Travellin' Penguin

I know, I know….where does the time go? Can’t believe I’m looking at Christmas decorations in the shops.  (sigh). Why don’t they just leave them up all year so we get used to them and then don’t feel so stressed when we see them?

This is a catch up post and to make it easier I’ll stick to categories. That’s how I think.

First off I’ve been reading lots of your blogs out there. Probably why I neglect my own. I get wrapped up in yours.  Having heard about “three things” on Bookjotter’s post I decided to knick part of that and come up with my own headings.  I’ll work on them and hopefully have more of a template by 2019.

I always feel if you haven’t written to someone you should just write about what’s happening today.  That way if I do that I don’t feel overwhelmed by having to think of everything that’s gone on for the past month.  I like it when people write to me too and just tell me what they’re up to on that day.  It means they’ll write more often if they only have to tell me about one day and over time I stay in touch.  I might think about that too for the new year.  Okay, let’s have a go-

Reading:  I just finished more than half of Death of a River Guide by Richard Flanagan. One of his earlier works, I enjoyed the writing but not the topic. He is drowning in a river and the entire book is about his thoughts while he drowns. The majority of the book has his memories circling his mind.  I enjoyed the stories he remembers but found the drowning disturbing and claustrophobic.  I read enough and just couldn’t finish it.  The world is sad enough without my free time being taken up by a slowly drowning man. The book was chosen by the Bushwalking Book Club which meets this Sunday….

….However,

My Brain Activities:  I can’t attend as I’m enrolled in a two day writing workshop by Rosie Dub through the Tasmanian Writer’s Centre.  I lifted the description of her from the Writer’s Centre.

“Rosie has worked as an editor, a mentor and a teacher of creative writing for more than fifteen years. During this period she has edited and assessed manuscripts ranging across many genres of fiction and non-fiction. Her creative writing teaching has been conducted through the writer’s centre in Hobart, UTAS, TAFE, Adult Education and private workshops.”

The Great Outdoors Experience:  I took my Odie for a bit of a bush walk this morning. We went up the fire trails, stopped when tired, ate our breakfast banana and drank our water, then headed home.  We saw a young woman walking her gorgeous greyhound, two young fathers with toddlers and infants strapped to their bodies chatting to each other and one very energetic runner that came up from behind very quickly and startled us.  After watching so many crime series on Netflix lately I turned around and was ready to hit someone with my walking stick as I heard fast moving footsteps.  I don’t know if Odie would protect me or if I would protect him.  But all was okay.

Listening:  I am currently listening to A Gentleman in Moscow on audible. Enjoying it very much. No doubt, many of you may have read it okay. It is by the author Amor Towles.

Fuller’s Book Shop Book Club:  We discussed the inaugural novel of The Lucky Galah by Tracy Sorensen last night.  All of us, for the most part enjoyed it. The story that takes place during the time of the moon landing in 1969. It tells the story of two families living in Western Australia. Trials and tribulations with each other all narrated from the point of view of the Galah who lives in a cage.  I thought it was a great story and loved the location and the time period.  But I didn’t grow up in Australia, so much of the nostalgia talked about was lost to me.

The others in the group enjoyed that part of it very much.  We talked about those little round onions on toothpicks, dinner parties, frocks, etc. We also discussed what we were all doing on the day of the moon landing. I didn’t enjoy reading it as much because of the cruelty around the Galah’s life.  She pretty much symbolised the lives of women in that time period and how constrained/abused they were at times.  It was also linked to the novel, The Lucky Country, written 50 years ago by Donald Horne. Tracy mentioned in an interview on the ABC radio that women were mentioned in his novel only three times. This book is meant to be an answer to the lives women find themselves in from a female point of view, even if it is from a Galah.

For a first novel by a young author I thought it was very well written and look forward to more from her.  One interesting comment from another was she thought it was too similar to Cloudstreet by Tim Winton. Ms. Sorensen wrote about Western Australia very much as Tim Winton does.  The two families who are at times friends and then at times falling out was very similar to the two families who shared the house in Cloudstreet.  We also saw similarities to the film, The Dish.  If others are familiar with these two books and the film I’d love to know what you think.

Play Reading Class: We just finished The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde. We loved it. We read it a couple of years ago but we have new members in the group that weren’t familiar with it and it really is such a laugh. We are currently finishing up the year with the play Peter Pan by JM Barrie.  Great fun to read the lines of the pirates.

Photography Group:  Getting ready to turn in our digital challenges for the November meeting coming up. The task is to have at least three layers in the photo designed on photoshop. I had great fun with this and managed to insert the Penguin into it. It made me laugh while I played around with You Tube videos trying to work out how to do it and get inspiration.  I put the Penguin in and then liked it so much kept him there. Will be interesting to see how it scores on the night.

Pets:  All are in good health only because they have such good medical care. Dogs, Odie and Molly, are on medications. (Ear medicine and heart & arthritis medication respectively). Cats Grizzy on his every other day eye drop for herpes virus in his eye. He had it when we adopted him but didn’t know it and now we’ll be caring for that for the rest of his life. Uncle Buck is on Beta Blockers for his heart twice a day. Terrible tasting liquid med I am told. Cousin Eddie is the only one that doesn’t stand in the queue each day for a dose of something.

Something to Look Forward To:   Hopefully something Fuller’s related for a birthday present coming up soon and we’re in the air again. This time flying to Sri Lanka for a couple of weeks the end of November. More on that later. Of course the Penguin will be going.

I guess that’s it for today.  Now- your comment for the day. What did you do today?  I only need to hear about today.

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