Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.

So one computer is feeling better again, and the other is on its way back to health. The LOL sharks have been as disappointing as the latest hot young things forecast as the future of music. If that's the future of music, set the dial back to 1969 please!

But I don't want to talk about it right now. I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the adventurous start to 2009 for the motley crew that constitutes my family.

After a rough New Year's Eve that involved no alcohol, fisticuffs, or young lovelies in tube tops with ill intent; but rather more teeth, lots of screaming and very little sleeping; this morning we decided to take advantage of the cool but clear day and that a quick jaunt would be just the tonic.

Our intention was to perhaps stop of at a little French patisserie, pick up ourselves a few little tarts and croissants, some café au lait and chocolat chaud to go around and then off to a playground for a bit of kick to kick, a spot on the slide, maybe a backflip or two off the monkey bars.

But no. The scene: in the car, jumpers of, the mountain looms into view. Henry says, in a firm, cold voice: "Mountain mummy; mountain daddy". It was clear, the lad wanted (no, needed), to conquer the mountain again!

To be continued...

Comments

Anonymous said…

I think this is an interesting photograph of a mountain that looks like a stack of blocks ready to fall down.

Happy New Year to you and your family from Patty and Abe.

1 January 2009 at 21:56

Neva said…

The scenery is stunning....

2 January 2009 at 08:55

Kris McCracken said…

Abe and Neva, it is an interesting collection up around the mountain.

5 January 2009 at 12:16

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

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