This is what Hobart looks like today.
Weather:
It is a cold blustery day down here and I am loving it. I don’t have to go anywhere today. Mr. Penguin is house-sitting for a friend for a couple of weeks so it’s very quiet. It’s the kind of day where there is time to snuggle with the pets, read a backlog of things piling up, watch a bit of Netflix and eat food that doesn’t go together. Just graze. Did I mention how quiet it is. Phone is turned off. Instant message is ignored. Except for Mr. Penguin.
The last week has happened in bits and pieces. It is that time of year where throats get a bit sore and you hope the flu shot you had works.
Theatre:
Last night a friend and I went to the Playhouse Theatre in Hobart. It is the home of the Hobart Repertory Theatre Society that was established in 1926. They feature amateur community productions. One often sees the same actors from play to play. The plays can be excellent and there is a very congenial attitude of mixed ages in the audience. Also chocolate is very cheap. You get a chocolate bar, a glass of wine if you wish, take it to your seat and enjoy the play. I support them every year by going to most of their performances. Last night we saw a production of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. It was a cold and windy night and the audience wasn’t packed like it usually is but the people who bothered to come out had a good time. They didn’t seem to have enough men/boys for the pirates so many girls played both girls and boys. They made good pirates. A young woman played the part of 14 year old Jim Hawkins and she did such a good job. Long John Silver was great fun. (Can’t find actor’s name). It was a nice way to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday night despite the cold.
Books this week:
I finished the Mongolian horse race book by Lara Prior-Palmer, Rough Magic. I found it to be an average read. I liked her writing and hearing about the logistics of the horse race. She wrote about some of the Mongolian people she met and that was interesting. I got a little bit tired in parts when she flashes back to other times in her life. I think she had a lot of time to think of her past as the traversed the long days on the Mongolian steppes. I know when I rode my Scooter from Hobart to Long Reach, Queensland in Australia (one way 2300 kms/1450 miles) I was on very long straight stretches of road and your mind wanders to all sorts of memories, thoughts, creative ideas, future plans. She put a lot of these thoughts into her book. I would give it three stars. Just a good read. However I do think she is a character whom I will remember for a long time and I will remember her story. That is always a good measure of a book.
I am currently listening to a non-fiction Australian story called My Mother, A Serial Killer written by the daughter, Hazel Baron and Janet Fife-Yeomans narrated by Kate Hosking who does a brilliant job.
Good Reads describes it as: A gripping and shocking story of a serial killer mother, and the brave daughter who brought her to justice. Dulcie Bodsworth was the unlikeliest serial killer. She was loved everywhere she went, and the townsfolk of Wilcannia, which she called home in the late 1950s, thought of her as kind and caring. The officers at the local police station found Dulcie witty and charming, and looked forward to the scones and cakes she generously baked and delivered for their morning tea.
That was one side of her. Only her daughter Hazel saw the real Dulcie. And what she saw terrified her.
Dulcie was in fact a cold, calculating killer who, by 1958, had put three men in their graves – one of them the father of her four children, Ted Baron – in one of the most infamous periods of the state’s history. She would have got away with it all had it not been for Hazel.
Written by award-winning journalist Janet Fife-Yeomans together with Hazel Baron, My Mother, A Serial Killer is both an evocative insight into the harshness of life on the fringes of Australian society in the 1950s, and a chilling story of a murderous mother and the courageous daughter who testified against her and put her in jail.
I am really enjoying this bit of Australian history of this woman. It isn’t so much the murders. They are discussed but the main part of this story is the psychological machinations of this woman’s mind. Her manipulation, how she fools everyone in the communities she visits. If she were an animal she would be a feral cat. It is a shame she didn’t put her brilliant mind towards something worthwhile.
I am about half way through it and every time I sit down to rest a bit or before going to sleep I put the audible app on another 30 minutes to listen. It is true to its word as it details “society on the fringes” in the 1950’s which is a time period I enjoy reading about in both Australia and the USA. If you enjoy this type of book I can certainly recommend it.
Photography News:
Our photo club meeting is coming up this coming Thursday evening. We have two digital challenges I had to put up. One category is “Open” and the other category is “Hidden Spaces”. The print challenge category is “Abstract”. We get two of our images printed and upon arrival at the meeting we lay them out on a long table with our names on the back. Nobody knows who they belong to though some put in the same type of genres so easy to guess. I like to mix it up a bit so no one knows mine ahead of time. At the tea break during the meeting, members attending vote on their favourites. The first place (which I have never won) gets a bottle of wine. Second and third places get chocolate. I have come in third place a couple of times and enjoyed some chocolate. I love challenges and competitions and enter often both in and out of the club meetings. It is a good way to learn new types of techniques and genres of photography.
So I’ll pop up the challenge photos for this week for you to have a look at. They are all quite different. Until next time….the Penguin and I say..Have a good week. If you’re in the northern hemisphere stay cool. If you’re anywhere near Tasmania or Melbourne, stay warm.
White Ruff by ???? was the story of a rough collie stolen by the bad men that came through town with the circus. His young owner, a boy of about 9 or 10 came across him sometime later when his family took him to the circus. Convinced this was his beloved White Ruff he made a deal with the dog’s trainer if he could call the dog away from the trainer during a noisy circus performer he would prove the dog was his. If not, the dog was lost forever. During the circus performer the band played, the crowd cheered and suddenly a long piercing sharp whistle went through the tent. White Ruff stopped dead in his tracks. Upon hearing the second whistle White Ruff ran to the boy to live happily ever happen. The trainer sighed and moved on knowing the game was up. I think that was the first tale I ever read of true suspense. I must have read that last chapter ten times over to every reading of the book.
and when that book came into that mail box you wouldn’t see me until the next day. Prince Tom was a true story of a lineage of champion cocker spaniels and how he went from a puppy to become the world’s greatest cocker spaniel. The kind of story that gives a dog loving child goosebumps.
reading quite a few times called Ride Like an Indian by Henry V. Laron.
their mother in the 1860’s while their father fought in the civil war. Jo was the oldest sister and I loved her the best. Probably because I was the oldest of my sister and brother. Jo and I knew everything.
trauma of her childhood growing up poor. I loved that girl and if there had been anyone in fiction I could have hung out with it would have been her.
Well those are my ten books I can think of at the moment. I still own a copy of Champion Dog Prince Tom and White Ruff. I have a beautiful Penguin copy of Little Women. I’ve lost Ferdinand along the way. I don’t think I still have a copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn but I might have as I read it again about three years ago or so. I still enjoyed it.
Travellin' Penguin 