This will be short as I need to go get some groceries but when I went to start the car the battery was dead. I’ve most likely left the overhead light on again as the garage is so dark during the dark days and forgotten to turn it off. The RAC-T (Royal Auto Club of Tasmania) is on the way with the cables so I thought I’d write while I wait.
It’s been grey and rainy here for the past couple of days, today and will be again tomorrow. So much rain and all the rivulets are running wild down Mt Wellington. Two days ago I took Ollie out to Seven Mile Beach. It is about a 25 minute drive just east of Hobart out past the airport. It channels into the Derwent River that eventually goes out to the Tasman Sea. It is a nice beach and very few people on it when it is very grey and dark. Our photo club was challenged to do solstice sunrise or sunset shots but with the heavy cloud cover and fog I decided on an afternoon photo shoot. Besides I had to get Ollie out as he was full of beans and we needed to get rid of a few of them. I have told our vet she is not allowed to ever operate on him as all his beans may fall out. A bit of a run on this beautiful beach sorted out a few of them.
Bookwise- I finally finished the 37th hour of selections of The Diary of Samuel Pepys. What a long haul it was but overall I enjoyed it very much but by the end I was truly tired of him. The way he treated women as if everyone of them was manufactured from Mattel and always thinking about his own work, his own days, his own pleasures. But I did enjoy the stories of London and hearing about the September fires in 1666 and the plague year the year before. People’s lives were so difficult and desperate and it made me happy I was here in Tassie during our own pandemic.
I have a couple of new books on the go but not sure I’ll stick with them. My mood changes from day to day. I’ve started Normal People by Sally Rooney. I’ve been hearing a lot of good about that book. My other book is called A Time of Birds by Helen Moat. This book is newly published also and is a tale of Irish woman, Helen and her older teenage son’s bike ride from England to Istanbul. She is a school teacher who suffers from the same depression her father had and she thinks this bike ride might give her a new perspective on life. She has an old clunky bike that some lycra clad bicyclists in the Netherlands had a real go at making fun of but her son is more modern. Her father spent his later years studying birds and she wants to continue that tradition on her trip across Europe. However she hasn’t mentioned any of them yet.
So far she talks a lot about her dad to the point of dwelling I’d say. Have you ever been around that person, maybe at work, who does nothing but talk about their friends you don’t know and that friend’s relatives or experiences and you still have no idea who they’re talking about but they just never stop? We all talk about family members to our friends which is fine but there are some people who are more acquaintance who continually go on and on and on as it begins to wear a bit. I’m hoping as she gets into this trip she focuses on the present and not so much of the past but we’ll see.
I’ll let you know how I go with the books. In the meantime I’ve posted some photos of our day at the beach. Remember it is winter here.
Until next time.
A Penguin's Journey- Books, Travel, Photography 
I don’t know if I would’ve liked Normal People as much as I did had I not watched the series first. I just loved those characters so much.
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Love your beach pics so much and the bicycle adventure book sounds good. Do let us know when you reach the end if you recommend it or not.
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we’re afraid to go to the beach because it’s a sort of hotbed of plague: very nice pictures, i must say… i’m reading a book by J.J. Murif who bicycled from Glenelg to Port Darwin in 1896; he’s a funny person and maybe a bit peculiar also… i’ll probably post on it pretty soon…
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Your book by Murif sounds wonderful. That would be a very difficult ride. Long ways. Stay well.
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I admit, your 1500s with Montaigne appeals to me at the moment more than the Rooney. We’ll see if I go ahead as have also heard so many mixed reviews of love it or not. I wish our book club was meeting as would have been a good one to follow.
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I think I’ll have a shot at Pepys. Afterall what’s the use of having all that listening time and not using it to catch up on the classics. Love the photos. I don’t go to the beach much but I think it looks better in winter than in summer.
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I would enjoy hearing what others think of Pepys diary. He does cover two very interesting London years. I have always loved the winter light in Tasmania. So different to summer. Very moody.
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P.S. I also tried Normal People, and abandoned it very soon after the beginning. It had no appeal for me whatsoever.
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I have seen that people either love it or not. It is a book club pick but then book club didn’t meet due to Covid and I had already bought it. I’ll read the first 100 pages and see if I continue.
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Will await your verdict with interest. Maybe I was too hasty
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I enjoyed your winter pics. Its winter in Cape Town too and this year we’ve had some lovely gently warm sunny days – I’ve been basking on my patio. When its not wet, grey and overcast, so not all sunshiny!
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It is lovely to know that others are in winter too. I laugh at all the book publications going on about books of summer and summer reading when half of us are in winter. 🙄🙄🙄
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Me too! the Northern Hemisphere seems to mentally exist in its own giant bubble happily oblivious of the rest of us …
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Love the moody photos – gloomy skies tend to be more interesting to look at than just wall to wall blue which what we have (unusually) here in the UK right now.
I’m three quarters of the way through Normal People and honestly wondering how it got so much of a rave response…..
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With all the comments about Normal People I wonder if I’ll get through it. As I said to Alison in comments it was a book club pick. I bought it then book club got cancelled. Moody skies, storms, etc are always a dream to people who love photography.
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I do love my little Amber but when the weather is bleak it takes a whole lot of love to go outdoors for a walk. Do you get ‘the paw’ when Ollie thinks it’s time to go out?
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It is hard to walk at times. We get the high speed runs through the house and the jumping off furniture and chasing the cats. We know it is then time to go out and release the beans from the dog that he is so full of!
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I’m sitting here sweltering and thinking how wonderful your rainy beach looks and how much I’d love to be near one right now… As for the Rooney, I’m hearing very mixed reports about it so I suspect it won’t be one for me. I’ve just spent a lot of time in the 1500s with Montaigne and it was fascinating!
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