MONDAY: Weather here still chilly but have had sun. So good for the mood. Good session with the weights. Felt good to toss them around. Stayed in and got stuck into the book Lost and Found in Paris. A light but enjoyable read. Joan, married to film photographer Casey, works for a lovely art gallery and museum in Pasadena, California. The first few pages has Casey arriving at her work place, announcing he had twin boys with his assistant five yrs ago and would like them to all be a family. Of course he would be a proper father and live with his assistant but Joan could integrate the boys into her life. Well you can imagine how that goes over.

TUESDAY: Yesterday I streamed the film The Whale from Amazon while Mr Penguin was at the gym. I saw trailers here at our State Cinema, that has really interesting films. My sister enjoyed it. I, not as much. Online English teacher who is secondary teacher is morbidly obese. He left his family, wife and 8 yr old daughter for another man years previously. The love of his life. When the love of his life died, he compensated by developing an eating disorder of binging. He becomes completely incapacitated by his weight. He can barely move and is cared for by his boyfriend’s sister who is a nurse that drops in regularly. His angry daughter comes back into his life , now in grade 12. Failing at everything she needs help from her father to help her graduate. A young man also enters the picture claiming he is door knocking from a religious sect but he has his issues too as we later discover. The three of them develop a tenuous relationship. I thought the acting was very good especially from the main protagonist. However the entire movie until the end takes place in a living room with all curtains drawn. Lots of yelling, darkness, etc as the themes of homosexuality, religion and relationships are all thrown together. I found it melodramatic and filled with a good deal of Hollywood moralising. The movie is very dark due to the setting and with my eye sight I struggled at times to see. It did win 2 oscars at the Academy awards I’m told but don’t recall what categories. However, I take the Oscars with a grain of salt. Some will love it, others not so much.

Tuesday evening had me enjoying a meeting of Photo Club 2. Photo club 2 is the club I joined recently that I am enjoying mainly for the great socialisation and excursions they go on. Photo club 1 has more members and challenges, more instruction. I have been a member of no. 1 for 6 yrs. So I am meeting lots of new people and enjoying photography on many fronts.

WEDNESDAY: Today was a quiet gym day and lunch with a friend. So I’m going to move through Wednesday and Thursday…straight onto:

FRIDAY: We attended an interesting Fullers event this evening at the RACV hotel across the street from Fullers. We meet here for events that have more attendance. Women and Whitlam-Revisiting the Revolution edited by Michelle Arrow. We had a panel consisting of Michelle, Margaret Reynolds, former Senator 1983-1999 Qld., and former Tasmanian premiere Lara Giddings. Michelle discussed how she put the book together and Margaret is a minefield of stories of how women were treated in politics and especially in Townsville in the 1980s. It was an evening filled with lots of head shaking and laughs and “I don’t believe its” and “Weren’t they just awfuls”. The room was packed and our hour flew by with interesting questions at the end.

SATURDAY: was purely political but I will do a separate post on that as I have some photos I took to share of that day.

I hope you have all had a good week and as Arnie Schwarzenegger would say, I’ll be back!