The view from here

For quite a few months now I've been meaning to share some photos of the area in which I live. I love seeing the working spaces and surroundings where creative people live, I find it very inspiring. Maybe it's something to do with seeing these artists and creatives in such normal surroundings, it helps me to remember that these amazing people are just people! While of course they have, no doubt, incredible natural skills, they have also gotten where they are through hard work and perseverance and so this makes me think that maybe I can get there too :)
Anyhoo, while I haven't really taken any photos of inside my house and studio yet (it's a very dark little house and I'm not the best photographer....) these are ones of the surrounding area of Glen Iris. I really am loving it here at the moment - we are still so close to the centre of Melbourne but with all the parks and bushland walks around here you can almost fool yourself that your out in the country (well, apart from the distant hum of the freeway!)
And I love the fact that there is wildlife around here! I love that I wake up to birdsong these days instead of traffic....
And so many birds - there's the common cheeky magpies and pigeons but also wrens, cockatoos, galahs, ducks, parrots and lorrikeets... and spooky, silent bats that float by at dusk.....and soooo many possums! Most of our neighbours really dislike them - they can make an awful amount of noise at night and can make a mess of trees and gardens, but I love them :)
Although admittedly we don't have any trying to nest in our roof or pooping on our driveway so maybe I'd change my mind if that was the case, hehe!
But I love sneaking out the back door at night time and catching them staring back at me from the fence, most of the time not scared at all, just watchful.
And the size of some of them! There was a brushtail possum as big as a cat out there the other
night!

Unfortunately our dog Jools has also discovered them...and she can be quite obsessed. A couple of weeks ago she actually managed to catch one! I couldn't believe it! Here I was thinking she was trying to catch mice in the undergrowth as she often does with no success and there was the fact that it wasn't even close to dusk, until i heard the squeeks and realized what was going on...!! Then I became this screaming, yelling, hitting banshee and thank goodness she dropped the creature and I was able to pull her away and managed to tie her to a tree. The poor wee little mite was just a baby and I found it shivering in the undergrowth with clumps of fur missing and covered in wetness which at the time I thought was blood but afterward realized was just saliva.
So I picked it up and wrapped it in my jumper and we took it off to the vet thinking that at least they could put it to sleep and save it from a lingering, painful death.
But yay! I rang back the next day and the little guy was fine! So happy to know that our Jools isn't a possum killer, phew! She obviously didn't know what to do with it once she had caught it and didn't clamp her jaws down. I hope she never learns! (it was such a disturbing sight seeing her standing there with tiny little possum feet sticking out from either side of her mouth, waving slowly in their struggles - urgg!)
So we picked up the little fellow from the vet and popped him back in his tree, and were overjoyed to see his mother and him staring down at us a few moments later! So beautiful!
Every time I pass that tree I look out for them but I haven't seen them since. I hope they are both still ok... but i guess I'll never know.

So here we go - I'm a bit slow -these were taken a few months ago in winter.
Now the trees are swimming in green and there's a completely different feel to the air. But it gives an idea of the lay of the land at least. And of course my silly little fur moppet :P