Murraya paniculata exotica aka – mock orange is a shrub like plant that is a great favourite for hedges here in Brisbane. When we first arrived and were looking for a house in this very month in 2013, I promised myself that I would buy one with such a hedge. It transported me back to a memory of the scent of orange groves in Famagusta when I was a child – and this one, mock though it is, is good enough for me. The shrub is called mock orange because its flowers and scent resemble that of an orange tree.We have one and it is glorious.

So walking in the hood in this month, I am constantly surrounded by that sweet sharp scent and with the recent rain we have had the blossoms fall but more come to suffuse the atmosphere with that heady scent.

That is one joy – the others are plentiful. Walking in a very ordinary suburb where each house is distinct in style and the gardens tended. None of that same- same architecture which blights other countries. I take in the special woodwork and ironwork, the plants and the occasional surprise.

Look at this house with its front yard – see anything special about it ? I walked straight past and then doubled back. Something had caught my eye not by movement but by its utter stillness.

Two bush stone curlews blending into their surroundings. Cautiously glancing but also totally at home and under cover. Magic in the suburbs and mock orange in the air.