Our place at random 2016

amber plastic jade shell quartz malacite.

These hardy drought proof plants are enjoyed by butterflies, and form low spreading mats of grey green. Their flowers are insignificant, and are followed by ruby red berries. I noticed they had ripened and falling off. The seeds germinate easily too so I will collect and store some.

On our lounge room window

This tiny jumping spider never took its eyes of me as I did a circuit of the plant trying to get a good view of it. Every time I moved, it moved to, keeping its searchlight eyes trained on me. I was only able to get this shot before it slipped out of view

Johannes Carl Berndt was my grandfather. Arriving from Halle in Saxony with his parents in the 1880s the family assimilated as quickly as possible, dropping the Lutheran faith in favour of Anglicanism and becoming naturalised. J C Berndt sent his sons to a prestigious private school. This cartoon of him appeared in the local Newspaper in 1930. I found it pasted in the family scrapbook. The family began keeping the scrapbook in 1914, and much of it relates to the first world war. He ran a jewellery business in Adelaide for many years. He was a passionate fisherman, an interest he passed on to my father.