Sweet Wayfaring

The stained glass windows in yesterday's post are in St Matthew's Church in Windsor. The first time I saw this church I remember thinking that its lovely simplicity was exactly like a Francis Greenway building. It turns out, Francis Greenway a convict architect from the early days of the colony, was the architect of this building. Photo: St Matthews Church, Windsor This is a repost to participate in this week's taphophile tragics .  The original post was about the church but when looking back through past posts that suit the meme I realised the church also has a graveyard.

It is Anzac Day -- for me always a mixture of church-like solemnity and celebration. Photo: St Matthew's Church, Windsor Musing: They read from this Psalm at the Anzac Day dawn service at Gallipoli today Psalm 139 from the Holy Bible English Stardard Version "O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether."

Here's the view from the farmhouse. Photo: Farmland near Windsor

Photo: Old House, Richmond/Windsor This wonderful old house is on the farmland out from Windsor or Richmond. I can't remember which as it is an old photo. Who knows, it may be restored to its former beauty today, or maybe abandoned by now. Musing: Abandoned Farmhouse by Ted Kooser "He was a big man, says the size of his shoes on a pile of broken dishes by the house; a tall man too, says the length of the bed in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man, says the Bible with a broken back on the floor below the window, dusty with sun; but not a man for farming, say the fields cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn. A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves covered with oilcloth, and they had a child, says the sandbox made from a tractor tire. Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole. And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames. It was lonely here, says the

The stone angel at the Catholic Church at Kurrajong forever looks over picturesque undulating farmland that seems to roll on forever. Musing: By Emily Dickenson "This world is not conclusion; A sequel stands beyond, Invisible, as music, But positive, as sound. It beckons and it baffles; Philosophies don’t know, And through a riddle, at the last, Sagacity must go. To guess it puzzles scholars; To gain it, men have shown Contempt of generations, And crucifixion known." This is a repost to participate in the   Taphophile Tragics   meme.  V isit there for a wondrous variety of graveyards.

We spent last weekend at Kurrajong which is at the foothills of the Blue Mountains ... quite close to home but with a great gaping valley between us is a longish drive away. After going down the mountains and then turning to climb back up into the hills we encounter the river at the border of the mountains. I have written of the beautiful Nepean River in my Blue Mountains Journal. The interesting thing is that this is the same river but somewhere about here it changes its name to the Hawkesbury and keeps that name as it meanders down to the sea. Photo: Hawkesbury River, taken from Richmond Bridge Musing: Composed upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth "Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the sm

Is this a picture of the duck or the water? Photo: Duck pond, Botanical Gardens, Sydney Musing: The Duck by Ogden Nash "Behold the duck. It does not cluck. A cluck it lacks. It quacks. It is specially fond Of a puddle or pond. When it dines or sups, It bottoms ups."

With all the visitors I am not getting much Wayfaring done at the moment so will explore a little more of Sydney before moving onto new places. The Botanical Gardens have a spectacular location by the sparkling habour, right where the great city of Sydney started. Photo: Sculptural detail, Botanical Gardens, Sydney Musing: From Flower Poem by A.D. Hope "Not this cut flower but the entire plant Achieves its miracle from soil and wind, Rooted in dung, dirt,dead men's bones; the scent And glory not in themselves an end; the end: Fresh seeding in some other dirty mind, The ache of its mysterious event"

I think this seed pod is from one of the very showwy grevillia flowers that were blooming at Balls Head Reserve. Its shape is quite lovely.

Photo: Fig, Balls Head Reserve Musing: From Creeper Habit by Les Murray "On Bennelong Point a two-dimensional tree drapes the rock cutting ... The tree has height and extent but no roundness. Cramponned in cracks it branches twine and utter coated leaves."

We were in Sydney attending a wedding this weekend. On a sparkling bright autumn day by the harbour it is impossible for me to not love this city's heart. Photo: Sydney Harbour from Balls Head Reserve Musing: From Sydney by Geoffrey Moorhouse "Anthony Trollope came as near as possible to getting it right when he wrote, 'I despair of being able to convey to any reader my own idea of the beauty of Sydney Harbour. I have seen nothing equal to it in the way of land locked sea scenary, nothing second to it ... It is so inexpressably lovely that is makes a man ask himself whether it would not be worth his while to move his household goods to the eastern coast of Australia, in order that he might look at it as long as he can look at anything.' Trollope wrote that something over one hundred years ago, and I know exactly how he felt. Much has changed in the years between, but not that instant recognition of inexpressible loveliness which man astonishingly, has not yet destro

We ended that trip to the central coast with a night at at quiet country get-away. Musing: The Cow from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses "The friendly cow all red and white, I love with all my heart: She gives me cream with all her might, To eat with apple-tart. She wanders lowing here and there, And yet she cannot stray, All in the pleasant open air, The pleasant light of day. And blown by the winds that pass And wet with all the showers, She walks among the meadow grass And eats the meadow flowers."

I was thrilled when I saw this field of trees in regimented rows. I imagined myself taking one of those perfect images I've seen in photography books -- everything aligned and disappearing to a perfect vanishing point. Instead I ended up with this imperfection. Musing: From The Poems of Our Climate by Wallace Stevens "Clear water in a brilliant bowl, Pink and white carnations. The light In the room more like a snowy air, Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow At the end of winter when afternoons return. Pink and white carnations - one desires So much more than that ... There would still remain the never-resting mind, So that one would want to escape, come back To what had been so long composed. The imperfect is our paradise."