Garden Party

One of the most primo perks of my job is its proximity to the Botanic Garden. I can see the park across the street from my desk, and almost every day that it is not raining and that I can liberate myself for 30 minutes, I take my lunch onto the Rose Garden lawn. It's a free and easy daily respite.

During the Winter, the park was fairly abandoned during lunch hour, but now that Spring has arrived, the lawn is almost always full with a combination of business-suited men and women sitting directly on the grass, outdoor yoga classes or joggers taking a little rest, retirees/tourists admiring the foliage, and families. Yesterday I was in the vicinity of a family with a girl who was about 6, who kept exclaiming with glee at the roses.

Though there are many people and groups on the lawn, it is a sprawling park and I can always find a quiet spot to tuck myself into. Sometimes I do have to defend my lunch from overzealous ibis. When I first started having lunch in the garden, I chose a bench under a tree, only to get cold clocked on the back of the head by a territorial bird on a fly-by mission. This happened twice in the same spot, so I decided that it was not a coincidence and that I would do better planting myself out in the open. I've been unmolested ever since.

Ibis. Curious, but non-aggressive, unlike some of his feathered brethren.

The other day, in a true sign-of-Spring moment, I had had some company when a ladybug crawled up on the screen of my Kindle. I was delighted enough to take a photo, which I imagined I'd pop onto the blog, but when I looked at it, I realized that I happened to be on the porniest page of my book, and it appeared in a non-croppable way that I was reading 50 Shades of Grey (which I was not), rather than Freedom (which I was). So, just trust me, the ladybug was cute.

Many days, I also get serenaded by the sounds emanating from the Conservatory of Music next door. And, I am often in the Garden at 1pm when I hear the cannon fired off daily with unwavering punctuality from Fort Denison.

Conservatory of Music:
just needs a moat to keep the violinists and opera singers safe.

Though I inhabit roughly the same territory daily, the atmosphere changes constantly. One day, there will be a bright pink tree on offer, and the next, it will have dropped its flowers. Marigolds have recently sprung up some of the flower beds. The rose bushes were all trimmed back during the winter, which I must admit, made for a rather desolate Rose Garden experience. But, lo and behold, over the last two weeks, they have returned in all their ostentatious glory, reminding me that I know the best little lunch place in Sydney.