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Showing posts from December 16, 2012

Speak for yourself and from yourself, or be silent.

ANOTHER profile shot of a pre-shorn Hank!

habit of memory propels to the ground of his making

Bathing beauties? Opossum Bay, South Arm Peninsula. December 2012. The weather forecast holds mixed fortunes for our planned Christmas brunch right here on Opossum Bay beach. Fingers crossed. Here, have one of my favourite poems... After Making Love We Hear Footsteps , Galway Kinnell For I can snore like a bullhorn or play loud music or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman and Fergus will only sink deeper into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash, but let there be that heavy breathing or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house and he will wrench himself awake and make for it on the run—as now, we lie together, after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies, familiar touch of the long-married, and he appears—in his baseball pajamas, it happens, the neck opening so small he has to screw them on— and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep, his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very

Many people today don't want honest answers insofar as honest means unpleasant or disturbing, They want a soft answer that turneth away anxiety.

Ezra and I enjoyed a light little jaunt rowing around Kangaroo Bay at the recent Seafarer's Festival down in Bellerive. Henry politely declined.

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

An erosional feature in a flat sedimentary rock formation. Bellerive, December 2012. Entering Germany: 1944-1949 , Tony Vaccaro: A G.I. took his camera with him into Germany and photographed five months of war and five years of occupational peace. Stark photos and keenly observed text. Stunning. A . Wartime Lies , Louis Begley: An austere recount of a childhood spent by a Jewish boy during the Nazi occupation. A measured, deliberately cold tone throughout results in an emotionally flat narrative that is out of kilter with the content. I really enjoyed this (as much as you can 'enjoy' a Holocaust memoir. The key point around the costs of physically surviving to the psyche of a child is profound. A- . Poo: A Natural History of the Unmentionable , Nicola Davies: C'mon! Everything you ever wanted to know about faeces! Fascinating. A . Conference-Ville , Frank Moorhouse: A slice of life among the Australian academic and political amidst the turmoil of the Whitlam dis

If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten.

Sometimes the path less taken is less taken for a bloody good reason!

Never trust a man who speaks well of everybody.

I've got the power! East Derwent Highway, Geilston Bay. December 2012. Theme Thursday ? FAITH?!?! Cripes. I have FAITH that Satan Claws will make it through and deliver us some presents... I have FAITH that at least one of my children will spend the bulk of the Christmas period moaning... I have FAITH that it will either a) rain on Christmas day (thus spoiling the planned beach picnic lunch) or b) it will be a splendid day but that I will have developed a cold/ strained another muscle/ develop a migrane... I have FAITH that someone will do something nice for someone somewhere in the World... I have FAITH that someone will treat someone incredibly bad somewhere in the World... I have FAITH that some good will come of it... I have FAITH that some bad will come of it... I have FAITH that the world will keep revolving...

I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.

How about that for a state of the art grandstand?

Patience is the art of hoping.

Walking home. Nanny Goats Lane, Battery Point. December 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then.

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

Society is composed of two great classes: those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.

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

Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

My boys are unable to walk past a sausage stand without demanding one (or two, or three) sausages. Sans sauce, you understand. Straight up sausage in bread. Abbas is less sure.

There is no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.

Climbing the dunes. Nutgrove Beach, Sandy Bay. December 2012. 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... A great read on the death of a city: The Land of Topless Minarets and Headless Little Girls . Well worth your time. The Onion nails it: Right To Own Handheld Device That Shoots Deadly Metal Pellets At High Speed Worth All Of This. Humans think that they are better than animals. They are, of course, NOT . Some choice examples of futuristic Soviet architecture . John Birmingham waxes lyrical about the great experience of his daughter's state school. Hello Sailor! The Nautical Roots of Popular Tattoos... A great reverse prank courtesy of YouTube...

Boredom is rage spread thin.

Statistics have proven that if you laid every one of our Sunday family strolls in the last three years end-to-end , you would get to the moon and back ! Probably.

We know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning.

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