Expectation is the root of all heartache.

A beautiful Spring day at the beach. Seven Mile Beach, September 2010.

Beaches are just as fine – if not better – for the photographically inclined punter in wild and woolly weather than the sun and fun. As long as you have your back to the pelting rain, you can get the odd impressive shot off now and again. Here I am looking north on Seven Mile Beach a few weeks back. The zoom has taken me maybe two-and-a-half miles,

Bereft of anything better, here is today’s eco-friendly Meme!

Do you recycle? Absolutely. One doesn’t need to chain oneself to an asthmatic lesbian Minke whale to do one’s bit.

Do you do you laundry with hot or cold water? Cold. Nappies soaking in the nappy-bucket get hot though.

What kind of light bulbs are in your house? Pass. They’re little ones.

Do you compost? We have a very small compost bin. It fills up very quickly.

What kind of vehicle do you drive? I don’t.

Do you use plastic or reusable bags when grocery shopping? When we still went to the shops, we took re-usable bags. Now we get the groceries delivered, they give us plastic bags. We don’t need bags!

What are three ways you conserve energy?

Keeping the lights down to the minimum, and shouting at children for leaving them on.

Utilising Hobart’s ~~excellent~~ ~~fine~~ ~~okay~~ ~~burgeoning~~ current public transport network.

Keeping our consumption down more generally. You don’t need to be buying more and more ‘stuff’. Get something, and make it last, that’s my motto.

Comments

Carola said…

That's a surprise, I didn't know that Aussies are so eco-friendly.
Many things I do the same. But I wash with 30 degree warm water, put the compost in a special green bin and carry our groceries in a big backpack (my husband does).

22 September 2010 at 06:17

Kris McCracken said…

Carola, Australians have their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the environment. We waste far too much, and use too much energy; but we do try to recycle and have advanced when it comes to protecting common spaces.

22 September 2010 at 13:29

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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