This will hurt me...

Snow joke!

Henrik samler snø. Han vil bruke snøen for fisk. Fisken vil bli frosset. Henrik vil spise fisken. Det vil være en stolt dag.

Ezra re-enacts a Viking beserker raid.

Hartz Mountains National Park was been shaped by glaciers during past ice ages. Here we are walking up through the centre of the park to Lake Osborne, a small glacial lake reached by a walk through wet eucalypt forest, into alpine heath and then onto the lake itself. It was well worth the effort!

From the front... ...From behind.

Snow. Mount Wellington as seen from Cornelian Bay. July 2012. Tenebrae , Paul Celan We are near, Lord, near and at hand. Handled already, Lord, clawed and clawing as though the body of each of us were your body, Lord. Pray, Lord, pray to us, we are near. Wind-awry we went there, went there to bend over hollow and ditch. To be watered we went there, Lord. It was blood, it was what you shed, Lord. It gleamed. It cast your image into our eyes, Lord. Our eyes and our mouths are open and empty, Lord. We have drunk, Lord. The blood and the image that was in the blood, Lord. Pray, Lord. We are near.

We've had a bit of sunshine around these parts for the past week, so I thought it a timely reminder to post this picture of some cool cats sat up top of the local mountain. Check out the look on Ezra's face and tell me whether or not you reckon he's enjoying that blustery wind slamming into his face!

Oh for some sun and a clear blue sky...

Snow joke. Mount Wellington, as seen from Geilston Bay. July 2011. Ezra's birthday party is due to begin in one hour's time. I hope that by the time this post goes up: i) the cake is done and dusted, ii) the party bags are brimming with goodies, iii) the children are dressed, fed and watered, and, iv) the sun is out. But first, a poem... More Hope More Dust , Kojo Laing Three Ghanaians have taped goats’ backs, they block the dung. I By the dust-blown koobi stands a chief on one leg, AM taped goats grunt and move their dust onto the flat fish, OBSESSED and to the raised one leg the horn sends a low sympathy WITH of music, for three Ghanaians plus three equals three Ghanaians still, THE who stand behind the bus and admire the exhaust-pipe TOUCH freshly sweet with sugar-cane that was exhaustedly brought OF as the goat escapes with a powerful blast, its SKINS own anti-hoarding exercise done through the hide of the rump. AT The chief dancing with the other leg expects koobi in the e...

Badda bing, badda boom! There once was snow, now there is not. Col tempo la foglia di gelso diventa seta . Forgetaboutit!

Let it snow let it snow let it snow. The view (!) from above. Mount Wellington, Hobart. May 2011. So I get a week’s rest do I? With two small children and a gardening job that looks more like landscaping? I think we’ll have to find somewhere to go and photograph instead…

Hobart in the Summer! Mount Wellington, as seen from New Town, February 2011. Quick , I need a Sunday Top Five! Ummmm…. How about Top Five Statistical Details About Tasmania That You Might Not Be Aware Of ? Most Tasmanians live in urban centres, with nearly 90% of the total population living in Hobart, Launceston, Burnie and Devonport. Over the next twenty years the proportion of Tasmanians under the age of fifteen is projected to decline by approximately 7% while the proportion of people aged 65 years and over could grow by almost 60%. In the ten years to 2006 there was a 10% decline in the number of households with children in Tasmania, while the number of childless couples increased by 17% and the number of people living alone increased by 15%. Although the proportion of welfare-dependent households has declined in recent years, Tasmania still has the highest proportion of welfare-dependent households of all states and territories at 34%. Of these households, the majority (52 %) wer...

Cranky loads up. I’m rapidly clearing the deck of old stock!

I'm tearing through my rapidly deminishing photographs of our day in the snow. Here is Ezra looking decidedly impressed by the bonding capacities of snow on wool. Try as I might though, I struggled to get them to accept the concept that very soon that snow will be water. Of course, they very much understood it when we got back in town and their pants were dripping wet...

I do like a nice bloom of flowers in the snow. Jen snapped Ezra here shifting some snow about in the hippy commune Hobart suburb of Fern Tree back in September. Quite what he was intending to do with all that snow, well, that he wouldn’t tell me…

Like Scott Amundsen of the Antarctic, this little bloke will not let something as insignificant a mountain of snow stop him. Godt arbeid Ezra. Hold den opp!

Henry and Jen have taken on the monumental task of shifting ALL of the snow off Mount Wellington. They were taking it down into Salamanca and constructing an art installation that tackled the long-suppressed topic of Man’s inhumanity to penguins . Looking out the window, they’ve just about finished the job.

Playing silly buggers in the snow. Mount Wellington, August 2010. Circumstances yet again conspire against me! I had intended to make this post the very first in a Friday Book Club [of one] mediation on what I have reading of late, but alas, today I do not have the time to do it justice. That said, I promise that next week I shall ruminate on whatever it is that has occupied my bus journeys and lunch breaks during the week. So dear reader, expect a treatise on George Orwell’s slumming it Down and Out in Paris and London ; Evelyn Waugh getting amongst it in Abyssinia and Muriel Spark’s loitering with intent amongst a band of lunatics. To ease the pain, here’s another shot, this time in vivid colour panoramic surround sound !

In America, children throw snow balls . In Tasmania, children throw snow boomerangs .

On a clear day, you can see forever more snow. Mount Wellington, August 2010. Henry told me a joke the other day, I thought that I'd share it with the world: Henry: "Knock knock." Me: "Who's there?" Henry: "Penguin." Me: "Penguin who?" Henry: "..." Me: "Penguin who?" Hsnry: "What?" Me: "Don't worry." Henry: "PENGUIN!" [Runs off.] Hilarious. Looking around the top of a mountain. Mount Wellington, August 2010. Looking south, next stop Antarctica! Mount Wellington, August 2010.