i was going to hold off until the end of this week to post a blog entry for the beginning of the month, because i was supposed to be going to see green day in concert tomorrow night, however, there is a tropical cyclone headed towards my city and unfortunately it has been cancelled, so there's no thrilling plans around for the rest of my week.

so. the big news this week is that cyclone alfred has taken a sharp turn around and is due to hit the coast some time thursday/early friday. it's the first time the lower end of this state has been hit by a cyclone in 50 years! i'm certainly no stranger to cyclones, i used to live up north where certain parts of summer were just called "cyclone season", and i've gone through my fair share of substantially worse ones than alfred, so i think i'm more mildly inconvenienced by the fact that they've cancelled my indoor concert for it. granted, we are south of the cyclone and will be getting the worst of the rain, so i'm expecting a bit of flooding but, really, whenever i think i'm worried about it, i just think back to sitting in my dark empty house up north with no power while a category 5 shredded the walls and roof off for 10 minutes straight. nothing compares. i do think this nifty satellite map that's being passed around is sick as hell though - when i still lived in a cyclone area, all i could do is watch the updates live on tv until the power went out and the just had to say fuck it and wing it on my own

something i very much enjoyed doing recently was getting back in the saddle (ha) and getting into horse riding again! i love horses and used to ride when i was younger, but it's been a very long time since i got to ride a horse of my own accord and not just sit on one while it does a trail ride. i went to meet my coworkers horse and give him a test run, and i am honestly so surprised at how easy i found it to get into the swing of things. he was a very sweet old horse and quite receptive to verbal commands, so he was such a good starting off point for me to get back into this as a hobby; the reason i was looking into it is because some time in the next year, said coworker and i are looking at doing a 3wk long veterinary med course in south africa, working on a safari reserve! it sounds fantastic, and we both have agreed to also do a 7 day horseback safari to round off the holiday, however, you need to be a sort of advanced intermediate level of riding to be allowed to do that, so i want to get the practice in. i hope we get around to it though, it sounds like such a once in a lifetime opportunity given it all lines up for once. i'm so interested in wildlife vetmed and that's probably about as wild as you can get.

other fun news as of lately is that my beautiful dragonfruit plant that i have been growing tirelessly for 8 whole years gave me a magnificent flower display this month! dragonfruits soon, provided this cyclone doesn't obliterate it. the flowers are so beautiful, massive, have this really nice subtle sweet smell to them and bring in so many pollinators. i could hear the bees buzzing the morning they bloomed from inside my house. pics below + a bonus lilypad flower off a plant i have never seen flower before!!

speaking of photos, i also just finished off a roll of film the other day that i had sitting in my om-10. i'm not actually sure when i started it, or if i even finished it. i just took a few more photos until the dial read 28 and assumed that's all i had. i am going to drop it off later this week, but i don't know what i'll find on there, or if it even worked? it's some kind of film i've never used before, a higher ISO, and it made a horrific grinding noise when i rewound the film, so i also have a suspicion it wasn't in properly. all part of the unknowable joys of film photography, i suppose. i'll upload them here once they've been developed and scanned.

now. interests yap section. here's what i've been into these last few weeks to wrap everything up: