After a day of rearranging furniture yesterday, I knew I needed to go outside and make the most of the fresh air, so I headed to Westerfolds Park.  This is a terrific park, set on the banks of the Yarra Birrarung. The Parks Victoria website describes it as: 'over 120 hectares of recreational and environmental parkland, perfect for picnicking, cycling, jogging and walking.' I have, in fact, done all of those activities there, and today added birdwatching, another of their suggestions. Westerfolds Park  

Gee, how time flies, especially when you're having fun visiting trees and going to writing festivals, and generally fitting in as much as possible in the days. 

Whilst reading 'The Untrained Environmentalist', by John Fenton (Allen & Unwin: 2010), I came across this line, on page 201. He was writing about the formation of 'the Department of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts', in 1971, which later became 'the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.' (I believe it is currently the 'Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water -  DCCEEW' -(Oh, how the government loves acronyms, the gas lighters of modern language... sorry, I do digress).

I'm still working full-time for the next couple of weeks, and then we are heading off on a holiday. But I'm using every spare minute to start my preparations for when the project kicks off. One of the first things I needed to do was to get a compact camera that I can take with me on my daily tree-meeting endeavors. I needed something simple to use and light, as I don't want to spend hours recording the pictures, but I do need to take a good log of the trees I'm meeting. In the end, I settled on an Olympus OM System waterproof camera. I've been reading the manual and trying out all the settings, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it today. I've ordered a simple tripod to take some pictures of the fruits, leaves and intricate little bits and bobs that trees like to produce and drop. 

The story - my last two years.