Good weather

The weather has been a hot topic of conversation here because we had over a week of wind and rain.  But it's always good weather for something.  The garden is loving it and yesterday I ate this perfectly ripe fig.

There have been a few other figs but they were small, dry and tasteless.  The rain is plumping them out.

It is the season of mellow fruitfulness.

Good weather also for reading.

Limberlost was a birthday gift from the Floosie.  I started to read it and thought it was all too tough for me - real country life with guns and trappings, killing and culling.  But I pushed on and the story of a boy's life on a Tasmanian apple orchard unfolded.  His is a small life which quietly demonstrates the incidents and relationships that make us who we are.  It is a beautiful book physically and Robbie Arnott's writing style is calm and clear.  I took issue with the cover because it has a fox, and there is no fox in the story.  But there is a quoll, which is one of my favourite animals.  The Floosie assures me that I have the English edition and that the cover of the Australian edition, like Tasmania, has no foxes.

I had a library hold on this one for ages and I'm not quite sure why or where I heard about it.  It also is about orcharding, apricots in the USA this time.  It is a passionate story of love, loss, prejudice, finding yourself and then being true to yourself.  It is inspiring but perhaps not as credible as Limberlost.

This was another library hold but, again, I can't remember where I heard about it.  Again it's about a small town and farming community.  To me, it's all about nothing.  A boy goes missing and all the usual fears come to the fore.  The search for him provides opportunities for encounters that would probably never arise ordinarily.

Now this is a book and a half!  The setting is beautiful but frustratingly unidentifiable.  Another simple narrative but this time I had no idea what was going on.  Golly gosh. Eventually the mists clear and all is resolved.  A mystery of the mind, and very satisfying for one with an interest in psychology.

And here's another mystifying book.  Alan Garner excels at taking us between worlds.  This is a very English book and I love the accents and language.  Some phrases take me back to listening to my English Grandpa's conversation.  The buildings and landscapes are home to me.  Like Limberlost, it is a small and beautifully presented book, almost extravagant in its simplicity.  Having said all that, I've finished reading it but have to go back a chapter or two to try and work out what happened!

Sadly, but understandably, the library covered the book in plastic, so the photo above has the spooky image of the reader.

This also is a book about different worlds, and the possibility of a different world.  There's some really stirring stuff in here and reinforces to me just how wrong we were in the seventies (1970s this time).  Back then we wanted to participate equally in a man's world.  Now in my seventies, I just want to romp in the girly world I have created for myself.

Romps like:

walking to the oval to see my Maria Voices friends at the Relay for Life

gazing at the Easter Moon

gazing at the bucolic Buckland plains

volunteering at the Pop Up Bookstall

buying banh mi

in a funky little arcade in Hobart

watching my friend Kim lay the Peace Keepers' wreath at the Anzac Day ceremony today

finding this book at The Gatehouse on Saturday

then swimming with Kit, Jill PD and the glorious Sunday Morning Swimmers at Spring Beach

You may have noticed that this blog post has spanned quite a bit of time.  I've been very busy with meetings and training and zoom sessions, and a fair bit of eating.  Last week I couldn't get to any of my exercise classes and by the weekend I realised how much my brain and body needs them.  Fingers crossed for this week.

🤞