This will hurt me...

Baby pandani. Lake Dobson, Mount Field National Park. April 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... After Newtown shooting, mourning parents enter into the lonely quiet. 24 Incredible Yarnbombs From Around The World. A gay island community created by Italy's Fascists. How Lobster Got Fancy. Secret life of the cat: What do our feline companions get up to? Uneasiness about a woman in power unleashes a sexist maelstrom. Icky insects are actually tasty treats that are good for you. Outstanding mistakes of all time.

Mucking about in a pandani grove. Lake Dobson, Mount Field National Park. April 2013. And Then There Were None , Agatha Christie: I wonder why they changed the name? Red herrings galore, this one has a very elaborate set-up. B . Nowhere Man , Aleksandar Hemon: Displacement is never much fun. This novel explores that. I liked it. B .

Russell Falls. Mount Field National Park. April 2013. Wordless Wednesday. Everyone at Russell Falls. Mount Field National Park. April 2013.

Go to sleep forever berries. Waverley Flora Park, Bellerive. January 2013. Bring the Jubilee , Ward Moore: A long-considered classic of alternate history, this novel envisages a world in which the Confederacy win the American Civil War, and then serves up a rather large twist in the final quarter. Interestingly, Moore chooses to do so through the eyes of the archetypal “passive hero.” I liked it. B .

Cacti. Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. February 2013. Wordless Wednesday.

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+ .

Be careful! Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. January 2013. The Violin of Auschwitz , Maria Àngels Anglada: An engaging story, but a little too much telling and not enough showing. Even through Auschwitz is ingrained into the popular memory, there is a distinct lack of place. D . Arrival and Departure , Arthur Koestler: The third novel of a loosely-related trilogy that explores the conflict between morality and expediency and the ruptures that this conflict brings in the context of one's own nature and ideological standpoint. If you can suppress the urge to toss it aside through some extremely dubious thoughts on sexual consent and seduction, it's a great exploration of a tricky subject. B+ .

Ferns. Waverley Flora Park, Bellerive. December 2012. Sunday Top Five ? Okay, My Top Five Reasons For Not Doing A Top Five Today! I don't feel like it. I REALLY don't feel like it. Whining children are annoying me. I have washing to hang out. I don't feel like it.

Native flower. The Domain, Hobart. December 2012. Sunday Stealing: The Social Meme 1. Where was your profile picture taken? Halfway across the Tasman Bridge . 2. Name someone who made you laugh today. Melvyn Bragg. He can be a right prig sometimes. 3. Do you believe exes can be friends? It depends on the exes. I'm not sure I could manage it. 4. How do you feel about Dr Pepper? Loathsome. Repulsive. Abominable. 5. Who was the last person you took a picture of? Ezra. 6. Are you upset about anything? I'm upset about lots of things! Let's leave it at "man's inhumanity to man". 7. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it? Of course. 8. Are you a bad influence? Quite the opposite. 9. Night out or night in? IN! 10. Has anyone ever called you perfect before? As a noun adjunct they have. 11. What song is stuck in your head? Honky Tonk Woman by the Rolling Stones. 12. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do yo...

Flowers. Bellerive Bluff, Bellerive. September 2012. A special Christmas Sunday Top Five today: My Five Favourite Kids Books That Venture Into Slightly Uncomfortable Territory But Impress The Children Immensely From 2012! Whatever , William Bee Tadpole's Promise , Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross Duck, Death and the Tulip , Wolf Elrbruch The story of the little mole who knew it was none of his business , Werner Holzwarth Poo: A Natural History of the Unmentionable , Nicola Davies and Neal Layton

By any other name. St George's Terrace, Battery Point. December 2012. Have a love poem. I hope that you have a love to go with it. i carry your heart , EE Cummings i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Flower. Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. October 2012. Do bees eat cheese? Do as they please? Do bees have needs? It it quite a tease. Have a proper poem... Lament of the Frontier Guard , by Ezra Pound By the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand, Lonely from the beginning of time until now! Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn. I climb the towers and towers to watch out the barbarous land: Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert. There is no wall left to this village. Bones white with a thousand frosts, High heaps, covered with trees and grass; Who brought this to pass? Who has brought the flaming imperial anger? Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums? Barbarous kings. A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn, A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom, Three hundred and sixty thousand, And sorrow, sorrow like rain. Sorrow to go, and sorrow, sorrow returning, Desolate, desolate fields, And no children ...

Fronds or buds? East Derwent Highway, November 2012. Sunday Top Five and Christmas is coming! Which reminds me, Five Words That Best Sum Up Christmas To Me! Anticipation Ferment Delirium Exhaustion Astringency

Donger #1. Howrah Beach, Howrah. September 2012. How many cliffs is too many cliffs? For Ezra and Henry, you can never have too many cliffs. Diving into the Wreck , Adrienne Rich First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. There is a ladder. The ladder is always there hanging innocently close to the side of the schooner. We know what it is for, we who have used it. Otherwise it is a piece of maritime floss some sundry equipment. I go down. Rung after rung and still the oxygen immerses me the blue light the clear atoms of our human air. I go down. My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin. First the air is blue an...

Seeds. Princes Street, Sandy Bay. July 2012. Another Tuesday, another Q and A. Another stolen from Sunday Stealing. This week, The Useless Questions Meme . If you have any questions (useless or otherwise), I'm always up for answering them! Have you ever written a song? I’ve written poems that could be presented as songs, but no, I’ve not explicitly written a song. Have you ever been in the opposite sex's public toilet? Many years ago now. It’s not that exciting. Are you superstitious? Not in the least bit. What's the most daring thing you've done? Having children. By a long stretch. Did you have a baby blanket? Do you still sleep with it? I assume that I did. I do have a blanket that I used as a child. It’s on Ezra’s bed at the moment. Have you ever tried to cut your own hair? If yes, how’d it work out? No. That would not be a wise thing to attempt. Have you ever sleepwalked? Not to my knowledge. If you could be any age, what age would you be...

A little something in another something. Quayle Street, Sandy Bay. January 2012. I had the privilege of taking the full group of kids out for their warm up jog at Auskick training yesterday afternoon/ evening. I consider my rigorous training methods a success, given that I had a good fifteen or so 5 and 6 year old kids reduced to wheezing lumps prostrate on the turf afterwards! Henry, of course, was spritely and smiling, having had the good fortune to have undergone a brutal, systematic, Soviet-style training regime since he was six weeks old. If only he could kick... Sad Steps , Philip Larkin Groping back to bed after a piss I part thick curtains, and am startled by The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness. Four o'clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky. There's something laughable about this, The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart (Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs ...

Grows anywhere. St Cuthberts Primary School, Lindisfarne. May 2012. Sunday Top Five? How about these Top Five Words That We Need To Start Using In English! Backpfeifengesicht , from the German, meaning a face badly in need of a fist . Bakku-shan , from the Japanese, meaning a beautiful girl… as long as she’s being viewed from behind . L’esprit de l’escalier , from the French, which is generally translated as “staircase wit,” referring to the act of thinking of a clever comeback too far after the moment . Nunchi , from the Korean, meaning the subtle art of listening and gauging another’s mood. In the West, nunchi is about knowing what to say or do, or what not to say or do, in a given situation . A socially awkward individual can be described as ‘ nunchi eoptta ’, which means 'absent of nunchi'. Tatemae and Honne , again from the Japanese, which refer to what you pretend to believe and what you actually believe , respectively.

Nymphéas (avec mes excuses à Monet). Royal Botanical Gardens, Hobart. April 2012. Today's Sunday Top Five is a new one for me, but probably replicated fourteen thousand times on teh Internets. Yes, it is My Top Five 'Secret' Health And Lifestyle Tips To Reaching My Ideal Weight! Back story, Jen had been complaining for a while that it was hard finding the time to do regular exercise with two small kids always hanging about (well, exercise beyond chasing and punishing two small kids that are always hanging about). So, last Christmas, Santa, his elves, Henry, Ezra and I determined that a Wii Fit package might go some way to filling the gap. On Christmas morning, Jen's little eyes lit up when she saw the balance board and realised that we had all gone some way to making her dreams of an international modelling career come true. If you're not familiar with the Wii Fit, it gets you to plug in your relevant details (name, age, height et cetera , and then measures you...

Ezra scoots in amongst the vegetation.

When flowers cry. Princes Street, Sandy Bay. September 2011. Some days are better than others.