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.