Aussie Bloggers

As much as I enjoy blogging leaving it behind for a few days for a winter break with the family is even more appealing, We are not wandering far and the weather may be cool but a cosy house among bushy hills, close to the ocean is certainly appealing. My two boys are now grown and, although still living at home, tend to go their own ways, even within the house; usually to their TVs or PC’s. Our paths often only cross at feeding times.

This weekend we are going to have our “quality time together” winter break. Winter is good time for us to go away together as we are more inclined to stay together in front of roaring open fire, chatting and playing card and board games and go for the occasional bracing walk by the sea..

Living relatively close to the busy city of Melbourne I sometimes dream of residing somewhere less crowded and closer to sea and mountain..Next week I will be living in the area I would choose to live, if it were practical; a part of the Mornington Peninsula just outside of Melbourne that I didn’t discover until years after I started living in here. Travelling by the highway I always bypassed these coastal areas of Mount Eliza, Mornington and Mount Martha.. It reminds me very much of the upper north shore of Sydney where I used to live. Being city girl born and bred my ideal location is not somewhere rural but rolling hills, rugged coastline, and a beach on every cove and at least a good smattering of houses

photo by Long Zheng

www.visitmorningtonpeninsula.org

Apart from the sea the 17 different Markets held throughout the month, Australia’s largest antique centre with art and craft galleries coffee shops and restaurants galore are very appealing. If this leaves you unimpressed there are also over 200 vineyards, 18 golf courses and you can take a swim with seals and dolphins. It is not far to the metropolis to get an occasional hit of large shopping malls or far from open countryside and the quiet surf beaches to completely get away from it all. Of course the skies are not always as blue as in these photos but you can’t have it all and nowadays, unlike when younger, being close to family is more important to me than living in more exotic locations.

It seems I cannot completely get away from the subject of blogging as I want to let know about a new Flickr browsing site I came across last week, CompFight ; which I used while searching for images for this post..It is a definite time saver as you do not have to use Flickr’s advanced search features to produce the results you want and more thumbnails per page are displayed.. Type in a keyword and the results are displayed via quick loading thumbnail images. Hover over these images and the pixel size of the full image is displayed. If the keyword does not provide you with what you want then you can do a text search. A particularly useful feature is being able to search for Creative Commons images only, so that you can be assured that you are not breaching copyright if including images in blogs. The image below shows the site’s search box - with the options available to you below.

Where would your ideal place to live be if you had the choice?