Some weekend Bits and Bobs

The weather here is ‘glam’ as my friend says and we are enjoying it. With all the news from California and the media hyped stories that seem never ending, it is great to have beautiful summer weather. Today was a big cleaning week. I have gone through wardrobes and drawers and completed a good cull. It feels great. I will not be buying any clothes this year! I keep reading about the damage of fashion on the environment, with clothes filling landfill around the world.

I find it easier to forego new clothes than I do new books but even that is going to be curtailed to book group buys only for the most part.

I seem to have a lot of t-shirts as I have always been a jeans and t-shirt person. They also travel to the gym regularly. I have two drawers of them. Ones with no illustration on the front and ones that do have. I keep them in separate drawers . I tend to collect them as I travel or my sister gives me the lovely cotton American ones when I see her.

Today I hauled them all out and did a Marie Kondo routine on them. I have always loved sorting and categorising so it was very relaxing.

I have also picked a book from my Audible subscription to begin listening to. It is The Place of Tides by James Rebanks. He wrote the book The Shepherd’s life that I loved. I love the sound of it and I see Fullers book store here, has it in their top 5 non fiction list of sales.

The blurb-

One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on.

Back at home, Rebanks couldn’t stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly – and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return. Bring work clothes, she replied, and good boots, and come quickly: her health was failing. And so he travelled to the edge of the Arctic to witness her last season on the island.

This is the story of that season. It is the story of a unique and ancient landscape, and of the woman who brought it back to life. It traces the pattern of her work from the rough, isolated toil of bitter winter, to the elation of the endless summer light, when the birds leave behind their precious down for gathering, like feathered gold.

Slowly, Rebanks begins to understand that this woman and her world are not what he had previously thought. What began as a journey of escape becomes an extraordinary lesson in self-knowledge and forgiveness.

Last night I was looking at some of the movies streaming on Netflix. I need a change while I wait for the final shows of Vera to arrive on our shores.

I seem to watch more British detective series and not movies. I came across the movie that was based on the book by Australian film maker Bill Bennet of his pilgrimmage on the Camino trail in Spain. I read the book last year and enjoyed it. He had always been quite the curmudgeon, a workaholic and hung out with all the ‘right’ people. His 800 km walk as an old man really changed him. Very set in his ways.

The film is produced and directed by him and keeps very close to the book. The scenery is beautiful. It is currently streaming on Netflix. I enjoyed the other characters he met along the way.

It has been a pleasant week. My back is doing fine and I’m back at the gym doing the classes I enjoy. I celebrate my 5th anniversary of going to the gym for workouts later this year.

I hope all of you are enjoying life at the moment and my thoughts go out to those Americans who were impacted by the fires. I also hope you get through the inauguration this next week. I will not be watching it.

I’ll leave you with my favourite photo I took of Bonorong Wildlife sanctuary who had an article in today’s newspaper here. I’ll add that too.