The drive each day to my work is not a particularly attractive one. Out of our new development suburbia you turn right onto the old highway, past a semi-industrial area, through roundabouts which could take you off to the flourescent lit, big-chain supermarket where they can sell you everything you will ever need, all under the one roof. Or the hospital where life is being played out in all its heart rendering glory, births, deaths, diagnoses, treatment. The new highway meets up with it shabby predecessor at this point, creating a bottle neck where old meets new.

You have to remember to merge over when the new highway joins up because once you whip past the racecourse you will have to turn left to wind through one of the older areas of town. In our town older doesn’t mean heritage or classic it just means older. Various councils over the years allowed the removal of all of the original buildings. We cling to a courthouse and a museum, a couple of old fisherman’s cottages, and one of the oldest Anglican churches in the country.  They stand as the last vestiges of a town which began as a penal settlement in 1821.

You make you way along a winding road past little houses of blonde brick and then you round the final corner and are greeted with a spray of colour from a large jacaranda tree in someone’s front garden.

Each day this splash of colour makes me smile. It’s a burst of pretty where you weren’t expecting it.

Perhaps I love the tree so much because it cleverly combines  my favourite colours. Are you a person who reacts to certain colours? Do you have a favourite?

Please note, I’m calling this a Jacaranda tree but really I have no idea. I’m famous for committing botanical carnage with every plant that has ever had the misfortune to come into my presence so there is a good chance I’m calling this by the wrong name.