BBQ, Big Bloom and Bats

Had a BBQ at my house on Saturday for some of the people I work with - that's people from Bahrain, Bangladesh, Romania, China, and a couple token Aussies. Just so we could say we had some 'shrimp on the barbie' one of the Australians brought some prawns (but to be clear, that was a joke - an Australian wouldn't actually say that). A nice day, but I hadn't really thought ahead of time how hard it would be to get food and drink for 15 people without a car. It took a few trips with a backpack to the market 15 minutes away, so I got some exercise at least.


Sunday I went to the Royal Botanical Gardens to see this huge Indonesian flower (titan arum) that is about to bloom. Indeed it was about a meter tall, but it hadn't opened yet and so we missed the big stench it will put out when it does (the foreground of the pic shows one that did its thing last week). Lots of other cool plants, but I liked seeing the huge colony of bats that lives there. Big ones - the bodies are probably a foot long. This is one tree of dozens filled this way. Don't stand right under them!