The woman with the black dog

Apparently I am known locally as The Woman with the Black Dog.  This is sufficiently accurate and mysterious to suit me just fine.  As you know, the black dog and I walk daily and spend a lot of time playing thwacky ball on the beach.

There are a lot of messages to pick up from the locals.

For some reason, Jill is insistent we walk along Kangaroo Rivulet after we've been to the library, even though this adds considerable time and steps to the venture.  Not important now we have the car but exhausting before.

after a long walk

Sadly for me, her recovery time is quick and she's soon ready for more adventure.  The library is her least favourite place and she has strong feelings about books.

Made obvious here - her toy, a gift from her favourite neighbour Fiona, plonked on my book, a farewell gift from the Triabunna Tivoli.

This book is an absolute treasure - a tome written in a most becoming and friendly voice.  A number of people have their beady eyes on it...and it shall accompany us to Triabunna for Christmas.

Black has been a recurring theme recently.  Steve introduced me to Nina Simone many years ago.

I was stunned by her song 'Young, Gifted and Black' and perplexed that this has not been picked up as an anthem. Well, I have become intrigued with the Kanneh-Mason family members since discovering they are 1/4 Welsh.

Mum, Kadiatu, has done it in her 2025 book.  I haven't read this one yet.

I'm still reading this one.  I can't imagine living in a family of seven children.  Kadiatu explains how the household worked with each child encouraged to fulfill their musical potential.  Mindboggling.

This one is also mindboggling but for totally different reasons.  A totally different family experience.  Here is a carefully constructed storyline with hilarious one-liners and heart racing encounters.  You think it must end up ok because it's written in the first person but its so filled with surprises, who knows? 

This is a book filled with knowledge as in The Knowledge that London cabbies are required to have  - that deep knowledge of what really goes on in a place.  It's a book every teacher should read. There are so many kids like August and Eli, and mostly we teachers don't see them.

The Car that Ate Barry

is back!  I still don't know how it happened.  I left my car with Barry the Mechanic for a service, as I have done for the past 11 years, and somehow Barry and my car had an entanglement.  Barry was taken to hospital with cracked ribs.  Three months later Barry's ribs have recovered, though he still has lumps and scars, and Azaria / The River Rat is back on the road

and looking respectable.  I see a lot of dingled cars driving around and now I understand why.  That repair job cost nearly $6000.  Fortunately Barry's insurance paid for it.  I also understand now the sheer convenience of having a car.  If I need something I can zoom out and get it.  Before, Jill and I would have to walk and that would be the one thing we achieved that day.

So, have car, will travel.  And off to Triabunna we drove for Maria Voices' Carols at Our Park.  I left Jill with Oscar, Miya and Bilbo Baggins at Georgia's.  Arriving at Our Park was like coming home.  It's wonderful when you know just about everyone.  This year was even better cos Georgia is in the choir.

setting the scene

the go-go girls

Georgia belts it out

Coll tries to read the music through multiple lenses

And through all this joyous madness, and despite the wintry weather, birds join us.  I am so lucky to be able to melt back into my old Tribes community but also have the anonymity of my Bellerive life.

Croc country

Bellerive Bardot has finally had the chance to assert herself.  She and a former rescue dog descend daily to the beach and, leaving her crocs in a secret rock space, wallow in the pleasures of sea and sand.

The tides make each day exciting and new.  In high tide we paddle through swirling waters at the base of the dunes.

Recently we were greeted by an exceptionally low tide,

revealing unexpected aspects of the coastline.

The beach is forbidden to dogs between 10am and 6pm during December to March so hordes of jolly dog walkers pound the sand before 10am each morning.  Balls, sticks and pine cones crisscross midair.  Most dogs have eyes only for their own missile.  Others have a more sporting attitude and give chase to all thrown objects.  Somehow it all works out.  Camaraderie rules, and we humans are all mindful of getting off the beach by 10am.  We reference Cinderella at midnight and South Australia's former 6 o'clock Swill.  Jilly has new friends: Tupac, Maude, Brian and Nell.  Olley she also knows from Triabunna.

A rainbow arced across the bedroom window this morning.  By the time we got to the beach, it was a wide brush stroke of colour washing Hobart and the mountain.  As we returned to collect my crocs, two pied oystercatchers called out and landed on the sand.  Good omens.

I have become a regular user of the library, borrowing books and dvds.  On one occasion I was there when a large group of adults and children were enjoying Toddler Story Time.  Two staff were presenting, one working a Bingo hand puppet, the other chanting 'I've got a dog, a counting dog, woof.  I've got a dog, a counting dog, woof woof.  I've got a dog, a counting dog, woof woof woof...' I think you've got the plot by now.  The children were so immersed.  It was magical for me knowing that the Jilly Pup was waiting outside, possibly counting the long minutes.

'Persepolis', a Graphic Novel, is the most impressive book so far.  Thanks to the lovely Ella (who is working on her own graphic novel) for telling me about this one and 'Maus'.

With my new found interest in Charmian Clift, this was an inevitable read.  It's a well written story but also a record of the research process, though I'm still dumbfounded that the author could find out so much in only a year.  I have to confess that I also have a liking for Gina Chick.  I'm not a fan of 'survival tv' but for some reason saw the show featuring Gina Chick in the Tasmanian wilds.  I loved her commitment to understanding and working with nature rather than considering it something to be overcome and conquered.  She won.

I'm also a great Heather Rose fan and slipped easily into the beautiful language and quiet observations of 'A Great Act of Love'.  It's a grand story but, I have to say, highly improbable.  And while we're on the subject, I read Erin Hortle's 'A Catalogue of Love'.  It's a book of mature realisations about relationships and living on Bruny Island.

I also had a great adventure with another Tasmanian book/author but I'll tell you about that some other time.

Living local

Living local is a necessity with a dog but no car.  Walking everywhere is required when dogs are forbidden on public transport. Fortunately Bellerive is an interesting place to live.

A milepost !! where Wentworth and Clarence Streets intersect

egg and bacon pie from former Gough's Butchery

I also tried to re-create a potato, strawberry and mint salad I had in a pub in England many years ago.

The Bellerive Community Arts Centre 50 years celebration:

the wonderful and long-retired Robin Pulford who played such a big role in helping us to establish the Bellerive Historical Society back in the days when council supported  history

also long retired the dynamo Marjorie Luck, Community Arts Officer and  huge supporter of the creation of the Bellerive Historical Society

the 99 year old man who established the Bonsai Society from the Community Arts Centre back in the day

note glasses and print size - where's there a will...

my favourite artworks on the day - almost inspired me to re-explore embroidery...

All this time, the wonderful Jilly Pup had been waiting patiently outside.  She was rewarded with cake and a visit from some of the ladies.

Then we rambled downhill to the Boardwalk, one of Jill's favourite places.

I bought a calamari souvlaki, Jill did a lot of sniffing, and we both gazed at the Community Arts Centre's temporary glass cube exhibition space.

Other local gazeworthies:

a sign at the school entrance that I find amusing

a house on South Street doing what I think Bellerive should

I don't always have to leave home.  Fortunately the universe sometimes brings amusements to me.

The Schools Triathlon Challenge, for example.  It started with a bit of setting up just outside the garden.

a short stroll revealed a lot of bikes

Back at my place, the students did their bike laps after their swim at Bellerive Beach.  Then they did running laps around Bellerive Bluff.  About 3,000 of them apparently (students, not laps).  It had a great carnival atmosphere.  I could just imagine Corinne and I slinking off somewhere while Bronny and Heths battled it out for Gilles Plain's glory.

Other domestic events:

the masked lapwings aka plovers enjoy a drink from Emma's old dog bowl

a cane bee acts very realistic

Jilly remembers the carpets of self-sown poppies in the Triabunna garden and wonders where have all the flowers gone

Not so amusing was last week's 5 hour unplanned interruption to the water supply.  The newly built mega house on Gunyah Street had called in Backyard Blitz or similar, and somehow the water supply to 30 houses was blitzed.  It was very annoying to have no freshwater to give Jill, to wash or to make coffee.  I have long been grateful for the ease with which we in suburban Australia can have fresh, clean water, and this really brought it home.  I stamped my foot a bit and Taswater brought me a slab of bottled water and installed a temporary tap.

it was amusing but humbling to watch neighbours filling their buckets at the tap - like many of the world's people

slightly scary, we've had warmish weather and the ice-cream van returned yesterday

and another Bellerive house doing what I think it should

Back to Bunna / Some like it hot.

The Weily Fox invited me up for a big Tuesday in Triabunna:  Suzie's birthday, visit my car, Remembrance Day, lunch at The Village, see Jilly at Georgia's, dinner at the East Coaster and then Mama Mia at the Triabunna Tivoli.

We started with a swim on Spring Beach at 6.30am.  The Weily one had already been for an hour's walk.

bathers for every day of the week

and some stunning apres swim gear

Next was the Remembrance Day Service

good singers and good friends - Maria Voices

then a visit to my car, now at the bodyworks.  There's hope it can be repaired if the parts can be found.

Lunch at the Village was next, and I crawled from there up the road to have afternoon tea with Georgia.

Jill, Miya and Bilbo Baggins being very good

The Foxy One picked me up,

we drove home through a hailstorm and then bedecked ourselves for the evening and had espresso martinis and chips for dinner at the East Coaster.  Then off to the Triabunna Tivoli.

Contrary to appearances it was not a drag show but Mama Mia, with a best-dressed prize.  Not being much of an ABBA fan, and never liking their clothing choices, I didn't participate.  But it was a fabulous night with dancing, singing, and the movie too of course.  It was also a tribute to David and Gavan who started the Orford Odeon and mentored the Triabunna Tivoli.  Sadly they died this year within a few months of each other.  A truly inspiring couple.

Not getting to Suzie's house earlier, we dropped her birthday card into her letter-box by moonlight.

The next morning was set aside for The Big Event.

The Big Truck pulled into the driveway right on schedule.

Sadly the sauna man had based his delivery plan on google maps, not realising that the Fox, though Weily, had failed to inform Mr Google that she had planted a nature strip garden which precluded the truck being easily reversed into the backyard.

A lot of resting and thinking.  Eventually it was agreed that a Big Crane was needed for the job.  Since this had to come from Hobart, Foxy and I went for a swim.

The Big Crane arrived

 and swung into action,

scaring the bejeezus out of us

as the wind rose.

The driver lowered the sauna 'blind' as I ran back and forth relaying the instructions yelled by the exhausted sauna man.

Right in place.  I congratulated the Big Crane driver on his skill,

" bin doin' it since I was eleven" he replied.

Naturally, The Fox is very happy with her Hobbit sauna and couldn't wait to get it cranked up.

I'm not a sauna fan so, as arranged, went to Georgia

who drove Jilly Pup and me home to Bellerive with a bunch of flowers from the Weily One's garden.