We have two rambutan trees in our backyard. They fruit every year, and I think this is the best year ever…
3
I spent a couple of wonderful days up on Penang Island with friends, staying at the gorgeous intimate Hotel Penaga, attending the Georgetown Literary Festival. Stimulating, interesting festival, good company, fantastic food and, well…Penang.
 |
| In the morning market. The seller is telling us you have to come early for the pork! |
 |
| Clan jetty, airing the bedding… |
What can you say about Penang? History writ large in every street, in its graveyards and its buildings and its port. Yes, there are signs that the history and the culture is being superseded in places by the replacement plastic global franchise we recognise from Europe to New Zealand and everywhere in between, but somehow, Penang retains a firm hold on the past as the foundation of what is still real and authentic today.
That, Hey, we’re not here for tourists. This is the way we live, and we happen to like it like this, thank you very much.
Part of Penang is a UN World Heritage Site.
 |
| Where the entrance to a clan kongsi is squeezed between the shop houses… |
 |
|||
| And hawkers thrive… |
 |
| In Armenian street, inside the World Heritage Site… |
The inscription on the graffiti reads:
The Tua Pek Kong Hueoh Grand Float Procession is held in the Year of the Tiger to wash away bad luck and bring great wealth and health.
 |
| More hawkers… |
 |
| One of the old mosques, the minaret influenced by Chinese architecture |
 |
| A trishaw driver rests at the Khoo Clan Kongsi |
 |
| Roof of the Khoo Kongsi |
 |
| Khoo Kongsi |
 |
| Decorated wall of the Kongsi |
 |
| And what better way to end the day than with a glass of wine on a yacht in the marina? |
A reader has inquired whether eBook versions of the Isles of Glory trilogy are available. The answer is no. And putting them out there as eBooks is complicated by the fact that Australia has rights to the Australian market, but not elsewhere which makes putting up a version free of DRM tough.
However, for the reader who inquired, I do have an affordable real book solution if he shoots me an email with a usable return email address… 
I am now back in Malaysia after two months in the United States, visiting both my daughters. Elder lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, which must be one of the prettiest spots in all the USA. Not spectacular, just genuinely pretty. And of course, in the Fall it looks even better than usual.
Oh, and I do love driving around in a Merc convertible with the top down!
This part of Virginia is famous for its horses, and Charlottesville is famous for being a university town, with the foundation of the University of Virginia in the early 1800s by Thomas Jefferson.
And if you think that the south is stuck in a time warp of bigotry, this church above advertises as itself as supporting marriage rights.
I’ve been staying in Venice. Venice, Los Angeles, the area between Santa Monica and Marina del Ray on the Pacific coast. And this Venice actually does have canals as well as a beach. The whole area was once a marshy wasteland, until a man named Abbot Kinney came to live in Santa Monica in 1886. He was a developer and a conservationist, and one of main streets in Venice, near where my daughter is staying, is called Abbot Kinney.
According to Wikipedia:
By mid-January 1906, an area was built along the edge of the Grand
Lagoon patterned after the amusement thoroughfares of the great 19th and
20th century expositions. It featured foreign exhibits, amusements, and
freak shows. Trolley service was available from Downtown Los Angeles
and nearby Santa Monica. Visitors were dazzled by the system of canals complete with gondalas and gondoliers brought in from Venice, Italy.
The area eventually went downhill, many of the canals were paved over. 
In the 1990s the canals were cleaned up and now it’s an area for people with a lot of money. And me? Well, I’ve enjoyed going there birdwatching in the mornings. there are always hummingbirds hovering over the water, or sucking nectar from the flowers…
Frankly, I never knew it existed. Given the lack of greenery generally around Los Angeles, this place is a lovely oasis… The canals are tidal.
The few days spent at Cobra Station waiting for the new tyre to arrive turned out to be interesting ones. We weren’t bored for a moment. There were walks to take, flowers to admire, hills to climb, scenery to enjoy…
You can always tell when there’s a car passing, just spot the dust.
With me, it’s so often the little things I love to look at. And the rocks were just marvellous…
And then it’s great to wonder at just how plants survive in a hostile environment…
The gibber plains shine in the light…
Trees – not all that common – twist and claw in their struggle to grow and survive
…and can produce such beauty in their flowers…
… and strangeness in their bark
Only along the river do trees thrive, though the water is scarce!
My husband took interest in a nearby working for gold…
And the ingenuity of the outback dweller abounds.
There’s no hardware store down the road, so you improvise.
Below is the manager of Cobra and some other marooned travellers…
And below, having a try at panning for gold.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
