Posted in Fiction

I was born with a reading list

Posted on by TravellinPenguin

……I will never finish. (Maud Casey)

Hi everyone. I had a fun bookish and theatre week again this week.

Books I’m reading now: Homework by Tassie author Helen Hayward. I went to the launch of this book Thursday night. The blurb on the back states-

When Helen Hayward had her two children in London, 25 years ago, she found looking after them easy. Loving and looking after her kids was straightforward. However loving and looking after her home was not. She had long been instructed to put her career first. So she did. Yet what to do with the mushrooming laundry by the bathroom door? And what about if she actually liked cooking? Home Work is a series of personal essays motivated by three questions. 

  1. Is there an art to running a home?
  2. Can it be a satisfying thing to do?
  3. Has the work we do around the home ― which accounts for roughly a 1/4 of our waking hours ― something important to teach us about life itself?

It is quite a fun read and she raises some interesting questions.

Friday night saw our end of year all Fullers book group members get together at Fullers book shop with drinks and nibbles. It was also announced what books we’ll be starting the year off next year.

The Fraud by Zadie Smith kicks off February. Followed by 2023 Booker Prize winner Prophet song by Paul Lynch. The Sri Lankan tale of Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran and Question 7 by our local Booker prize winning author, Richard Flanagan. I am looking forward to reading all of them.

I am still working my way through Olga Tokarczuk;s book Flights. There is so much in it I don’t think it is a book that can be rushed.

I am also travelling through audio with the 125cc Honda trip of the 73 yr old man, Simon Gandolphi, riding from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego at the bottom end of Chile. This is the book I listen to in the car and when I can’t sleep so it will take awhile to finish it.

To end the week Mr P and I enjoyed a 50 yr anniversary if the song, Tubular Bells at the Theatre Royal. It was a fabulous, amazing 60 minute piece of music by two musicians who are incredibly talented. I remember when Tubular Bells first came out in 1973. It was the beginning of a lot of electronic music at the time. The two musicians in one hour played six guitars, four keyboards, two sets of drums, a mandolin, a glockenspiel and a set of tall pipes with a mallet. The lighting matched the music. It was a full house and an exuberant audience. Such fun. Last night was their final performance after 15 years, 500 performances in 20+ countries. We loved it. Wonderful they ended their run in Australia’s oldest theatre, our historically beautiful Theatre Royal. (I might add Tubular Bells was played in the movie The Exorcist which I have never seen nor wanted to see)

On that note 🎶🎶🎶🎶 I will leave you for a couple of weeks. Tomorrow I fly to Sydney for the annual Girl’s week out my friend and I share every year. A week of theatre at the opera house one night (A Dictionary if Lost Words is the play), some shopping, maybe a gallery, a book shop and two, and cocktails in the evening.

I also plan one day seeing my photography mate who I went to see in June for 5 days but she had Covid and we missed each other. That trip became a bust except I did enjoy Sydney.

On Friday we do the six hour train to Port Macquarie , where my friend lives, and attend the Bangarra dance performance in their event center, The Glass House. I may be able to get to the Koala hospital there which I would find very interesting. Then home on the Tuesday. A fun packed 9 days.

As my second planned photography workshop in July fell apart with jy health, I am hoping all goes well for this third attempt. 🌻

I am also looking forward to returning home and spending a leisurely, quiet Christmas with Mr P, our dogs Ollie and Peanut and our cats Grizzy and Cousin Eddie.

Looking forward to following my blogger friends and see what you’re reading and doing this month. We all send you our best.

WHEW !!!!!
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Author:

I live a retired life in Tasmania, Australia. I love books, travel, animals, photography, motor biking and good friends. I indulge in all these activities with the little Travellin' Penguin who has now shared five continents with me. We love book shops, photography walks and time with friends as all our family is in USA and Canada. I enjoy visitors to my blog so hope you'll stop by.

15 thoughts on “I was born with a reading list”

  2. I have to read Hayward’s book. I have never liked cleaning, but some years ago, I was inspired by a blog to go more professionally into the cleaning. I started doing my own detergents, bought professional tools and so on. I am not sure I could have done it while working, but now in retirement, I do enjoy (as much as on can) the cleaning. Still doing my own detergents, just using natural products. With a small, modern flat that we have now it is so easy. I did add a vacuum robot which helps the most boring part of cleaning. I think that sometimes we just let the thought of something being boring overtake the actions. If one finds another way to perform the tasks it might help. Will be an interesting read, I am sure.
    I have marked Prophet Song for reading. Although, I must say, that there are not many Booker Prize winner that I like. This sounds like it could be the rarity.
    Good luck with your busy schedule, sounds like great fun.

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  5. My youngest brother had the Tubular Bells albumn. Not really rock n roll. But I imagine it was amazing in concert. I’m looking forward to the opposite of a quiet christmas with all my immediate family, five generations, in one place.

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    1. That will be wonderful. We don’t have any family in Australia and siblings are spread out through America and Canada. But we still enjoy the day. Don’t have to share food, lol. 😃🌲🌲🌲

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  6. I remember Tubular Bells too. What fun. I haven’t been inside your Theatre Royal.

    And, I love Port Macquarie and the Glass House and Bangarra. That will be a treat of a trip. Which Bangarra performance are you going to see? I look forward to hearing all about it. There are some great restaurants there too.

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    1. I don’t know as my friends booked it when they knew I was coming to see them there. You must plan your next Hobart trip around a performance there. There are three venues now after the big renovations. The original large theatre, the Studio theatre is almost like in the round with stadium seating in a smaller venue and the acoustically developed recital studio built for the Conservatorium of music students. All are just lovely.

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  7. Yes, I suppose the thing with Photoshop is that it’s expensive, and you have to invest time in learning how to use it. Now anyone can fiddle with their photos really easily.
    I can see that the implications for competition judges are a nightmare, but there’s also the impact on news reporting. An amateur like me can pick the staged photos from the current conflicts, but that doesn’t stop a lot of people thinking that ‘seeing is believing’.

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      1. Ha! You could take great photos with a Box Brownie…
        BTW Have you seen those ads for a phone that allow people to edit their photos with a ‘best shot?’ (e.g. if someone in a group shot isn’t smiling you can replace that face with one that is?
        I think this is awful, changing reality in this way. Obviously it can be used in malicious ways too, replacing a nice face with a nasty one, (and I can well imagine teenagers of both sexes doing it) but I was thinking more of my collection of The Offspring when he was going through that adolescent scowl phase. It’s how he was, and I loved him just the same, I would be sorry not to have the photos.
        But my unease is also about everything having to be perfect these days.

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        1. I know what you mean. You can also do a lot of changing reality with photoshop. Judges in competitions are having a struggle to make sure no one used the features. Fortunately they can check the meta data of photos but with thousands of entries…well, you get the idea😀🎁🌲

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