Travellin' Penguin

Hi people 🌻

LIFE

MORE LIFE:

I decided to post up something today because I am trying to kill some time. I have a colonoscopy tomorrow 😏 and of course the prep is today. Without going into too much detail…six yrs ago I received the kit our government sends out people of a certain age for bowel screening. I am one of the few that used it and it came back positive so had to have a check up. After the colonoscopy then I was told there was a small pre-cancerous growth and it was removed. Three yrs later I was still clear as I had to change some of my diet and take a light medication. If I’m clear tomorrow I don’t need to go back for five years. I know people don’t like to talk about it, but in Australia bowel cancer kills more people than heart disease so if you’ve not had this procedure maybe think about it more seriously. I am grateful for having been sent the kit six yrs ago. This has been your public health message for the day. 😃

BOOKS:

On a better note, I finished Charlotte Wood’s latest book, Stone Yard Devotional. The blurb on the book states:

“A woman abandons her city life and marriage to return to the place of her childhood, holing up in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Monaro.*

She does not believe in God, doesn’t know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive life almost by accident. As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of monastic life, she finds herself turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can’t forget.

Disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation.

Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who left the community decades before to minister to deprived women in Thailand – then disappeared, presumed murdered.

Finally, a troubling visitor to the monastery pulls the narrator further back into her past.

With each of these disturbing arrivals, the woman faces some deep questions. Can a person be truly good? What is forgiveness? Is loss of hope a moral failure? And can the business of grief ever really be finished?’

I found the tale to just be a steady, almost linear narration, if that can be said, with a lot of dipping into the past. I enjoyed the writing but at times it moved around from topic to topic and I had to back track again. I thought the descriptions of the location were good but I didn’t always feel much for the characters. The description of the nun who died was more of an outline but the time leading up to the arrival of her bones at the premises were more descriptive. She had been missing for several years and then her remains found. Permission had to be granted by authorities to bury her at the convent.

I never completely understood the reasons why the protagonist left her home, husband and all she had for her childhood memories , yet it seemed she had to in order to come to terms with her mother’s death and a couple of other issues. Then interwoven throughout the entire story, like fabric on a loom was this enormous mouse plague that is very gruesome in its description. Mice eating the head of a pigeon, running in the neighbouring fields in their thousands, making so much noise in the walls of the buildings.

Then a couple of other characters are thrown in who went to school with the woman, causing more childhood memories. One was a woman who was bullied by the protagonist in high school and she is trying to overcome her feelings of guilt now she is an adult.

It is a story I’m not likely to forget, the tempo of the book was steady but I got a bit bored with the repetitive memories but I am the type of person who just wants people to ” get on with it”.😳 o others may not be bothered.

I think overall there was more to enjoy than not enjoy. I like her writing. The other book I read by Charlotte Woods was the Weekend which I really liked but that dealt in memories also. I thought that book was more cohesive in the telling of the tale.

But do feel free to disagree with me. I’d like to know what others thought. I’ve not read reviews yet but now I’m finished I will.

PHOTOGRAPHY

I didn’t do any this week but did study it a bit and edited some of my fungi photos. I will include a favourite below.

FAMILY:

Ollie’s big news is he learned how to shake hands. That little fuzzy paw sticking out is just the cutest thing I’ve seen in awhile. Peannie doesn’t have it yet. She is too food focused on the treat. I really thought she’d get it before him as she is so smart at other things. She figured out that after the postie delivers mail to the front of house where mailbox is, he then drives his postie motorbike up the road and around the curve and passes the gate at the back of our yard. So the routine is: bark at postie at mailbox in the front, then run as fast as she can to the back of the yard and watch him drive by again. Ollie is right behind her but she is much faster. Ollie wasn’t sure why he was running after her in such a panic but now he gets it. Dogs are so funny.

I hope all of you have a good week.

MY QUESTION FOR THE WEEK:

What made you laugh this week?

Bye for now ❤️