A Mixed Bag Of Stories

Just before I post Part 2, of "Brisbane, Where I Live" I thought I'd do this post of a mixed bag of different subjects. In Holtieshouse, Peter did a post called "Let's look at Australia, Part 2 he commented "Do not wear a Hawaiian shirt." and I replied "now then what's that about hawaiian shirts.
Why it was only Thursday I had arranged with the staff at work that Thursday was hawaiian shirt day (for no particular reason) and 85% of the staff showed up wearing something hawaiian.
I must admit I looked pretty good in my hawaiian shirt and sarong (now no smart arse cracks now)". Now just for that here's a photo taken at work that day.






Various bloggers seem to like to either put recipes or photos of food on their posts so why should I be any different. I've always been amused
why Americans call what we say prawns whereas they call them shrimps.
I always thought shrimps were just smaller versions of prawns, but no I was wrong. This week-end I brought myself some prawns and I then boiled some fried rice, added two boiled eggs and four chopped up
mushrooms, then just simmered until all were warm enough to eat.
Waal I took a photo of the prawns, which look very yummy, but not of the result. I hadn't thought of taking a photo of the end result, as I had only intended showing the prawns, thus making those who like prawns...drool!!!!

Shrimp or Prawn?
There is often confusion regarding the difference between a shrimp and a prawn. Physically they look very similar but there is one sure way to tell them apart. In shrimps or carideans the side plate of the second segment of the abdomen overlaps the segments in front and behind. Prawns, most of which belong to the family Penaeidae have all the abdominal side plates overlapping tile-like from the front. It would therefore make sense to call all members of the Penaeidae "prawns" and members of the Caridean "shrimps" and this is what most Australians do. King prawns and banana prawns are names understood in this continent for penaeids sold frozen at the markets. The tiny shrimps bought in cans or frozen are imported carideans. Confusion arises when we hear Americans refer to prawns as "shrimp".

Many blogs ago I did a post called "A Few More Owl Photos & Some Funnies".
When I first moved into this house about twelve months ago, one evening I
heard this scratching noise under the house. Armed with a torch I peered into
where the noise was coming from. What I saw made me rush back upstairs to
get my digital camera and here is what was making the noise.


















First there appeared a tail.................................. Then came part of the head.
















More of the body........................................................................ It's a possum.

One of the possum after climbing up the railing to get onto the roof and then to go into the trees near the house to look for food.

As it turned out there were two possums and they live inside the roof of
the house.They squeeze in between the inner and outer walls of the house
where they sleep during the day and come out at night to forage for food.
They is a lot of wild life in and around our city. One afternoon I arrived
home and getting out of the car I saw a object near the driveway. I went
upstairs and looked out of a window and there was a blue tongued lizard
sunning itself in the hot afternoon sun. It was about twelve inches long.
I grabbed my camera and here's the photo.

Covering the fence right down the side of the house is a hugh display of a
jasmine bush. At this time of the year, spring, all the flowers are in bloom
and the smell is very sweet and almost overpowering


















The view looking along the side of the fence and a close up the flowers.


Another flowering bush which has a huge amount of flowers is the azaleas.

My next door neighbour has a bush/tree that Peter and I are must familiar
with and that is the bougainvillea. A very pretty flowering tree but with lots
of very sharp thorns.

My final story for this post. Today is Pink Day for the Breast Cancer Awareness
Appeal and one is asked to wear something pink. Last Friday I e-mailed
everybody at work to make them aware of Monday (today 23rd October) and
to wear pink (they then all knew what was in store for them with what I would
be going to wear). So today quite a large number of the staff turned up wearing
something pink, be it a dress, blouse, shirt, tie or a pink ribbon. Some brought
morning tea and I asked if when having morning tea to leave a gold coin
(be it a one or two gold dollar coin). All in all we collected $60.00 and this
will be donated to help find a cure for breast cancer.
In Australia 11,500 women are diagnosed each year with Breast Cancer
and yearly unfortunately 2000 women pass away from this disease.

Now you can see either the short photo or the long photo taken today at work.




















Or just the photo with me and Suzie. I'm doing the Cleopatra role lying on the couch (desk) and saying "peel me a grape"
Whenever I've done this before I usually get the same response
"piss off" and today was no execption.