When it rains it pours as the saying goes. We are leaving for Japan on 3rd of April for 2 1/2 weeks. I can’t wait to get on the plane and fly out of here. Life has been chaotic. Rule no. 1 in this household. If there is a three day holiday weekend or a trip coming up you can bet one of the pets will get sick. True to form we took our wheezing, lethargic 12 year old terrier Molly to the vet to find out her mitral valve in her heart is leaking. The beginning of heart failure.  Over several visits of x-rays and ultra-sounds it has been sorted out and medication prescribed. So far so good. Thank goodness for pet insurance.

One of our members in our senior’s club died suddenly due to complications of a long term illness and his funeral was yesterday.

Then the photo club I belong to opened their big exhibition down at the wharf last night and we all have two hour shifts to man the exhibit in upcoming hot weather in the glass building it is housed in.

At this stage I take a deck of cards and throw it in the air. Did I mention I slept on my hip wrong and am hobbling around the house with a pulled muscle? Okay, whinge over.

I just started Robin Dalton’s book Aunts Up the Cross an older Australian book published by Text Classics. It is most entertaining but more on that later. This will be a tick against Australian Women Writers challenge.

Our book club will be meeting next week to discuss Songs of a War Boy another Australian story of a child soldier in Sudan who eventually came to Australia, learned English, finished school and became a well known lawyer and a 2017 nominee for Australian of the Year.  An amazing tale.

I threw my hands up (I was out of cards) over the book The Underground Railroad by Col Whitehead. I know, everyone loves it but me. The story irritated me to no end and the violence was increasingly sickening and I thought a bit gratuitous at times. After reading War Boy then moving onto this was just too much. When I was younger I was fascinated about the horrors of slavery in the United States (in that I couldn’t believe how bad it had been) years ago and I read everything I could find about it and the Civil War. I just can’t read anymore about it now and the fictional train that actually goes underground but you can look up out of it and see buildings was the last straw. I know metaphors and symbolism but I am just over it. Maybe I’ll pick it up again but I am so sick of cruelty to everyone I just quit!

I will scatter a few photos through here and suffice to say this blog may be erratic for the next month. I will post up some things of the trip after all the Penguin will be travelling and that is what this blog is about. Either traveling through countries or books.

I do have a lunch to attend today in a historic old town up the midlands of Tasmania today. Whisky tasting begins at 11:30 but I am not a whisky drinker and being on my motorbike it probably isn’t a good idea. Lunch should be nice

Our Play Reading class finishes Waiting for Godot this next Tuesday. I have enjoyed the reading of this play very much.

So enjoy the scattered photos, be kind to one another and I’ll be back before long.  I must run now, the dog just came out of the kitchen with kitty litter on his nose.