Wet and Aggressive Corella challenges Magpie

Wet and Aggressive Corella challenges Magpie

Sunday 31 August 2014

Sunday Selections #187

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files. 

The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.

Like River I usually run with a theme.  This week's Sunday Selections is mostly devoted to cats.  Jazz loves having his photo taken, and Jewel (like me) is camera phobic.  I can usually only take her photo when she is asleep or if I sneak up on her.



He is a big boy, but aren't his feet big?  And his claws are too.





Jewel is less than half his size.   That is my clean washing she has made a nest in for the first two photos.




And then some big cats who grace our walls.  Embroideries and a tapestry I completed when my hands and eyes were less recalcitrant.




Moving away from cats, the final photos are of my mother's work.  Quite late in life she decided that she wanted to make bobbin lace - and taught herself.

The first photo is a 'sampler' she did, and the second a picture she designed and made for me.  I treasure them both.




Wednesday 27 August 2014

Book Hoarder

A friend who knows me well sent me this recently.


And how right she was.  I am a bookaholic and find it much, much easier to acquire books than I do to give them up.  However, before I launch into a discussion of some of the books I have reading, I am going to digress and express my heart felt sympathies to my friend - and everyone who lives in her city.

My friend has book hoarding tendencies herself, and is instilling the same habit in her boys.  She and her family live in Napa and have rather more on their plates than books at the moment.    On Sunday an earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter Scale hit their city, which must have been terrifying.  This first shot is inside their house.


And the next inside their garage.




It seems that whatever could fall down did.  Including some things that no-one expected to fall.  The clean-up and repair work ahead of them is huge - and daunting.  My heart goes out to them.  However the whole family, their dog and their cats are safe.  Which is what matters.

I hope that the clean-up, tidy-up and repairs for them, and for everyone affected, goes smoothly, and that life resumes an even (not rocking, lurching or crashing) keel soon.

Returning to my bookaholic ways.  I always have at least two (and often more) books on the go at once.  They can be fiction or non-fiction and I don't restrict myself to any particular genre either.  I have favourites, but few restrictions.  I read for education, comfort, beauty, escape, humour and delight.  And achieve it.  Often.

I read every day, no matter how busy I am (or should be) and regardless of how I am feeling.  These are some of the books which have been taking me away from domestic duties recently.

The first, The London Jungle Book by Bhajju Shyam was one that  Dinahmow flagged as one that I might like.  And how right she was.


Bhajju Shyam is an artist from the Gond tribe in Central India, and this book reflects his first encounter with a western metropolis, and with international travel.
He went to London to paint murals in an Indian Restaurant and the book is a visual travelogue - and a delight.  The Gond traditional way of thinking and painting says that reality is less important than how things are seen and perceived by the onlooker.  Accordingly, the things that were important to him were drawn much larger than other things.... so a train can be smaller than a human, and thoughts can be expressed as birds - carrying him in all sort of directions ever higher.
He saw, and drew the airport as a huge bird of prey.  An eagle which swallows the humans who line up to be let inside.  Not a perspective I had ever considered - but it made a heap of sense to me.

As did his discussion about 'becoming a foreigner'.  He had seen foreigners before but when he landed in London he discovered that his colour was different, and that his language had been taken away.  He had become a foreigner!!!

The cover to the book is taken from his illustration of Big Ben - the temple of time.  He has a watch - but his symbol of time is a rooster, which wakes you up at sunrise and allows the day to follow its course.
This slim book is a pictorial and philosophical delight.  I have read it several times - and get more from it each and every time.

The next is Kate Atkinson's Life after Life.



I think I have read most of her books - and am likely to continue.  She is a very varied author.  Varied subjects, and her 'voice' and style changes with each novel as well.

This one I had reservations about after reading the blurb.  'What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?'

And I was wrong to doubt her.  The books starts with a snowstorm in England in 1910.  A baby is born.  The baby dies before her first breath.
During that same snowstorm, a baby is born - and survives.
And we follow that baby and her family through to 1945.  Characters die, characters get second, third and further chances.  Some fundamental things change, and some retain a form of permanence.

That baby grows up, and develops/acquires a strong sense of deja vue.   Which causes difficulties.

As I said, I had reservations when I picked it up.  I wondered whether it would descend into confusion or mawkishness.  Which it didn't.  There was one time slip/life relived that I found unsatisying, but only one.  Ambitious, and gripping.

My next featured book is again courtesy of Dinahmow.  A gift.  The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.


The Night Circus arrives without fanfare or warning.  It simply appears.  Materialises.   Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience. It is called Le Cirque des RĂªves, and it is only open at night. And is a circus like no other.

Behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians.  The rules are uncertain, the goal is uncertain.  And, for much of the book the magicians are not certain who they will be competing against.  Or what the prize will be.  Or the cost of losing.


It is a highly descriptive book.  Sometimes lyrical, sometimes foreboding.  Always complex.  

And I loved it.  And would go to that circus if ever I got the chance.  Again and again.

Thank you Di.  Very much.

And the final book to this post is different again. Heart Sick by Chelsea Cain.




 I have a weakness for murder mysteries.  My uncertain memory means that I am not certain who dies, let alone who the culprit is so I can read them again and again. 

Gretchen Lowell, a serial killer, captures her last victim.  The man who was in charge of hunting her down.  She tortures and maims him, just as she has her other victims.  And then, instead of killing him, calls for medical assistance - and hands herself in, and is sentenced to life imprisonment.

Two years later, he is back at work.  Searching for another serial killer.  And as he searches we learn more about his time in captivity.  And more about his captor.  

I understand that there are more novels in this series also featuring Gretchen.  It is a fascinating premise, but I am not certain whether I am strong enough to read them.  This was apparently Chelsea Cain's debut and it is clever.  And very, very nasty. 

It is crowded inside my head - and every thing I read feeds, nurtures, sustains that crowd.  And gives rise to further growth.  Which I think is a good thing. 

Sunday 24 August 2014

Sunday Selections #186

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files. 

The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.

Like River I usually run with a theme. And this week it is Spring.  She isn't here yet, but she certainly has her foot in the door.

When we were wandering around the lake the week before last we came across evidence that the plantings for our Spring bulb festival, Floriade, are well under way.  The festival starts in mid September and runs for four weeks.  And we will go at least once.

The annuals are starting to flower and there are tulips, hyacinth, iris and daffodil bulbs poking through.  The netting is, I think, to prevent depreciations by birds and will be removed when the festival opens.



In our own garden there are also signs that Spring is very almost here.  A colourful reward for all the blood, sweat and tears (not to mention money) which I have poured into the garden.

Camellias, and more are coming out each day, despite the King Parrots chewing on the buds.






There are daffodils...



The wattle is starting to come out...



Lots of grevilleas (and more to come)





Violets.


The first of the hyacinths are coming out too.



And every time I wander outside there are more things in bud.  Bliss.

Sunday 17 August 2014

Sunday Selections #185

Sunday Selections was originally brought to us by Kim, of Frogpondsrock, as an ongoing meme where participants could post previously unused photos languishing in their files. 

The meme is now continued by River at Drifting through life.  The rules are so simple as to be almost non-existent.  Post some photos under the title Sunday Selections and link back to River.  Clicking on any of the photos will make them embiggen.

Like River I usually run with a theme.  This week I got an email (with a photo attached) from a friend in another city telling me that there were some adolescent cygnets on our lake.  I loved the fluffy grey charmers and when himself got up we decided to go and look for them.

At our first stop there were Pelicans.  Some of these photos make me smile rather a lot.





Doesn't that beak open a looooong way?

 




We continued to wander around the lake...

I do love these bird sculptures.




Then a dusky moorhen (or swamp chicken).


Then a delightful bridge across a pond.



Then a pied cormorant - sunbaking in the winter sun.






There were plenty of adult black swans, but we didn't see any cygnets.  Are we disappointed?  No.  We spent a very happy couple of hours wandering around in the sun, and it is the perfect excuse to go back again next week.