This will hurt me...

I bet you didn't know that all those cacti made three-year-old's so depressed.

Leaves and twigs in the water. Hot Springs Creek, Hastings Caves State Reserve. April 2012. If you ever decide to swim in the rivers and creeks of Tasmania, particularly those located in forests, consider shoes... The Pig , Roald Dahl In England once there lived a big And wonderfully clever pig. To everybody it was plain That Piggy had a massive brain. He worked out sums inside his head, There was no book he hadn't read. He knew what made an airplane fly, He knew how engines worked and why. He knew all this, but in the end One question drove him round the bend: He simply couldn't puzzle out What LIFE was really all about. What was the reason for his birth? Why was he placed upon this earth? His giant brain went round and round. Alas, no answer could be found. Till suddenly one wondrous night. All in a flash he saw the light. He jumped up like a ballet dancer And yelled, "By gum, I've got the answer!" "They want my bacon slice by slic...

For some reason this makes me think of The Beatles in A Hard Day's Night . I don't know why.

The fences keep slipping underneath the dunes. Howrah Beach. April 2012. Just the one review this week, Polish authors Witold Gombrowicz's Pornografia . Essentially the tale of two bored (and filthy-minded) old men who find themselves in small-town Poland during the occupation in 1943. The two central characters indulge in a world of their own vices as the world around them is collapsing - in both a political and cultural sense. It is an odd book in many ways, and quite slow-moving. Only for the patient.

Ezra negotiates a difficult turn at the Lindisfarne North Primary School Fair...

The usual suspects. Clifton Beach. April 2012. A very appropriate Theme Thursday today, as I had lined up this shot of my FAMILY well in advance. FAMILY is a funny old concept. Some people say. “you can’t choose your FAMILY” but I am not convinced of that. Lots of people seem to be choosing their FAMILY. They have a FAMILY, change their mind, then bugger off and start a new one. It’s happening all over the place! However, I have already chosen my FAMILY. All up, they are a decent, dependable lot. I’m thankful that they’re all so good looking, because it does make the hard times more bearable. In an approach that we should have taken with rabbits and cane toads, we’ve kept the numbers down lest we be overrun with the buggers (they’re loud enough as it is) and my ethical object to polygamy has kept the marital situation in check. Anyone who knows anything about that television show that was not in the slightest about Mormons will tell you that one wife should be plenty enough...

Male model material?

Wordless Wednesday.

A natural bunker atop Mount Wellington is the ideal place to check out the latest inter-ballistic missile tests that we've been planning ever since Henry got that science kit last Christmas...

Circle and lines. East Derwent Highway, Lindisfarne. April 2012. Another Tuesday Q and A courtesy of Sunday Stealing. It's a bit of a shake-up this week, less 'Q and A' and more 'complete the sentence' really. Thus, I present to you The Semi Charmed Meme, Part One 1. My uncle once: got my father imprisoned for the weekend. 2. Never in my life: have I insincerely professed love. 3. When I was five: I am sure that I was naughtier than my boy Henry. 4. High School was: not something that enjoyed in the slightest. 5. I will never forget: that the important things in life cannot be bought and sold. 6. I once met: someone with an odious personality. It didn’t end well. 7. There’s this girl I know who: must have the patience of a saint. 8. Once, at a bar: I took a punt and then everything in my life changed. 9. By noon, I’m usually: ready for either a) my run; or b) a nap. 10. Last night: was like most other nights. 11. If only I had: been a little ...

Personally, I insist that all duels must take place on floating pontoon docks...

The Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (as well as many ill-informed opinions.) The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning.. Der Speigel has an interesting story on how work on a recently discovered mass grave is revealing a whole bunch of new clues to the Thirty Years' War . In news that shouldn't come as a surprise to parents, new evidence that attention problems in children may be related to their patterns of sleep . The BBC offers an interesting (albeit depressing) answer to the deprivation-related questions ' are North Koreans really three inches shorter than South Koreans ?'. In a more uplifting story, it seems that the new forms of publishing might well be rescuing many classics of Australian literature from their long out-of-print status ...

Ezra just told me that he wants to be a 'Scientologist' when he grows up. I dearly hope that he meant 'palaeontologist'...

Ground control to Major Tom… Top of Mount Wellington, Hobart. April 2012. This Sunday Top Five I am taking the opportunity to vent just a little bit. Yes, it is my Top Five Things This Week That Are Annoying Me (That Do Not Involve Children)! Hipsters. Or just anyone who is generally badly dressed but looks down their nose at other punters in the street because of their clothes/ haircut/ appropriately-sized eyewear. People who push in line to order food, but when they eventually are asked their order they don’t know what they want. Having to flick through all your tabs in your browser just to see which page is playing that stupid and annoying music so you can kill it. Forms that ask questions requiring an answer but don’t provide anything like the amount of space for you to adequately respond. When people say ‘literally’ but they really do not literally mean it.