This will hurt me...

A young Alec Guinness.

Birthday girl. Peppermint Bay. January 2013. Phenomenal woman indeed! She had the pizza, I had the mussels, Henry had the fish(and chips) and Ezra had the pizza. Phenomenal Woman , Maya Angelou Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It's the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can't touch My in...

The Charles Atlas Way.

Banksia, Bicheno. Tasmania's East Coast. January 2013. The Clown , Heinrich Böll: By cripes this is a good book. A really, really good book. Incredibly depressing, but brilliant. Think Rabbit, Run with a greater focus on inner metaphysical distress. It's exploration of a broken heart makes it a rough read, but Böll is one of the World's greatest authors. I'd rate this one a must read. A+ .

Three sharks? Four sharks? SEVEN sharks?!?!

'er indoors outdoors. Bellerive Esplanade , Bellerive. January 2013. A tricky Theme Thursday this week: CONFESSIONS. CONFESSIONS? Here are my CONFESSIONS... 1) I don't rate dogs. 2) If someone tells me I'm "nice", I don't take it as a compliment. 3) I think that people that enjoy the television show Friends must be a bit simple in the head. 4) If I can bring myself to forgive, I really don't forget. 5) Even though it probably isn't true, sometimes I am convinced that collectively, human beings have entered their highest stage of stupidity over the past fifteen years. 6) I have been known to truncate a storybook in the evening to ensure a quicker transition to bed. 7) Sometimes if I say, "It's not you, it's me", I really mean "It's definitely you". 8) Inwardly I judge people who take the elevator rather than the stairs very harshly. 9) I'm more offended by Lord Monckton's supremely rotte...

"Blue Steel" or "Magnum"?

Beach babies. Coningham Beach, Coningham. February 2013. Wordless Wednesday.

PUSH!!!

Collecting jellyfish. Denison Beach, Tasmania's East Coast. January 2013. With regards to these jellyfish (above), the lads and I assumed a peacekeeping mission to fish these stinging beasts of the deep out and lock up in a specially designed Jellyfish Maximum Security Prison! Indeed, once we received orders to cease activities, we'd detained at least forty of the beasties. It was all to nowt though, as it seems that the East Australian Current - which you might know from Finding Nemo - shifts warm water from the tropical Coral Sea right down to the Tasman Sea, all the while depositing creatures of all shapes and sizes well out of their element. That is, the water here in Tasmania was far too cold for these jellyfish, and they were all dead by the next day (as confirmed by the amount of dead jellies littering the sea floor seen on our snorkelling expedition the following day). Anyway, to the Q and A! Again, I've pilfered it from Sunday Stealing: The Meme From Suburbia...

In October of 1934, the First Front Army of the Chinese Soviet Republic, led by the inexperienced command of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, was on the brink of annihilation by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's troops. However, the Communists escaped in a circling retreat to the west and north, travelling some 12,500 kilometres over 370 days. Moreover, the route passed through some of the most difficult terrain of western China. Ezra [above] recreated at least a small snippet of that long march in the Douglas-Apsley National Park.

When emus attack! East Coast Natureworld, Bicheno. January 2013. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and RSS feeds.) 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... Danger, you’re at serious risk of … no, sorry, it’s all relative... The effect of the supermarket duopoly in Australia. The Art of Kissing: A 1936 Guide for Lovers. The Gruffalo defends libraries from Horrible Histories' attack. The U.S. government is developing new computer weapons and driving a black market in “zero-day” bugs. The result could be a more dangerous Web for everyone. Goethe's account of the philosophy and artistic experience of colour, bridging the intuitive and the visceral in a way that, more than two hundred years later, is still of interest . Blame Barney: Students' perception of T. rex is outdated . ...

Nobody puts baby Henry in the corner rockpool!

Gull. Bicheno, Tasmania's East Coast. January 2013. A very special Sunday Top Five today: My Top Five Favourite Words Beginning With The Letter 'Q' As Well As A Sentence That Contains Them All! Quintessential Quean Quiescent Querulous Quixotic The quintessential quean can be quiescent (for a price), querulous (for free), yet oddly quixotic when it comes to Valentine's Day.