Herbert Howells was the adjudicator and he awarded me the winning prize telling the audience that he knew Ravel and knew that he would have approved of my interpretation of his composition. You can imagine just how pleased I was at such praise; I was on cloud 9, and I owed it all to Richter.

The weather is beautiful at the moment. Last week we had the rain and now the days are bright, sunny and warm. Of course, the nights are a bit nippy (the temperature went down to 9c last night, but the days are around 24c. Even the daffodils think it is Spring; I took this photo this morning on my back veranda.

We are so lucky living in such a beautiful spot. I have decided to grow some vegetables this year, and to the left of the daffodil, you will see some brown earth peeping through the gap on the railings, and you can possibly just see the green of some English Spinach that I planted last week. The soil is excellent here and almost everything grows.

Opera Shines Despite the Weather

Despite severe inclement weather, Tamborine Mountain's 'Opera on the Mountain' attracted more than 400 patrons, performers and back-up personnel last Sunday at the Cedar Creek Winery Estate.

Tamborine Mountain Resident's Association Opera Chairman, Ian Shepherd said the four-hour non-stop event has already received rave reviews from the media and guests. “Weather reports about the Mountain experiencing a 'storm bomb' on Sunday afternoon really gave us some concern,” Ian said. “We were prepared to relocate the open air event to the local community centre as part of our contingency plan, but we were encouraged to proceed at the initial site by the performers and many supporters.

“The program was certainly the most entertaining in our short five-year history and was definitely the most challenging. It was a success and that is the main issue.” Ian said the local SES crew that carried out a multitude of background opera tasks on the day had spent the previous night searching for a lost hiker in the Lamington Plateau. (She was found early on Sunday morning).

The Tamborine Mountain crew was able to have a quick breakfast before reporting for duty at the opera venue before 10.00am. “The main beneficiaries of the opera profits were the local SES and Rural Fire Brigade. We are very appreciative of the deep and sincere community spirit that runs high on our Mountain and they need our support,” Ian said.

The President of the Tamborine Mountain Resident's Association, Cr Richard Adams and Opera Chairman, Ian Shepherd welcomed the Scenic Rim Regional Council Mayor, Cr John Brent to the 'Opera on the Mountain' last Sunday. It was Cr Brent's first official visit to the Mountain as the Shire Mayor.                                             P. Steinmuller

 Graham and I were asked to film it again this year, but we decided against it as we will be filming the Christmas in July next month which will be quite a feat, as it will entail three full days of filming.  It is put on by the Make a Wish foundation for the little children who may not see the next proper Christmas.  What we will be hoping to do is to film the whole process so that we can give a DVD to the parents.  We feel this is such a worth while occasion and as the two functions were so close in time we decided to forgo the Opera.  As it turned out we certainly made the right decision.

When we arrived at the venue it was quite overcast with rain threatening but as the day progressed the sun came out and as a result my arms became rather badly sunburned; I hadn't even thought about putting on sunscreen.

There was a steady arrival of voters throughout the 3 hours we were there, so there wasn't much opportunity to take advantage of the chairs we had taken along.

Personally I think the whole process of How to Vote cards to be an absolute waste of paper; I realise they are for the purpose of persuading voters who to vote for, not only the person they want to win, but also who to vote for with their preferences. I think that the process of Preferences should be banned; it should be first passed the post and nothing more. With Preferences you might end up with the very person you wouldn't vote for in a fit, and that seems grossly unfair to me.

Here is what was reported in the Brisbane Courier Mail:

ALMOST one-third of Queenslanders did not vote in yesterday's local government elections, according to the Local Government Association of Queensland.

The polls, run for the first time by the Electoral Commission of Queensland, were the first since the State Government's controversial decision to cut the number of councils across the state from 157 to 73.

LGAQ executive director Greg Hallam said today there had been a poor voter turnout."Almost one-third of Queenslanders haven't cast a vote," Mr Hallam told ABC Radio. "Just 70 per cent of Queenslanders actually cast a vote. It might creep up as more come in, but that's down from 85 per cent at the last elections."

President of our group, Warrick, gave a speech and handed out gifts to many of the helpers and we all enjoyed the provided salad lunch.

Following lunch we "went to the movies" in the Howard's converted garage. Warwick Howard used to own the Zamia and he was the first person to show films there, many years ago. He still shows films, however nowadays in his garage, and on this occasion showed a couple of films including a very funny old news reel about life in the Gay '90's followed by a short excerpt from a W. C. Fields film; my word those actors certainly worked hard for their money in those days!

The photo shows one of the actors delighted at receiving her CD presentation pack!

We are all keeping our fingers crossed that the meeting not only goes well, but the Minister will listen favourably to the arguments. John Wittering, the chief scribe amongst us, has produced some excellent documents that have been well constructed. He has looked at the all the pros and cons that had been discussed with the previous Government, who were not at all sympathetic to our cause, nor did they actually acknowledge any of the positives that were put forward, rather they did what politicians are known for and that is ignore what they don't want to discuss and put forward what they do, so it is like having a discussion with someone who speaks a different language.

Regretfully, I am not able to attend, but I am sure the meeting will be in good hands.

That is a male Garden orb-weaver, Eriophora transmarina. This is a common spider and you are likely to be familiar with the female which is just a little larger (especially in the abdomen) and makes very large orb webs mostly at night. She lacks the special patch of spines on the 2^nd leg that he has. The males have this strange habit of suspending themselves by a single strand of silk from eaves and other vantage points with their front legs outstretched. I imagine they are smelling for females (but that is just speculation).

Another place to look for males of this species is as the dead husks left by the females in their webs!

The female looks so different that it isn't surprising we couldn't identify it as the books only tend to show the female; as you will see from this photo, it looks nothing like the one we have.

I have sent some photos to the Queensland Museum asking them if they can identify it, however I haven't heard back from them yet.

Here are the photos:

The performances will take place this coming Friday and Saturday nights and as all the tickets are sold, they should go with a swing. Bernie and his band will be supplying the music and there will be dancing. Graham will be taking photos, however, I won't be able to do any filming, due to being on duty with the catering. All profits will go towards the refurbishing of the Zamia Theatre.

Here is an excerpt from one of the local papers written by one of the volunteers:

"Some great surprises emerged from the ocean of privet and lantana. Among these were a magnificent old-growth red cedar, and a couple of well preserved out-buildings from the Crawford home, which will be preserved. The only occupants of the old toilet block were a surprised brushtail possum mum with her two tiny babies clinging to her back. We left them sleeping.

Tamborine Mountain Rainforest Trust is working closely with Landcare to return this area to its original condition through an intensive program of noxious weed removal and replacement by rainforest species indigenous to the Mountain.

The commitment of so many volunteers to this day indicates the value we all place on the preservation and enhancement of our unique Mountain environment. The range of people involved was interesting.

The project is well-advanced, but the heavily weed-infested area right on the corner of Lahey and Long Roads is the next challenge that will be met in the spring. In the meantime we hope that the rain will continue to push the trees upwards."

Mackay has been severely affected by the floods, although it was interesting to hear an elderly couple say that this was how the weather used to be when they were younger. The photo on the left is from the Courier Mail. Here are more photos.

I remember when I was living here in the .60's hearing how the normal summer weather for Queensland was monsoonal, and all the houses here on Tamborine Mountain have to be built to cyclone standards, although we have never experienced one in the 14 years we have lived here.

The actual meeting today, was certainly not a 'normal' one as is consisted entirely of forum for the five candidates for the position of Mayor for the Gold Coast, including the current Mayor, Ron Clarke (the ex-athlete). Each candidate was given 8 minutes to put forward their proposals and about 15 minutes for Q & A afterwards.

It was only after the meeting that I got an opportunity to discuss my group with some members of the committee and the 410 issue in particular. This AIR branch has around 430 members, although it is not known just how many of those has a 410 visa; it is thought only a few.

Still it all seems quite interesting and I look forward to going to a more normal meeting.

Unfortunately the grass we have to grow here in Queensland has to withstand severe drought as well as rain, so the strongest grass is the worst one in terms of maintenance; it is Couch. I remember in England it was a curse and one always strived to get rid of Couch, and believe me I wish I could here; it is so invasive. I used to have a gardener who came and mowed and weeded for two hours every week, but I decided to do it myself, but as usual other things have taken up my time, and poor Graham can't help because of his sciatica and disc problems. My neighbour has been doing it, only last week he managed to cut his leg with an old rusty water tank he was cutting up, and now he is out of commission for a while.

Well, this isn't getting the gardening done, so will call a halt to this.

Update: 11.00pm. Have just emptied out the rain guage as it was nearly overflowing and there was another 4.5" in it; the frogs are loving this weather!

The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) is planning to remove what is believed to be a freshwater crocodile found swimming in a water hazard at the Willows golf course Thuringowa, outside Townsville.

Regional director Clive Cook says golfers should be cautious.

"If it's a fresh water crocodile they're obviously not quite as dangerous as a salt water, but still with that sort of size it's not something you want to leave in a water hazard on the golf course," he said.

"It might compound the hazard nature of golf."     ABC Queensland