This will hurt me...

Look, a grain of sand! Hang on, there are even more grains of sand here! If only there were a market for grains of sand...

A little bit of kelp has found its way ashore. Seven Mile Beach, September 2010. Finally ! Saturday has arrived and with any luck, Jen will have a car again soon. With it, the wonderful world of the beach will be unlocked to us again! To celebrate, here is a poem: A Little Called Pauline , by Gertrude Stein A little called anything shows shudders. Come and say what prints all day. A whole few watermelon. There is no pope. No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices. A little lace makes boils. This is not true. Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top. If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head. A peaceful life to arise her, noon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window. Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight, show a stitch of ten. Count, count more so...

It’s nice to have a little sit down when you spend the morning promenading along Bellerive Boardwalk…

Graffiti under the fire escape of the Theatre Royal. Campbell Street, Hobart. November 2010. Kaddish for a Child Not Born by Imre Kertész is one of a series of four novels which examine the life of a man who survives the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. I wrote about the first, Fatelessness , a few weeks back . If Fatelessness offered a relatively conventional narrative approach, Kaddish for an Unborn Child , written fifteen years later, is anything but. It is a difficult novel of repetition and ambiguity, the narrator acknowledging all his uncertainty, and constantly reminding the reader of the difficulty of exact expression. In many respects, it’s an artist’s attempt at public self-flagellation. Broadly, the novel is a meditation on the narrator's failed marriage, and in particular, his refusal to have children. Identity is fixed firmly to the present perspective, with the narrator constantly reminiscing yet always acknowledging what was to happen: history is fixed, e...

Although it doesn’t feel like it – rain and 16°C for four straight days?!? – we need to swim. Yes, we need to swim and we need to swim now !

This duck has seen better days. Geilston Bay, November 2010. Yesterday, circumstances compelled me to break routine and catch a couple of buses in the middle of the day, rather than my usual ‘commuter rush’ times. In terms of heading into the city from the eastern shore, the bus was sparsely populated. The (relative) absence of people – coupled with the fact that I forgot my book – meant that I was fortunate enough to experience one side of a delightful telephone conversation. The delightful young women at my end appeared to be suffering from a terrible affliction that meant she only had access to six words. Tragically, one of the words started with ‘f’; another, ‘s’; but her favourite word began with ‘c’. Unfortunately for the other passengers, despite her proficiency as a first-rate conversationalist, those words her brain permitted her to use were not “foudroyant”, “sempiternal” or “chiaroscuro”. Perhaps this might explain her extreme agitation (bordering on rage) at what seemed to...

This one is from way back in early-June. Just to get some perspective on the little bloke’s growth, that jumper barely fits him now. Soon it’s going to be like transporting King Kong: we’ll need a huge ocean freighter! Anyone got one of those laying around?

The actual dam part of Risdon Brook Dam. September 2010. Bright sunshine and blue skies! What a welcome return after seemingly endless days of grey. It is just a pity that such lovely weather is wasted on meetings trapped in infernal, internal, inadequately ventilated rooms. Don’t even get me started on the cake…

Cranky loads up. I’m rapidly clearing the deck of old stock!

[Ahem.] No comment.

Stairs to the stars. Fire escape from the Theatre Royal, Hobart. November 2010. This one is a (slightly different) look at the Theatre Royal, right at the heart of Hobart. It is a versatile location, staging all kinds of events including ballet, opera, drama and musicals. When the theatre opened in 1837, it was located among the pubs, brothels, gambling dens, factories and tiny workers’ cottages of Wapping. As such, it is the oldest continually operating theatre in Australia. This nearly wasn’t the case though! No less a figure than Sir Laurence Olivier himself spoke passionately to Tasmanians, urging them to resist the urge to demolish it an start again in the 1940s, telling us to "never let it go"! Obviously, someone was listening. Countless lesbians [ahem] thespians have trod the boards of the Royal. Indeed, reading through a simple list is like gazing up at the sky in the dead of night! Laurence Olivier! Noël Coward! Vivien Leigh! Lillian Gish! Peter Ustinov! Hell, we’...

Here, Ezra and Jen set about re-enacting the entire three years of the Burma campaign in Tasmania’s rainforests. You’ll note Ezra there playing the role of Bill Slim himself, leading from the front!

These Haematopus longirostris look like they’ve been through the wars. Geilston Bay boat ramp, October 2010. The Pied Oystercatcher is common around these parts. They love mudflats, sandbanks and sandy ocean beaches, and rarely stray far from the coast. Consequently, with their bright orange peaks you often see them roaming about the Derwent estuary and surrounding beaches. Just so you know, the name "oystercatcher" is something of a misnomer for this species, because they seldom eat oysters! Oysters you see prefer rocky beaches, which is not at all where Pied Oystercatchers prefer to live. They’re more a mussel bird, with the odd periwinkle chucked in. I’m not sure what happened to this bloke’s foot though, maybe a roaming Great White with a gentle touch?

Steady as she goes now, we don’t want any cracked heads…

It's art Jim, but not as we know it. Rosny LINC, Rosny, October 2010. The LINC stands for Learning and Information Centre , and is part of the broader CKN ( Community Knowledge Network ) which links together Adult Education, the State Library of Tasmania, Online Access Centres and the Archives Office under one banner. To cut a long story short, it's my local library . Which leads me into today's Sunday Top Five! Five Wonderful Feelings For Today! Irascible Frustrated Tired Aching Morose This may or may not have something to do with having the entire weekend written off by rain.