only wombat I can see locally (they are nocturnal) is in a cage at the local wildlife park, a grumpy chap he really would not make a good substitute for the Easter bunny though I am sure a chocolate one would be better than the Easter Bilby, another Australian animal pushing for that role.

You have to admit they are pretty cute in a lumbering kind of way.
(For a good explanation of etegami go to DosankoDebbie's blog in my blog list.)

Cockatoo etegami and maybe a haiku?

A couple of attempts to 'capture' a Sulphur Crested white cockatoo. They always seem to herald winter to me as they are most noticeable against a dark stormy sky. Flocks of them fly over screeching in their raucous voices, announcing their presence. Sometimes it seems they just do it for the hell of it!

Cockatoos are a long lived bird and very intelligent (as birds go), it pains me to see them caged and solitary as they are very gregarious and mate for life which can be many decades long. Cockatoos are frequently inherited after they outlive their original owners. any caged bird is an abomination to me but I guess they do give the people who own them some pleasure.
The words are meant to be a haiku, a Japanese form of poetry, short, 17 syllables (in Japanese) and evocative rather than descriptive I think....a first attempt.

Lazy Sunday

My garden is having a late spurt of growth and today it was 27 degrees C, I just had to get out and take some photos,something to look at when I move to the aged care facility! Can you see the chicken topiary in the second urn? The plant in front is a Tree Dahlia which should be flowering in a couple of weeks, the gorgeous mauve single flowers last only a day but repeat down the stem.
 The first urn in my front garden has a beautiful blue grey succulent which is as tough as old boots, it is surrounded by gardenia, a tricky one to grow in our magnesium deficient soils.
I am really loving the Japanese box topiary in the front garden, The inspiration came from a temple garden in Kyoto where they were grown in a large plot in lines.
The Japanese Anemones are the best this year and can be a bit weedy, they suffer in dry times but bounce back very quickly with a bit of water. Why do I have so many Japanese plants?
At the moment we are having a storm, almost like Summer and the smell is so typical of a summer storm,   dust mingled with nostalgia.
Tomorrow we are promised Autumn!

That's a bit Goth for you Mum!

Lol, that's my son's reaction when he saw this brooch that I bought  from a Brisbane girl on Etsy, can't copy the link so if you are interested in her work just Google Catamation on Etsy and it will take you to her shop.

It came in this cool handmade box as well. Even though I have been interested in origami since I bought my first Robert Harbin paperback in the early 70's there is no way I could do this level of intricacy.
Re my son's comment, it is nice to be at a time in life when being unpredictable is a bonus!

Life goes on...

The mail gets through, tick tock, tick tock...daylight saving ends tonight, we shall be woken up in the light and go to bed in the dark..life goes on.
After a week dealing with minor family crises I finally got the chance to 'etegami' the gorgeous windflowers in my garden, they are rather ephemeral so I took the chance to paint them while the Prof was disporting himself at the local sports club.

I tried tracing over my original drawing and reproducing it with a different line from the same poem, which do you like? As usual I like the image on one and the words on the other Doh!
Received mailart this week was from 'Senior' always a delight to get mail from him. This time the envelope was just as wonderful as the contents.
The etegami is in response to one I sent him saying that I wanted to see the cherry blossoms (Sakura) and he made me this wonderfully abstract card.
I am so envious as my work invariably becomes too literal, I do so admire people who can loosen up.

Told you it was fabulous.!

Still watching ...

Yes still watching the unfolding drama in Japan, all of those nuclear power enthusiasts must surely be taking a second look at the idea that it is a good way to go?
Thankfully we are nuclear free here in Australia even if we do contribute massively to the global coal fired power station mess with our exports. There has been a growing push to re-examine the nuclear option, possibly as an alternative to any tax that may be put on us as polluters. I think I will be dusting off my 'FlowerPower" beads and placards stowed away since the Seventies to hit the streets if there is even a hint that we build nuclear power stations . And here I thought that I could decline into a sedate old age!

I received this postcard from my friend Fumiko and it really brought home how worrying the situation is for people living in the shadow of a potential nuclear disaster.

The statistics on refugees are even greater in the last few days

Every time I sit down to do some painting of a vaguely 'Japanese' subject like the persimmons I wanted to paint for an Autumn etegami, the crisis insinuates itself into my thoughts.

I do really hope there is a rainbow waiting for the Japanese people at the end of this dark night.

Does posterity (or the internet) care?

I've thought long and hard about talking about my health issues on this blog but here goes, just for posterity! My problem for those of you who are interested, is a lung condition called bronchiectasis, (it is similar to cystic fibrosis) acquired as an infant through ingesting a mercury compound in a teething preparation. Basically my lungs cannot clear mucus and this leads to infections, lowered immunity etc.,etc.
My last stint in hospital was only seven weeks ago so I was disappointed to be back in so soon despite doing everything right
After a week in hospital on two intravenous antibiotics and one inhaled antibiotic I have been sent home on the "Out and About" program where you basically self administer the drugs. Hopefully this phase will last for a week and then life will get back to normal just doing my regular therapies and not the intravenous ones.

My day is thus...I get up in the morning to greet my  "Cough Assist", (you too could have one of these for the paltry sum of $10,000)  this is simply a vacuum cleaner for the lungs....don't even try to visualize it! My first reaction on using it was to think my lungs might be sucked out into the tube LOL.

Then I nebulize an antibiotic and hypertonic saline separately, that takes about 40 minutes, I do this at least three times a day.
The next step three times a day is to give myself a bolus or 'push' of antibiotic into the vein (more about that later, you still with me?) and following that I have puffers (2) and nasal sprays (2). PHEW! I' m getting exhausted just writing about it.

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Then comes the big daddy, once a day I change the 'Baxter bottle" which contains the third antibiotic in an infusion into the vein near my heart. Fortunately for the last  5 years I have had an implanted device that allows direct access to my veins as there was no more easy access to be had. The aforementioned bolus goes into this line as well.
Okay so that's my life at the present. The other issue is to try to regain a bit of fitness after lolling around for weeks but that will come slowly. Strangely I remain cheerful and I count my blessings every day. (Pollyanna!).
PS Just be pleased I didn't have a colonoscopy.

Back home and happy about it!

Back home this AM and as usual astounded to see the growth in my garden (those things that have survived the tender ministrations of the Prof that is) , I can't help posting a few of my indifferent wobbly snaps, just for the hell of it! This one is for you Debbie, an even more exotic frangipani. It  is in a pot by the pond.
The waterlily is actually blue but the sunshine was so brilliant in between light showers of rain that it washed out all of the colour.

The lotus seed head has already dropped seed into the pond, I wonder if it will grow? They are notoriously difficult to grow from seed but they run like crazy. The bougainvillea is a fairly common type but always good value.
Tomorrow when I have gathered my wits a bit I'll regale you with a glimpse of my life as a 'not so patient' patient....can't wait for that!

Etegami from Japan.

I received these etegami a while ago from Japan, the first one from Fumiko is a beautiful papercut depicting a monster who goes from house to house asking if the kids are behaving themselves and extracting a promise from them to be good. A bit more in your face than the old "Santa Claus won't give you any presents if you are naughty! Apparently folk will dress up in monster costumes and scare the pants off the kids, how seriously they take it I don't know but it would have scared me.
It seems the monsters have been stirring in the earth in Japan. The scale of the earthquake and tsunami devastation is hard to grasp.

The second one is a wee bit less scary and sent by DosankoDebbie . It was made as a Valentine's card, beautiful and inventive as always. Debbie sells her work through her Etsy shop which can be accessed through her blog (see sidebar).
I will be off the radar again from tomorrow, back to the Five Star Resort on the hill (otherwise known as the hospital) for a few days or maybe two weeks however it pans out but keep those cards and letters (and comments) coming folks.