This will hurt me...

Ezra does his best Jimmy Barnes circa '82 (specifically Forever Now )...

Flipper, is that you? Melbourne Zoo, Melbourne. April 2011. The seventh seal? Kiss from a rose? United States Navy SE a, A ir and L and team members?' Andre? Seals and Croft? Australian Fur Seal or Kelpie without legs? Melbourne Zoo, Melbourne. April 2011. Something or other...

Henry reclining in foreground with tea cosy on head. Hobart Cenotaph in background. Ezra midground.

Let it snow let it snow let it snow. The view (!) from above. Mount Wellington, Hobart. May 2011. So I get a week’s rest do I? With two small children and a gardening job that looks more like landscaping? I think we’ll have to find somewhere to go and photograph instead…

Pierce the soul, don’t they?

Just how many tigers are too many tigers? Melbourne Zoo, April 2011. I expect that three or four tigers probably constitutes too many tigers. Once you get beyond a couple, they start to bicker and argue, and the food they require to keep that healthy sheen and lustre to their coat becomes quite expensive. In fact, I’m just about ready to rule out those eight tigers I’ve been bidding for on E-Bay…. Sunday Top Five. Already? I’ve got it! Today’s top five is Five Words That I Commit To Using In Everyday Conversation In The Course Of The Next Week (And That You Should Too)! Anencephalous : “You see, the fundamental problem with that guy is that he is anencephalous. That’s the long and the short of it. Bloviate : “Her tendency to bloviate in times of crisis makes her completely unsuitable for leadership. Gobemouche : “His capacity to immediately identify and bring round every gobemouche in the room makes him a man worth knowing.” Ornery : “Yeah, I know him. He’s a particularly ornery fello...

Can you believe it? THREE for the price of ONE this evening. I’ve got ‘em playing it straight! I’ve got ‘em leanin’ back! I’ve got ‘em bein’ silly! You name it, I’ve got it.

Autumn leaves on an Autumn tree at the start if Winter. St Johns Park, New Town. June 2011. It has been getting colder. Much colder. What the Goose-Girl Said About the Dean , Edith Sitwell Turn again, turn again, Goose Clothilda, Goosie Jane. Bright wooden waves of people creak From houses built with coloured straws Of heat; Dean Pasppus’ long nose snores Harsh as a hautbois, marshy-weak. The wooden waves of people creak Through the fields all water-sleek. And in among the straws of light Those bumpkin hautbois-sounds take flight. Whence he lies snoring like the moon Clownish-white all afternoon. Beneath the trees’ arsenical Sharp woodwind tunes; heretical— Blown like the wind’s mane (Creaking woodenly again). His wandering thoughts escape like geese Till he, their gooseherd, sets up chase, And clouds of wool join the bright race For scattered old simplicities.

Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Snow has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by external pressure. See how I have formed these snowflakes into a denser material. Snowfall tends to form within regions of upward motion of air around low-pressure systems. As we are atop Mount Wellington, it is highly probable that this snow has been formed through an upslope flow of warmer air (containing water evaporation from the ocean) that has been maximised within the windward sides of the terrain at elevation, which has then hit the far colder atmosphere at altitude. Are you following?

Fare thee well, St John's Church. St Johns Park, New Town. June 2011. Last day today! One of the positives of my shifting career path will be less need to tear down Liverpool Street in the early morning trying to make the connecting bus through to New Town. The 7:48 am to Glenorchy is a far more pleasant journey, as the 8:02 generally involves a bus packed to the rafters with reeking and deafening teenage boys on their way to school. In fact, anyone who queries the likelihood of man’s evolutionary link with our ape cousins really needs to catch the 8:02 Glenorchy Express and wise up! After last week’s dismal effort, I’ve lifted my game this week and steamed through a few books. The first, The Drowned World is a 1962 sci-fi novel by J. G. Ballard that differs a little bit from most post-apocalyptic fiction. The central character, rather than being disturbed by the end of the old world, embraces the changed existence that is coming. It’s an interesting little book. Ballard has done ...

London 2012: here we come ...

Rock on. Blinking Billy Beach, Sandy Bay. May 2011. I will confess that part of me admires the tenacity of people who ring an incorrect telephone number, and insist that it is in fact the correct number. That is, the fact that you are not (for example) Dave's Mowing Service is not their fault, it is YOURS. Indeed, the fact that you are not Dave, you have never been Dave, nor do you mow lawns as a matter of business bothers them not a jot, the simple insistence that you ARE because the number that they've dialled IS will somehow magically transform you, your phone number and Statewide and Mental Health Services with it - through sheer force of will and belief - into Dave's Mowing Service. I wish that I had that kind of belief. It'd almost make you think that the world was a halfway decent place...

Check out those smiles! As ever, the boys are rarely happier than when they are atop some mighty steed. In this case, wooden Asian elephants.

Jen contemplates the meaning of nothingness. Calverts Beach, South Arm Peninsula. March 2011. Is nothing something ? Is absence presence ? If a void is an empty space and a vacuum is empty of matter is there such thing as a void? Is there such thing as a vacuum? If there is, does that mean that nothing is something ? Is non-existence essential for existence to be ? Is a void raw existence ? Is being being ? If we are nowhere are we anywhere ? Anywhere must be somewhere , right? If we are talking about nothing does that necessarily engender something ? Is a memory something ? Is a real memory real ? Is a real memory more real than an imagined memory ? Henry has be of absolutely no use at answering any of these questions, and Ezra is barely any better!