Travellin' Penguin

I hope everyone is well and adjusting to the speed to which this year is going. Lots happening here so will break it down into manageable paragraphs.

BOOKS: Reading Shaun Bythell’s third diary of his Wigtown, Scottish bookstore. He sure seems to fit the profile of some of the curmudgeonly book sellers I met while travelling in the UK a few years ago. The characters he writes about are good fun to follow and having read both Diary of a Bookseller and Confessions of a Bookseller, I continue to enjoy this very much.

I am also reading Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. Her story revolves around women trying to pursue a decent career as scientists in the 1950s (I believe…60’s?) as they are very much discriminated against by the male scientists. I always find that so frustrating but I am enjoying the story.

Fullers book club begins in April. We were sent the book list for the first 4 months and I am very much waiting for it. Our first read to be discussed is Ernest Hemingway’s book, The Sun Also Rises. I have read a couple of his others but never that one as it has bull fighting in it which I really dislike. So I will skip over that part. It is not a very long book so should be able to polish it off. I have always wanted to read more of him.

TRAVEL: We are finally going to go somewhere out of the country. Not that far but really looking forward to it. Two weeks of a road trip in the south island of New Zealand. We have previously travelled the north island so really looking forward to photographing this area. More to come.

CULTURE: I saw David Sedaris at the Theatre Royal and he was hilarious. Very modest and very funny. He is such a keen observer of everyday life and makes the most mundane laughable. The theatre was packed and everyone stamped feet, applauded and yelled out when he conversed directly with the audience with house lights up. What a fun night out. People here are always happy when performers come to Tasmania as most forget about our little state down here but more enthusiastic audiences will not be found when someone does choose to visit.

NEW OBSESSION: Since I left motorbiking and struggle as I miss it so much I needed something to replace the interest. A few years ago I had a metal detector that was a very low end model. I had no group support or idea of what could be done with it and it went by the wayside. Well I have dived into the earth big time now. Not reading much but learning all the settings on this Minelab Equinox 800. Thank goodness for You Tube. Have linked up with some very supportive Tassie and Victorian detectorists. I put up a post on our local Good Karma fb page and have several offers to detect some very old properties locally. I have a large bush park behind us here that supposedly had a building on it that was burned in the 1967 fires. I have found several interesting items, including a pre decimal coin and name brands on a canister and brewery that are no longer in business. I research each item as much as possible and the detectorist groups help with item description and cheer each other on. I really enjoy it. It also works on balance, stepping on a shovel with one foot 🤠, knee strength, getting up and down and muscle action, digging through baked clay and sandstone. More on that as it happens.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Continues to go well. I begin attendance this coming week at a second club I’ve not attended before and looking forward to meeting the men and women in it who seem to be quite active.

FITNESS: Still lifting those weights, walking a lot especially detecting beaches. Diet going well, lost 2 kilos simply by removing all sweet food from house except Frosty Fruit icy poles that help deal with the late night cravings of ice cream, biscuits and chocolate.

Hopefully this brings you up to date with Tassie life. Let me know what you do when you aren’t reading books. For fun, of course. All the best.

Hi everyone. It has been very busy lately with a lot of activities. So not to dawdle I’ll just bring us up to the current week.

MONDAY: Back to weight class but our regular instructor is on holiday so we had a very hyperactive instructor from Brazil. I haven’t seen such mania and chaos in a person in a long time. I actually left a few minutes early as I had finished my main exercises and had to find some calm.

That night I finished a book by David Sedaris. Theft by Finding. It is his diary from his attendance at university to just beginning to get serious about his writing. He had some really tough experiences with road trips and he had some very hard edged friends. Lots of alcohol, drugs, family issues especially with his parents. He is a feminine looking man and more so as a young man. His parents were both difficult and did not cope with his coming out at all. Homosexuality caused him to receive a great deal of beatings and discrimination back in he 1970s and 80s of America. It is really surprising he has survived his life.

This book is not for the faint hearted who don’t like awful references about women from some of his acquaintances and the language is foul throughout. I actually skipped a few pages when it got too bad. Overall I enjoyed reading about his life as he travelled a great deal throughout the USA, experienced extreme poverty for many years, lived in Europe off and on, mainly in Paris. Throughout he seemed to keep his gentler nature and I wondered how he did so having lived in squalid conditions, sometimes being homeless but always writing, writing, writing. He is also extremely funny and the subjects he pondered were hilarious at times. He has a very unusual (to me) take on the world. The book wore me out but I’m glad to have found it and would certainly read another of his. He is currently touring Australia and I will see him at our beautiful Theatre Royal on 1 Feb. I had tickets to see him before. I did see him here several years ago but the last time Covid cancelled it.

TUESDAY: This day started a new venture. I have a new Minelab, Equinox 800 metal detector. I know, I know. I’ve heard the jokes. I took this up quite a few years ago but didn’t have good equipment but did fine a few old horseshoes from the brewery and a couple old Aussie pennies. Now I’ve upgraded, joined a couple of metal detecting fb groups, one being Tasmania and I plan on getting out with it along with my camera. On my day out I can do photography and when that is done I can do a few sweeps and maybe find some jewellery, coins or even a hidden stash from a gaoled bush ranger who never retrieved. I like the history behind the targets people find. So far as I’m learningabout frequencies and settings and various metal types I’ve only been sweeping my backyard. I found an old chain and lock we lost from our back gate over 30 yrs ago and a broken toaster was dug up out of the yard. Our property used to be owned by Cascade brewery and I’ve found horseshoes and pieces of chain over the years p,anting things. They used this area as a rubbish dump and there is a lot of old fill so who knows what lies buried here in this neighbourhood.

I’ve picked up Patricia Highsmith’s Diary I started sometime back. I’ve been dipping in and out of it for months as it is a very large diary. As a young women, once again, lots of booze and love affairs but now her writing is starting to take off and I’m finding it more interesting. I’ll persevere between other things.

Well I noticed this is very long so going to stop midweek. I can add Thurs through to Sunday soon as there are a couple 0f things happening. So until then. Stay well.

Well Christmas is all over and I for one am looking forward to the new year. I have American brownies just out of the oven, so the house smells good. I haven’t had anything sweet in the house for ages as my personal trainer at gym suggested I lose a couple of kilos which I have now done. So the brownies will be a treat and then out it all goes again.

I got a light hearted book to read this week. It’s Australian but I’m not familiar with the author. It’s called Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson. It is a mystery filled with dark humour. I have only started it but have had a few laughs. It begins with him having to dispose of a criminal body his brother accidentally ran over with the car. The brother didn’t want to save the man because the man was wearing a balaclava and had a bag with $280,000 of cash in it. Once our protagonist got out of that situation he is obliged to attend a big family reunion in the mountains run by an aunt who organises everything in spreadsheets. The company, the meal, the accommodation and the relatives get memos related to the spreadsheet that drive all of them nuts. Of course there are those spouses that marry into the family who are seen to speak,out of turn. Two of the attendees are participating in a private bingo game unknown to those who are the butt of the game.

A paragraph: ‘Glad you’re finally here. I was waiting for you to rescue me- I knew you’d distract everyone. Here.’ She handed me a small, square piece of cardboard, which had a grid printed on it. Inside each box was a short phrase, relating to different family members: Marcello shouts at a Waiter; Lucy tries to SELL you anything. I spotted my name- Ernest ruins something- in the middle of the left column.

I can see my family having participated in a game such as this in the past. I only wish I had thought of it. Mr Penguin and I had a family very similar to Clark Griswald’s in the film Christmas vacation with Chevy Chase. It has long been our favourite silly Christmas movie along with sharing jokes with my brother.

All of this happens in the first two chapters.

Now we have wrapped up the holiday season quickly I look forward to our reading groups beginning next year as well as my photography groups getting active again. I have joined a second one also and look forward to seeing what they get up to. Stay tuned.

I look forward to hearing about new books out there exchanging hands and a clean slate of a new year beginning. I’ll have a toast that all of us have a good year.