This will hurt me...

Raincoats are awfully empowering to four-year-olds.

Table Cape farmland #1. Table Cape, North West Tasmania. April 2013. Theme Thursday ? Yeah, one of those days. Table Cape farmland #2. Table Cape, North West Tasmania. April 2013. A good day for DREAMS.

Raw periwinkles. In salt. Yum.

Ezra has found a blackberry. Run, blackberry, run!

Yesterday evening you saw Henry struggle the entire way up The Nut (in Stanley), this fine evening you can see the despicable shortcut that his brother and mother took. We still won.

Gnome. Boat Harbour, Tasmania. March 2013. A gnome is legendary dwarfish creature alleged to have been brought to Earth to guard the earth's treasures. I believe that blackberries are uncluded. Blackberry Eating , Galway Kinnell I love to go out in late September among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries to eat blackberries for breakfast, the stalks very prickly, a penalty they earn for knowing the black art of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries fall almost unbidden to my tongue, as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words like strengths or squinched, many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps, which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well in the silent, startled, icy, black language of blackberry -- eating in late September.

Theme Thursday and something MAGICAL is in the air. The last time that he saw Billy, he was being hit about the head and shoulders with a block of firewood. To be fair to the woman that was hitting him, Billy was not a very nice person. Billy had a problem with his temper. He did not take kindly to rejection. This was a special challenge, because with Billy’s temperament (among other things) he regularly face people rejecting him. Billy also had a problem with his vocabulary, his personal hygiene, his emotional intelligence, time management skills and his general sense of self. While these things are not unrelated to Billy’s assault; they offer an interesting insight into the nature of alienation in post-industrial societies, the failures of our modern welfare (post-welfare) state, the nihilism inherent in a capitalist, consumption-oriented world whereby success is measured by the wheels on your car, the size of your television set and the specific shade of orange on your girl...

A rest. NatureWorld , Bicheno. January 2013. Enjoy a poem! To Be In Love , Gwendolyn Brooks To be in love Is to touch with a lighter hand. In yourself you stretch, you are well. You look at things Through his eyes. A cardinal is red. A sky is blue. Suddenly you know he knows too. He is not there but You know you are tasting together The winter, or a light spring weather. His hand to take your hand is overmuch. Too much to bear. You cannot look in his eyes Because your pulse must not say What must not be said. When he Shuts a door- Is not there_ Your arms are water. And you are free With a ghastly freedom. You are the beautiful half Of a golden hurt. You remember and covet his mouth To touch, to whisper on. Oh when to declare Is certain Death! Oh when to apprize Is to mesmerize, To see fall down, the Column of Gold, Into the commonest ash.

A great big sky on a great big beach. Denison Beach, Tasmania's East Coast. January 2013. Another pilfered Sunday Stealing Q and A! The 5000 Question Meme, Part One 1. Who are you? I’m Me. Who are you? 2. What are the 3 most important things everyone should know about you? 1. I’m trying my best. 2. I really just want to be left alone. 3. If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. 3. When you aren't doing memes like this one what are you doing? One of: working; childrearing; housework; cooking; reading; sleeping. 4. List your classes in school from the ones you like the most to the ones you like the least (or if you are out of school, think of the classes you did like and didn't like at the time). ? What level of school? I spent a lot of time in schooling. Classes I liked (high school): social science and English (subject to certain teachers). Classes I disliked (high school): maths; metalwork; music. Classes I liked (university): political theory; history. ...

Preparing the jellyfish prison...

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.

Dolphin. Bicheno Beach, Bicheno. Tasmania's East Coast. January 2013. Jen survived her return to work this week. I survived the newly structured hours. Henry and Ezra survived the second week of school. Good stuff. I know why the caged bird sings , Maya Angelou A free bird leaps on the back Of the wind and floats downstream Till the current ends and dips his wing In the orange suns rays And dares to claim the sky. But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage Can seldom see through his bars of rage His wings are clipped and his feet are tied So he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful trill Of things unknown but longed for still And his tune is heard on the distant hill for The caged bird sings of freedom. The free bird thinks of another breeze And the trade winds soft through The sighing trees And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright Lawn and he names the sky his own. But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams His sha...

Harvesting seaweed? Easy!

Wineglass Bay from the saddle, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania's East Coast. January 2013. Theme Thursday and if you have any SENSE, enough CENTS and a nose for SCENTS, you'd be heading down to Wineglass Bay. Wineglass Bay from the rocks, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania's East Coast. January 2013. Sure, you have to climb halfway up (two) mountains (and back down again), but the beach is worth it. If you're into SCENTS, nothing can beat the SCENT of clear, pristine and clean water when you're swimming (even if it is a mild 15°C). Wineglass Bay from the beach, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania's East Coast. January 2013. So come on, show some SENSE, starting putting aside your CENTS and get down here and have a crack at the SCENTS!

Henry thinks that you can make a boat out of rocks. I reckon he's wrong.

Sea weed. Denison Beach, near Bicheno, Tasmania's East Coast. 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... Interesting fusion when an NBA player merges Marxism and a critique of modern mental illness . The sky. Cheating in sport is as old as sport itself. Tasmania on the bumpy road to economic sustainability. Describing shark encounters as 'attacks' is misleading and outdated, researchers say . Did dinosaurs love their children? If emotions are something special to humans, how and when did they develop?

Henry enjoys, Ezra less so, a romp aboard the Manly Fairy Ferry!

If that is not an awestruck look, I'll go jump in the lake!

Have YOU ever ridden a concrete elephant?

Wer nicht hören will, muss fühlen!