Travellin' Penguin

…..The minute somebody turns it on, I go into the library and read a good book.

I can relate to that quite a bit but must say I enjoyed my binge of Netflix last week of the British crime drama “Fool Me Once’ with Joanna Lumley playing the matriarch of a drug company doing the wrong thing. It has so many twists and turns.

I am just about finished with Zadie Smith’s book The Fraud. I am enjoying it so much. I am doing a read listen of it and Smith reads it. She is so good at all the voices and accents. It takes place in England, Jamaica and Australia across the 19th century. Lots of characters but I find listening to all the voices while I read along the book helps keep them sorted.

2024- I am really looking forward to this year. I made one resolution. I will not have any major health problems this year. 2020 was one big benign ovarian tumour. Doctor said it was the size of a baby’s head. 2022 was loss of vision in one eye. 2023 was a heart attack, lucky not major. 2024 is going to be the healthiest year I ever had. Sometimes I laugh at how ridiculous it has all been. Add all that to my stroke I had 10 yrs ago and the MS I’ve had for 23 years. You have to laugh and just keep going. Move!!

The gym will remain in my life. I finished listening to a couple of travel writing books. I tend to begin one audible book, listen to half of it, then the mood changes and off I go into another. I end up with three or four half listened to books then go back and clean them all up to finish them.

Another little book I was gifted and have looked at for 2024 is The Little Frog’s Guide to Self Care. It is all about getting out and socialising, taking care of one’s mental health. Spending time with friends and happy self affirmations all discussed with a spunky, small frog.

I am really looking forward to our two book clubs beginning next and my two photo clubs starting activities again. We have an excursion in one club where we drive up to the midlands area of Tasmania and travel back roads taking photos of whatever we fancy. Probably quite a few old abandoned buildings, sheds, farm photos. n all meet for coffees and lunch.

I am rejoining the seniors group I belonged to also. I had stopped going due to being so upset to so many health problems but after a couple of years away I am looking forward to the evening meal once a month, the occasional speakers and a country lunch here and there every month. I enjoy the members of the group, many who are in their 80s and 90s and live vibrant, active lives. I think the older one gets the more socialising and reading becomes for one’s mind. Also get down on the floor everyday and practice getting up. Sounds silly but such a skill once you get over 65/70.😏😏😏

I had good news when I entered a photo in the competition run by the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens. The rule was we had to include a structure within the gardens. My photo came in second of about 80 entries that I could see. I missed out on the first place with a $300.00 prize but was very happy with the Highly Commended.

We are off and running into 2024 so stay tuned for the books coming up, the photographs, my sister’s month long visit in March. She lives in California. There will be road trips and day trips. There will be food.

And on a final note…each year, rather than a resolution being thought about I pick one word that I will attempt to live by. This year’s word is INTENTION. Each morning as I write a note in my diary I think of what intention I want to act on for the day. Gym, walk, read, be kind, do laundry, play with the dog, doesn’t matter, just get up and do something.

I hope the new year has kicked off for all of you cyber friends. All the best.

By the way, Penguin has a new friend this year too. Mr. Galah.

(Quote by Charlotte Carpenter)

It has been awhile since I was here but wanted to wish everyone well for the new Year and hope your Christmas is/was going well. We aren’t much of Christmas people anymore. We do enjoy the day but our priority is giving funds to the local animal welfare groups in our city.

Yesterday I took Ollie and Peannie to the dog beach. After a few months of rehab, Ollie’s leg has healed enough he can play with other dogs. They had so much fun and really wore themselves out. They both came home and crashed out. I think they had smiles on their faces.

I finally finished the book Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. Because I took so many notes on my Kindle Scribe it took me a long time to read it. The next book on my list is Zadie Smith’s book Fraud. I’ve not read her before but have heard so much about her. I will also be choosing a random book off my shelves to begin. I will randomly select three books and choose one of the three to get stuck into. I will need to speed up my reading or allow more time to get through all the books coming up in 2024. I am not the fastest reader in the world.

With my eye sight being so low now in my left eye I look like a budgie, focusing on the print with my right eye.

I find kindle books much easier and faster to read as I can adjust the font size so I think the majority of my book club reads will be kindle and I will also try to mop up more TBRs from my shelves.

Earlier in December I met my good friend from Port Macquarie in Sydney for 5 days.

She and I saw the Dictionary of Lost Words by the Sydney Theatre Company at the Opera house. We enjoyed it very much and laughed at all the big groups of people around us in the audience. They were all book clubs. How fun would that be. Your whole book group goes to the Opera house.

I also spent some time with my photography friend who lives in Sydney that I missed when in Sydney the end of May because she came down with Covid. It was a fun week but I was glad to leave on the 8th as Sydney was 41 C (105.8 F) that day. We went to Central station that morning and boarded a train for the 6 hr journey to Port Macquarie. I enjoyed the trip but it is S L O W ! So many stops.

I stayed for a few nights with my friend. I have never been there before. It is a beautiful city.

The highlights were attending the Glass House performing arts centre to see the indigenous dance group, Bangarra. It was excellent performance and the dancers are incredible. We also had lunch at the Koala hospital grounds that includes the historic Roto house. Just beautiful. I adopted a koala for a year while there and receive mail outs about how Roto-Jazz is doing.

wrap this up with some of the phone photos from the last month . I didn’t take my big camera as my friend and I spent time at theatre (no cameras allowed), shopping (just a nuisance when holding ags) and having a cocktail every night, (takes up too much space on those tiny tables).

This year had it ups and downs, as usual so I look forward to the clean slate of a new year. I also look forward continued chatting with my blogger friends who I have enjoyed very much this past year. Here’s to the next year into our world of the unknown.

……I will never finish. (Maud Casey)

Hi everyone. I had a fun bookish and theatre week again this week.

Books I’m reading now: Homework by Tassie author Helen Hayward. I went to the launch of this book Thursday night. The blurb on the back states-

When Helen Hayward had her two children in London, 25 years ago, she found looking after them easy. Loving and looking after her kids was straightforward. However loving and looking after her home was not. She had long been instructed to put her career first. So she did. Yet what to do with the mushrooming laundry by the bathroom door? And what about if she actually liked cooking? Home Work is a series of personal essays motivated by three questions. 

1. Is there an art to running a home?
2. Can it be a satisfying thing to do?
3. Has the work we do around the home ― which accounts for roughly a 1/4 of our waking hours ― something important to teach us about life itself?

It is quite a fun read and she raises some interesting questions.

Friday night saw our end of year all Fullers book group members get together at Fullers book shop with drinks and nibbles. It was also announced what books we’ll be starting the year off next year.

The Fraud by Zadie Smith kicks off February. Followed by 2023 Booker Prize winner Prophet song by Paul Lynch. The Sri Lankan tale of Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran and Question 7 by our local Booker prize winning author, Richard Flanagan. I am looking forward to reading all of them.

I am still working my way through Olga Tokarczuk;s book Flights. There is so much in it I don’t think it is a book that can be rushed.

I am also travelling through audio with the 125cc Honda trip of the 73 yr old man, Simon Gandolphi, riding from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego at the bottom end of Chile. This is the book I listen to in the car and when I can’t sleep so it will take awhile to finish it.

To end the week Mr P and I enjoyed a 50 yr anniversary if the song, Tubular Bells at the Theatre Royal. It was a fabulous, amazing 60 minute piece of music by two musicians who are incredibly talented. I remember when Tubular Bells first came out in 1973. It was the beginning of a lot of electronic music at the time. The two musicians in one hour played six guitars, four keyboards, two sets of drums, a mandolin, a glockenspiel and a set of tall pipes with a mallet. The lighting matched the music. It was a full house and an exuberant audience. Such fun. Last night was their final performance after 15 years, 500 performances in 20+ countries. We loved it. Wonderful they ended their run in Australia’s oldest theatre, our historically beautiful Theatre Royal. (I might add Tubular Bells was played in the movie The Exorcist which I have never seen nor wanted to see)

On that note 🎶🎶🎶🎶 I will leave you for a couple of weeks. Tomorrow I fly to Sydney for the annual Girl’s week out my friend and I share every year. A week of theatre at the opera house one night (A Dictionary if Lost Words is the play), some shopping, maybe a gallery, a book shop and two, and cocktails in the evening.

I also plan one day seeing my photography mate who I went to see in June for 5 days but she had Covid and we missed each other. That trip became a bust except I did enjoy Sydney.

On Friday we do the six hour train to Port Macquarie , where my friend lives, and attend the Bangarra dance performance in their event center, The Glass House. I may be able to get to the Koala hospital there which I would find very interesting. Then home on the Tuesday. A fun packed 9 days.

As my second planned photography workshop in July fell apart with jy health, I am hoping all goes well for this third attempt. 🌻

I am also looking forward to returning home and spending a leisurely, quiet Christmas with Mr P, our dogs Ollie and Peanut and our cats Grizzy and Cousin Eddie.

Looking forward to following my blogger friends and see what you’re reading and doing this month. We all send you our best.