MY SUNDAY BEST MEME #1 - HORSEPLAY

Welcome to this new meme, "My Sunday Best", which is a photographic and creative meme that allows you to showcase your talents in imaging.

Every Sunday, you can post here showing an image you have created using your camera, (and/or) image processing software, and/or painting and drawing in the conventional way and have scanned in.

The rules are simple:
1) Create your image and post it up on your blog;
2) Put the "My Sunday Best" logo image link somewhere on your post so people can click and come by here;
3) Leave a comment here once you have posted;
4) Visit other posters' blogs and be amazed with their creativity!

Please do not use this meme to advertise your products and services. This is a creative meme and any inappropriate links or comments will be removed immediately.

This image is also part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Saturday Critters meme.

SPARKLING

Enjoying a glass of Australian sparkling wine at the Domaine Chandon tasting room in Melbourne's Yarra Valley.

This post is part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme.

DOGGIE

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme,
and also part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme.

VIEW OUTSIDE

The view outside my window...

This post is part of the Scenic Weekends meme,
and also part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

ST FRANCIS, MELBOURNE

St Francis' Church is the oldest Catholic church in Victoria, Australia. Located on the corner of Lonsdale Street and Elizabeth Street, it is one of only three buildings in central Melbourne which predates the Gold Rush of 1851. The church's foundation stone was laid on 4 October 1841, the feast day of St Francis of Assisi, to whom the church is dedicated.

It was commissioned by Fr Patrick Geoghegan, the first Catholic priest in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales, which became Victoria in 1851. In 1848, St Francis' became the cathedral church of the first Catholic Bishop of Melbourne, James Goold, and continued as a cathedral until 1868, when the diocesan seat was moved to the still unfinished St Patrick's Cathedral (which was not formally consecrated until 1897). 

Centrally located in the Melbourne's CBD, St Francis' has never lost its place as one of the city's most popular and widely used churches, and today is the busiest church in Australia, with more than 10,000 worshippers attending each week. Since 1929, it has been a centre of Eucharistic Life in the care of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament.

The church is listed with Victorian Heritage Register, the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) and the Australian Heritage Commission. Although there have been many changes made to the building, including the erection of a new tower, a gift from the Grollo family, to house the original 1853 bell imported from Dublin, the church remains essentially as it was designed by Samuel Jackson.

This post is part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Spiritual Sundays meme,
and also part of the inSPIREd Sunday meme.

SUNSET VIEW

Sunset over the Yarra River in Melbourne, Australia.

This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the Scenic Weekends meme,
and also part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

FRIENDLY KITTY

A neighbour's cat saying hello on the footpath...

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme,
and also part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

STRANGE FRUIT

Cucumis metuliferus, horned melon or kiwano, is an annual vine in the cucumber and melon family, Cucurbitaceae. Its fruit has horn-like spines, hence the name "horned melon". Ripe fruit has yellow-orange skin and lime green, jelly-like flesh with a tart taste, and texture similar to a cucumber.

C. metuliferus is native to Africa, and is now grown in California, Mississippi, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand. C. metuliferus is a traditional food plant in Africa, and has potential to improve nutrition and food security, foster rural development and support sustainable land use. Along with the Gemsbok cucumber (Acanthosicyos naudinianus) and Tsamma (Citrillus lanatus) it is one of the few sources of water during the dry season in the Kalahari Desert.

In Zimbabwe it is called gaka or gakachika, and is primarily used as a snack or salad, and rarely for decoration. It can be eaten at any stage of ripening, but when overripened, will burst forcefully to release seeds. The fruit's taste has been compared to a combination of cucumber and zucchini or a combination of banana, cucumber and lemon. It is also said to taste like an unripe, watered-down banana. A small amount of salt or sugar can increase the flavour. Some also eat the peel, which is very rich in vitamin C and dietary fibre. The fruit can be used in cooking, but when eaten raw, most suck out the pulp and spit out the seeds.

This post is part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Our Beautiful World meme.

PUMPKINS

This post is part of the Orange you Glad It's Friday meme,
and also part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

ST FRANCIS, MELBOURNE

The ‘Mother Church of Victoria’, St Francis’ Church, was built between 1841 and 1845 on the block of land originally reserved for the Catholic Church in Melbourne. Soon after Melbourne’s pioneer priest, the Franciscan Fr Patrick Geoghegan, arrived in 1839, a temporary chapel made of second-hand floorboards was erected on the site of the future St Francis’ Church. When sufficient funds were raised to finance a permanent building, Geoghegan commissioned the architect Samuel Jackson to design the present church, which he dedicated to St Francis’ of Assisi.

The foundation stone of St Francis’ Church was laid on 4 October 1841. The first mass was celebrated in the completed nave of the church on 22 May 1842. And the church was blessed and opened on 23 October 1845. St Francis’ became Melbourne’s first Catholic cathedral with the arrival of Bishop James Alipius Goold in 1848. Its cathedral status ended when the nave of the partially built St Patrick’s Cathedral was opened for worship in the late 1860s.

Although the church may be dwarfed by the huge office blocks surrounding it, it is still a wonderful place to visit and find some spiritual sustenance. The beautiful ‘Ladye Chapel’ on the western side of St Francis’ Church was constructed in the mid 1850s and blessed on 31 May 1858. This is an awe-inspiring place for quiet reflection or prayer.

This post is part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme,
and also part of the Spiritual Sundays meme,
and also part of the inSPIREd Sunday meme.

EGGPLANT

Eggplant (Solanum melongena), or aubergine, is a species of nightshade in the Solanaceae family grown for its edible fruit. Eggplant is the common name in North America and Australia, but British English uses aubergine. It is known in South Asia, Southeast Asia and South Africa as brinjal. Other common names are melongene, garden egg, or guinea squash.

The fruit is widely used in cooking and treated as a vegetable. As a member of the genus Solanum, it is related to the tomato and the potato. It was originally domesticated from the wild nightshade species, the thorn or bitter apple, S. incanum, probably with two independent domestications, one in South Asia and one in East Asia.

Here is a vegetarian recipe for Eggplant Parmigiana.

This post is part of the Our Beautiful World meme,

and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme.

K9s

Two best friends...

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme,
and also part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

GYMEA LILIES

Doryanthes excelsa, in the Asparagaceae family, known as Gymea Lily, is a flowering plant indigenous to the coastal areas of New South Wales near Sydney.The plant has sword-like leaves more than a meter long. It flowers in spring and summer, sending up a flower spike up to 6 m high, which at its apex bears a large cluster of bright red flowers, each 10 cm across.The name "Gymea Lily" is derived from a local Eora dialect. Doryanthes means spear-flower in Greek, and excelsa is Latin for exceptional. The Sydney suburbs of Gymea and Gymea Bay are named after the lily.

The genus Doryanthes was first described in 1802 by the Portuguese priest, statesman, philosopher and botanist José Francisco Correia de Serra (1750–1823), a close friend of Sir Joseph Banks. Doryanthes excelsa has also inspired the naming of Doryanthes, the journal of history and heritage for Southern Sydney founded by Dharawal historian Les Bursill.

Honey-eaters love the nectar of these large, crimson flowers on stems 2–3 m tall. Aboriginal people in the Lake Macquarie district of NSW were observed in 1836 roasting the stems, having cut them when half a meter high and as thick as a person's arm. They also roasted the roots which they made into a sort of cake to be eaten cold.

This post is part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme,
and also part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

RED ROSE OF SUMMER

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,
and also part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme.