This will hurt me...

Science!

Elves under trees. St Davids Park, Hobart. July 2012. Grass , brother. GRASS . Uh-huh. That's right. GRASS , Carl Sandburg ILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo, Shovel them under and let me work-- I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.

Big Ez considers the geological possibilities down on Clifton Beach...

Boat. Sullivan's Cove, Hobart Waterfront. May 2012. Two books this week, perhaps best read as a pair. First up is 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. A publishing sensation, this is a collection of letters shared between a little-known, middle-aged American writer and the staff of Marks & Co, an antiquarian bookshop in London over two decades – from Britain’s post-war austerity to the Swinging Sixties. As such, it is an interesting document of the special relationships that can develop over a love of books. Slight, but charming. Recommended. Second up is the companion piece, Duchess of Bloomsbury Street . Essentially the diary of Hanff's first trip to London after the success of the first book,it catalogues her meeting a cast of characters the book has thrown into her life. While it's an enjoyable experience to see the effect of unexpected literary success, I found Hanff herself a reasonably annoying protagonist. Only for those who really need the closure

For some reason my children resent being taken on lovely Sunday morning strolls on paths of frozen mud in the dead of winter. Bloody soft southerners!

Getting dark. Corner of Sandy Bay Road and Hampdon Road, Battery Point. July 2012. Theme Thursday and this week is one for RECOLLECTIONS. You know, memories. Nostalgia. Remembering. Recall. A time when everyone was nicer. Everyone was more moral, ethical. More polite, more genuine, more reliable. People were hardworking. Kids were considerate. Men were made of sterner stuff and women had more respect for themselves. Communities stuck together. Things had value and people valued things other than things. People had values and values meant something. A dollar was a dollar, a pound was a pound and we all knew where we stood. You remember. Streets were clean. Men doffed their caps, women demurred with grace. Children feared the consequences of things and our leaders had a firm grip on the whip hand. Times were good. Things were hard but people were harder. People were more resilient. Tougher. Leaner. Meaner. Life was a challenge but we were better at rising to challenges. Disse

Ezra contemplates the weather aboard a bus.

Barbed wire. Mayfair Plaza Car Park, Sandy Bay. August 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

Windy.

Leaves. East Derwent Highway, Lidisfarne. July 2012. Another Q and A, another stolen from Sunday Stealing, another The Too Tired to Think Meme, Part 2 . 26. What type of errands do you like running? Errands that get me out and about in the sunshine. 27. Have you ever eaten snow? Only the white snow. 28. What colour are your bedsheets? At the moment they are dark blue. 29. What’s your favourite flower? I do like a nice pansy. Grevillea banksii is also very nice. 30. Do you do ballet? I admire their strength and skill. It does bore me a bit though. 31. Do you listen to classical music? Occasionally I do. I was terribly excited to visit the house where Vivaldi wrote The Four Seasons . 32. What is the first TV Theme song that pops in your head? The Banana Splits . 33. Do you watch Sponge Bob? Yes I do. 34. What temperature is it outside right now? Very cold. Around the 5° Celsius mark. 35. Do people consider you smart? Smart people do. 36. How many pierci

So which way is Mecca again?

Take it slow. The intersection of Napoleon, Bath and Quayle Streets, the Battery Point and Sandy Bay border. July 2012. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and Henry.) 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... So just who is your Olympic athlete body match? For the record, I have matched Aussie swimmer Daniel Tranter, who let his country down in both the 200 and 400 metres individual medley. Australian's are bad losers. We need to stop doing that. Still on the Olympics, and in one of the great headlines ever in The Economist : Communism still rules . A really good read here. I like his work, but it is a fair question: does historian Timothy Snyder absolve Eastern Europeans of special complicity in the Holocaust? A nice little piece on the 'shark debate' here in Australia . This comprehen

A hairy Henry tempts fate (and seagulls).

Sometimes the road less taken is less taken for a reason! Hastings Caves State Reserve, the Huon Valley. May 2012. Sunday Top Five and even though the sun is out and the day is pleasant, I continue to struggle through with this flu. That said, I have managed to do three loads of washing, hang it out and make a litre of dark chocolate mousse, so life could be worse. I hear that the Olympics are on. I hate the Olympics. Well, maybe that's unfair. I find them boring. Even that's a stretch. So today's Top Five Eight: My Memories Of Olympics Held During My Lifetime! I can't recall a single thing about Beijing (Ezra was born around the time of the Opening Ceremony). Sorry China. I know that it was in Athens the time before, but other than some odd shenanigans involving two Greeks on a motorbike, I didn't see anything else. Sydney was rammed down out throats here in Australia, but for me the memorable aspect was the Roy and HG show, and that consisted of tak