Final lot

At the risk of this seeming like a wildflowers blog, I wanted to add the last of the Prom wildflower posts. I haven't labelled any of the flowers. Some I recognise: teatree (Leptospermum), crowea, correa, myrtle (Calytrix), pigface etc, and some I don't. In any case, it wasn't meant to be a scientific expedition -- did all that classification years ago at uni. (Though I don't know that we ever looked at plants -- our bias was more towards the animal kingdom.) All I wanted to do was document what I saw after the bushfires. And I was amazed at how many different species I did see.


There's something about walking around with a camera that makes me notice things more. Wildflowers at the Prom are not present en masse -- just odd little specimens here and there. If I wasn't looking for them, taking note, if I wasn't walking around camera in hand, chances are I wouldn't have noticed them. The other bushwalkers, walking at much more brisk paces than we were, didn't seem to stop and notice them. And to me that's part of the joy of walking: taking note of all the wildlife around, though admittedly I could do without the pesky march flies!


So, where are the shots of scenery, you might ask -- they're all on the Speculating about Fiction blog. Don't know why the separation -- it's just how it worked out.

And more!

More wildflowers

Of course the worst thing when travelling is having two people who are not well matched in interests. Sir Talkalot had to put up with my photography -- I took over 300 photos in four days, and my avid reading. One day he was getting increasingly frustrated because he wanted to *do* something. Trouble was he didn't know what, and the weather was poor. (Come to think of it, though -- we could've gone this weekend, and that would've been disastrous. The hikers would've been washed out, and no doubt our tent would've been leaking. With no fly, it only takes one touch to start a disastrous leak, and nothing is surer to put me in a bad mood than that.


Part of the frequent stops for photography was for all these wildflowers, and this drove ST mad. He couldn't see the point. Kids! They just don't see the beauty all around them. (Although he did appreciate the coastal scenery.) He was patient when I was waiting for people to get out of frame, and patient with my slow walking and frequent rests, so I guess I should be grateful!

Wildflowers at the Prom

Last weekend, we headed away from the Christmas rush and headed out to Wilson's Prom. We split the family up: The Gadget Man wanted to do a hike, and had been promising Princess Sleepyhead a trip away for ages. Bonding time. They need to bond -- too much acrimony between them. And I'm not up for a hike. I need an ankle reconstruction, which I'm not going to get anytime soon. And my general fitness level is not up to carrying an extra 20 kg of stuff. Sir Talkalot, who hikes a bit with scouts, didn't want to hike, so we took two tents and ST and I stayed at Tidal River, doing day hikes, while the other two did a four-day walk.


This was a big test for PH who has scoliosis and spondylosis (two back complaints) -- and as she's supposed to be going to Vietnam next year on a challenge, and will have to spend about a week on a mountain trek, carrying packs, we needed to know how she would cope. And she coped very well. The last month or two at school, she and the other girl in her year level who is going to Vietnam, both had to join the Year 10 "boot camp", which involved lots of running, push-ups, sit-ups -- everything. She said it was exhausting but reckoned it had improved her fitness level. Must've done something because GM wasn't able to keep up with her. So they had a great time -- apart from the first half hour, when GM dropped their tent over a tent (it fell from his pack) and had to retrieve it.


ST and I had a lovely time doing day walks (strenuous enough for me) and reading and putting up with the wind, which kept collapsing various parts of our tent. It was the tent's last outing: it has mildew, the mesh is ripped and the poles bent (which is why it kept collapsing!).


I was interested to see how the Prom had recovered from the bushfires two years ago, and it was good to see lots of new growth. I was amazed at all the wildflowers I saw, so over the next few days I'll document some of them. Apologies for the fuzziness in some photos -- what I wouldn't give for an SLR with manual focus!

Bit behind

Yes, I'm behind with my postings. We're doing the usual rush of Christmassy things including kids concerts and other performances. Actually, with Sir Talkalot not dancing this year that was one less concert and one less (big) expense. Last year the costuming was several hundreds of dollars and the tickets about fifty dollars each. Tres expensive! (And I remember his frustration because when they took their final bows, they had to wear their full regular tracksuit, and someone had stolen his tracksuit top, so he wasn't allowed on stage. They had said that anyone not in full uniform wasn't allowed on, which was fair enough except that they let everyone else not in full uniform (about four people) on stage and just kept him off. No, it wasn't a deliberate attempt to slight him -- just a matter of his standing near someone who was strict about enforcing rules, whereas the other director on the other side of the stage didn't enforce the rules at all. It is annoying though, for parents and performers alike. I mean this is a kids' production, for goodness sake. People sometimes take themselves a bit too seriously -- but, even so, I can accept this if it's consistent... And that was his last performance with them...)

This year, both kids performed in their drama school's play, and then had an awards night they had to attend. Sir Talkalot has sung with his school choir in Collins Street in the city and then in Holy Trinity in Williamstown. And Princess Sleepyhead has sung with Victorian State Singers at a performance in Altona, and then at Holy Trinity in Williamstown. Today, she's rehearsing for Doug Heywood and Alex Cameron's wedding, which is in a few days time. They've put the rehearsal just before the one for Channel 9's "Carols by Candlelight" so the others will go directly on from there. PH is still upset that Channel 9 won't let anyone in the choir until they're in Year 10, but that's just how it is. Anyway, better get going and get her off to rehearsals!

How lucky is this kid? (Not)

Dramas in the house tonight. My son, who is a very keen acting student, found out late last night that someone rang him for an acting job tomorrow -- a TV commercial. Only problem was that his dippy sister took the message, wrote it down on a piece of paper that someone later turned over to write other messages on the back, and she promptly forgot about the message and didn't tell anyone -- till 11 pm the next night. Too late to ring, so he rang today and was told that it was tomorrow and to come in etc by the receptionist, but later when he spoke to the director (or producer?), she said she'd already filled his place. She only rang two days ago. So there were tears, acrimonious accusations, and though his sister does "hate" her brother (or so she says), she was genuinely upset and remorseful.

He's more upset because this is the third time it's happened. Not exactly like this. First, he was offered a lead role in a telemovie that involved just him and a foreign actor. There was wild excitement for a week, but that actor's community found the script offensive (I read it and from a white Caucasian POV it wasn't offensive, but we have to respect other people's opinions), and so they weren't able to cast the other role, and the project was cancelled.

Then we had an answering machine that decided off its own bat to start deleting unread messages. It took us a little while to figure out this was happening, at which point we threw it out. I mean it's worse that people think they have left a message than know they have not. It would do this funny beeping thing and, bang, the messages would be gone. Most frustrating. We found out later that he'd received another casting call, but we never got to hear it. Too late again.

So now three times unlucky, and he's convinced that's it. Sometimes the world isn't a fair place -- and Mum's lectures/philosophical rantings don't make it any more palatable. Oh, well.

NaNoWriMo: the end is here

Today, the last day of NaNo writing, I made my goal. Life has been on hold over the last few days. The focus has been writing writing writing. And now it's over I feel both relief and disappointment and a great enthusiasm to finish my novel. So this is a short post. Too little sleep recently, and I've learnt not to write when you're really tired. I'll catch up in the next few days.

Dogs again

Why is it that about once a week my dogs will fight in the middle of the night. My theory is that the big dog has nightmares and attacks the little dog while she is sleeping. It does seem to go this way. It's always the big dog who attacks, and then looks sheepish when I have to go and break them up. If I put them in separate rooms, the little dog frets and won't go to sleep. She has never slept alone in her life. Instead, she scrabbles at the door and lets out her famous Toller cry, which is really more of a yodelling nose than anything else. People are stunned when they hear it. I'm just worried that at some stage the big dog might really hurt the little one, as she's twice her size. Any advice from the dog owners out there?

Time management

Why are we all so bad at it? Why does my daughter insist on emulating me by leaving assignments till the last minute? At least I would have realised that the one that told her to collect articles on France for one and a half terms and then write an essay on what she had learnt couldn't possibly be done in a night. Perhaps she could write an essay on how she shouldn't leave things to the last minute. So where is she today? She's gone to open day at the local yacht club, after spending yesterday at singing and then last night watching TV. Really, why should I worry? Why should I take on her worries as my own? Yeah, yeah, I know: because I'm her mother and it's part of the job detail. It sucks, though. Especially when it means I spent the whole night nagging. I hate nagging. Hate it with a passion.

Anyway, she's off with her brother (and her dad), and I have some peace and quiet. Time to write!

In the darkness, lightness!

For you, dear blog readers, what transpired as a long darkness included a time of lightness for me: my trip to Phillip Island on a writing retreat. Okay, I hate second person used like that. I won't do it again! (I'm slapping my wrist now!)

The best thing about getting away with another writer is the headspace you create for yourself. Headspace away from the chaos of everyday life. My husband was happy enough to let me go -- I'm sure by the time I got the phone call to say that one child had tipped boiling water over the other one's head (or near boiling as she doesn't seem to be burnt!), he was having second thoughts. Especially as the naughty child is still arguing, a week later, that she had it coming. Hmm. Even when I've talked about eyes cooking in their sockets he hasn't expressed any regrets. Hmm.

The children were less happy about me going.

"Why aren't you taking me?" one demanded.

"Why can't I go?" the other said.

The whole point about a weekend away is to get away from them -- especially when every time the writer tries to write one child insists on standing next to the computer, talking. Talking, talking, talking. Non-stop. That child can't stand not being the centre of attention all the time. That child rang and asked, somewhat belligerently, "Are you having a great time?"

"I'm having a fabulous time," I said, and heard the disappointment in his grunt.

"Good," he said, "because I'm not."

"Oh, I'm having a terrific time," I said. "I've written so many words!" That cheered him up. He didn't mind that I was having a great time as long as it was working. And we worked lots. Wrote lots. And included some inspirational walks. Of course, I didn't tell him about those.

I've posted pics on my Spec Fic blog that shows one of the walks we went on, one that is reminiscent of parts of the coast where my novel is set. These, a bit more spectacular, are from the other side of Phillip Island, but not so much like where my characters are.

Being dark

With end of semester looming (a few weeks ago), I knew my blogging time would be highly curtailed. What I didn't expect was not to have blogged for so long. Partly, mostly, that's because I've been bum and head down marking, but I've also had assorted server troubles and then been away for four days without any internet access. How used to our technological gadgetry we get. I did, however, take my laptop and in that four days wrote 13,500 words -- mostly on my NaNoWriMo project (book 2 of my trilogy) but also on my "real" work-in-progress: book 1. I'll blog more about all of this later. Suffice to say I'm back, feeling refreshed, energised, in the writing zone, ready to blog and catch up on all those blogs I haven't been reading. Of course, tomorrow, I'm back at work... In the meantime, I'm so grateful to the friend who dragged me away with her to write, talk writing, and to walk. I've had a fabulous time!

Funeral

Why is it that the only time you get to see some members of the family is when someone dies? Sometimes I think we don't get together enough to celebrate the living. Today, we've been to the funeral of my husband's grandma, or Nan as she is to all of us. My husband was very close to Nan because after his parents split up, and he and his brother went with his father, Nan moved in to look after them. And he's been close to her ever since.

It's something to ponder a life that stretched ninety years. I interviewed Nan a few years ago for an oral history project on the affect of war on women, and she revealed a family secret that my husband didn't know -- something quite shocking, but which ultimately was good that he does know.

It's also fascinating pondering the many relationships (and I'm not talking sexual here, I'm thinking in the same way that I do about my character relationships in my novel) a person can have and how complex these can be. Nan had a falling out with her daughter years ago, and this relationship has been both tortuous and torturous at times. Of course this can make things difficult for everyone -- even now that Nan has gone. That brings all its own sorts of considerations -- about wills and all types of things. I think the months ahead may be a bit messy, but in the meantime we mourn someone who did live a remarkable life -- as, really, we all do. It just doesn't always feel like it at the time.

Congruence

Why is it that dates always coincide? My father's birthday was decided years ago, and this year is going to be a nice, fat round number. Months ago, my mother decided my father would spend his birthday in Sydney. This year is a big celebration, and my brother couldn't come down because his daughter is in the Australian Girls Choir, and they have also chosen that date for a concert at the Opera House. Mum wanted us to go up. Trouble is my daughter is in the Victorian State Singers, and they've chosen this day for a concert too. (And I've just been to see them on Sunday at a German Festival, with another choir (German) and an opera singer, and a piano-accordian ensemble.) So I'd said to my mother that Princess Sleepyhead couldn't go, but we all decided that they would go up and take Sir Talkalot with them. Now Sir Talkalot was pretty happy about this, especially because our budget never leads itself to big holidays and he's never, consequently, been on an aeroplan. So he was busy planning a long weekend, thinking that maybe we'd let him have a few days off from school. My mum was pushing for this too, whereas I was leaning against it. Anyway, that was solved when his school also decided this would be a great date (or the following Monday, anyway) to start school exams, so there went his long weekend. He was devastated, because he thought he couldn't go -- he rang my mum, apologised, got off the phone and broke down into tears. I told him that if he planned his studying well, there was no reason why he couldn't go. After all, it's only Year 7 -- the marks don't count; it's the experience that does. And he is diligent. He will work.

In the meantime, our esteemed Prime Minister also decided my dad's birthday would be a very good day to hold an election. And the good people at AMEB decided that this would be an even better day to hold their piano exams. Suddenly, about to book tickets, we were in a quandary. We didn't actually know the dates of the piano exams -- but the piano teacher suspected it might be this weekend. (And at this point I do have to say that I think it's a bit unfair that you have to pay upfront for an exam that you have no clue on the date of, and if you can't make it -- too bad. You lose your money. Sometimes, I don't think people in these places realise how hard it can be to rustle up the money!) But, the piano teacher did some sleuthing and found out that yes this was the day of the exam. And really that's the end of the story. Mum and Dad are away, so I can't let them know, but the bottom line is that longed-for aeroplane trip (courtesy of my parents) is just going to have to wait for another day.

Good news

The camera has been found. Although I spent much of yesterday spring cleaning, did this contribute? No, it did not. The missing camera turned up outside in an upturned bicycle helmet. One thing you have to love about recording devices, they have a way of capturing incriminating evidence. Yes, it was the photos of the butcherboys (slaters) that did it. And good ole Sir Talkalot couldn't help himself. When I presented the children with the fact I had evidence, they both denied they were the culprits. Even when I said what that evidence was. But when I said there were some really great slater photos and who wanted to see them, only one child leapt enthusiastically into the air. Ah, well. I'd post a photo of slaters except they were all out of focus. Instead, here's one I took yesterday.

Wild weather

The last few days have been as windy as -- and the swamp has been flooded five days out of six, and still no camera. Most frustrating!

Last night though, my two dogs were lying on their outside bed around midnight because I hadn't realised they weren't yet inside in their proper bed. There was a huge gust of wind and our packed up table-tennis table collapsed across the bed where the two dogs were sleeping. How one wasn't decapitated, I'll never know, but thankfully they weren't. The golden was pretty freaked out and hiding around the corner from the deck, whereas the toller was sitting across from the deck, eyeing the disaster area speculatively, as if to check that thing wasn't going to chase her any further. They came inside, and the toller, as is her wont, promptly wee-ed all over her real bed.

Here's a recent photo with Princess Sleepyhead and the dreaded table in the background, with the bed the dogs were on, folded on top.

Footy

Well, the footy's over for another year, and the Cats have gone home with the gold, and we with the wooden spoon. Not often you can leave with this and having most football fans not think you were the worst club in the league. That little trophy has to belong to the greatest tankers ever: Carlton. How their players and coaching staff hold their heads up, I don't know, but it made the wooden spoon just that little bit sweeter.

I can understand the rationale in tanking to get better draft picks, but another part of me wonders what the point of not trying to win a game is. Why sacrifice one season so you can get better players in another. (Mind you, this from the person who gets seriously frustrated about the barters her club sometimes makes with draft picks.) At least our players went out to win each week. I don't mind a belting (well, like anyone, I don't like it), but to lie down and not try -- that's something else altogether. If I were a Carlton supporter, this would be the point when I'd be seriously questioning whether I wanted to swap clubs. Not that I can swap -- my grandfather played for Richmond, so it's in my blood. But I have to say, I'm glad I'm a Tiger supporter. It's widely acknowledged that we have the best song in the league, and that "yellow and black" refrain sends shivers up your spine. Well, up my spine anyway.

So, congrats to the Cats and all their fans. This year the worst team may not have come last, but the best team certainly won. It's kind of nice when that happens, because it doesn't always, but the Cats deserved their win and, boy, didn't they let us all know it with the final scoreboard!

Sad day

Today was a day of mixed blessings for my kids. Princess Sleepyhead got her mug (very briefly) on TV as part of the massed choir in "Thank God you're here". You had to really know where she was standing to see her though. But as a counterpoint to her excitement, today was the day her singing teacher had to leave Australia because the good people at the Immigration Department wouldn't give her permanent residency. She's been teaching here for years, has a house and car and a thriving business, but because she's in her late 50s and doesn't have much cash behind her they refused. Now this is someone with a thriving business that she operates at home (giving singing, piano and violin lessons) and that she could potentially run for years, not someone who's out of a job and on the dole.

It's particularly sad for us because singing is Princess Sleepyhead's real talent, and this teacher was making an enormous difference to her singing. This teacher came from Eastern Europe and had run an opera company in South Africa (where she has now been forced to return) but the good people in Immigration said you don't need such experience and qualifications to teach singing to the general public. Let them come and try to organise lessons in the western suburbs. There is diddly squat out here in the way of teachers able to teach this style -- or at least diddly squat that we've been able to find. At one stage, before we found this teacher, we tried one of the popular singing schools and found it was just about that: pop, and much as PS loves this kind of music, she doesn't sing it well. And the teacher there knew nothing about classical techniques, how to breathe, all of that kind of stuff.

As it happens, PS does have a very good singing teacher at her school, but, because PS has ADD, she can't really afford to miss out on other classes to have private singing lessons, especially when she's already missing classes for literacy support, and when she's not good at catching up on the work she's missed.

When we heard what was happening to PS's singing teacher, we wrote a letter of support -- a very strongly worded letter of support, I thought -- to the said dept, but didn't even score a reply. Not even a thank-you-for-your-letter-and-we'll-take-it-under-consideration. Don't you love bureacrats? At the moment two of my friends have been tied up fighting bureacracy over things they shouldn't have to fight for. People end up paying thousands of dollars more than they should to get past all this red tape. Sometimes you wonder how much humanity these depts/councils show -- do they think about the spill-on effects on other people's lives? My daughter is disappointed and sad and doesn't understand why such a great teacher has been sent away. We've spoken to other parents, and both they and their children feel the same way. What the dept may not realise is that you might not need such experience and skill to teach singing to the general public, but by God you can see the difference that such experience makes. Today we are sad, and Australia is just a little bit poorer.

Time

How strange is time -- on the one hand it can seem like there is so much of it (three weeks between classes because of the two-week midsemester break) and yet at the same time that can seem like nothing (time subsumed by days at work, assignments to mark, writing that I need to catch up on, doctors' (yes, multiple) appointments, dentist appointments, funeral, all sorts of things). It's a paradox.

One week's almost passed and what have I done? Some writing? Yes. Rewrote a chapter today. That was good. Novel 2 assignments? No. Workshopping? No. Editing assignments? No. All these hang over me. Worked on the online unit? No. Read for pleasure? No. Where does time go? Part of the problem with the holidays is that I see them as time to catch up on writing and work I'm behind in, whereas my children see them as family time that I should be spending with them. Part of me rails against this, but another part says that I hardly ever give them my weekends because I'm often doing stuff for school. Maybe I'm just not organised enough. I don't know. I do know it drives me batty. And I do know that I enjoy the time I do spend with them -- and yes they grow quickly so I should be making the most of it.

The only time I've been able to do long-term sustained writing without interruption is the one year I had between my children starting school and my starting work. But even that was sabotaged by my husband being out of work for a good bit of that year. I shouldn't complain. I love my job. Love being with the students. But I do resent how much of my home life it encroaches on. I think the problem is that it's TAFE and most TAFE is more like apprenticeship-type stuff with little marking at home, whereas our course (and Liberal Arts too) are much more like Higher Ed courses with workshopping etc. I mean you can't workshop a stool (wooden) at home, or a haircut, or the serving of drinks.

Really, my complaint is not about my job: it's about my lack of free time. People say to me that they're bored. They complain about this. I always say I wish I had time to be bored. I don't have that luxury. I envy people that kind of free time because I could use it to write. Non-writers just don't get it. But my other writer friends do. We all need to run away together. Antigua, anyone?

LJ vs Blogger

Since one of my long-time SF buds has recently been diagnosed with bowel cancer, I've been reading his blog most days to keep track of his progress. He's on LiveJournal, as are a lot of my other SF friends. I put my Spec Fic URL on the end of his blog, and he posted and said why Blogger and not LJ. I explained that I had writing friends on both, but it was the ones on Blogger who first got me into blogging.

What I've noticed, though, is a tendency of my LJ friends to write much shorter posts. I think they spend a lot more time reading each others, and networking, whereas my Blogger friends tend to have longer, more thoughtful posts. It's interesting to speculate on what this says about us as a society, seeing as LJ does seem more set up as a networking tool, and is surely related to why we blog. I know I tend to be philosophical, and like to examine my own life -- why I needed to separate my personal blog from my writing one really.

"Lost" time

If there's one thing I hate about chaos, it's the time you waste in its midst looking for stuff. Any stuff. Small staff most usually. Paper stuff often. Occasionally something bigger. This week there have been two things: a tracker that goes with my son's iPod, because he's doing the Nike challenge. He has to run 40 km in two weeks, and for five of those days has had no tracker to monitor his progress. Luckily for him, I managed to find it in an obvious but unexpected place. More frustrating is the disappearance of my digital camera, which means my swamp blog has gone into hibernation mode. Of course the most frustrating thing was that I got up Monday morning to see the swamp full of water (something that's only happened once since I started the blog) -- and, no camera to record it! How can something as large as a camera disappear? Beats me. What does get me is how much time I lose looking for other lost things -- it's like trading one lost thing for another.

The Melbourne of my training course

Hmm, a bit of modern sculpture? No, it's a really cool bike rack. (Or am I just being a nerd?)



This is the inside of the building we did our training course in -- can you tell I'm very attached to place? I loved this building: it's olde worlde architecture. And the frosted glass windows, etched with the births, deaths and marriages registry.



This building was so cute, and so out of place among the skyscrapers. Wonder what it is? Who lives there? Ooh, I could feel a story coming on if I really wanted to...

Photos from our training course

Windy night

Two nights ago I had not long been in bed, at a time when most decent people are asleep, when there was a terrific bang followed by another smaller one. The Gadget Man and I both sat up. My heart was thumping.

"What are those dogs up to now?" he said.

I shook my head. "That wasn't the dogs."

Because I was most recently in bed, I made the trip downstairs and found the study door shut. Strange. I leaned into it -- and lean I had to do -- and wrestled it open. At the back of the house we have double doors that lead out into the yard, and one of these had blown open. No big drama, except I went back to bed with my adrenalin still running high. And Gadget Man was worried the side fence would blow down. The wind, because we have no trees or proper fences between us and the swamp, was phenomenal. For hours I listened to things banging and crashing, but eventually it eased and let me drift off.

Virtual friends

I'm a bit behind in blogging, largely courtesy of a three-day training course for work. But anyway...

Last Monday, I did something I've never done before: I met several virtual friends, three of whom I'd never met before except for electronically. Earlier this year, inspired by a close friend of mine who was doing fabulously well, I joined WeightWatchers, but being quite averse to the idea of meetings, joined as an online member, which meant my meetings were via the discussion boards. I've found these have become quite an addiction, and I look forward to logging on every day, to see what my "friends" are up to.

It's strange how familiar we can become with people we've never met. There, I guess we all have something in common: we all want to lose weight, but often there are deeper psychological issues we share, sometimes buried deep within our psyche, sometimes bubbling to the surface. People will post about something someone's said to them, and others will say how this has happened to them, or will write with passion because that something has obviously touched a nerve. I did it yesterday -- and just proceeded to go into a rant, so I can tell that needs to be the topic of another post.

I found the whole process of signing up interesting. First I had to come up with a moniker. This was hard enough. In the end I went for Arankalee -- my son said, "Ah, you named it after Arinka, the hero of your novel, and your middle name." He was half right. But Aranka was the name of a dietician I once saw -- the only other time since I've been married that I've successfully lost weight. I did find it strange then, this similiarity of names.

But then I realised fairly soon that I had met one of the other members, Lisa, once before, and I didn't know whether I should say anything or not. For a start, I didn't know if she would remember. Also, because I was expecting to fail and slink away unacknowledged I wanted to stay anonymous. But fairly shortly after joining, there was an incident with a past member who had been banned several times and kept trying to come back as a new member, and people were suspicious, and I thought it the perfect opportunity to reveal who I was. And it was. I felt so much better, and it was lovely that Lisa did remember me and was very welcoming. (I'd already figured out from her posts that she was a wonderfully supportive person, so that made things easier.)

Anyway, she's also more socially connected on the boards than I am, and a good organiser, so when she said she was organising a get-together at a local coffee shop, I jumped at the chance. Especially because it was a day I only had to do half my normal class prep, because I was coming up to the above-mentioned training course.

I recognised Lisa straightaway though her hair was shorter, a different colour and she was only a shadow of her former self. But then I suppose I'd seen photos on her blog too. I met Di, Tracy and Briar for the first time. It amazes me how you can sit down with people you've never met before and yarn like old friends. (Just as it's strange that after a long break from friends, you can find some you have heaps to talk about, and it's as if you've never been away, whereas with others the time is punctuated with long, awkward silences.) But perhaps it's not strange at all. I think often when people only meet electronically, they share intimate things about themselves that they might be too shy to talk about in person. I know I had a long term email "relationship" (only in the sense of friends, or perhaps a bit like a mentorship) with a young Brisbane guy a few years ago. He game me my superhero name: Danger Girl, and to me he will always be J-Man. He even came to visit with his family, and I caught up with him while I was at Clarion. Word got out that I was secretly seeing an elf. All right, he is tall and thin, but I swear he does not have pointy ears. Hmm, I'm getting off the track.

My point was that I met these strangers and felt as though I'd known them for years. We shared family problems, advice, gossip, all kinds of stuff, and at the end I was sorry I couldn't stay on, but I still did have to go prepare a class. Such is the life of a writer-teacher.

Picture this

It's one am and the house, all except the writer, is slumbering. The writer has been trying to write, but realises she has left it too late and the eyes are refusing to stay focused on the screen. Time to retire. She turns the lights off and, in darkness, feels her way up the stairs, then hits the switch to the landing light upstairs. Creeping around so as not to wake anyone, she makes her ablutions, and is about to turn off the final light when all hell breaks loose downstairs.

In the bathroom, the dogs, who presumably have been sleeping, break out into a vicious, snarly fight. This isn't a little tiff between friends, but a full-on fight that keeps going and going and going. If the whole house hasn't been woken up by the fight, they are by the writer yelling (and thinking once again how the neighbours must love this harridan who's always shouting). The writer's yelling doesn't stop the fight, so the writer has to blunder downstairs in the dark and switch the laundry lights on. The second the lights go on, all is quiet, which is frustrating because now the writer can't even tell what's been going on. The big dog, sheepishly, goes back to bed, whereas the little dog sees this as an excuse to escape.

So what did happen? Did one wake in the middle of a nightmare and frighten the other dog? Did the little dog pee on the bed yet again? I guess I'll never know, but as a writer I'll have brain space to invent stories -- just not at one am.

If I think I'm bad...

Mmm, I've just been reading over yesterday's "Chaos chaos chaos" post, and that set my husband off to reminiscing:

about the time he snuck home after dropping my son at scouts and slipped up to bed without saying anything. The scouts were doing a first-aid course, so I just assumed he'd stayed on to be a dummy. So when said scout didn't come home after 9 pm, I just figured they were taking longer than expected. After all, I had no reason to be perturbed because my husband was there, right? Wrong. He'd gone upstairs for a quick nap and gone to sleep. I'd been on the internet so no-one was able to phone through. My mother was less than impressed when she bought the said scout home at 11 pm, imagining we'd all been murdered. Said husband was very sheepish.

about the time he took said scout on a scouting trip to St Kilda at night, and said scout rang me to say that his father had lost him half an hour earlier, and he was now at their destination but husband (and daughter) were nowhere to be seen. I had to ring all the local policestations to leave a message for husband who hadn't remembered to take the mobile phone with him.

Then there is the mobile phone incident -- he got a new one, lost it within two days, and when three months later he found it, the same day he dropped it in the swimming pool. It's never worked since. I'm not sure we ever made one call on it, but we're still paying it off.

Oh, husbands, they are a magical breed.

Out with the dogs

Today, I had one of those funny walks. A German Shepherd was trying to hump our pup, who is still quite small. (For reference, I've put in a photo of the two of them taken a few days ago, and a couple more of her. Anyway, Luna didn't seem to perturbed, though she clearly didn't like it. I kept walking, and calling her, hoping she would come, because the shepherd was going off in the other direction, but all she kept doing was sitting down.

Then another passerby approached and said, "I think you should get your dog." I made a noncommital noise, because Luna still wasn't panicked, and I could see the shepherd wasn't actually trying to hurt her. But she hadn't finished with me. "That man's getting quite upset."

I nodded, and called Luna again. Still, she didn't come.

The passerby said, "You really should keep your shepherd under better control."

Huh? "Oh, no," I said, "the puppy's mine."

She seemed quite surprised, and just said "oh". Then, clearly, she thought about it a bit more and said, "So why's that man getting so upset?"

"The shepherd's his," I said.

"Oh," she said again.

So, off to the rescue I went, scooped up the pup, at which point the shepherd tried to hump me. Nice.

Oh, the joys of walking!

Today's sunset

was a beauty. Here's a photo slightly after the event. I was busy trying to capture it for my swampblog -- and didn't I enjoy standing around watching its gradual progression. In the background I could hear my dogs barking at passersby, but we'd not long come back from a walk, and the big golden one was being very naughty and refusing to be caught.

Chaos chaos chaos

So, today I find Sir Talkalot's school gets out a week earlier than all the other schools for the mid-semester break. Only trouble is I'm working extra days. Oh, well.

I'm having that feeling at the moment that I'm just a taxi service. I know it comes with the territory, but even so I wonder how I'm supposed to be in two places at once. On Wednesday, one child rang me from school where he was rehearsing a play (after school) and said, "You need to pick me up at six." Trouble is that I'm dropping other kid off at six, twenty minutes away. The Gadget Man was doing overtime, and my mother's in China. She always has some excuse like this when I need her to do me a favour! China! The lengths she'll go to.

Luckily, my life has been chaos for many years now, and I dread to think how often I had small children waiting for their mum on the side of the road, because Mum had been caught up at work. I tried to get away on time -- I really did -- but I failed more often than I succeeded. Now, I realise they were just in training. Still, when it's after dark, I hate the thought of them standing around, alone, in the cold, waiting -- even if it is in the school grounds.

I don't know where the days are going -- too much time slippage. Today, I spent over an hour trying to print out a calendar to replace my missing diary -- my missing diary with all my work hours penned into it. Arggghhhh! An hour does seem somewhat excessive, I know, but first it crashed the computer, then once I rebooted, it jammed the printer (probably required too much RAM), and then, once I decided to delete the job, it spent ages trying to do this, and required another reboot. Then, just when I got started, I got up to answer the phone and got my foot caught in the wires and accidentally ripped them out of the back of the machine. Another reboot followed. Eventually, I got to print my diary one month at a time (and then every second month came out without any day numbers!). This type of stuff is just typical of what happens to me. Why? Entropy -- ah, yes, I do remember the laws...

Views of Melbourne

Ah, I'm still contemplating the camera I would like to own (Olympus 510) -- the digital SLR I just cannot do more than think about at the moment, and feeling rather snap happy. The idea of a photoblog is more and more appealing, and make me recall with great fondness my early photography days when I first got my OM1, and how I would catch the train into the city, purely with the purpose of doing a photo shoot. These days I wonder how big a hard disk I'm going to need to satisfy my appetite for photography. Here's a short photojournal of Melbourne that I've taken over the last few days.

Well-made plans

Sometimes I think the world conspires against writers. For a start, the Melbourne Writers' Festival is on and I haven't got there yet. I love going to sessions and hearing writers speak. Usually, the festival clashes with Sir Talkalot's birthday, which is problematic, but now it's marginally later, which means it overlaps Fathers' Day. In neither case can I attend sessions because I have family duties, and while I would like at times to put my writing first, the reality is that I am part of a family, and I have to do my bit. The Gadget Man is very supportive of my writing: he let me go off to Clarion for six weeks a few years ago, he doesn't mind if I go on the odd writers' weekend away, nor if I go to sessions and leave him home with the kids. He was a dab hand at nappy changing when they were young. In fact, if I said I wanted to go on Fathers' Day, he would say go. He always lets me do what I want, but this leaves me feeling selfish, because he doesn't have activities outside the household. Feeling selfish is my problem, I know, not his. What I don't love about the MWF is the parking around the Malthouse -- am I ever looking forward to the festival shifting to Federation Square next year, so I can catch the train in. This year, the sessions I wanted to attend most were either at times I couldn't make, or not near any other sessions I wanted to see, which did dampen my enthusiasm a bit. Plus the finances were sooooooo stretched, I kept thinking that I really, really, really couldn't afford to go.

So, anyway, I had my week all planned out: one vet visit for vaccinations on Friday, but other than that Thursday and Friday were writing days (though part of this was going to be working on the online unit for work), so what happens: one kid's home sick on Thursday and being rather demanding, and the other's home on a curriculum day Friday. Of course I knew about the curriculum day, but Gadget Man was supposed to have the day off and do something with her, and then he couldn't. She was tired because she'd be on in at Nunawading filming for a TV show (it's embargoed so I can't talk about it yet) with the Victorian State Singers.

Anyway, got to dash out for a writer's party, leaving poor Gadget Man home with the kids, yet again.

For TinyDonna

When I went to Karen's book launch the other day, I had a few (only a few) minutes to wander around with camera in hand, and I was struck by how beautiful the new Eureka tower is, so here are two views of it: one with nature, and an "old and the new".

The whisper of leaves by KS Nikakis (published by Allen & Unwin)

My city trip today was to attend one of my past-student's book launch, and this must surely be one of the most validating experiences for a writing teacher. How wonderful it is to see your students making that successful foray out into the sometimes difficult waters of the publishing world. How wonderful it is to see a student who you know is passionate about her work, passionate about the genre she's writing in and passionate about the craft. It's especially nice when the writer is writing in a genre you (or me, in this case!) love. And it's invigorating to know that we as teachers have, in whatever small way, helped someone to realise a dream.

It's also lovely to see someone dedicated enough to finish something. We see a lot of talented students, but some will never take those extra steps of finishing and then polishing a draft (or re-visioning and rewriting and polishing subsequent drafts), and then sending the manuscript out! If writers don't make that last courageous move -- and it does require enormous courage -- then they will never be published. That's not to say the journey has been wasted -- the destination is not important for everyone and nor should it be, but it is extremely rewarding for those who want to get there and who do the legwork to then be successful as Karen has been.

I hope Karen finds the publishing experience all she wants it to be, and that she's on the way to a stellar career!

The chaos that is Connex

One thing I love about the public transport system is the chaos that surrounds me. Today, for example, I'm returning home from the city and board the Werribee bound train at Flinders St. On the way, I start reading my new book and am quickly immersed in a foreign land. I glance up and see that the next station, according to the flashing message inside the carriage, is Macauley. Huh? I don't ride the train very often, but I don't ever remember going through Macauley station. Probably an error, I think, and return to the book, but when I feel the train slowing, I glance up at the station sign: Macauley. I'm still in denial at this stage. The train heads out. Next stop: Flemington Bridge. Huh? So I get out, along with half a dozen other confused looking people. Here's the view at Flemington Bridge, which was different to the normal suburban views I was expecting.


Someone asks me whether I know how to get to the other platform as the ramps look a bit deceiving. I say, no, I thought I was on the Werribee train. So did they. And so did the older man who's looking worried. We head off to the other platform, and wait for a train back to the city. At North Melbourne, we're joined by about 20 other people, who've obviously jumped off at Macauley or at whatever came after Flemington Bridge. I can hear much muttering, but the really funny thing is the suspicion we all greet the next train with.

It all makes me remember those New Year's Eve fireworks we went to a few years ago. We went to the early fireworks to get the kids home early, then the train was cancelled, and then because it ran so late they decided to save time by running it express, but neglected to tell anyone. Yeah, saved lots of time if you wanted to get off at one of those bypassed stations, as we did. By the time we got off at the next station and waited for the same train to go all the way to the end of the line and back again, we'd run out of NYE, and ended up seeing the New Year in on the train. What a letdown. The journey home took the better part of two hours.

Nice sunsets

One thing about living near a westward facing swamp is that we get some great sunsets. Followers of my swamp blog may fear that it's moved from cloud appreciation to sunset appreciation, but that's only a temporary thing. Here's another view of last night's sunset. You might wonder why I chose to focus the swamp view where I did (you might not be following that blog at all, of course!), but basically while the water views are more spectacular, they don't vary much. But the dry parts of the swamp periodically fill with water, and this was what interested me: the swamp's changing face. Honestly, I could sit outside and watch the swamp all day long.

Frolics at the beach

After all the running around of the last two days, I haven't had much of a chance to get out with the dogs, so today, after Princess Sleepyhead's piano lessons, to celebrate her having passed her latest piano practical exam (she got the results today) we took the two dogs for a walk. Along the way, we seemed to pick up a German Shepherd, who was intent on humping poor little Luna. (Now she's had both ends of the spectrum interested in her, because at puppy school it was a Chihuahua trying to get at her. Boys!) In the end, PH had to pick Luna up, at which point the Shepherd put his front paws on PS's shoulders and had a go at her. It was only a pup itself (big pup!), and its owner was mortified, but it was quite funny because they looked like a conga line.



As we were coming out, some people arrived with horses, and how naughty is this dog. She chased the horses, barking, and refused to be caught. Poor PS had to wade out after her.

Trying for the Chenna look

Here's a picture post-transfusion. Beth's having a reflective moment, not sure whether or not she wants to be black-and-white and just wishing she could've done something more to help out Fox.

Unhappy endings

I picked my cat, Beth, up from the vet's today. She was okay, if somewhat balder for the experience of having given blood. Her whole chest and part of one leg have been shaved, so now it looks like I have a black-and-white cat. When I picked her up, they were just prepping Lita's cat Fox for surgery.

Sadly, Fox didn't make it through. Lita has done so much -- everything humanly possible -- but sometimes it just isn't enough. I know she worried that she might have condemned him to a life of misery had he survived, but I think we do what we can do, with the information that we have and the resources that are at hand, and she really went to heroic measures. I'm sure Fox is sitting up there somewhere, content to know that his family treated him as just that: family! Vale, Fox.

Blogless and catless (both temporary)

I've got a really sore finger at the moment, which is hampering efforts to type. Not sure how I did it, but there it is. And it's kept me blogless, but also I've been really tired -- too many late nights, early mornings and not enough sleep inbetween. Then there's been sick husbands and sick kids. A test to write. Assignments to mark. It's all conspired to keep me blogless and writing free for a few days -- a source of great frustration.

The cat's away on her sabbatical at the vet, possibly donating blood as I write. Lita rang last night to ask me to bring her in at 9 am (well, actually, Lita offered to pick her up at 7 am). I said 9 might be a problem because I had to get kids off to school -- of course, what I didn't count on was a truck breaking down on the Westgate, so by the time we got there it was nearly 10. Poor Beth was beside herself the whole way -- in direct contrast to her last trip over. But last time she'd had food; this time she was fasting, and she does not like fasting, as she let me know on Monday when the call to say she didn't have to fast came in at 2 pm. Nevermind. I just hope Fox makes it through all this, and of course that Beth does too. But her risks are minimal, whereas for him the risks are more substantial. So fingers crossed, say a prayer -- whatever works.

It's a cat's life -- or why it doesn't pay to be nice! (according to Beth)

Or not. Today, my cat Beth has been for a drive over the Westgate Bridge to Richmond, and then on to Mount Waverley for a blood test. Fox, an acutely ill cat, belongs to Lita, one of my writing friends. Fox needs a splenectomy and partial removal of his liver on Monday, but may need a blood transfusion before then, and as Fox's brother, the inelegantly named Mr Spit, is not compatible, Lita was doing a ringaround to see whose cat might match. So Ellen, another writing friend, brought her devilcat (yes, it is officially one word now -- as from today!) Chenna, and I took my far more amenable Beth, the whopper cat for testing. Fox was home, waiting for his visit to the vet's tomorrow.

Lita has just returned from several months in South America, so it was lovely to catch up, though of course we all wished for better circumstances. Ellen and I have been good friends ever since Aussiecon back in nineteen hundred and something, but lately we see each other virtually far more than we do in the flesh. Three writers, one starving son doing the famine, two cats and a veterinary clinic. The poor cats were whisked away -- they didn't want the owners in attendance. Ellen warned them as they were going that the devilcat could be a bit vicious. Then she warned them again that they had better don gloves. I told them Beth was placid. So they decided to test her first.

Happily for Fox, Beth is a match. The nurses came out and said they hadn't been able to get their hands in Chenna's cage, and perhaps Lita would be happy not to have her tested. But Lita wanted to keep her options open. A few minutes later the nurses sent out the big gun: the vet. Not only was Beth a match, but because she's a big whopper of a cat, she was also a more suitable donor. They didn't really mention the temperment. Not often you see the vet staff scared of a cat, but I swear they were scared of Chenna. I'm sure Beth let them prod and poke and shave her without complaint. Not Chenna. She had their number, and she was ringing it!

Anyhow, the main thing is there is a suitable donor should Fox need one. Beth's home tonight; she's eaten -- the worst part of tomorrow for her, whether or not she has to give blood, might be the fasting while waiting on Lita's phone call, after Fox has had his platelet count done. Beth isn't one to give up food for anyone -- she's not quite as fussy about her blood!

40-hour famine

My son has decided to do the forty-hour famine, not something I would have encouraged because he's barely old enough to be allowed. Still, he will no doubt find it an interesting experience. I know in my writing I've drawn on my experiences of hunger -- usually from my travelling days when either I or my friend was short of money. She ran out of money in Greece, and though I offered to pay for her food, she refused -- she also refused a loan -- and I could hardly eat in front of her. Every morning we would have a yoghurt and that was it. And for the week we were there, we lay on the beach every day and talked about food. Food was all we could talk about. It was an obsession. We went to bed at night and talked about food. Sometimes we got dizzy. On our last night there we went out to a restaurant, and ordered only an entree. It was wonderful, though the owner seemed mystified when we said we didn't want a main course. Then when we returned to London, I ran out of money and, because she had refused to take my money, I refused to take hers. I was staying in a B&B (very cheap one full of Aussies, where our window was broken and people could step into our bedroom from the street), so I had breakfast every day, and then we went to Portobello Road, and I bought seven oranges for 50 pence, and that was my food for a week. One girl I travelled with briefly told me how she shared a flat with three others, and they had no money and would share a tin of baked beans for dinner. Because that was all they had to eat, they always counted out the individual beans. So I know a little about hunger -- not real hunger, where lassitude stops you talking about food, where you can't be bothered walking or even breathing. Very few Westerners have experienced that.

But my son is doing a triple challenge. He's not just eschewing food but technology and furniture. No computer. No telephone. No television. No electrical lighting. Early to bed for him! No sitting on chairs. No sleeping in a bed. He's either going to love or hate the floor when this is over. For me, the worst part would be no computer. Imagine if I wanted to write and couldn't! No, I couldn't do that. Absolute torture. These days, like many Westerners, I'm overly reliant on my tech.

It will be interesting to see how he copes. I'll help him out as much as I can. Dinner Saturday night will be food he doesn't like. But I'm just wondering how grumpy he's going to be. I hope he doesn't pass out -- my mother fainted while fasting once. I've fasted from time to time, usually successfully, but on the odd occasions almost passed out. He does love his food, and his technology -- but, as we all do, takes his furniture for granted. It will be interesting to see which one he misses most.

Living on swamp's edge

You know it's great living at the back of a swamp -- nice views and all that -- except when it's not nice.

What's not to like? Other than mosquitoes -- and they can be no mean thing to ignore.

Then there's the birds, and what they do to the washing. Four or five soiled articles is not unusual. And if a pelican's flying overhead then watch out. The Gadget Man got hit by a pelican missile once -- after it bounced off a tree. Not a pretty sight.

Then there's the frogs. Today, there was a large, bloated dead frog upside-down in the dogs' water bowl. Ick.

Nice views though.

Titles

Titles really are not my thing. I struggle with them. My friend Sherryl who thinks she struggles with them -- at least I think she thinks she struggles with them -- is brilliant at them. She can always be relied upon to cough up some title more deep, more meaningful, more nuanced and layered than I ever could. Frankly, I suck at titles.

When I started my swamp blog, I knew what I wanted to call it. Swamp. Short and simple. Easy. But when I tried to get that address for my tumblog, it was already taken. So I went for Swamp Musings. But as I've been musing over my swamp blog, I'm starting to think I should've called it "An appreciation of clouds", because that's what it seems to be about as much as the swamp. This year we are having some great clouds! Here's a photo of today's clouds, and one naughty dog (paddling in the distance) who escaped out the front door and ran off.


But back on the subject of titles. I had my novel titles all worked out: Shadow Knight, Shadow Fall and Shadow and Pariah. Of course, when I first worked out my titles, years ago, there weren't as many shadow titles around. Then Raymond Feist brought ot a shadow-titled book as did one of my friends. And then a magazine came out called Shadow Fall. And when I really think about it, my main character isn't a knight -- he's a soldier. So now I've decided that the first book is going to be called Shadow and Pariah, but I have no idea about books two and three -- only that they will have to follow the same sort of formula. Parallel construction is a beautiful thing! I can see that's why Philip Pullman's first book was titled The Golden Compass in the States, rather than using it's UK and Australian title Northern Lights. Anyway, I suppose in time the titles will come. No point getting stressed about it.