Veronika Wild

  Nishi Building from afar  -  unobtrusive, set amid gardens and not too tall  A closer look - NewActon where the building is located, is to become a self contained precint -Photo credit Cluan Smith I must confess that when I   first saw the Nishi Building’s curiously offset balconies on the way from the airport, I wondered if there’d been an earthquake in Canberra we hadn’t heard about. When I mentioned it, my son pointed out that the building had won a number of environmental awards as well as the 2015 the International Design Award so it definitely warranted a closer look.   These balconies at the rear of the building were certainly eye catching  -Photo credit Cluan Smith What I saw from the road    In the first instance, like One Central Park in Sydney , which I discovered on my way to Canberra last time, the building doesn't just embody environmental features, but seeks to become a self -contained precinct where people can work, liv...

Stairway to heaven - 99 Steps and you are in West Hobart How can you not love a place that has stairs and secret walkways, tiny cottages full of history and streets named after poets and artists? New vistas unfold in every direction the higher you climb. Look down and you can see the whole city before you. Look north and it's the superb churches and tiny cottages of North Hobart. To the west, a craggy Mt. Wellington looms and to the east, there is the breadth of the Derwent. The not quite finished sculpture by John Cole in the Peace Park not far from the top of the stairs The Friends Park in Mellifont Street used to belong to the Quaker's and is one of Hobart's oldest Cemeteries, unused after 1912. Headstones from pioneer graves line the old sandstone walls, although all human remains were removed in 1936. This stunning and very large Roland Gabatel Sculpture is also in the Friends Park Train Park in Hill Street - This fully enclosed park has safety gates so that chil...

-Image by anncapictures from Pixabay   It's Easter in much of the Western World today and for many it is a time of reflection and celebration. Though it isn't necessarily a happy time for many people, nature continues to fulfil its promise by bringing new life, birds and flowers to the Northern Hemisphere and the autumn harvest to those in the South. Such things are always worth celebrating. Long may they continue. My wish for all is for health and peace because from those all other things flow. Next up I'd like to add let's not trash the planet or there won't be any Happy Easters for anyone any more. Big kudos to the scientists who are no longer sitting in their labs, tearing their hair out over the data that's coming in about rising temperatures, dying reefs, heatwaves in Antarctica and the Arctic, melting glaciers, floods, heavier monsoons and cyclones, heat domes and erratic weather such as we've never seen before. They are now taking to the st...