Travellin' Penguin

This won’t be long as there is much to do this week. We leave on a two week driving holiday of the south island of New Zealand before too long. First time out of the country for me since 2019. Looking forward to it.

I will definitely be focusing on photography while there and hopefully will have a photo or two to share when I return.

So what else has been going on? I am about to begin the book The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka. Our book group will be discussing this in April. It won the 2022 Booker Prize. It looks interesting but might be quite the complex read.

The Amazon blurb reads as:

An epic, searing satire by Sri Lanka’s coolest author.

“Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet queen, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka.

Ten years after his prizewinning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a mordantly funny, searing satire. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is a state-of-the-nation epic that proves yet again that the best fiction offers the ultimate truth.”

I am also listening to something much lighter in David Sedaris’s latest, Happy Go Lucky. The Times says this about it:

“Could there be a more delightful American import than the memoirist David Sedaris? Not since the peanut butter and jelly sandwich have we inherited something so sweet and comforting yet so wickedly naughty.”

I went south of Hobart yesterday to a grotty old beach to metal detect. I didn’t find anything much, mostly trash, but had a good couple of hours listening to this book on the drive there and back. I was laughing out loud in the car.

The only other bookish news I have is I got into Fuller’s monthly poetry class. They will meet towards the end of the month for 2 hours. I am not familiar with the facilitators of the group but know the group was very popular last year. I was on a waiting list all year last year but managed to get squeezed in this year. I don’t know a lot about poetry other than what I learned in school last century😃. It will all be new for the most part so I’ll let you know how it goes. I don’t know if the shared reading of a book is happening this year. The facilitator just had a baby and is a bit busy.

That catches you up a bit so I will leave you with a couple of photos, one of the tourist trade here and one of our beaches.

What did you read/do this weekend?

I’m going to start with Tuesday as Monday was Regatta day here and also the last day of the big Wooden Boat festival that saw our harbour full of tall ships and very old lovely boats all made of wood. First time since Covid and I know it was well attended due to all the tourists in town as well as a cruise ship. I stayed home. I don’t enjoy crowds anymore.

Tuesday had me back to the eye specialist for a six month check. Although I have sight in the left eye everything remains stable and good eye is still good. Happy with that.

Read some more from Remainders of the day of the Wigtown bookseller in Scotland. That is the book I read waiting for appointments and the bus.

Tuesday night I began in Photo club 2. First time. A small group of lovely, very active, friendly photographers who always do photographic activities with a coffee shop and chats. My kind of group. Early March we are all going to go to a country show to take photos. Should be fun.

Wednesday uneventful except I had a good weights class. Was really in the zone which is often unusual. Walking through the city mall I came across an old dog tied to a pole with several young women around it concerned as no sign of owner. In the sun, on cement, no water. The girls brought it water. I called RSPCA to report. They said ring Council. I did. Dog control guy unavailable. Dog was there about 30 minutes when a young woman dressed as a goth, spikes, buckles, tatts (which is fine with me) arrived back with her dog. I gave her a verbal serve as this quite old dog should not be treated with such a lack of respect. I berated her a bit and she in reply was very sarcastic and rude in return. In the background of the mall while this was going on a busker singing operatic soprano at top of her voice was happening, along with a homeless man the police were being very kind to, yelling at the top of his lungs. It was quite chaotic actually that afternoon. I left the forh, she got her dog, continued to make fun of me. I didn’t care. I made my point in front of quite a few people.

Thursday was Fullers Book shop 103rd birthday. Lots going on in the shop. All good fun. Stopped in, had a coffee, listened to the jazz quartet that was playing live all afternoon. Love that store. Also a geoup against racism from TAFE were invited in to choose some journals for their writing as gifts. Lovely idea.

Thursday night a friend of mine and I went to a launch of the book The Manuscript, A story of revenge by Lucy Bloom. She talked about how she got her idea, told us about character development and presented as a really fun speaker. She had very bad laryngitis so the event was cut short but no one minded. We all had fun. So quite a fun week.

Came home and continued to work my way through Lessons in Chemistry. Enjoying most of it but don’t like how the dog is anthropomorphised. I find that irritating. Other than that it is fun to read.

Today Hobart is to get to 32C (96F). I went up to my secret site that used to have an old building on it that burned in the 67 bushfires. I found a 1974 one cent coin and a 1990 2 cent coin and a hole with 10 very old, bent, corroded nails that have been in the ground for a very long time. I thought maybe an apprentice from years ago was learning to use a hammer and bent all the nails, buried them all in a hole so his boss didn’t find them. It is fun to make up stories.

What a week. I’ll scrounge up some photos and get this on line. Hope everyone is well and your week is good.

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.