P365 - Day 322 - here be dragons (eggs)

A while very long time ago, Juniordwarf and I met up with the fabulous Kim from frogpondsrock to create some dragons eggs. 

One of the highlights of that day was walking through the bush and finding the huge eggs that Kim had made for the event and hidden in the bush for people to find. Here are some of the fantastic eggs that Kim created.

Unfortunately, some people decided to help themselves to the eggs, and several of them went missing, which was a very disappointing end to a fun day.

Kim very kindly offered to give me the sculpture that I had featured on my blog post about the event and I was thrilled that she’d offered it to me. 

I had an idea that it would go very nicely in the little sanctuary part of my garden that I’ve set aside just for me and my herbs.

It was just a matter of organising to catch up with Kim and picking it up, together with the dragon eggs that Juniordwarf and I had made in February, after Kim had fired them in her kiln (or, as Juniordwarf thought, killed them in the fire).

Well making a time to meet took longer than expected, but after a couple of false starts, today we finally organised to meet Kim at the Off Centre Gallery, in the Salamanca Arts Centre,  where Kim and a group of ceramics and glass artists display and sell their work.

I didn’t have much of a chance to take much in at the gallery, but I’ll be sure to go back in the next couple of weeks when I don’t have to keep a watchful eye on the small person, so that I can have a good look at everything. From this brief visit, it looks like there is a lot of beautiful work in there.

Juniordwarf had been looking forward to getting his egg from Kim for months, and he was so excited to find out we’d be going to get it today. 

He asked Kim whether it was going to hatch, and when we got home, the first thing he did was sit his little dragon on his egg to hatch it.

That approach being unsuccessful, a couple of hours later, he decided that he’d have to sit on it to make it hatch.

You have to admire his persistence!

I’m very excited about having a feature piece to put in my herb garden. I feel very inspired to get out there and make it all happen. Now if I can just manage a couple of days off work to spend in the garden, I might start to make some progress.

And thank you again Kim, for your very generous gift. 

P365 - Day 235 - here be dragons

A few years ago, Slabs and I watched the movie based on the book Eragon. I didn’t think much of the movie, but had a feeling that the book (or books – it’s a trilogy, with the fourth bok due out sometimes later this year – apparently there was too much to fit into the third one, so it turned into a quadrilogy) might be somewhat more enjoyable.

It was, but Slabs told me there were better books about dragons around.

That year for my birthday, one of my presents was Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey, the first of a series of books about the Dragonriders of the planet Pern. Dragonflight was published in 1968, and the series is still going strong, with Ms McCaffrey’s son Todd writing (and co-writing with her) some of the more recent books.

I loved it, and had to read the next in the series, and the next and the next. Fortunately the State Library has all of the books, so I’ve been able to borrow them as I’ve been ready to read them (or as quickly as the library can get them to me).

I found this reading list that lists all the books (up to 2008) both in publication order (which is the order that Ms McCaffrey suggests they be read in) and in chronological order, which is the rough order I read them in, once I’d read most of the books that followed on from Dragonflight.

I finally finished the last book, which was written by Todd McCaffrey and released in 2010, late last year.

After that, I felt a bit lost without any more new dragon stories to look forward to, so I was very excited to find out that a new book, Dragon’s Time, written by both McCaffreys, would be released this year.

As soon as it was available to order at the library, I put a hold on it, and today I finally picked it up. I can’t wait to read it!

P365 - Day 26 dragon

What else do little kids do on Australia Day but go to family days out and get their faces painted?

Stop it with the photos, Mum!

juniordwarf is quite into dragons at the moment, so that's what he wanted painted on his face. 

Reflective dragon

He’s a big fan of Shrek and he loves the scene where the donkey is trying to get away from the dragon. I think his favourite bit from that scene is where the dragon roars, so he loves to roar like a dragon.

Dragon roar!