His whole aspect was that of a man who has been unexpectedly struck by lightning.

Flame trees? Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. June 2012.

Theme Thursday again and with the mood I have been in of late I thought that I'd hard pressed with this week's theme of INSPIRING THINGS.

However, after putting a little bit of thought to it, I have indeed been reminded me that there are indeed some INSPIRING THINGS within my current purview:

David Ireland's The Glass Canoe. After feeling the guilts for reading so little Australian literature, I'm hailing this 1976 book as a lost Australian classic. Seriously, this is a magnificent snapshot of an 'Australia' that I know, even if the blokes within don't make the cut for our glossy, cosmopolitan view of ourselves as a nation.

Henry's fire. I love my Henry very much, but I've always had a spot of concern with his potential fragility. He's a lovely bloke, but I wouldn't want him to ever not have the confidence to stick up for himself. In this P.C. world of ours the 'gut instinct' advice of "give any bugger giving you trouble a thump" is not welcome or wise. That said, "standing your ground and saying 'no' to wrong-doers" should be a rule of thumb we all apply. But how would Hank respond? After last week's Auskick scuffle (where Henry stood up for a little bloke who was being roughed up by two much bigger blokes) and yesterday's solid effort at righting the wrong of a gutless sucker hit of Ez (from behind no less), young Henry is starting to look a little like Batman!

Nice people. There are still nice people about. Even though the not-so-nice can sometimes dominate, I need to remind myself that there remain a few fundamentally decent human beings about.

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

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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