Category: Fiction

I have had a bit of a break from keeping this little blog moving along. Focusing on actually reading books and keeping fit. On these short, cold winter days I just crash at home at the end of day, keep the dogs entertained and watch Netflix, rest or read some more. So let’s catch up here. I won’t go too far back, just starting over.

I have joined a shared reading group at Fullers Bookshop. I have been on a waiting list for this group for ages. I finally got in. Each Monday night we meet in a group of 10 to 12 people (it is capped) and are reading aloud from Chekhov’s book of short stories. As I have joined this group late, I have now attended three sessions and read six stories. We have one more Monday night (next week) to finish off the book. Then there will be a bit of a break and we are going to do a reading aloud of Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I have heard so much about this story but not read it so really looking forward to it. Also there won’t be a lot of Russian names to pronounce. We have done quite well though with the Russian words in the Chekhov book. It did include some laughter.

Our Fullers Book Group met earlier this month and we read the book Here We Are by Graham Swift. We read his book Mothering Sunday several years ago and we enjoyed this one. It was decided if one reads Here We Are it appears to be a lightweight book about a trio of friends, Ronnie, Jack and Evie who participate in vaudeville and Illusion acts in Brighton, England in the 1950s.

The book begins with the death of Jack, who is married to Evie in the late 20th century then goes backwards 50 years to the evacuation of Ronnie to the countryside as a child during the second world war. Upon a second reading several people mentioned they uncovered much deeper levels to this book and that is what we discussed. Themes of endings, death, colours (the colours white and green are used throughout as symbols), relationships, regret. Each member of the group took away various meanings from this book.

The book I am now reading for the August group is the Russian book The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. I am almost 200 pages into it and must say I am enjoying it. It is on many lists of 100 or 1000 books you must read before you die. It has been on my shelf for quite awhile but I never had the nerve to open it. No excuses now and not difficult at all to get into as long as one keeps an open mind and asks no questions. I find it is a book to simply walk into and follow the story without too many questions.

In other news. I have been doing a bit of photography though the last few weeks have been very cold and rainy. Now it is simply cold and sunny. I continue with my fitness regime three times a week with trainers at the gym and enjoy that very much. I also get into conversations at the bus stop waiting for the bus that brings me home afterwards.

Peanut and Ollie are well. They keep us on our toes. We are also having a spare room redone with a new wall bed that is actually a desk when folded up onto the wall. It looks like cabinet doors with a bookshelf beside it. When company comes (that sounds hopeful doesn’t it) it pulls down into a lovely double bed with a full sized mattress.

We have painters coming today to work in the bedroom and hallway the next three days and then hopefully the bed will be delivered before too long from Sydney though they are in lockdown now due to the Delta strain of Covid and our Prime Minister’s incompetence at getting enough Pfizer vaccines to make our citizens safe. It is breathtaking how completely ineffective and incompetent this man is. We actually have a previous prime minister working with official at Pfizer because they won’t deal with our current one as he was so arrogant with them they ignore him. Just unbelievable.

Okay, I’ll share some photos with you now and move on. I did want to get this out today. All the best to everyone, stay cool in the northern hemisphere, warm in the southern hemisphere and safe around the world.

Our photo club went to the Terhune Airwalk in southern Tasmania a couple of weeks back to look for fungi. It is a beautiful area with a large airwalk that reigns over the trees. However we spent more time scrounging around on the ground looking for fungi. We were dressed in layers of clothing but overall we had a great day out with hot food and drink in their cafe when finished.

Autumn has truly set in on our small island at the bottom of the globe. 12 degrees C (51F), rainy and probably snow on the mountain. Wind out of the south is chilly.

I’ve been reading quite a bit lately as well as doing my work at the gym, and attending a few events at Fullers Book shop. Easter weekend had me working on photography for three days as several challenges were due for our club. So first things first…..

Our book club discussed Tasmanian Erin Hortle’s The Octopus and I.

We had mixed feelings about it. It is her debut novel and we would have liked the editing to be a bit stricter. We enjoyed her writing about the Tasman Peninsula which we are all familiar with as it is only about 60 kms from where we live. We knew of the places she wrote about. We wondered why she varied between first person and third person narrative. We had interesting discussions about editing of books in general, comparing modern editing to that of the past. We thought books were edited more tightly before 1970. We also thought maybe younger women than all of us older women in the group would have worried more about the body image discussed a lot in this book. The protagonist Lucy has had a double mastectomy and breasts were discussed at length. Some of us would recommend this book and others not so much. We also liked the environmental themes within the book. We’re waiting to see if and how she approaches a second novel which we’ve heard she is working on.

I finished Rosie Batty‘s book, A Mother’s Story in no time. Rosie Batty was Australia’s Person of the Year in 2015 as a domestic violence campaigner and advocate for the work she has done regarding domestic violence. If you google her you can learn much more about her. She was in an extremely on again/off again relationship with Greg, whom she never really loved, but it resulted in her son, Luke’s birth. We know from the outset Luke’s father kills him when he is 11 years old. The story is a sad one but what I thought the book pointed out was how the system fails people in domestic violent relationships. There were also so many sliding door moments for Lucy. There were bad decisions Rosie made, there was incredible miscommunication between the agencies that should have been able to help her. This is not a genre I would read often but I thought the information on how communities, in this case the state of Victoria, handled her case. As a result of her becoming Australian of the Year and publicity of her story, a royal commission was held and evidently changes are being made regarding domestic violence.

However, one woman a week continues to die in Australia due to domestic violence. If a sporting name, a politician or a celebrity died at the rate of one a week I believe much more would be done. So moving on….

Another book I finished was a bit of travel writing again. I listened to young Jake Tyler from England discuss the walk he undertook to circumnavigate the UK. He wrote about it in his book A Walk from the Wild Edge. He has a great deal of difficulty suffering from depression/anxiety. This caused his excessive use of alcohol, drugs and non employment, lying around doing nothing. He finally decided he would leave Brighton where he was living in England and start walking clockwise around England, Wales, Scotland.

I didn’t find this book was so much about his trip as it was his unending discussion of dealing with depression. Every page had him talking to people about it, regressing once more into drugs and alcohol several times as he met up with friends in various locations, pulling himself out of it again, then talking more about it.

I believe the walk helped him in many ways but until he can beat his addictions I don’t think any walks anywhere are going to put him on a complete path to recovery. I was happy to finish the book.

I read a lot of travel writing and it seems many people, especially with more current books, are dealing with a mental health issue. They seem to travel, often using unusual transport (camels, donkeys, walking, bicycling, etc) to deal with what affects them. The more travel reading I do I am now looking at the back cover more carefully to see the reason for their trips. I’ve read enough about travel and mental illness for the time being.

I am halfway through Gilead by Marilyn Robinson for our May book group. The writing is beautiful and I appreciate it but I am finding it slow going. It isn’t the type of book I enjoy the most. It is much too religious for my non believer self. I am only reading 20 pages a day to ensure I finish it in time, then reading other things I enjoy more.

I am enjoying the
Australian book Neon Pilgrim by Lisa Dempster. Described as “15 year old Lisa Dempster promises herself to one day walk the zhenro michi, an arduous 88 temple Buddhist pilgrimage through the mountains of Japan’s Shikoku island.” She spent a year in Japan as a student when she made this decision. Now 13 years later she is doing it. She, again, is not in good health. She has few interests, is overweight, unfit and begins this journey. It is more of a physical health issue and also a way to develop her confidence and self image. However she doesn’t dwell on it and instead discusses the journey, the temples, the food, the people she meets. Her experiences are really interesting and she keeps an open mind to everything around her. I’m not too far into it yet but I am really enjoying it. The walk comprises “1200 kms of mountainous terrain, a sweltering Japanese summer, she has no money and has never done a multi-day hike especially alone.” But her determination is fun to watch and I am interested in how she does.

Other books I’m dipping into are photography books and instructional methods in books, magazines and you tube videos.

Our photography club is undertaking a challenge with our sister city, the West Yorkshire city of Ilkey, England’s photography club. Each member of both clubs has been paired up, one Tasmanian photographer and one Ilkey member. A colour and a letter of the alphabet has been ascribed to each pair. My letter and colour is A and the colour Blue. An Ilkey member has the same. A and Blue. This will result in two photos for each of us to complete. Then a judge will look at the four photos and judge the winner of each category.

Each photo club member has a different letter and colour. Then a tally will be made of what club has the most wins. This time we have an independent Australian judge who will judge the photos blind. Next time England will pick the judge.

It should be fun and I will include my entries below.

On a personal note (which means the dogs), Peanut got spayed this week and our job is to keep a one year old jack russell and an active 4 month old from running around like zoomie nuts for one week. That is our challenge of the week. Lots of dogs on leashes, independent yard visits and getting them to bed at night as early as possible. So far so good.

Mr Penguin is fixing a large pot of chilli to get us through the cold weekend today. I noticed he brought home a fairly large container of long red chillies from the grocery store and hope he is only using some of them. Mr. P is a person who drinks tabasco sauce straight from the bottle so I do need to keep an eye on things.

I hope everyone who reads this is doing well and enjoying what they can in the part of the world they live in. All the best with your walking, cooking, reading, netflixing, crafting, working…whatever you love to do. Until next time.