This will hurt me...

"I'm Stick Man, I'm Stick Man, I'M STICK MAN, that's me!"

Ezra with creature. Our front yard, Geilston Bay. June 2013. Theme Thursday for June 6, 2013 - It's EVOLUTION in action. Car park EVOLUTION. Hobart is indeed well endowed with car parks. We have more car parks than you can poke a stick at. We have so many car parks, that people never stop complaining that we don’t have enough car parks. The problem with car parks, you see, is that you build car parks and more people get a car to park. The more people with a car to park, the more car parks we need. Then, the more car parks there are, more people get a car that they need to park. Therefore, you build more car parks. So you build more car parks, and even more people will get a car that they need to park. I don’t even drive a car! But we get more car parks. Ever more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and...

You know that part where Tom Cruise is in his undies and dances around to Bob Seger? This is nothing at all like that.

Ezra at rest. Our front yard, Geilston Bay. November 2012. Theme Thursday . WHISPERS. From the Old English hwisperian . Itself from the Old High German hwispalōn . Similar to the Old Norse hvīsla . WHISPERS. Across time. WHISPERS.

Rosemary. East Derwent Highway, Geilston Bay. September 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

Morning glory. Geilston Bay. April 2012. . Two books to have a look at this Good Friday (not a bad day weather-wise). The first is German author Elke Schmitter's Mrs Sartoris . A subtle, but very dark, novel that explores the life of an ordinary - but spurned - titular character. For a text that revolves around the boredom of suburban life in a small German city, it is surprisingly engaging. As an exploration of marriage, motherhood, sensuality and bourgeois morality in the post-war period, this is a well-composed and balanced novel about the ways in which a wronged woman might choose to hit back. Recommended. The second - Guilt About the Past - is by another German, author and jurist Bernhard Schlink. Now, readers of Schlink's fiction will know that most of his books are in some way about reconciling the past with the present. This book is a series of essays (based upon a series of lectures) that explores the concepts of collective guilt; how we might use history to motivate ...

Refreshing... Geilston Bay, December 2012. Still away. Will be back later today though...

The storm after the calm. Geilston Bay, January 2012. Watery Wednesday today, and we celebrated a day early here in Hobart as the storms kicked in yesterday evening bringing both a few boatloads of rain and breaking the mini-heat wave that we'd had the previous few days.

Hobart in the summer. Our front yard, Geilston Bay. December 2011. Today's photograph is an appropriately wet one for Watery Wednesday . Taken last Monday at (about) 4:04 pm, you can see how a sudden deluge saw our front lawn flooded. For a while there - as the waters rose and Henry and I were hustling as many animals as we could find (which amounted to some grasshoppers and a bunch of ants) onto a makeshift raft - we were quite worried. Then the rain stopped. Aside from a bit of pine bark that floated away and a bunch of rocks that were pushed downhill by the stream of water, there was not much to show of the whole affair,

Ready for the hot coals!

Did you know that the human foot and ankle contains more than 26 bones, 33 joints and more than a hundred muscles, tendons, and ligaments? I didn't.

Someone has rushed this. Geilston Bay, August 2011. Now time for part II of yesterday's stolen questions : 20) Have you ever flown a kite? Of course! 21) Do you wish on your fallen lashes? Not that I am aware of. Am I supposed to? 22) Do you consider yourself successful? It depends on one’s measure. Some days I think that I am. 23) When was the last time that you made an obscene phone call? I never have. 24) Have you ever asked for a pony? No. They make me sneeze (no good if I was on the run from the draft board. 25) Plans for tomorrow? Work. 26) Can you juggle? Very badly. 27) Missing someone now? Always. 28) When was the last time you told someone "I love you"? This very morning. 29) And truly meant it? I have never once said it and not meant it. 30) How often do you drink alcohol? Once in a blue moon. 31) How are you feeling today? Spritely. 32) Have you ever tried to write a meme? Who hasn’t? 33) Have you ever been fired from a job? Never. Can you believe it? 34) What...

Figuring out how these " icy poles " work is a very tricky business... Right. Got it.

A crime has been committed. De Bomford Lane turn off, East Derwent Highway, Geilston Bay. April 2011. If you think that Hobart is some serene and peaceful idyll filled with blissful and benign sprits floating around gently hugging each other, THINK AGAIN ! I couldn’t possibly comment on the perpetrators of the heinous act I’ve photographed above, but I suspect that it might have something to do with the kind of internecine war commonly found in groups like the Cripps , the Bloods , Mara Savatrucha , Sureños , the Hells Angels , the Babysittters Club and the Muppets . The local hardcore exxxtreme posse is the notorious Risdon Vale Boyz . Note the nerve-jangling utilisation of a ‘ z ’, as this flagrant disregard of the correct plural suffix indicates an exxxtreme challenge to established authority. You see, the breakdown of society begins with importer syntax and sentence construction, it continues through car theft and wilful destruction of authority, and into the kind of anarchy that ...