Travellin' Penguin

Last night our Fullers book store reading groups met at Hadley’s hotel and met the people in the other reading groups. There are 150 people in the reading groups. They are designated into various groups that meet both in the mornings or in the evenings. The group I’m in meets on the second Wed evening of the month. We pay $10.00 per reading group meeting and that includes a 10% discount on the book if bought from the shop. This is the first year that has happened. It used to be free but we all understand the amount of work that goes into organising 150 people into groups.

People tend to stay in the same group year after year and get to know each other. One person facilitates the various groups.

The thing I like best in the groups is that people read the books and we have really interesting discussions about them. I have been in too many groups where discussion dissolves into what we did today, the problems at home, and on and on and on. Many times people wouldn’t the book. That really annoys me. Even if people work and don’t always get quite to the end they still come and participate in the discussions as much as they can. There are 15 in each group and because of various reasons we always get at least 12. 

More Bookish News-

Tasmania is not regarded as highly as it should be by various publishers. Getting 150 copies of any book requires good relationships with them. A couple of publishers have been dropped as they are too unreliable. It is a good marketing tool for a book shop and we all know how important it is to keep independent shops open.

We met in a beautiful old tea room area of the Hadley;s Orient Hotel est 1834. I’ll try and find a photo of it. We were invited to get a drink at the bar and then find our seats.

We were all waiting to find out what the books for 2026 would be. We also completed a poll of deciding what the top 3 books of 2025 were for all the people in the groups. The top three books (from memory) were- 3—was a tie between Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca and sorry, I can’t remember. 2 was Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood and number 1 was Dusk by Robbie Arnott. Other books I remember were The Names by Florence Knapp in 6th place and in tenth and last place was The Season by Helen Garner. That surprised me and yet I can understand it. I just like her so much I thought it would score higher but I guess I’m biased.

The books for 2026 announced-

Feb:  Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

March:  My Heart at Evening by Konrad Muller

April:  The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

May:  The True True Story of Raja The Gullible (And His Mother) by  

          Rabbi Alameddine

June:  Betty by Tiffany McDaniel

July:  A Little Trickery by Rosanna Pike

August: A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr

The rest of the year will be announced at a later date. 

We had input in an end of year survey of what types of books we are interested in being chosen. We usually have award winners, translated fiction, Tasmanian, Australian and a classic. 

I guess that fills you in on how we go with our reading groups. 

Did anything else happen of significance this week? 

Nope, not much. I went to my pilates class on Monday. I went for a very long walk into the city on Tuesday and got my nails done. Beautiful smoky green colour for Christmas.

On Wednesday I went into the Spa and had a swim and sat in the sauna and chatted to two other older women as we sweated together. It is a small spa. They do beauty things (which I haven’t experienced, ) massages, etc and have a lovely small pool with a waterfall to splash around in. No children allowed which is heavenly. They have a steam room and a sauna and two very new jacuzzis they were trying to bring down a stairway to the underground area where this place is. Last I heard it was stuck in an elevator shaft. 

Thursday I went to a health appt that wires you up and down for an overnight sleep study. I’m trying to get better sleep so I’m not so fatigued during the day. Might need a cPap machine. Don’t have the report yet. But I had to remove polish from two nails as my finger was needed for the oxygen saturation thingy.

Thursday nights we had big fires around the state. Last I heard 16 buildings up the east coast were damaged or lost. The mountain behind our home was closed to visitors as another fire was out of control on the back side of it. We’re on the front side of it. We had 30 degree temps C and gale force winds that were frightening. I was so glad once a cold front moved in over night and all but one of the fires was controlled. Air personnel could not be used because of the high winds. Just scary.

Friday I went into town, enjoyed the weather sitting outdoors having a coffee and a piece of lemon cake. I also went back to the nail place and had the green polish put back on. The girl laughed and didn’t charge me. People can be good.

Today (Saturday) I came up with a new way to do my daily diary I’d like to keep up next year. I create a page and then just write down little snippets of what I did. I’ll show you the photo. I love using magazines, sticker books, different coloured inks, etc. I tend to choose a picture from a sticker book without looking and then build a page around it. Just 30 minutes of complete relaxation and getting creative. 

(Things I did. Worked in front yard. Filled the bird baths. Cleaned the succulent plants. Had an egg sandwich. Folded laundry. Put some rocks in the tumbler- second stage. Found a currawong feather.)

Well, this has gone on long enough. If you’re still here, I appreciate it and hope your weekend has a few lovely events in it. 

Tell us one thing you did this weekend.

Ollie loves the front garden.

We are having the first big day that is above 20 degrees C (68 F) and it feels so good. I think people here are really over the cold winds and rain that have been around for months. 

I’m hoping the mood lifts now we have a bit of sun and heat. I have been trying to catch up on various things around the house and sort out what I want to look forward to next year.  A new year is so much a clean slate and I am ready for this bedraggled 2025 to come to a close.

I’m looking forward to a more adventurous Penguin in my posts. I am looking forward to reading some different books. I do love my travel writing books and that won’t change but I feel I need some more energy in my book selections.  No doubt when our 2026 book group begins I’ll perk up. 

We are having an end of year book group wrap up tomorrow and that should give some inspiration with the first couple of books chosen for the new year.

The photographer uses a macro lens, a light and a diffuser to take photos of insects and other tiny objects.

I want to do some different types of photography. One of the projects is more black and white photography. More minimalistic photos and begin in earnest with some macro photography. I have a flash coming for my camera and a diffuser.

I want to photograph insects. My dream photo would be a close up photo of a very tiny, colourful jumping spider. Such as the one pictured below. The quest would be first and foremost to dig around in leaf litter and find one. Then to get it to pose. One must attach a diffuser onto their camera with the light so that it is lit up without much glare. I might start with tiny flowers or ants and then see if I can get moving insects. Bees are fun but you need to be quick.

Stock photos below, not mine.

These spiders are teeny, tiny and hard to find.

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As far as reading goes I try to get one good book read a week. Compared to a lot of bloggers that isn’t much but that doesn’t matter. I read a lot of magazines, especially about photography as well as watching instructional you tube videos on the same topic. I am happy with one decent book. Of course if it is a short book I can fit more in but that is an achievable goal.

Another priority is to get out more, walking with the dogs. I have two dogs who are a bit over weight. You know what they say about owners looking like their dogs or vice versa. Well we definitely have that going on here. My poor body seizes up if I don’t walk a lot so I need to seriously look at that side of life. I will remain committed to the gym. Hopefully three times a week but a commitment of two times is good as long as I exercise doing something else on other days.

I also want to be more consistent with my journal writing and my creative journaling. I enjoy all of the above mentioned events but I find a lethargy that slips in and a lack of motivation at times. 

I guess the main priority is working through the haze and get motivated. Sometimes it just so easy to plop down in front of the tv with a big bowl of ice cream, a cat on the lap and watch a good British crime series. 

I’m hoping to get through 2026 without a bunch of medical appointments and feeling good both physically and mentally. 

On that note I’m wiping the slate clean early and getting started on my plans. I am usually impatient in December to get through the long holidays and get started on things other than the crazy Christmas season. 

So for today I am just going to attend a medical appointment. Getting wired up for a sleep study happening tonight. I think my poor sleep contributes greatly to my fatigue levels so we must do something about that. Waking up feeling refreshed would be a good start. But I’m at the age where I won’t mention body parts in my conversation so moving on again. 

MISCELLANEOUS

I finished The Mushroom Tapes by Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein. More on that later.

Also Pickles had her 3rd birthday yesterday. We are so lucky to have inherited her. We just love her.

I’ll be back soon with more information about activities, local travel, reading information and other Hobartian activities.

It is good to get these goals written down so I can look at it all and begin to get organised for another year. You just have to shake your head, laugh a lot and keep moving. I hope everyone has a good weekend coming up.

So much to look forward to…

It has been a busy week. Three classes at the gym this week. A business appointment in town with Mr P. Then a photo club meeting we habe had council workers of Hobart continue]ing to decorate our road out in front of our house for about the 7th week with their Stop/Slow signs.

The weather was so bad the other day we felt sorry for them and brought them big packets of biscuits. Mr. P has brought them doughnuts. They are almost like family. Our rates $ at work I guess with a whole new storm water system underground and now new paving on the road. 

But back to a book-

I am reading a captivating book. I should say I am listening to it. A non fiction book called The Long Walk:  The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz. Narrated by John Lee and he does a brilliant job. 

What’s it about? This is the blurb. 

””Slavomir Rawicz was a young Polish cavalry officer. On 19 November 1939 he was arrested by the Russians and after brutal interrogation he was sentenced to twenty-five years in a gulag.

After a three-month journey in the dead of winter to Siberia, life in a Soviet labour camp meant enduring hunger, extreme cold, untreated wounds and illnesses and facing the daily risk of arbitrary execution. Realising that to remain meant almost certain death, Rawicz, along with six companions, escaped. In June 1941, they crossed the trans-Siberian railway and headed south, climbing into Tibet and freedom in British India nine months later, in March 1942, having travelled over four thousand miles on foot through some of the harshest regions in the world, including the Gobi Desert, Tibet and the Himalayas.’

This is the kind of book that has you on the edge of your seat. I can’t even begin to imagine what this would be like.

Then six of them escape successfully. The book tells the story of how they did it. They even save a 17 year old girl who joins them on this trek and becomes very important to them. She was in dire straits herself so lucky to be taken in by these men. 

The book is told in the first person so it feels like I am sitting with the author hearing a riveting story.

Photo of Slavomir

I’m really enjoying this book. Every evening this week I am waiting to see what happens to them next. Then I go to Good Reads to mark it down as being read in my list of books and I come across this!

Wikipedia addition

“In 2006, the BBC released a report based on former Soviet records, including statements written by Rawicz himself, showing that Rawicz had been released as part of the 1942 general amnesty of Poles in the USSR and subsequently transported across the Caspian Sea to a refugee camp in Iran, leading the report to conclude that his supposed escape to India never occurred.^[1]

In May 2009, Witold Gliński, a Polish World War II veteran living in the UK, came forward to claim that the story of Rawicz was true, but was actually an account of what happened to him, not Rawicz. Gliński’s claims have been severely questioned by various sources.^[2][3] The son of Rupert Mayne, a British intelligence officer in wartime India, stated that in 1942, in Calcutta, his father had interviewed three emaciated men who claimed to have escaped from Siberia. According to his son, Mayne always believed that their story was the same as that of The Long Walk—but telling the story decades later, his son could not remember their names or any details. Subsequent research failed to unearth confirmatory evidence for the story.^[4]

I understand there is also a film by Peter Weir-2010 called The Way Back. I don’t know if I will look this up. Hollywood can really ruin a good book but you never know. It has a good cast.

So now I have no idea what the truth is. Whatever the circumstances of this book I am not going to spend time researching it all. It is just a very “good read” as Harriett Gillbert would say.

Speaking of Harriett Gilbert (I am going to digress here a minute)…

She has recorded a podcast through BBC Radio 4 since 2011. It was called Books and Authors but is now entitled A Good Read. Each week she spends about 30 minutes with two guests. They come from all walks of British life. The three of them each pick what they think is A Good Read. Then all three of them read each book. The podcast is the discussion between each of them for about 10 minutes of so of what they thought of the book. I just love this podcast. They often agree but then when they don’t it is even. More fun. I certainly recommend this if you’re into podcasts.

I will continue with reading this book and just enjoy it for what it is. I just enjoy my evenings working on puzzles or my journals while I listen to yet another really good tale.

Until the next time….