Crazy Days of Autumn

November 24, 2020 | TravellinPenguin

Reading this past week or so has been a mish mash. We have builders, an electrician and plumbers tearing the kitchen apart. We have confused pets checking everything out constantly wondering where their food dishes are and Ollie spends days in the backyard looking through his crack in the fence for the neighbour’s cat, Stanley; playing with his toys and standing, staring at rocks for the local lizards to emerge. I am trying to keep him from killing them. So far the score is Ollie 1 the Lizard 0.

I’ve also been informed in this past week of a health problem I have and it will require surgery within a very short period of time. I’ll have more on that front on Friday. Needless to say it is a hard time to concentrate.

I’ve been enjoying further essays in the book I wrote about in the last post, The Gift of Reading. I find them quite uplifting. I’ve also pulled a beautiful copy I have of Andersen’s Fairy Tales off the shelf. It is illustrated with lovely black and white as well as colour plates and there are 100 stories within it’s beautiful covers. I go to random.org each day and choose the number of the tale I will read that day. It is a total comfort read.

I was given several book vouchers for my birthday which I will probably save until after Christmas when new books stock Fullers Book shop after the Christmas rush or older shelved books will be on the large sale table.

Last night had two of my wonderful friends and I at our popular local Italian restaurant, DaAngelo’s for our annual birthday, girl’s night out. The next one will be in March when they celebrate their birthdays. I received a book from each of them, plus a beautiful little note pad and a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolate. My dessert was a delicious crème brulee. Birthdays can be so much fun even as I progress into my 70th decade. I cannot believe I am so old.

Love Clancy is a book of letters from Clancy to his parents in the bush. It is a tale of a young dog’s musings about the oddities of human behaviour, life in the big city and his own attempts to fit in. An interesting perspective I think by a well known author.

The second book I received is both a title and author I am not familiar with. The Phone Box at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messini. The author has been living in Japan and works between Tokyo and Kamakura where she lives. It has been translated from the Italian by Lucy Rand, from the U.K. She has also been living in Japan for the past three years. No idea where the Italian link comes from.

It is a story of Yuri who loses her mother and daughter in the tsunami and wonders how she will carry on. She hears of a disused telephone box in an old man’s garden where those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief. As news of this phone box spreads people travel to it from miles around. Interesting? Certainly different. Should be fun.

I received the latest copy of Womankind magazine and this month it features the women of South America. Some interesting articles and brightly coloured photography.

I am also working my way through my copy of October’s Australian Book Review with several interesting articles of books I’ve read or own on the TBR shelf.

As you can see November is a big month of chaotic mish mash and my reading,Mr. Penguin and our affectionate animals are keeping us sane in the run up to Christmas.

I’m not certain what December is going to bring except to say I will have no problem farewelling the year that has been 2020 and I do wish/hope/pray for better times worldwide in 2021. To think one year ago we had no idea what this year would turn into. Wow!

Until next time…

Simply Sunday

October 11, 2020October 11, 2020 | TravellinPenguin

Royal Hobart Botanical Gardens- Spring 2020

Spring has arrived in Tasmania with various bouts of gale force winds, rain and sunny days interspersed amongst it all. We are continuing to keep busy and I have also been reading quite a bit. I’m also culling books here and there too. My aim at this point is to have all books fit easily on the shelves with no flat stacking in front of the standing books on shelves. So whenever I bring in a new book to the clan, I make at least three leave and find their way into the book wilderness. So far it is working but I have a ways to go.

I am also making myself read at least 50 pages each morning before I turn my tablet on and get stuck into reading emails, blog posts, Facebook messages from family and friends overseas and the morning news. Starting with 50 pages immediately with my coffee gets me into the reading mood and lifts my spirits. People who love books will understand the feeling of the little jolts of happiness that course through a mind while reading something new.

Let’s continue with what books were uncovered since my last post.The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie– Australian- Non fiction, winner of the Finch Memoir Prize 2018 and 2019 Stella Prize and shortlisted for the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards

(From Booktopia description). When Vicki Laveau-Harvie’s elderly mother is hospitalised unexpectedly, Vicki and her sister travel to their parents’ isolated ranch home in Alberta, Canada, to help their father. Estranged from their parents for many years, Vicki and her sister are horrified by what they discover on their arrival. For years, Vicki’s mother has camouflaged her manic delusions and savage unpredictability, and over the decades she has managed to shut herself and her husband away from the outside world, systematically starving him and making him a virtual prisoner in his own home. Vicki and her sister have a lot to do, in very little time, to save their father. And at every step they have to contend with their mother, whose favourite phrase during their childhood was: ‘I’ll get you and you won’t even know I’m doing it.

It is described as “sharply funny” but I thought it was anything but. Vicki lives in Australia and flies back and forth to Canada to deal with all that is happening with her parents. Her sister lives in Canada and at times feels quite overwhelmed by being the one closest to the parents.

Their mother certainly has some issues and truly seems to hate her daughters. I thought the book is extremely well written and describes the issues of dealing with elderly parents, especially from a distance very well.

I enjoyed reading about how they dealt with everything. The story mainly deals with the present situation and then dips backwards into some experiences of the sister’s childhood with their mother. I never learned though why her mother seemed to hate her daughters so much. I would have liked to know about the family from the mother’s perspective, from her mind.

When did this attitude begin? Why was it so? Their mother was incredibly hateful, wanting them to suffer as much as possible. Perhaps that wouldn’t have been possible. Who knows how family members in these situations really interpret each other.

The next book I finished was Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship wth the First Lady by Stephanie Winston Wokoff, narrated by the author on Audible.com.

What an interesting book but what was wrong with this author!!?? Stephanie and Melania met years previously when both were involved with Vogue magazine. They became very good friends and that friendship endured for many years. So when Melania became the First Lady of the United States as part of the Donald Trump family she was able to get Stephanie to hire on as an assistant to her as she dealt with everything the East Wing of the White House involved.

However the people working in the West Wing with Donald Trump and Donald’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka and Jared Kushner never seemed to acknowledge her presence, much less her authority.

The book is a very long tale of the interminable abuse Stephanie endured while participating in the inauguration preparations of Donald Trump on 22 January, 2017. Stephanie lived in New York with her husband and children. Yet she spent incredible amounts of time in Washington DC. She was hired but somehow a contract never happened. She worked without salary. It would all be organised soon but never was. Melania is portrayed as someone who could care less about anything that happens in the USA and is more obsessed with the outfits she wears and her appearance.

I thought the information regarding the Inauguration preparations and life within the White House was interesting. The stories about Ivanka were as I expected as she and Melania do not get along and Ivanka is portrayed as being more interested in taking Melania’s position to be with her “daddy”. It was Ivanka that “helped” Melania prepare the speech for the 2016 Republican convention where Michelle Obama’s speech was plagiarised. She wanted to humiliate Melania. It worked. Melania was silly to take it on trust and not proofread it or fact check it with people in the know.

As events progress over the next couple of years, Stephanie’s health deteriorates so much she ends up doing quite a long stint in the hospital with Melania continuing to offer her platitudes through emoji laden texts. By the end of the book Stephanie is well and truly thrown under the bus based on missing millions of dollars resulting with her photo and false information plastered all over the front page of the New York Times.

Throughout the telling of this tale I could only think, “Why are you being so pathetic to allow yourself to be treated like this for such a long time?”

I can understand trusting a friend but most friendships end far before this one did if one person is harming the other.

I didn’t really feel sorry for her because she appeared to be so blindsided by the power and publicity of having her best friend become First Lady of the country she couldn’t do enough for her. She really was her own worst enemy.

On the other hand Melania is exactly as she portrays herself. Wearing a jacket that says “I don’t care” because she likes it. Wearing foreign designer clothes from foreign designers instead of American ones and forcing one designer to near bankruptcy as bills aren’t paid. The Trump family is portrayed exactly as how I think they are, incomprehensible in their actions and activities, fraud and money laundering stories. Melania was heard to speak of the Stormy Daniels episode as “that’s politics!”

Stephanie was told again and again by very well known people, her husband, her friends, “Do not get involved with the Trump family” but she ignored it to her own detriment. I think most people in her situation would have seen the light far sooner. However if you fancy a salacious tale of the nutty Trump family this is your book. It’s something right out of an amusement park.

The book I’m halfway through is about as different as a book can be for me. I was in Fullers Book store in Hobart and one of the sales people, Peter, walked up to me and handed me the book, The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break by American author Steven Sherrill. I’ll write more about this book once finished but so far it is a really interesting read with some good themes in it.

I’ll leave you with a photo of Ollie’s walk on the beach last week when we attended a Mental Health activity for National Mental Health Week in Australia. It was a dog walk and consisted of a dog walk with others along the beach, speakers by the manager of the Dog’s Home of Tasmania, a Veterinarian and some Indigenous peoples readings about the land we stood on. It was followed by a sausage sizzle that included veggie burgers and onions. The first time the event was held and they hope it becomes an annual event.

Ollie plays with another small dog who is also named…..Ollie.

Until next time….stay well.

Some Birds in the World-Wayfaring Wednesday

September 16, 2020September 15, 2020 | TravellinPenguin

Lake Titicaca, South America. This little sparrow was chirping away.

The nest of the weaver birds. Namibia, Africa

Raven in Namibian desert. I offered him water. He had a big drink.

Off the northern western coast of Namibia. He flew over our boat to see if we had any fish.

Back on the northwest coast of Tasmania.

An August Winter Day in Tasmania

August 11, 2020 | TravellinPenguin

2020-08-11 16.09.49 — Mt. Wellington sits behind Hobart. A winter’s day. *(Stock Photo)*

We have had a pretty good winter this year. A few days of quite cold weather and even some snow but not enough to stay on the ground where we live. The mountainous areas have been beautiful though.

Ollie Mackers — Ollie’s first trip through McDonalds takeaway for ice cream. I eat the ice cream. He licks the container with one spoonful left. He was most interested in the person who took our payment.

I’ve been spending time with Ollie. He is coming up on his first birthday in a week’s time which is very hard to believe. He’s such a joy to live with

I’ve had lots of time to reorganise my book journal. It’s now electronic on a table that is easily accessible and I have deleted my Good Reads account. I grew tired of it. I also gave the blog page a bit of a clean up and put in some new colours and changed the masthead with one of my photos of a local beach.

Books read since I was here last are as follows:

I finished the audio book from the library of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. I was enjoying it at night before going to sleep. I really enjoyed this story and the characters will stay with me for quite awhile.

2020-08-11 16.11.14 Oliver was lovely with his love of his “finally ever after family” and his love of books. What a
terrible start to life he had. Sikes was so horrible. Dickens was so wonderful at describing life in London during the 1800s and the poverty permeated all he touched in this tale. Evil was evil and good was good. (Narrator Wanda McCaddon was excellent with all of the voices.)

I also finished off the Diary of Samuel Pepys as I probably mentioned before. His description of life in London in the 1660s was remarkable and living through the plague and the great London fire was described as though one had travelled into the pages of the book. I really enjoyed it. (Read by Leighton Pugh with David Timson; both excellent).

More currently I really enjoyed the audio version of Australian Julia Baird’s book of essays entitled Phosphorescence. Julia Baird narrates it and it is as if one is sitting down in a room with a coffee or cup of tea with her.

Isn’t the cover stunning as well. She wrote of nature, mindfulness, storm chasing photographers, her family and her battle with cancer. It is an extremely uplifting read written with honesty. I gave copies to friends and they enjoyed it as well.

Another current book I listened to, this one written by Sayaka Murata, was Convenience Store Woman. Narrated by Nancy Wu who pronounced all the Japanese vocabulary for me and translated by Editor/Translator Ginny Tapley Takemori. A story of a young Japanese woman working in a convenience store in Tokyo who enjoys her work enormously. She enjoys the structured work place 2020-08-11 16.14.01 and although she is not fitting societal norms of what a woman is supposed to be like in Japan she manages to come to terms with it, finding her own place in the world and continuing onwards. It is an unusual story and one learns about more of the expectation upon women in Japan. She defies the traditional norms and succeeds wonderfully in getting to accept who she is and what she wants out of life, as simple as it is. I really enjoyed it.

Another surprising read I enjoyed on my Kindle (but wasn’t sure if I would) is Too Much and Never Enough by Donald Trump’s sister, Mary Trump. I thought this tale might be one of sour grapes, maybe quite vindictive or poorly written.. It wasn’t. Mary Trump has a PhD in Clinical Psychology and works as a mental health consultant with adults in her full time job. She didn’t so much as diagnose her family members as describe their behaviours over the years. (I bought the Kindle version as I didn’t want to spend money on the new hardcover version as I wasn’t sure I’d like it.😁)

2020-08-11 16.29.20 Her description of the family and especially the patriarch Fred Trump, (Donald’s father) and the siblings of Donald are as objective as one in that position can possibly be. After reading how Fred treated all of his children it is no wonder Donald is as he is. It certainly helps one to understand him but it doesn’t make me like him any better. He is a very damaged man and that is apparent to most people in this world. I am glad I read it and I liked the author very much.

Another book from my shelves I really enjoyed was Ten Years a Nomad by Mathew Kepnes. Raised in Boston, having finished university and not wanting to settle down with a 9 to 5 job he conquers the fear that many Americans have related to travel and goes to the Caribbean on a holiday and later to Asia. He then decides he is going to travel and live in various parts of the world for the next eight years. This happens more as he continues to extend his travelling. Many Americans, myself included are raised to believe America is the only country worth travelling in. My father continually had us believing we would be mugged, taken advantage of, probably killed if we travelled anywhere outside of the U.S. When actually the U.S is probably the most dangerous place to travel with all the weapons around.

This young man explains it wonderfully. Another thing we have noticed that Americans 2020-08-11 16.14.45 do is that when one returns from an extensive trip nobody takes any interest in it. Questions aren’t really asked and instead family are more interested in what you had for dinner last night or have you seen such and such on Netflix. Friends often say, “Did you have a good time?” and that is the end of the conversation. The author explains this is his experience also and he can’t get over how life just on as normal as if he was never away.

They either don’t know what questions to ask, are just happy you survived the experience that must have been traumatic at times and let’s move on.

I enjoyed this author’s comments on his entire experience and when he did decide to settle down he was well and truly ready.

I am currently reading another travel tale but will talk about that one when finished. I’m 60% through another tale, this time an older British man undertaking the pilgrimage from Canterbury to Rome.

I hope this catches everyone up. I will have some photography to put up before long as I’ve spent a good deal of time watching photography lessons on You Tube and undertaking a Master Class on line from Annie Leibovitz I really enjoyed.

I am undertaking a fitness program too but more on that later as bits of it are quite unusual. More to catch up on but this post is long enough so will go hunt up some photos of the above named books and finish off with the Penguin, who by the way has a new shirt. (South American art work on a t shirt is new). All the best to my online friends. I’ve enjoyed your posts in the last month though I don’t always comment. Too many to comment on, but you know who you are and I do read them.

As my friends and I always say to each other…..cheers dears!

2020-08-05 12.51.45 — A bit of South American art work.

A Short Reprieve

July 21, 2020July 21, 2020 | TravellinPenguin

Roo — Just a hop and a skip away. Photo taken at Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary Tasmania

I’m having a winter’s break this month from blogging and commenting on too many blogs. I’ve been blogging now for 10 years and I’ve lost a bit of motivation but do not want to stop. It’s winter and to keep my mood and motivation going I’m walking, devoting my time to photography and spending time with Ollie. I still enjoy reading the blogs of people I follow and will continue to do so. You don’t leave friends in a hurry. I’m enjoying winter and just being well.

When I return to blogging the first week of August I’m going to be trying to only post once or twice a month. I will share the posts between books, photography and travels though most travels will be within Southern Tasmania either on the motorbike or on foot. I will tie that in with photography.

I hope everyone is staying well and doing the right thing by this Covid mess the world is dealing with. In the meantime don’t lose hope. There is so much of interest in the world with and without it. We just have to look for it.

I’ll be back with some books I’ve finished, some interesting photos and maybe a new wardrobe for the Penguin. All the best. 2020-05-31 11.24.50

Penguin Lines Series

May 31, 2020 | TravellinPenguin

2020-05-31 10.39.18 Sunday here and I’m moving ahead here. Forget the post about splitting up or not splitting up book series. I’m keeping them all and they will continue to live together with their families. Once that thought was out in the open I couldn’t bear to separate them all. Thanks for the comments about it.

Now..I’m going to begin reading some of the books from the various series I have and I went to Random.org to see what to read first. Penguin Books published a series of 12 short books based on the names of the underground Iines of London. Here is the list:

Victoria: Mind the Child- Camila Batmanghelidjh & Kids Company
The Central Line: The 32 Stops- Danny Dorling
The East London Line: Buttoned-Up- Fantastic Man
The District Line: What We Talk About When We Talk About the Tube- John Manchester
The Northern Line: A Northern Line Minute- William Leith
The Metropolitan Line: A Good Parcel of English Soil- Richard Mabey
The Bakerloo Line: Earthbound- Paul Morley
The Jubilee Line: A History of Capitalism According to the Jubilee Line- John O’Farrell
The Hammersmith & City Line: Drift- Philippe Parreno
The Waterloo & City Line: Waterloo-City, City-Waterloo
The Circle Line: Heads & Straights- Lucy Wadham
The Piccadilly Line: The Blue Riband- Peter York

Last evening I read no. 3, The East London Line- Buttoned up by Fantastic Man. The authors are Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom from Fantastic Man magazine.

This book, published in 2014 was about the fashion that is East London in the mid 80s. Not just that but the ‘buttoned up’ look of the men who lived and worked there. Evidently, there was an entire culture about the buttoned up look. It actually started with the buttoned up to the neck look (some wore ties, others didn’t) of the Mods with their Lambretta and Vespa scooters as they railed against the rockers during the 60s and 70s. They could be loud and violent but their dress was quite upstanding as opposed to long hair and rough looks that was the mainstream music culture of the time.

Another look was the one the Pet Shop Boys had in the 1980s which is when the buttoned up look took off again. One of the Boys was sported a street look while the other was ‘buttoned up’ with the very top button of his shirt buttoned.

thumbnail3 — Film director David Lynch was a buttoned-up man.

Who knew there was such a culture around the top button of a man’s shirt. Maybe people who lived in London were familiar but during those days I was living next to a cornfield in mid Michigan, so who knew?

One of the musicians from that time stated: “If I ever see a picture of myself playing, and for some reason I’ve unbuttoned my top button, I always feel a bit angry at myself,” he said. ‘I feel it makes a big difference to the way you wear a shirt. It’s really subtle but it changes an entire outfit. If I’m not buttoned up it feels a bit like something’s missing, like I’ve not finished getting dressed.’

thumbnail4 From another…“The man in a deep V is open, ready, disposable. The buttoned-up man has a flavour of some entrenched, considered mystery. We would’ve once considered him pretentious, if preferring books to TV can be adjudged as such. He does not favour the more expositional approach to male sex-appeal in his wardrobe. “

The various parts of London were evidently known for their street dress. An East ender would be buttoned-up without a tie. If you wore a tie you were even more conservative such as someone in the law profession. South Londoners sported the hoody. If someone had a jumper over their shoulders they were obviously from a ritzy public school. The buttoned-up are practically Edwardian in their style.

I got a big kick out of this little book. It is also full of black and white photos of various buttoned-up men models and the neighbourhood streets that make up the stops along the East London line. 2thumbnail

I have nine series in sets or boxed sets and I plan on dipping into them more often. For the reason they are generally about subjects I books I would not normally pick up if in a shop. It will be interesting what adventures they hold and what new information will be imparted to this currently addled brain of mine. Time to relax and enjoy what is on the shelf.

A Bit of Ruth Park- Australian Writer

January 1, 2020January 1, 2020 | TravellinPenguin

My first book of 2020 is from an Australian female writer of the past, Ruth Park. The book is A Fence Around the Cuckoo, her autobiography of the first 25 years of her life. The remaining years are in a sequel entitled Fishing in the Styx, which I own but have not yet read. Bill Holloway of the AustralianLegend blog is hosting an Australian Women’s Writer week in January (here). I won’t have time to read a lot of the Gen 3 AWWs by mid January but this book qualifies.

Ruth Park was born in New Zealand in 1917 and died in 2010 at the age of 93. Part I of her biography details her first 25 years living in the north island of New Zealand with her large extended family in poverty during the war and depression years. She moved to Sydney in her early 20s where she remained the rest of her life.

She always knew from a very young age she wanted to write. Her parents struggled to ever meet her expectations because of their poverty. Her mother was one of six girls and a couple of brothers raised by Ruth’s grandmother and grandfather. They feature a lot in this story and I enjoyed hearing about their life of squabbles and affection. Ruth lived with a couple of them from time to time when things got too bad.

Ruth didn’t have any access to books at all until she was in her teens. Books weren’t available and neither was paper upon which to write. She talks of one of her uncles bringing home some forms from his office job, that were blank on the back and she thought it was Christmas. She coveted the paper and wrote every chance she got. If the desire to write is genetic she certainly had the gene for it. Her desire was strong.

The book details the type of work her parents and grandparents did, the description of the homes she lived in. Her father had done pretty good until the depression came, he couldn’t work and they lost their home after declaring bankruptcy. The ensuing years were very tough. It wasn’t until WWII when things began to pick up a bit.

I enjoyed hearing about her mother’s seamstress skills and her relationships with her sisters.

Ruth was greatly influenced by one of the nuns where she attended primary school at St. Benedicts. The nun spent a great deal of time with her perfecting her writing skills, working her harder than the other students as she saw Ruth’s potential. As Ruth approached high school age the Sister helped her get a full scholarship for the rest of her school years. I felt excited for her at that point, but sadly the family had to move away due to their financial situation and Ruth never got to take it up. I really felt for her. She was still trying to find books to read without success. Her mother was supportive and wanted her to continue her education but was unable to help her.

Eventually Ruth got a job for the Star newspaper in Auckland, writing in the children’s section. At that time there were sections in newspapers for children of several pages which Ruth loved in her own childhood, if she could get her hands on a paper. During her time at the Star she realises how lowly paid female copy writers were compared to male writers. Most males didn’t believe there was any place for a woman on a newspaper. She was groundbreaking on that front eventually becoming a journalist.

She also met a man from Sydney who worked for newspapers there and they began an uncomfortable pen pal relationship. I say uncomfortable as she thought him a bit arrogant and he was keener to be with her than her with him. Her upbringing was very sheltered and she was also quite an independent child and wanted to remain so because of her own goals in life.

Eventually she moves to Sydney when she is 22 years old as she is offered work on a newspaper there. She learned that women were paid the same as men in copy editing and there were more opportunities. Her relationship with her pen pal D’Arcy Niland, also a writer, developed more and they married not long after she arrived in Sydney.

I found the book interesting as I saw another side of New Zealand indigenous life, the depression years of the 1930s as well as life during the two world wars. I admired her tenacity and independence in staying focused on her goals throughout her young life. Nothing distracted her mentally. The circumstances ruling her life then were so tough.

As far as autobiographies go I really enjoyed this one. I’d like to read more of her books of which she wrote many during her lifetime.

******************************************

I also began the diaries mentioned in the last post as it’s the first of January. I opened my own diary and loved seeing all the blank pages waiting to be filled. What will this year be like?

I thought as I read these diaries during the year I’ll add excerpts that I enjoy from different periods of time into some posts.

From A Traveller’s Year: “…in the knowledge that no one pines for me anywhere on earth, that there is no place where I am being missed or expected. To know that is to be free and unencumbered, a nomad in the great desert of life where I shall never be anything but an outsider” Isabelle Eberhardt, Diary. 1900.

I’d like to know more of Isabelle’s life. Until next time….. Screenshot 1

Lots of book, travel and photography news from Tasmania….finally!

March 7, 2019 | TravellinPenguin

Snip20190307_8 I have a lot of catching up to do here. Thanks for being so patient. Last time I stopped by here I was preparing for the Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart. I was supposed to work four days but only managed three days. It was full on and hot and my old body needed a day of rest. We walked more than 10 km per day with our cameras. When my body talks….I listen. I will put up some photos on a Wordless Wednesday post or a Thursday Travels.

Snip20190307_9 The weekend after the Wooden Boats we had the Kempton Festival for the day. It was stinking hot that day and little shade. The country town of Kempton opens their doors for garage sales and a big festival full of locals and animals. It was fun. I think that might be another Wednesday or Thursday post of photos. I won’t dwell on the six dogs I made the owner pull out of their car in the terrible heat. When will people learn you don’t put kids and pets in cars to wait for you in the stinking heat while going of to enjoy yourself.

Snip20190307_10 — Tasmanian devils at Bonorong Sanctuary

Then we had visitors from Michigan. My husband’s cousin and his partner. You won’t believe how much we did in a week. They arrived Sunday evening so a meal in the Cascade Brewery pub was called for. Monday- the top of Mt. Wellington and the MONA (Museum of Old and New Art Museum). Monday night was a home BBQ. Tuesday was the Tasmanian Museum and the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. Tuesday night was a lovely Japanese meal out. Wednesday we managed the Botanical Gardens. I had an author event so Mr. Penguin cooked them a pasta dinner. Then Thursday we drove the 90 minute drive down to Port Arthur (the ruins of an 1800’s penal colony) with a breakfast stop on the way. Mr. Penguin and Visitor Cousin had a

Snip20190307_11 — Port Arthur Penal Colony

cousin/sister on the cruise ship with friends that day who took the ship’s tour to Port Arthur where we all met up. Then home we came and met them later on at a fish restaurant down on the wharf. They then sailed for New Zealand on the cruise ship and we came home

Friday was a quiet day just resting, drinking beer and watching Netflix a bit. On Saturday it was 39 degrees (that’s about 100 F) and Mr. Penguin took them back down the Tasman Peninsula for a Pennicott boat cruise that goes along the cliff faces on the Tasman Sea and sees lots of marine wildlife. I get very seasick as it’s quite a rough ride so

I chose not to go. I stayed home and rested. Sunday saw us walking down around the
sandstone buildings of Salamanca and a stop for a cold beer. They flew out to Melbourne Monday morning and we collapsed. I took photos in most of these places so I think I’ll have a lot of Wordless Wednesdays and Travelling Thursdays coming up.

Now….did I read? Yes I did manage some books. There is no time to write a great deal about the books but I will give you a bit of a synopsis.

Snip20190307_1 Book One- The Arsonist by well recognised author, Chloe Hooper, b. 1973 from Melbourne Australia. This book is Australian non fiction about the Black Saturday fires in the state of Victoria in 2009. There were 173 fatalities and many properties lost. The story is a journalistic investigation of the fire and what caused it? Who caused it? I won’t give much more information as I don’t want spoilers.

It was a very interesting account and much was learned from that fire and new practises put into place. Our Fuller’s Book Store Book group is reading it for this week’s meeting but as I am so exhausted from all the past month’s activity I chose to sleep at home through the meeting. There is a
group meeting tonight but I’m booked into a play tonight so will miss it. More on that later. (maybe)

I found this book incredibly interesting and the writing was not sensationalised. It offered a lot of food for thought which is always good. The ramifications carry on for a long time.

Snip20190307_3 The second book I managed to get through, as it’s a very short book was The Newspaper of Claremont Street by Australian author Elizabeth Jolley. She had an incredibly interesting life and wrote quite a few books. (here for The Wikipedia entry about Ms Jolley)

The Australian author Tim Winton mentioned her as he studied under her at Curtain University in Western Australia in his book The Boy Behind the Curtain (short stories)

Snip20190307_5 — Elizabeth Jolley 1923-2007

I loved this book. It is a story of an elderly cleaning woman who services all of the affluent homes in her neighbourhood each day. She gets all of the gossip from every house and shares it with every other house. If something is happening she knows about it.

When her immigrant neighbour dies she is left caring for an extremely difficult wife of the man who died. There is some good black humour in this book. The character is verywell developed. We get to know her well and we feel the need for her to accomplish her goal of raising money for a certain ideal in her mind. I won’t say more than that. She lives in a room in a boarding house and we get used to her habits at home. The last half of the story is about the relationship between her immigrant neighbour and how that develops. I will certainly read more of her work and I believe I have one or two of her books on my shelf. She’s definitely an author I will look for in second hand shops.

Snip20190307_2 The third book I just finished for the April Book Club read is The Everlasting Sunday by Robert Lukins. This is his first novel and is being nominated for all kinds of awards. The Good Reads blurb states:

During the freezing English winter of 1962, seventeen-year-old Radford is sent to Goodwin Manor, a home for boys who have been ‘found by trouble’. Drawn immediately to the charismatic West, Radford soon discovers that each one of them has something to hide.

Life at the Manor offers only a volatile refuge, and unexpected arrivals threaten the world the boys have built. Will their friendship be enough when trouble finds them again?

At once both beautiful and brutal, The Everlasting Sunday is a haunting debut novel about growing up, growing wild and what it takes to survive.

I found this a difficult book to get into. I had the audible edition and had trouble following it as there was too much going on in my life as I got to it in bits and pieces. I finally downloaded the eBook from the library on Overdrive, sat down properly in a chair with both versions, backed up a few chapters and began again. I then got a lot more out of it.

In the beginning I thought the author’s descriptions were over the top and I got irritated.

Too many adjectives. I laughed out loud when he described someone’s lips “collapsing into themselves”. My mind is just too visual. I don’t need descriptions like this every few sentences. Then he calms down a bit and the characters take over more. I enjoyed the protagonist Radford, though you’re never sure why he’s in the boys home. It was a book that had an ominous overtone and I felt something awful was going to happen. I felt the book got a lot stronger as I continued. I would have liked more even character development. Some characters that turned out to be more important later on weren’t fleshed out enough that I cared about them. There were a couple of characters; Radford, his friend West and the boys adviser and mentor, Teddy who were quite well developed. I think it is a remarkable first novel but I can’t say I loved it as I went through it. I did want to see though how it was going to end. It made me curious. I wanted to know why Radford was in this place. He seemed such a nice young man. Well…. I will be interested to know what my book group thinks about it in April and it is certainly one meeting I won’t be missing.

My quick online research states that Robert Lukins lives in Melbourne and has worked as an art researcher and journalist. His writing has been published widely, including in The Big Issue, Rolling Stone, Crikey, Broadsheet and Overland . The Everlasting Sunday is his first novel

Whew!!! A bit long winded but I wanted a good catch up to get me motivated again. When one steps away from their blog for too long everything piles up and just can’t be covered. I think this post is more than enough for all of us. Snip20181102_18

I want to wish everyone well. The northern hemisphere people are yearning for spring and summer especially in those cold places in the USA and UK. The Southern Hemisphere people want the fires out (six of which continue in Tasmania with continued smoke here and there) and cooler temperatures. We always seem to want what we don’t have. So enjoy spring if you’re above the equator and enjoy autumn if you’re below it. More soon. I promise.

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