Travellin' Penguin

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.

We’ll kick off here with Thursday today. It has been a very busy week but interesting. I started off Thursday with my trip to the weight training group. Some days I really drag but today I was right up there, feelin’ good.

I had dropped Ollie off at the vet for his sedation and X-ray following his six weeks of recovery from his surgery. I had to get back and pick him up. He is healing well and his orthopaedic surgeon sent us a six week plan of physio. It was addressed to Ollie but I think we’ll have to encourage him on his progression beginning with 15 minute walks through to a short beach walk and then longer bush walks. Six more weeks living life on his lead.

Then Thursday late afternoon had me coming home, scrubbing up and getting myself down to the Theatre Royal for the Tasmanian Literary awards.

I bought a dress for the event but had to exchange it when I discovered it was slightly too small. All I could think of was comedienne Kitty Flanagan saying “If you look like a rolled roast, go up a size”. So I did!

It was a pretty good evening but sadly most of the more well known authors, Amanda Lowry , Robbie Arnott, Aunty Patsy Cameron were not in attendance.

The evening started with a recognition of country by an indigenous poet, sorry I forget her name. The following awards were in the categories of fiction, non fiction, children, poetry (for the first time), Margaret Scott award, and on it went. Australians who are interested in the winner’s list can go here. https://www.arts.tas.gov.au/tasliteraryawards/home .

As this was the first time the awards were held since Covid many were happy to see their return. The honourable MP for the Arts, Elise Archer, liberal, handed out the major awards. The highlight for me was when Andrew Darby won the non fiction category for Flight Lines.

The book…..

“Andrew Darby follows the extraordinary migratory shorebirds from Australia’s southern ocean to the Arctic and back. On these travels he explores the power of science to reveal the mysteries of these birds, and to heal both their endangered world – and unexpectedly – himself.’

The journey of these rare, grey plovers, is incredibly long and perilous. Andrew gave a passionate speech about the risk to these endangered birds by the liberal government’s plan to put up a mass of wind turbines on one of the islands in Bass Strait, directly in the flight path of many of our migratory birds. Of course the presenter of his award is from the liberal party. There was much applause and hooting and hollering.

I think members of our liberal government lie awake at night just thinking of ways they can bulldoze our state and eradicate all wildlife.

It was good to see Arts Council Tasmania bringing back the literary awards. Of course Ms Archer announced a measly increased amount of money in the state budget for the arts. But nothing like the $750 million dollars they are planning to spend on our THIRD football stadium in our little state of 500 million people, half of whom don’t care for football. The AFL won’t give Tasmania a team unless we build a new covered stadium as the existing two are without covers. Forget the ambulance ramping, little to no low cost housing and the increasing number of homeless here. Every state in Australia has one stadium and we are going to have three!

However I won’t start. Instead I will wish everyone a happy holiday season. We are not doing Christmas this year as we have taken our Christmas funds and donated them to animal welfare groups and the Bob Brown organisation for the wonderful environmental work it does. All the best for however you choose to celebrate the season or not.

I’ve been busy catching up on blog reading but lately there are too many posts to comment on so my comments are a bit sporadic. And sometimes there just isn’t a good response to make so I slide into the next one.

I’ve been following the Intrepid Arkansawyer for awhile now and I really like her format. It is in the format of a weekly diary and details not only books and tv events she watches but life with her mother and cats. I like the personal touch.

So I think I might try a bit of the diary format as I find if I wait too long before I post, it is just overwhelming to remember and write everything that happened since my last post, so I don’t. I would like to post more often.

So here goes… MONDAY:

Today was quite hectic. I did my normal weight training after a trip on the bus into town. Only 5 in the group so was nice. Getting strong. Then had a couple of errands before getting the bus back. I recently got this cookbook called Recipetin Eats Dinner by Navi Maehashi. Evidently this is one of the fastest selling cookbooks out there. I have looked at some of her you tube videos (recipetin) and really like her no nonsense approach to good food with a wonderful Asian slant to it.

I bought ingredients for one of her recipes I’ll cook tomorrow.

Once home I had to take Ollie to vet for a check on his surgery wound. He is doing good but has now been confined for six weeks and he really is over it. Thursday he has his sedation and x-ray to see how his leg has settled.

For relaxation this week I am reading Heather Rose’s newest book, her memoir called Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here.

TUESDAY:

Needing to get rice for today’s RecipeTin recipe. Teriyaki Beef Bowl. I’ll let you know if we like it.

More reading on the Heather Rose book. Since I missed her launch as she was the author I wrote about earlier making us wait so long for the event to begin and also on Ollie’s surgery day I was not keen to indulge her on her book. Just being stubborn. But I am so enjoying the book. Her life has been remarkable and extremely different to what I, with biased thinking, thought it would be. Her writing is very visual and I can see the places in Tassie she writes about and her experiences with the Native Americans in the USA as a young adult we’re just incredible.

I am quite surprised she survived her youth after reading of those experiences and her time in Asia in the 80s. I would recommend this book as I am just speeding through it and I don’t speed through books generally. I am enjoying the part now where she has just completed the Overland track walk with her 13 yr old son. Quite funny. I read her book Bruny previously but think I need to get her book The Museum of Modern Love.

I just had some good news from Australian Photography Magazine. Two photos I entered into the Photographer of the Year competition have been shortlisted. I’ll share them here than publish this as I have a big event coming up Thursday and this post will be too long if I include it. This is now Part One.

Winners of photography competition will be announced the end of January. I have no thoughts of being in the top ones but am very happy to be shortlisted.

Photos below: 1. Global Warming melts the Sydney Opera House.

The Retired Showman.

Stay tuned for Part 2, end of week.