This will hurt me...

Camp Falls, Tasman National Park, the Tasman Peninsula. October 2013. A Greyhound of a Girl , Roddy Doyle: This is the first of Roddy Dolye’s books that I’ve read that he’s written for younger readers. In many respects it is ‘typical Doyle’, but with a distinctly softer edge in terms of language and overall ambiance. That said, the narrative voice is distinctly Irish and I didn’t find the change undermined my enjoyment of the novel. Given the central themes of death, ageing and regret, the author does a great job of communicating a sense of tenderness and understanding without resorting to condescension or the hackneyed metaphors often seen in this kind of thing. Essentially a tale of love and death across four generations of women in one family, the blurb sums it up nicely: "One of them is dead, one of them is dying, one of them is driving, and one of them is just starting out". I enjoyed it, you might too. Recommended. C+.

Boat alone. The Tasman National Park, Tasmania. October 2013. We Have Always Lived in the Castle , Shirley Jackson: This is a dark little book that – like a lot of Shirley Jackson’s work – explores the idea of persecution of people who are ‘different’. It is a tricky read full of strangeness and goings on where the moral lines are not clear and the narrator clearly unreliable and quite a bit unstable. Despite a multiplying sense of unease and malevolence, the book also explores concepts of love and devotion. Immensely macabre elements are treated as unremarkable; the sense of agoraphobia is virtually unrelenting. Yet the language is deceptively simple, and the almost dreamlike ‘otherness’ both real and imagined. Together, social class and actions in the past divide the family at the centre of the book and the narrow-minded townsfolk, but just how strange and different the sisters are is beyond them. Of course, we the reader have an insight that they do not, and the type of horro...

Hippolyte Rocks #1, Tasman Peninsula. September 2013. The Dare , John Boyne: A simple tale from the perspective of a twelve-year-old boy, it does a realistic job of constructing a compelling story about how one simple moment can change a people's lives forever. C . The far south, Tasman Peninsula. September 2013.

The Neck, Bruny Island. September 2013. Wordless Wednesday.

Too hot for standing in the sun. GrandvEwe Cheese, Birches Bay. January 2013. Sunday Stealing: The (20) First (Questions) Meme First Job: Being born is always a challenging task. First Real Job: I consider the paper rounds that I slogged through the long hot Tasmanian summers to very much be a 'real job'. First Volunteer Job: Can you count that time I was a Primary School House Leader? I did give up a lot of recesses... First Car: I still haven't got one! First Record: The first that I'm told that I insisted upon getting was Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel. First Sport Played: If you discount running about more generally or splashing in the water, it was most likely aussie rules football. First Concert: I am told that I attended a John Mayall concert as a little 'un. First Country Visited: Besides Australia? Thailand (for about 90 minutes). Beyond that, the UK. First Kiss: The little girl across the road. First Speech: I've never...

The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs. GrandvEwe Cheeses, Birches Bay. 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... Why not start my Flickr Photostream ?

Cherries. Sorell Fruit Farm. December 2012. Theme Thursday ? Already?!? So she said, "Have you got ANTS in your pants?" "No." "Spiders on your Ryders?" "Uh uh." "Snails up your veils?" "Nope." "Gnats in your spats?" "Nein." "Fleas on your keys?" "Negative." "Bugs under your jugs?" "..." "Roaches over your broaches?" "Not at all." "Nits in your knits?" "How dare you sir!" "Grasshoppers in your jodhpurs?" "Now you're just being silly." "Crabs infesting your prefabs?" "Absolutely not." "Crickets in your chicots?" "That's a stretch." "Slugs under your rugs?" "Better." "Praying mantis in your... in your..." "Keep trying." "Acanthodrilidae... Danaus plexippus... Ischn...

Ezra has finally realised just how a lot of those rocks have found their way in Fossil Cove...

Something... Somewhere... Out there...

Snug Falls. Snug, southern Tasmania. October 2012. Theme Thursday and again, for a week we are TOGETHER. Just like these photographs are TOGETHER. Henry and Ezra are usually TOGETHER. Jen and I are more often than not TOGETHER. Ice creams and sticky hands. Chocolate and guilt. Sex and death. Bert and Ernie. Wallace and Grommit. Christmas and regret. Flags and racists. Some things just inevitably go TOGETHER. Jen adjusts. Snug Falls, Snug, southern Tasmania. October 2012.

A drum. Just out of Brighton, the Tasmanian Southern Midlands. June 2012. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (as well as a lot of very lonely people.) 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 good overview of just how we might go about creating good schools . A fascinating look at disputed and false memories . How is it that you can start to believe someone else's memory is your own? And why is it so straightforward to give people memories of events they never actually experienced? Kate Beeton (of the Hark! A Vagrant webcomic fame) nails the culture of media commentary on female politicians . Where the Buffalo No Longer Roamed. The tale of how the wild west was won and where it got America. "Protracted depression is making life ever harder and disillusioning for those, and their children, t...

A jetty and some boats. Dover (I think...). Southern Tasmania. June 2011. One of the challenges of taking photographs from a moving vehicle is remembering which town exactly the photo was taken. I'm pretty sure that this is Dover, Australia second most southern-most town. Any Dover-ites are more than welcome to correct me... That's the trouble with fleeting trips. The memory lags behind the event, and in order to fill in gaps, we develop a tendency to reconstruct events. Clearly the fleeting few seconds that we spent in Dover (or some other town), was not enough!