Saturday summation

This morning Jill PD and I went for a lovely walk.  That wasn't the plan.  We did the short drive to Orford to checkout the Park Run starting at 9am.  It was all part of a mission to plan the Dogs Breakfast event for Mental Health Week in October.  But no-one turned up, apparently the Park Run had been cancelled for today.  The weather was beautiful misty rain, so Jilly and I took a stroll along the beach.  The sea was  mirror-like and lapped at the shore.  Sea birds bobbed on the water and regarded us calmly.  Landwards was a blaze of yellow, a solid wall of wattles against a pewter sky.  It was magical and, of course, I didn't have my phone / camera with me.

So, in other news, life has been pretty much pleasantly same old.  The FoTR gang and I have pulled up mountains of Spanish Heath from a local reserve;  Malcolm continues to provide spectacular lunch every Tuesday at The Village;  the Weily Fox and I plan to restore full mental health to Triabunna before Mental Health Week;  Sarah visited last weekend.  I have no photos of any of this, although

I did take a photo overlooking Devils Corner on the way back from Bicheno last Sunday while Jill PD took a restroom break.

Steve sent me this mystical photo of Maria Island a cuppla weeks ago.

(It was invisible today)

signs of Spring

the japonica

more of a host

the hardenbergia

I've just remembered that I went to see the https://www.hadleyshotel.com.au/hadleys-art-prize in Hobart.

I wasn't game to take photos in the galleries but took this one just to show the Hadley Orient Hotel magnificence.

Sort of at the other end of the spectrum, a new venture in Triabunna:

I am not involved in this at all and hopefully will never need it, but it's a great community initiative by person / persons unknown - possibly the Christmas Crew people.

There has been reading:

I took this book to Wales with me, expecting to leave it there but had to finish it back here.  This is a slow and gentle read about the perils and joys of learning to play harp in 16th Century Ireland.

I am always intrigued by this series which reminds me of Alan Bennet's The Uncommon Reader.  I don't think the authors are related.

I took up with this one because I have read both The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding.  I enjoyed both books but didn't relate to them as many readers have.  I was interested to see how Holly Ringland approaches her writing.  And somehow that led me to this:

I read Eat, Pray, Love when I was deeply depressed in Wentworth many years ago.  Sandrine loaned it to me and it was just what I needed to see beyond the black hole I was in.  I read / lived it twice.  I have also read Gilbert's The Signature of All Things.  The two books are so different that I had give Big Magic a go.  If you've read Eat, Pray, Love you'll know that Gilbert fell on her feet and met a wealthy man and can now afford to live creatively.  She admits this, but the message of the book is not how to make a living from your creativity but the necessity of making time for it regardless of your situation or the views of other people.  She has an interesting theory about ideas and also suggests that we return to saying a person has a genius rather than is a genius, ie the 14th Century notion that a person has an attendant spirit like the Ancient Greek daemon / guiding spirit.  It's an interesting book but it is also beautifully easy to read.

This is also a beautiful and perfectly sized book by my friend Nicky.  We used to work together in the heady days when I was The Gatehouse Officer.

Now I'm going to sit back with a Sidecar and wait for Van Der Valk on ABC tonight.  A new series starts next week.  I've been whiling away time with the Marvelous Mrs Maisel (fabulous clothes) and The Red King (whacky Welsh people AND Marc Warren!).  Thank goodness for On Demand.