We’ve watched the Tour de France almost every night since it began 3 weeks ago to its conclusion through the streets of Paris. Truth though, the mountain days before Paris are always my favourites: up and down the Alpes Huez this year – such mighty endurance and power! I’m not really a sports fan of any sort, but I do enjoy the Giro D’Italia and the Tour de France. I know the competitors’ names now and I’m very slowly learning the techniques involved. And as for Tadej Pogačar! He is breathlessly amazing!

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Why on earth do I enjoy cycling? Gosh, apart from the scenery, I’ve no idea. Who knows, maybe it’s genetic.

My grandfather was a bike rider, a champion in his day, although I was barely a sparkle in my mum’s eye when he rode. They had wooden bikes back then and in fact his championship bike is in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, although the bike above looks as if its made of metal.

I have a memory of him by a crackling fire at the old family cottage on the coast. He was in his late 60’s and had his feet in a bowl of warm water and Epsom Salts, his grey flannel trousers rolled up as he rubbed some nice-smelling liniment (see below) into his white calves. He had pronounced calves – so did my grandmother. Something that flowed through to my late cousin, myself and my son.

Pa had a Gladstone bag filled with the most fragrant unguents, some no longer made, but I swear they were magical! Once, when I was perhaps nine or ten, I walked past him dressed in a pair of shorts and he called me back and ran his hand over my lower calf. ‘Does that hurt?’ ‘No,’ I replied. He moved his fingers down to my heel. ‘That?’ ‘Ouch!’

He sat me down and investigated my heel which was inflamed. Leading from the heel was a very distinct red line working its way up the lower calf. He said it was an infection and that I probably had some shell grit embedded in the heel and so out came the bag, a small slit was made in my heel, a poke around (one had to be stoic with Pa), a dressing with an ointment (either Zam-buk, Cuticura or Empire Ointment, all smelled divine!) and then each day, he would take the dressing off, send me to the saltwater to walk and then re-dress the wound. Slowly the red line receded and eventually he pronounced me mended.

I asked Dr. Google and I think I may have had this:

… a red line can travel up the leg from a foot wound. This condition is called lymphangitis, and it means bacteria from a skin infection are moving through your lymphatic channels toward the lymph nodes in your groin… and these days would have been treated with copious antibiotics as a serious emergency. But Pa was phlegmatic, made no mention of doctors, and his medicaments worked a treat. That and saltwater. These days, no doctor will let one go near saltwater with an open wound – I presume the world’s waters have become a tad polluted in the intervening 60+ years.

One can still buy Zam-Buk and Cuticura and when I lifted the lid on a tin of Cuticura before writing this, the room was filled with eucalpyptus, camphor, thyme and sassafras amongst other things. I was transported straight back to my childhood where all our bike grazes were treated with the wonder ointments. We had many grazes, riding over dirt roads in shorts and thongs (flip-flops for the non-Australians), feet often sliding off the pedals and causing great crashes. None of us ever cried though, I remember that well. All grazes were badges of courage and the best holidays, and besides there was always ointment and saltwater…

Now the Tour is done, we’ll revert to our evening silence in the cottage. He will read on his computer, I’ll embroider this and that and we’ll both listen to the waves on the beach if there’s a swell, or perhaps note the wind blowing the willow fronds against the tin roof. Or perhaps, I’ll write.

After checking all the files for the remaining fantasy series paperbacks, I’ve barely written any of Phoebe’s Prime. Hopefully that will change. Phoebe is a part of my life here – every walk I take on the beach, every time I go to the shop or drive to the city, I see it through Phoebe’s eyes because she is a newcomer after all.

They chatted about the detail of the renovation over tea and orange cake. ‘Finally signing on the bottom line made me feel that at last I can truly begin to reinvent myself,’ Phoebe admitted.

Annie placed her mug on the tray, taking up her cake plate as she scrutinised Phoebe. ‘Do you need to reinvent yourself?’

Phoebe fiddled with her cake fork. ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I rather think I do.’ But she offered no more. She could hardly regale Annie with her life story. She barely knew the woman.

Annie gave a whisper of a snort. ‘Goodness, Phoebe. What an enigma you are and how delighted I am to have met you. You know I’m a writer? I have to tell you that hidden depths are like a drug to we writers. We live for such stuff.’

Phoebe smiled. ‘No one has called me an enigma before, so thank you. I’m also keen to find out about Annie Tremayne writer.’

‘Ah,’ Annie brushed dismissively at crumbs on her sweater. ‘Google me. It’s easier.’

‘Then tell me about your garden because that’s another dream. To create my own garden, to build rooms for my dreams.’

‘To build rooms for my dreams…’, goodness, where did that line come from? I do hope there’s more stored away because it’s always a wonder when they slip out…

Other things:

My tulips are lifting above the soil, the grandiflora is flowering and dropping petals everywhere and I’ve picked my first bunch of white daphne. Spring is on its way!

The end to the school holidays rolled in on Monday and we had a perfect day with our grandson. We rode bikes together, he and I, and I have to say that at almost 75 and keeping up with an almost 8 year old who mountain-bikes and has done the Meehan Range with his dad and has the Maydena and Derby tracks in his sights so he tells me, I had to retire with a heatpack and anti-inflammatories in the small of the back after he’d returned to the farm.

(Image from a year ago. Just look at my bike! It’s almost 70 years old! No gears, only a back-pedal brake. I LOVE it!)

It was fun with grandson – hopefully as he grows older, he’ll remember dear old Nanny who rode bikes with him. And clambered with he and Pa down the cliff to our favourite Pirate Beach (where Jack Sparrow used to leave maps to find gold coins which were chocolate coins covered in gold foil).

Pa, Nanny, the Womble and Grandson all meandered, played with a Monster Truck from Auntie Clare, got a little damp, climbed and pottered and then scaled back up the rough, steep cliff and pronounced it perfect.

Grandson’s dad had been in hospital for 48 hours after spiking his wrist with an 18 gauge needle when he and my husband were giving pre-lambing shots to the flock. Son required urgent surgery to empty the resulting wound of pus followed by copious intravenous antibiotics. Farming can be dangerous, I tell you. We’ve clocked up an almost fatal ATV crash with my husband (inspiration for ‘Passage’), a crush injury from an ATV for my son (hmm – inspiration for another novel? No, son would be furious!), needlestick injuries, heavily bruised feet, hands and legs from stock-work and fencing, and so it goes. No place for those who don’t pull on their big boys’/girls’ pants… and tuck some Cuticura or Zam-Buk in the back pocket.

My stitches are out. Good. now have 4 glaring white steri-strips in place and they stick out like a sore thumb. Not good. The cancer was squamous but I suspected it was. Life is … different being an embroidery project for a doctor.

To ballet to top up my pocketful of happiness - one group class and then a private class. What I did notice was that in the centre, I wasn’t reaching for the barre quite as often as I was using my core more, tightening buttocks and legs and reaching higher with my arms. That said, as I began to flag with tiredness, so my balance went off-piste as well. From little things big things grow…

It’s been a week of clouded skies on the coast, with the moon and stars valiantly trying to pierce the wafting veils in the night sky. Perhaps this little video is very apt:

Now I can look up and imagine the young boy, his father and grandfather doing what they do. Maybe even pretending it’s my husband, son and grandson. Lovely…

I went to the bookshop this week (Fullers, Hobart, an independent bookshop… with café) to buy a birthday present for my grandson. Having found him a book on dinosaurs that weighs a ton, I wandered. A whole table was devoted to a swathe of Japanese books from cooking and Ikebana to delightful and poignant stories, haiku, philosophy and lifestyle. So many pleasures that I found it difficult the choose. But this little volume came home:

An extraordinary book based on the daily journal of Tetsuyo, who at the time of the book’s publication was 102. As I drift into the half light of the World-of-Almost-Awake, I wish this perfect little woman was my neighbour. She delivers pearls of wisdom of such simplicity that it’s impossible not to love her.

Of course, I may be confusing Tetsuyo with another old woman from My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Fredric Backman. This grandmother actually invented the World-of-Almost-Awake and as I listen to it in audio, I laugh a little, cry a little and have the feeling that this too could be a keeper for the shelves if I had a hard copy. It’s a book that is made for audio – as if one is having fairytales and battles of good and evil related as one sinks into sleep. Elsa’s grandmother is such a multi-faceted character and we learn about her darkness and light as the adult story progresses. So beautifully done.

I wish I was like Tetsuyo and Elsa’s grandmother – so much joy, so much imagination, so much natural grit. I also think what serendipity after last week’s chat on aging that these books came to my notice. Fate does have its way.

In my own writing life, the first of the missing novels in The Chronicles of Eirie arrive via email, formatted and ready for proofing. The e-covers have been extended to make wrap covers and have the required blurbs and reviews on the back. Whilst I’m thrilled with Jane Dixon-Smith’s fabulous work, I read, I check, and read my words again but am never confident. A week of words it has been, with one file after another. And then I begin to wonder if I should start marketing the series all over again. (Oh Lord!)

Other Things:

Remember the burned red Puffa jacket I ordered? It was huge, not at all burned red but an ugly wine colour which was so not me, so has been returned. His blue Puffa is of course perfect because he seems to have the right frame for anything, and everything always fits. His sweater is lovely, but mine is a touch big. So being the hobbit I am, I just tuck the length into my jeans, and it keeps me warm on the coast.

The thing is, I’m over winter clothes and ooh and aah over summer style in the Northern Hemisphere. All those lovely Chelsea/Wimbledon florals, broderies and linens. Not long ago, the most beautiful M&S soft yellow shirt appeared in my email, and I knew it was ‘me’. But I dillied and dallied and when I went to purchase it last weekend, my size had of course gone! As far as clothes go, I’m a procrastinator and was a lot put out by my lack until I remembered this delightful story told by David Michie

The Dalai Lama's Cat: Buddhist compassion in action

Insight, tools and uplifting wisdom from Tibetan Buddhism. Sign up for stories and articles to enhance your inner peace and wellbeing.

By David Michie

One of (Geshe La’s) most devoted students, cooking lunch for over 100 retreatants, was looking distressed in the kitchen when Geshe-la stopped by and asked if there was a problem. “We’re doing vegetable tagine and I’ve just found we have no lemon!” explained the student. Geshe-la needed little time to consider this before shrugging. “No lemon,” he said in his Tibetan English, “death not happening.”

Now, when Husband or self are inclined to whinge and moan, we say to each other: ‘No lemon, death not happening.’ And burst into laughter.

Anyway, when all’s said and done, I’m not a pretty picture this week. Five stitches as another skin cancer is removed, very close to where the squamous cell carcinoma was in 2023. Like my parents, this is the story of life in the outdoors before sun-protection was really heard of. It’s a little painful but I’ve had worse and it’s smeared with vaseline to stop it pulling. The incision looks as if it sits right in one of my many leylines. Another scar that tells a story of a life well-lived.

Finally, just before I began writing this, he, the Womble and I walked. Heaven…

And so…music?

Oh this!

because of its lyrics. ‘Win a little, lose a little’, ‘laugh a little, cry a little…’

It’s my favourite movie of all time. I often watch the inimitable Katharine Hepburn in this movie and note her tremor, particularly as she watches Spencer Tracy. The emotional drain for her was enormous we now know, as Tracy was very ill and it would be scant days that he lived after the movie wrapped. Hepburn’s condition is called Essential Tremor and I was diagnosed with it when I was 40. Many assume one has Parkinsons Disease when they see it but no, it’s just Essential Tremor, a nuisance neurological condition. If it’s annoying me, I always think of wonderful ‘Katharine with a K’. It makes me feel better to be amongst such excellence…

Essentially, ‘people who are highly social but never quite feel like they fit into groups.’ Oh good, I thought. On that assumption, no need to change my own category of introversion. I’m not highly social for one thing and I can take or leave groups, preferring quietness and a very small handful of folk in my circle. Mostly family and then people I could count on the fingers of one hand – ie: people who would be there when I desperately needed them (to which I add vice versa).

It’s interesting how humans feel the need to categorise themselves – as if the surety of knowing, of ticking the boxes, enables one to be more confident in life. Perhaps its the thought that one isn’t alone, that yes, there are lots of others who are introverts, extroverts and now otroverts and we need no longer try to fit our square form into a round hole.

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And then I think about friends. That digression in my cerebral week came from a post I read on how important friends are in one’s life according to Dan Buettner of recent Blue Zones fame. He says:

The Core Philosophy of Friendship and Longevity

· The Power of Three: Buettner frequently cites data showing that having just three close friends you can laugh with and call on a bad day is worth about eight years of life expectancy compared to being socially isolated.

· Behavior Contagion: He notes that health habits are socially contagious. If your inner circle exercises, eats well, and manages stress properly, you are statistically far more likely to do the same.

· Face-to-Face vs. Digital: True connection requires offline, face-to-face interaction. Buettner advocates for a daily dose of in-person socialization, which he observed in the world’s longest-lived cultures.

Eight years extra of life expectancy from having three friends? Surely there are many other aspects to life expectancy – food, exercise, roof over one’s head, management of stress, genetic computations just for a start. I think of people I have known who have had lots of friends, lived incredibly social lives, were relatively financial, were intelligent and intellectual, who exercised and ate well, didn’t smoke, drank in moderation, and yet they succumbed to lung disease, to MND, to bowel, pancreatic, throat, prostate or breast cancer and more. Eight years extra life expectancy? I think not…

Then there was Buettner’s comment ‘…daily dose of in-person socialization…’ In that case, living on the coast, especially in winter, I’d say my End Day is just around the corner because I can go for quite a few days before I socialise at all! And yet, I feel content with how it is. Friends are wonderful, I feel privileged to have a trusted, tight handful, let it be said. But in truth, I suspect any doctor will actually tell me that longevity is more likely to be deep in my DNA.

I wonder if the secret to a long life is actually contentment? And what is contentment anyway? And why does life have to be long? Is it not enough that it’s a good life, a kind life, a calm life? Short or long?

Ah, perhaps that’s a thought for another day…

Other Things:

I mourn Sir Sam Neill. What a lovely man and what a loss to his family and friends, to society, to New Zealand and Australia. Sad day. “Moe mai rā”, Sam.

I came across this article the other day and thought how relevant then that I’m taking the three missing fantasies to print. However, I love my Kindle and read it far more than hard copy books. But if I read an e-book that I love, like Kathleen Hart’s Devorgilla Days, then I’ll buy a hard copy for my shelves.

Ballet this week is ‘hard yakka’ (‘hard work’ for those who aren’t Australian) as we realise we’re at the 6 month mark of the new and demanding class routines. Have the routines entrenched themselves in our grey matter? Well, not completely in mine yet, that’s for sure.

I was delighted to read this:

The Balanced Ballerina

Ballet After 40: What the Science Actually Says

A woman walks into adult ballet for the first time and somewhere in the first few weeks she half-apologises for being there…

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19 days ago · 29 likes · 4 comments · Georgia Dostal

knowing that it’s exactly what we do in class – despite that we haul ourselves up the stair to the carpark afterward and that by 3PM in the afternoon, I for one am quite glazed.

And this week, my ankle is playing up so that defending it in class, my knee begins to misbehave and I have that moment where I really believe how much of a bitch old age is! I sit out for a few moments and massage the kneecap back into position and then join in again. I am now feeling like the old crock of the class!

Anyway, with the ankle-operation booked in, I walk, climb hills, eat fresh food and… yes, even have the regulation swim. Despite that we had a polar blast early in the week where the stock troughs iced over, and even our coastal garden was white with frost. On this particularly divine day, I pulled my big girl’s pants on (wetsuit) and went in. Totally worth it. If the wetsuit dries out, I may go in again before the end of the weekend.

(Turning a circle is not the best thing for Prue - hence the grunts and the exclamation about phones. Spring Bay, 2PM, Thursday 16th July - water temp has warmed and is 13 degrees Celsius. Interesting…)

Later on Thursday, he and I plus Pupsicle did a coast walk and decided the day was beyond pristine. Breathtaking really and the thought stopped me in my tracks. We had woken up that morning to a day of almost painful beauty, in an environment so far from the world’s ills. Luck? Good fortune? Fate?

I’ve been reading Matthew Harffy’s Bane of Bernicia (5 stars) and his characters’ lives are dominated by their wyrd. Perhaps ours are too… to live on this little island far from the madding world.

Whatever the case, the gratitude I felt as I looked west over the mellow gold of the sandstone point toward the sinking sun was palpable.

I bake a Plain Cake and fill it with lemon butter. Gosh, it’s so delish! My husband has his slice with a dollop of Greek yoghurt because he’s on the Mediterranean Diet. He says the cake has lemons which are a Mediterranean fruit and the Greek yoghurt is Mediterranean, so it fits the brief. Really, I scoff!!!!

By the way, the Mediterranean Diet dates from 1975. Unlike The Blue Zones concept which dates from 2000 and was first publicised by Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain when they investigated health and longevity in Sardinia. I always thought Buettner was the father of Blue Zones but apparently not. How many folk know that, I wonder?

And so how many of you are Otroverts, do you think? And do you have three friends who can guarantee you longevity in life? Or do you, like me, think it comes down to life’s circumstance and your DNA?

I shall leave you to ponder it...

Music for this week? Another Kelly Boesch piece. A little bit whacky, a lot of happy and a fine way to finish a good day.

In a life context, a “rut” is a state of feeling stuck in a monotonous, repetitive routine where every day feels exactly the same. It is a period of stagnation and emotional flatness where motivation drops, excitement fades, and you feel as if you aren’t making any progress. Google AI

But…

…are ruts really a bad thing? The problem with social media is how much we might compare our lives with the rampant lives of others – the grass-is-always-greener phenomenon. Oh, they’re in Europe? I’m only on the east coast of Tasmania. And they’re watching the Tour de France in real life? I’m only watching it on TV.

But…

…daily I’m watching fish glide through ribbons of undulating weeds or the ocean sparkling with white light, wombats wandering along the beach on Maria Island, heavenly skies alive with glitter and a moon so clear and close that I can almost touch the dimples with my finger.

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I’ve learned ‘each to their own.’ What floats my boat won’t particularly float yours and whilst some might say, ‘She seems in such a rut’, my rut has full-length windows and a door and when I want, I simply walk out into my garden or onto the beach and breathe what’s purported to be the cleanest air in the world (I’m on the east coast of this tiny island and Cape Grim is the northwest corner of our very small dot in the ocean).

I love my rut, if that’s what I’m in. It’s filled with comfort curated for our monk-like tastes, filled also with creative endeavour, gardens bursting to grow food when it warms, and I’m forever learning more about the vast number of things that draw my interest, even in my seventies. I never tire of walking on beaches or amongst the native bushland and when my body slows, there’s always the cold ocean to heal and revive. I feel vindicated by David Michie’s most recent post about the joy of living in a rut

The Dalai Lama's Cat: Buddhist compassion in action

The joy of living in a rut

To my friends in the United States, happy Independence Day! Wherever you're celebrating today, I hope it's a joyful occasion, shared with those you love. Thank you for being such a wonderful part of this community…

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a month ago · 44 likes · 52 comments · David Michie

and about the chances it gives for inner improvement.

Rut-living allows one the space to quietly observe, be that of nature or of people, and it nurtures wonder. From that, I hope a kind of gentle humility develops, and gratitude to be a part of the extraordinary process that is life.

Sometimes I think others judge unkindly. It’s not for them to declare that we’re in any kind of stagnant situation and in any case, if one is happy, creative, active and not over-reacting to life’s varied offerings, isn’t that all that matters?

And by the way, no one has said to me that I’m in a rut. I merely gave it some thought when David’s post arrived.

Other things:

‘Held by the earth…

moved by the moon…

sparked by the sun…

Swayed by the sea.

She was a force to be reckoned with.’ from Rise Sister Rise by Rebecca Campbell

A beautiful quote from Kathleen Hart’s substack

Words From The Hart

4 Words to Live By: My Lesson Learnt after 1,000 years.

Greetings from Scotland, how are you doing today…

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a month ago · 18 likes · 9 comments · Kathleen Hart/Poshpedlar

and I thought how well the first four lines exemplify my own life. In addition, perhaps the family could use the last line to describe me as they scatter my ashes at sea. Of course I’ll never know, but the thought’s rather nice…

An extraordinarily lovely post from Claire Kinton

Ink & Ivy

Star-Kept Lovers

I’ve always loved the stars…

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a month ago · 21 likes · 29 comments · Claire Kinton | Ink & Ivy

this week. Glittering like the firmament above us as we walk in the freezing winter night.

(My husband took this on this particular night. Just from an ordinary i-phone 13 Mini)

My nose chills and I blow breaths upward to thaw it. The waves are as still as the night air, with only the shrill pipe of oyster catchers on the beach. Our little dog pit-pats along in his yeti-coat, so hairy you’d barely know he was a Jack Russell. Pity the poor fellow then as he attends the groomer. Soft coat, divine fragrance, long hair trimmed. I have tartan polar fleece jackets and the Late Terrier’s quilted paddock rug to keep him warm, but he does tend to give us the look when so garbed.

But gosh, he looks and smells so nice! Next visit, he’ll be given the show-clip and will look just like his dad and grandad when they were in the show ring. And no, I doubt we’ll ever show this chap, although his credentials are fine and he could do quite well. I just have a feeling he’s likely to hump the judge’s leg…

Lucky boy though, to have such nice outerwear, so we decide we’ll join him. I order new Puffa jackets (burned red for me, royal navy for him), a Puffa vest (denim blue for me) and merino wool sweaters (mid blue for us both, and I promise we won’t wear them on the same day!). I hope they arrive before we begin our holiday as we intend taking a few days soon, to indulge in hikes, walks, coddiwomples and picnics. Golly, even another boating trip if there’s a glassy day. The cold is part of the thrill. Take thermoses of soup and tea, fresh bread, cheeses, fruit, some gooey, high-energy cake and chocolate and wear the right clothes and it’s more remarkable sometimes than summer days.

We visited the coldest place in Tasmania once, Liawenee, in the highlands and I stripped off my boots and socks and plunged my feet into the ice-frilled stream (whilst the sweetest wombat waddled over the bridge above me, his coat dense with alpine fur). I do these things because life is short. At nearly 75, how many days, weeks, months, years does one have left? Best to enjoy it all whilst one can.

I’m noticing that more and more Substackians are soliciting for paid subscriptions. Not only that, they’re becoming savvy online sellers, and a lot of posts have links to this and that product that will give them a small return. Fair enough I suppose. One has to make a living. But I’ll never direct readers to purchase anything but my books and even then, I’m bashful about it. And not very good at it, into the bargain. Often forgetting to put up the author link that will direct any interested readers to points of sale. I guess I just hope that if a reader is interested, they will go to my website and be directed from there.

Somehow it seems cleaner to keep Knots in the String what it is meant to be - a momentary escape for readers, not a pressure-to-buy moment. In any case, Knots in the String has been free for 3 years and hopefully it will remain so, unless Substack changes the rules. Ah there! I’ve got that off my chest!

It’s been decided to complete the fantasy series, The Chronicles of Eirie, in print. Thus far, since the rebranding some years ago, all five have only been available as e-books.

I was surprised by the copyright date of 2011 for The Stumpwork Robe and The Last Stitch, and 2012 for The Shifu Cloth. So long ago that I can barely remember them! I’ve written 15 books (and sundry short stories for various anthologies with other hist.fict writers) and I think my brain self-empties so that I can get on with the next one.

It’ll be a busy few months. I hope to finish Phoebe’s Prime (the third contemporary) and go partway to finishing the second in The Peregrinus Series (The Oblate, the eighth historical fiction). Additionally, each of the fantasies will have to be proof-read, once formatted for print.

Will there be space for the things I love amongst all of that? Golly yes. The only way I can keep writing is to infuse desk-time with either nature or other creative endeavour. It clears the head, smooths out any narrative glitches … and gives a vital break from the screen.

I have no complaint with this rut, this groove. So how did I spend the evening? Stitching Bloch elastics onto the first new ballet shoes for 10 years while watching Stage 5 of the Tour de France. It’s my sort of perfect, really. Boring? Never…

Music this week? A song that has no relevance to ruts, but maybe to joy and having fun, and besides, it reminds me of the first year of our fifty year marriage! What’s not to love?

This week has been somewhat of a tsunami, physical and emotional things happening non-stop and culminating in an ankle surgery booked for early September. I feel vindicated with the idea that when waves threaten to break over us, the cottage is the only place to be, because problems shrink in size and life is more like a box of chocolates; one is at liberty to choose the bitter and dark or the sweet and milky as one wishes.

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As I drove back to the cottage after the surgeon’s appointment, the trees still glistened with a myriad of diamonds and pearls and wisps of river mist lay in the folds of valleys and around tree canopies as the sun began to dissolve their softness. How could I still be so caught up in my head when with some mindfulness, that sight was there for the taking? My shoulders dropped, I rolled my head and stretched my neck, anticipating beaches to be walked as soon as I was changed from city clothing to coastal rags.

Other things:

The dog and I walked through the pine woods – petrichor was strong but intertwined with the fishy aroma of seaweeds and sea air. ‘They’ say that the smell of the sea reduces stress by 17%. How do ‘They’ know this? And how do ‘They’ measure it? I read the percentage somewhere online many years ago, no idea where, and the figure has stayed with me so that I look at the sea and mutter ‘17%’, like some mad old biddy. It’s rather like when someone dispiritedly asks you the meaning of life, the universe and everything and you chime loudly, with pure positivity: ‘42!’And really, do read the link – it’s funny and fascinating all together.

In the spirit of funny, I watched the divine Tom Read Wilson interviewed by an Australian morning TV show

and it really just took my fancy. I adore him!

Not funny at all, I made soup too, this week, from leeks and potatoes. It tasted bland after blending, so I googled how to improve. Google said with lemon rind, juice and grated parmesan. So I added the bits and we had it with crusty bread, quince and pear chutney and delicious pepperberry cheese and it wasn’t too bad. But on reflection, I wish I’d avoided the parmesan and just added a good handful of fresh thyme and dill. Tonight we’re having what’s left over and so I stirred in a big mixed selection of chunky, herby roast veg, topping the ensuing casserole with flaked almonds. And because this week has been a tsunami with little time to cook, I dug round in the freezer for a cake and found a banana and sour cream job which I then coated with chocolate icing. Very moist, very yum! I think I may have made it for the shearers but we didn’t need it.

I counted 8 weeks until surgery, so The 7 Week Challenge (now at week 2) will be extended so that by the time I go to hospital, I hope I’m relatively fit for a septuagenarian (according to my son!). It’s a homemade thing of 10,000+ steps at least 5 times a week (if I can get more, good-o!), one or two real cardio hills weekly, ballet, a cold-water swim weekly or more, plus anything else I can throw at it. The Challenge worked a treat for the huge bowel op two years ago so here’s to its efficacy. I’m disappointed that I won’t be able to dance for 4 weeks after the op but I can swim in the ocean in 2!

Bearing that in mind, I swam this morning in a gentle swell and with fine sunshine. The water temp was 13.6 Celsius at 11.30 AM, there was a snickerty southerly breeze but the water was bearable in a wetsuit. I swam back and forth – breast stroke with a freestyle kick because the wetsuit buoyancy floats my legs too high. The kick keeps the legs exactly where I want them in the water. Not pretty but who cares?

Later, The Womble and I sat in the sun, breathing softly and watching the birds feeding. A little bit of peace…

Before I go, husband took this last evening on our walk at about 7.30PM. Lovely, isn’t it? No tsunamis there.

Over the years with emotional and physical tsunamis, I think we learn a lot about ourselves. I learned that sometimes I pushed myself too hard, too intent on trying to be the perfect everything. A bit woebegone around the edges, I would clear a patch on life’s foggy window so that I could look out longingly and see the life I really craved.

Bit by bit, word by word, paragraph by paragraph and meditating every day, one window after another cleared. I could garden if I wanted, dance if I wanted, gosh, even be a published writer if I wanted. Even be an introvert. I could learn from an excellent teacher on how to float mindfully on the crest of a tsunami and not be frightened of or drowned by it. Of course, I would take in water, cough a lot, would have to work hard to stay afloat, but I could ride the wave, ride the progression…

Music? The brilliant Kelly Boesch:

PS: Please note that my Instagram account has been hacked by @PrueBatten77. They have taken my image, some of my pics and stories and my followers’ list. I’ve reported them to Instagram and apologise to any friends/followers who are being stalked. I am changing my password, AGAIN, and possibly my account profile pic. Thanks for your patience.

I was tootling along, listening to Dee Macdonald’s A Body in Seaview Grange and there was a harsh crack next to my ear, as loud as a gunshot (yes, I’ve fired a rifle and it nearly dislocated my shoulder – hate guns!). I dived down onto the steering wheel and for one flashing moment, looked for blood. (Obviously watching too much Nordic Noir and reading too much crime). Then as I sucked in air, glass from the driver’s side-window started to fly around me, across my body, over to the back seat and down into the door cavity.

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I quickly straightened the car, realised that no one else driving on the freeway noticed what had happened, and leaning forward (I could feel the glass against my back) and with heaps of fresh air gushing into the empty space, I pulled into a layby 2 km further on and phoned my son. He immediately left the job he was working on to meet me at the farm. I shook out my clothes, swept the glass off the seat (thank heaven for safety glass as I think there would have been blood otherwise), and continued to school with no window and trying not to shake with shock.

Grandson was right into the drama, solicitous but telling me I was probably targeted because ‘they do target people you know, Nanny’. (Who are they?) The two of us battled the loud baffling, the freezing wind (9 degrees) and misty rain to the farm, and while I had a calming herbal tea and some Cadbury’s chocolate his dad had bought me, said dad rigged up a plastic and tape cover to get the car and I back into the city. I did have a cry in my son’s arms and felt a small child’s arms sneak round from the back and that plus the choccie dissolved the tight lump in my chest.

I managed to get the car to the townhouse in peak hour with no right-side vision, plastic straining to break free and me driving others mad by only travelling at 60 kms along a 110 km freeway. Husband cleaned out all the glass (soooo much glass) and it will be repaired on Monday morning. I was grey with fatigue as I drove into the city garage that night. But now? Much better thank you.

Other (nicer) things:

In light of our little dramas, we left the city. It’s been too busy, too fraught and we packed it in and headed east to the cottage. The minute we drove into our lane in my husband’s car, I could feel the constraining strap around my chest fly away.

The weather is utterly pristine. The kind when one is happy to freeze! Frosted paddocks, infinite and cloudless blue sky, dewdrops on trees and spiderwebs spangled with frost and dew. So many webs. I’ve decided there are more spider species in the world than any other. Intelligentsia say it could be microbes or Antarctic krill, but I think its spiders because the lacework across a winter forest is multitudinous and magnificent!

Took copies of a few of my titles (big cleanout of all office cupboards and files) to the little coastal library - hopefully they can go into circulation without having to go through central acquisitions in Hobart, but it’s unlikely. Found out that the library had a feature on local authors a couple of years ago and my pic and copies of my books were in the display and I wasn’t even aware. Gave Clare, the librarian, a business card so that she could contact me if ever she does it again. Was quite chuffed actually.

In our temporary cold frame, our seeds are up – each tray showing life. Thrilled! This was as good as winning the lottery this week! The greenhouse is due in July.

But best of all has been a seaday.

The weather is so glorious that we really couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Satin calm sea with smidgy puffs of cloud in the blue sky as if our dog had gone galloping around with a torn-up pillow in his mouth. We thought he might do that after being left home alone, but no, when we returned, the house was pristine. Possibly due to a good free walk before we left and having the odd social nose and butt sniff with hairy peers.

It was cold out on the water, but one dresses accordingly and the air is so very clean and the sea so clear and filled with sparkles - what does it matter? I debated taking my swimming gear but thought I’d be bone-chilled on the way back and once deeply cold, its so hard to warm up, so I decided to enjoy the journey and to look for seabirds, seals and dolphins.

The water temp was 11 Celsius, the air temp about 10 and if you’re wondering about the number 17 on the sounder, it’s the depth of water beneath us at that point on our way to the southern end of Maria Island. We anchored offshore at one of our favourite places and had a large mug of hot tea and warm fruit buns with butter and homemade blackberry jam. I always buy loads of hotcross buns at Easter and freeze them for boat trips and paddock picnics and like salty chips or homemade Nuts n’Bolts, they always seem to hit a spot on the ocean.

We had sailed away from stress and barely gave other life a thought. I felt so cosy snuggled down in my doona coat, with thick woolen socks, an old navy fishermen’s jersey and Mum’s red sun visor crowning it all. I’ve said to my husband that my sunvisors and I are an extension of each other and he really must have them cremated with me when I pop off.

I’m so grateful to him because the lion’s share of launch, skippering and retrieve is down to him and he’s been as tired as me, but he now has roses in his cheeks and I think a day in absentia is what he needed, sliding us nicely into a slow weekend.

What could be better?

Music for this week?

It’s Sunday night and I’m a blasphemist – I dislike Dark Mofo and that means that by a lot of folk’s standards, I should wash my mouth out!

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But I had to come to the city this evening for appointments the following week and right now, our little townhouse’s walls are vibrating. I’m not sure if it’s the celebratory walk through the city with the Ogoh-Ogoh prior to the massive burning of said creature on the Queen’s Domain. Or if it is rock music emanating from the Winterfeast at Salamanca.

Obviously for most, it’s fantastic. For me, country mouse that I am, and whose hearing can develop into vertigo with vibrating sound, it’s horrendous. Driving into the city from the east as the sky turned most perfect apricot and powder blue and the townhouse’s neighbouring plane trees and pines were silhouetted black against the dusk sky on this short day, the traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, was mind-blowing, and not in a good way. I was all set to turn round and flee back to the coast and cancel any appointments.

By contrast, this weekend the coast entered the Solstice filled with peace, with blue skies and placid beauty. Yesterday, we had the community Solstice Swim, now 7 years old, where attention and funding is raised for suicide prevention. A fabulous turnout of folk in swimsuits, wetsuits and fancy dress, everyone on the beach at Raspin’s by 7.30AM to walk into the ocean and form a circle by dawn. Holding hands with strangers – so symbolic.

That evening, my husband, the Womble and I walked, there were a few stars, a fine crescent moon veiled now and then by wispy cloud and our breath huffing round us like a seafog. The waves were soft, the catabatic breeze down the valley freezing, so that we actually begged said dog not to stop to read the news and pee. We just wanted a swift walk to get the blood circulating.

Once home, we ate rich choc-berry brownies smothered in Mum’s decadent chocolate sauce. A warm cup of tea and Monty Don’s British Gardens on ABC iView (see above. Beth Chatto’s glorious garden!). We are so ordinary, so bedded down in our quiet life that Dark Mofo’s loud activities and nude swim mean less than nothing. I’m glad that it brings Hobart notoriety and that businesses make money, but I’m happy to bunker down and do my odd little hermit-like thing while the world spins around me.

However…

The creative mind behind Dark Mofo, owner of MONA, David Walsh, has created a library. And if you read the link you’ll see why I can’t wait to hop on the ferry one quiet day mid-winter and just wander through the labyrinth of words.

Written words were my life as a child. One Christmas, I received 13 books from various relatives and it was perhaps the most exciting and memorable Christmas ever! I can remember lying on my bed on the side verandah of Mum’s coastal cottage, with the books piled on the bedside table as I started at the beginning and read to the end, in between dashing to the beach, swimming and then dashing back again to sink into imaginary worlds.

So the library will be a highlight. And… ah, listen! The noise has settled, the city has gone quietly to its rest and so too must I, if I’m to tackle tomorrow.

Bon nuit, mes amis...

Music? Something to lull us into sleep.

ASAP:

‘As slow as possible

As soft as possible

As soulful as possible.

As sustainable as possible.

As sincere as possible.

As steady as possible.

Allow space and pause…’ (Unknown)

Wouldn’t it be the most perfect thing to live each day in such a way? I suppose in our own ways we all try, but life does tend to intervene. Sometimes, I think the only way would be to live like an eremite. But we do the best we can, don’t we?

I look at my own life. My way of living slow is to live outside the city. Soft is with love for those I hold dearest. Soulful is when I walk in nature – a spiritual thing. Sustainably? By trying never to have more than I need and to make do. Sincere? Always – by never lying and always trying to listen, to support. Steady? Hmm – that’s a work in progress. I’m not a regularly steady person, by my own admission. Finally, to allow space and pause? I try. Always.

It pays every now and then to examine one’s life without condemnation or disappointment, to accept that none of us is perfect. Good intentions are surely all that matter.

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Other things:

The name for this post came from this link: But I suppose it could have just as easily have been called eclectica or somesuch. In respect of the link, birds are the melody of our lives. I have two feeders which are supposed to support the little birds that live in the garden – wrens, finches, wagtails, even sparrows. But unfortunately, the parrots (blue-winged, I think) are rather pushy and tend to take over and binge on all the nosh for themselves.

Then there are the maudlin bush ravens that look like crows and have an horrendous call. They fly in… murders? Congresses? Perhaps mobs, or more kindly, flocks. I’d prefer it if they didn’t come calling at all. Ugly things in their heavy black accoutrements! It’s not a step too far to see them as harbingers.

The magpies however, speak to me with their wonderful mouth-full-of-marbles chatter and joy and when I see them studying me, I know they’re using memory. Is she the one who gave us that little piece of meat? Yes! See there’s the little dog. Oh good… We meet a small gang not far outside our gate on our walk and lately they’ve been flying in and removing corbies from the lawns. Go for it, chaps!

Marvellously, a tawny frogmouth has moved in. He’s a nocturnal feeder that perches on the roof of the boathouse near the motion light and feasts on moths and other insects attracted by the brightness. A striking bird and he/she may stay as long as he/she likes. Then there’s the sea eagles, the wedgetails, all the magnificent shorebirds and the native woodpigeon called a bronzewing whose melodious cooing I truly love. I never mind been woken by that bird, but some others? Not so much. Do you know that some bird or other (I was too sleepy to wonder which) woke me at 4.30 the other morning? One expects that in summer, but not winter! The seasons, and the natural world are so confused at the moment…

In respect of the link above though, I have the greatest admiration for the poetic way in which Robert Macfarlane writes about nature. Landmarks is a favourite, but the beautifully illustrated Book of Birds is now on my ‘wish list’.

Another little note in the margins was the observation of raindrops like crystals hanging from the Oyster Bay pineneedles. And toadstools that have sprung magically with rain. The Tasman Bridge lit red for Dark Mofo (see below).

Marginalia are extraordinary. I first learned about them in medieval history at university many years ago when studying for my degree. The current hist.fict WIP, The Oblate, is about a 12^th century scribe, a young, frail and talented monk who has come upon straitened circumstances. He would have used marginalia quite frequently. Often, the tiny illustrations were filled with humour, a tongue-in-cheek way of poking tongues at their very circumscribed world. There are knight rabbits armed with lances, fornicating snails, snails ridden by mice armed with swords, and there are penises. Many and varied penises. One wonders just what herbs and flowers the monk-scribes were eating and what was chasing through their minds in the echoing stone chambers filled with the stench of tallow candles. Perhaps it was that their thoughts were being slowly poisoned by the pigments they were using, for we know now how lethal some colours like vermilion, lead white, orpiment and others were.

Brother Bruno watched as Brother Andreas dipped the quill into the ink. The priest compressed his lips tight, as if such an action would help his writing and Bruno smiled. He had a similar habit – biting down on his bottom lip. He had grooves which proved it.

The Greek monk had proved remarkably adept. Father Paisios was content that Brother Andreas work with Bruno so long as the chores were done for the day, and thus the two monks made a habit of taking time in the afternoon to sit – teacher and pupil. Andreas learned to read swiftly and thus his knowledge of letters grew apace. Within two days of placing a quill in the monk’s hands, Bruno had him copying the words from the Luke Gospel. He made errors of course, and when he did or when he dropped a small inkblot here and there, Bruno taught him to paint simplistic marginalia which helped build Brother Andreas’ confidence and stretched a happy grin across his face.

Ah, perhaps we must wait for Brother Bruno’s story until Phoebe’s Prime is finished.

I received an email the other day from a book promoter who told me that for a price, my historical fiction books could be bestsellers (oh yes?) but that my Instagram and Substack accounts were wrongly focused. All about my island life when the accounts would be much better centred on my novels and my life as a writer. I thought how wrongly she had read me. If she had scanned any line of any novel of mine, right through all fifteen books in the three genres of fantasy, hist.fict and contemporary, she might have realised that my life and experiences here at the bottom of the world infuse my novels from beginning to end. So it is with any writer. We don’t write in complete vacuums. We think, we breathe, we feel, we do – and it vacillates through our writing like a pearly mist.

And anyway, I confess to hating the idea of pimping my trade and books but I love writing about this island and life’s experiences within it. For example, I came across a perfumier the other day, a woman in Hobart who is creating highly individual and very beautiful scents made from Tasmanian flora. Then there’s the winter festival Dark Mofo in Hobart, which hangs on all things bold and shocking in the cultural world. People arrive from all over the world for it and Hobart is flooded with red light. All I can say is that whilst it would be wonderful to sell more books, why wouldn’t I want to talk about the way this island flies on the wings of enigmatic ambience?

Finally, a rather precious little note in the margins. I was in the city for the night so that I could go to ballet class and I was dusting the lounge. I held a little puzzle box which belongs to my husband and heard rattling inside. How had I never heard it before? I worked out the way the lid turned at an angle and then slid sideways and within lay a perfect pound note, a half sovereign dating from 1861 and a sovereign dating from 1910. Tucked with the money was a tiny handwritten note to my then one year old husband from his grandmother. We have managed to value the find at about $A5000. Did Granny realise that her gift would accumulate in value and was that the purpose for her grandson? Also, I want to know where Granny learned to write so beautifully?

She was an astonishing woman – a widow from an early age, raising two sons and running a farm on her own – pigs, sheep and cattle. She was well-thought of in the local Whittlesea Shire community and my husband remembers her with love, having a number of stories about her for the family. I was so glad the little box had rattled because we would never have known what it contained. We just thought it was a wooden ornament carved to look like a box that never opened. Why did it rattle right then at that particular moment? Is it just serendipity?

Anyway my friends, here is the song for the week – wouldn’t we all love to be free as birds?

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Then I saw it! My spirit animal – a sea eagle. Oh, such joy! It effervesced like champagne as the magnificent bird glided past a few metres above our heads, his wings upswept with stunning white tips. He turned a circle and I held my breath because it’s a magical thing watching such a bird. Then it flew on, and I knew that everything – whatever everything is – was going to be alright.

I walked the Pupsicle on the Front Beach later, when the crowd of long-weekend incomers had left the village, and so the beach was deserted. One could feel the music of Nature Uninterrupted. It’s a vibration. A natural silence of no wind, endless blue skies and tiny waves lacing along the shore like a crocheted frill.

Another day, the pup and I walked in the bush. The air was thick with sharp eucalyptus fragrance, bush birds called and the creeks ran at last. There was the faintest croak from a frog, and then another and it was so reassuring to know the rains have supported life.

That evening, my husband and I walked with the dog and cold noses, our breath ballooning in foggy clouds. The coastal night sky was deepest black studded with glitter. So vast – one feels humbled to be allowed this quiet moment of observation.

(This was our view…)

We are such small specks on a giant cosmic map of life. Worth remembering that there is no place for ego in all of that.

Other Things:

Husband has built a temporary cold frame so that we can start striking seeds while waiting for our glass house to arrive. Such veggies to grow – spirulina, purple-podded peas, beetroot and leeks. I buy varieties of pumpkins and some gourd seeds, seed trays, more soil and we collect sand to mix with it. I watch Chicks and Veg on Instagram with intensity, gleaning hints.

Our cold frame is made of the old windows we removed from the cottage during the renovation last year and they serve our purpose gallantly. We’ll always keep them, even when the glasshouse is up and running…

I swim. The first time for almost a month, thanks to rains, then dirty water, then howling winds.

But now its calm, as clear as cut crystal, and cool. The Surfers’ Report tells me the water is 14 degrees Celsius but my body is not acclimatised and in minutes, bare legs are burning with Antarctic chill. Even boots don’t keep my feet warm. I launch breaststroke-wise out into the depths and then swim a giant circle as Pacific gulls look down and then fly on. I swim perhaps 100 metres, my body so cold I now feel absolutely nothing and so head to shore. I manage to get my boots and gloves off and zip up a polar fleece jacket. Enough to drive home and then sit in a shallow bath. Just a quick one. I want to retain the fabulous sensation of immersion, when you can feel the blood coursing through veins and the endorphins fizzing round the body. I’ll swim again this week but I suspect the time for a 3 ml wetsuit is almost due.

I attend the dentist for a regular check. She’s a ray of sunshine and so fast! She wore fab camel, barrel-legged jeans. They looked so good on her, I’m almost tempted, despite that I’ve never been a big fan of the barrel leg - bandy horse-riders roaming the range! Teeth are okay.

We continue working through Restoration Australia on TV and one night, alone in the city, I watch the first series of Bergerac (good) but am ready for silence for a few nights. EXCEPT, we will watch Clarkson’s Farm Series 5. Great series and with such a message to those who don’t know farming and where their food comes from. And how fabulous it was to see Clarkson’s Hawkstone Farmers’ Choir win Britain’s Got Talent. Their powerful message about farming stress leading to suicide is loud and applies to farmers across the globe.

I paint more waves. I use the paint with tentative gusto and am learning not to be afraid of mixing media. I might paint a wave series and frame them for the cottage… or not.

Devorgilla Days by Kathleen Hart has come to an end. There’s a lot of Kathleen’s life (writing, reading, coast, swimming, love of cashmere – gosh, even a green bike for heavens’ sake!) that echoes my own, but with the added dimension of her being in a beautiful coastal town in Scotland. She’s writing another book and I can’t wait!

Moments after finishing the book, my Kindle died. Really died! Nothing would reboot it and so I’ve recharged the old one (the default one) which tends to run out of juice very quickly. I love paper, print and all things bookish but as I age, a Kindle is much kinder to my eyes in the evening and much lighter to cart here, there and everywhere.

Then there’s ballet. I was supposed to be absent this week, but things changed and so I plié, tendue and frappé until my balance and brain beg for mercy. But I love class. I love the more complex work and I have ballet friends I value.

I wish there was a way of explaining that my condition is not only permanent and that rehab is a daily event (ie living life) and has been for 11 years, but that the things I have loved forever - boats, swimming and the sea - have to be treated with very different rules now…

But it’s been a good week. One wonders if it’s because of the limitless blue skies, the clear, cool mornings and the mild days which means much time outdoors, be it walking, gardening or swimming. Perhaps we’ve fed our souls and are filled with the kind of gentle energy that being in nature engenders.

I won’t refuse a surfeit…

Music for this week? An odd little video. A bit of fun…

(My husband took this one the night before - love how the stars are visible and the two lighthouse flashes at Black Point and Rabbit island are visible, along with the flaming white light of what we think might have been a squid boat.)

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I rolled along the track in so many layers, the Michelin Man sprang to mind. T-shirt, then a polar fleece zip top, followed by a polar fleece vest, then a puffa jacket. Oh, and thick leggings, a beanie, a pair of gloves, woollen socks and sneakers. Perhaps the sheepskin-lined boots will be worn if winter progresses to a polar chill (which seems unlikely now).

Most often, we talk as we walk. It’s a favourite time of the day/night as we touch base on so many subjects. A mellow time, winding down to cup of tea and bed. Imagine my shock then when my husband said to me: ‘How do you think you would live if I wasn’t here anymore.’ My response was quite swift, despite that I knew he meant dead, not separation. It’s something I dare say we all think about as we move further into the winter of our lives. I replied, ‘What I do when I’m on my own now – no difference.’

But of course the difference is huge in any partnership. The ‘we’ becomes ‘I’ or in our case – ‘the dog and I’, because as I returned the question, we both knew that the Fates willing, our little dog, not yet two, would be with one of us for many years. And that, in my case, would be the saving grace. When I hear my husband chatting away to the pup, I think it would be his as well.

The odd thing is that earlier in the day, I’d been writing Annie’s latest chapter in Phoebe’s Prime. And I knew that when she and Phoebe had coffee the next day, the subject would arise – that the experience of both lone women would be compared and contrasted. With Phoebe, would she feel what Annie felt at being alone?

(I asked AI to ‘create’ Phoebe for me. TBH, this is pretty perfect. Scary, isn’t it?)

My contemporary fictions deal with phases of life, with grief, adjustment and how that’s reflected onto the protagonists by the lives of others around them, and vice versa. Often, I find the research is rather handy in viewing one’s own life. Even so, later my husband’s question really did make me reflect.

My husband and I have always been happy to have a life together, it makes us feel comfortable, complete. We rarely look outside for entertainment – perhaps it’s why the marriage has been so successful for fifty years. There’s been no ‘I’. Only ever ‘we’. But ‘alone’ is a whole other thing. There will be emotional emptiness after so long and life will change as one of us tries to build meaningful social existence into the void.

I was very glad when the pup offered up a ‘toot’, an ‘airbiscuit’, a ‘bottom burp’ or more properly ‘passed wind’ as he walked along. It was quite loud in the winter night and broke the seriousness of the moment. We both burst out laughing as he lifted his little dog’s face and grinned at us. Time for talking about ‘what happens after…’ another day. Or night.

Or maybe not at all…

Other Things:

*Rising count of dog damage: Daughter-in-law’s thongs (alias flip flops). Various legs of chairs and tables both inside and out, watering system spikes, husband’s beautifully handmade, softest leather and very posh slippers, my journal, my journal again, my Lamy fountain pen, and then a printed receipt which I needed this week, and various Liberty hankies which he does give back for a treat. All this despite chew toys and walks and whatever else young dogs need. I’m very miffed about the Lamy fountain pen because I’m once again handwriting my novels and it makes such a difference to my process. In addition, I’m now handwriting letters, and my handwriting has improved considerably. Naughty dog!!!

Yet more rain on top of last week’s. Pupsicle begins less than impressed but shakes himself off and acts like the tough Jack Russell he’s supposed to be. I am now ready for some fine days so that I can swim and walk, and smile without gritted teeth, even though I wanted the rain. Remember, Prue, be careful what you wish for.

*Grandson, despite being in Grade 2 is now elevated to Grade 3/4 maths. Our little genius…

*Still reading Devorgilla Days and don’t want it to finish it because I love being lost in Kathleen’s memoir. I find her words on wild-water swimming exactly mirror my own. That when one needs to heal, the ocean is the place. Whether it’s physical or psychological healing, the effect can be profound. I also recommend Kathleen’s post today - volunteering has never sounded so good!

Words From The Hart

I Found Cashmere, Cake and Conversation at the Community Shop (Why Volunteering is Good for the Soul)

Hello there, greetings from Scotland, and a big welcome to lots of lovely new subscribers, and the fabulous news that we reached Number 12 globally in the Home and Garden section…

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2 months ago · 12 likes · 8 comments · Kathleen Hart/Poshpedlar

*Watching back-series of Restoration Australia on ABC i-View. Wonderful series and charmed by the efforts of so many to save old historic buildings. Effectively perpetuating the skills of great craftsmen as well. We always enjoyed the early days of The Restoration Man from the UK, with the lovely voice of George Clarke – this is similar.

Nephew and wife’s beautiful restoration at GunBower gets a mention in Country Style magazine. The Travelling Bishop is a former chapel and now an Air B’n B and if one is in the Campaspe shire, I can recommend it.

Made chutney from the last of our pears and quinces. Cardamom, mixed spices, ginger and so on.

Very yummy and with the pup between us as we worked. So sweet – maybe I’m not angry with him anymore…

*Ballet. OMG! Tired and sore. My balance is subsequently bad. Brain tiredness works against balance and vestibular alignment. I have to say, I don’t feel like this after a beach run. Ah, ‘nuff said. Need a swim!

And so, I reflect on my husband’s question and think the answer I would truthfully give is that one can’t pre-empt how one would act. Such a cataclysmic event would affect every person differently. They would then grieve so differently. Like life, living and laughter, every person does it in their own individual way.

I suspect mine would involve swimming. In fact I’m positive. It’s the only way I keep myself afloat…

Music for this week? Of course…

This thought crossed my mind over the weekend when I attended a course and as the woman who sat next to me spoke, I envied her confidence, her incredible life and how she copes on her own after a fairly tumultuous existence. She was a ray of sunshine, a sunflower and I came home each day of the course feeling energised by her enthusiasm, her humour and her downright niceness.

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She asked me what I do with myself and I could feel that shrinking back into the chair sensation, not wanting to say because I don’t want to be perceived as… what? I have no idea… And then another friend on the course mentioned I was a writer and so I girded myself and explained. But I always feel embarrassed about it. It’s never that I’m ashamed of my writing, far from it. But I don’t like speaking aloud about it. Why? Oh golly, I have no idea. Hiding lights behind bushels and things? I honestly don’t know.

It’s different talking here on Substack. There’s a degree of anonymity, I suppose, because its not face to face, and I can draw a line in the sand with how much I want to divulge, or not. Anyway, my new acquaintance and I continued to talk and she found out I danced, wild swam, stitched hearts and other things, and painted. But in my little girl’s mind, way back in the days of yore, I could feel a whisper and that, dear friends, is perhaps why I don’t talk much when asked what I do.

As a child, I live an exceptional Swallows and Amazons life and if I mentioned it at school, I was pilloried. Perhaps with envy, who knows? I was also a tubby kid and experienced too much bullying and so there’s always been part of me that’s wanted to justify myself, and part of me that’s wanted to hide. Part of me too that has been driven by that childhood anxiety.

Then as a wife and with two young children on the ground, I used to attend various swish-o functions with my husband through his career. I remember one dinner in particular, superb food, and arty-farty glitterati in attendance. It was the age of women breaking out, climbing ladders to break that glass ceiling and I was asked what I did. All eyes drifted to me – an awful spotlight, my heart pounded and then I thought, ‘Bugger it.’ And so, coiffed and with rather nice make-up and dressed in a beautiful silk skirt and shirt, I added the thought, ‘I will hold my own…’ Swallowing, I said, ‘I’m a stay-at-home mum. Best time of my life.’ And do you know, I meant it. My two children were gorgeous – my son, 2, my daughter 7. She used to run out of school at the end of the day and crush me in such a hug. What glass ceiling is better than that? But back at the dinner-party, mouths stretched linear, eyes glazed over and conversation moved on. I found myself talking to a French-Australian artist, a famous name with a cherubic face reminiscent of the work she painted, and she was so funny and interesting, that she made the night for me. I never forgot her. I forgot everyone else but never forgot the anxiety prior to my fight-or-flight statement at that dinner.

So there’s all that rattling round inside – which is why I love solitude and quiet and doing my own thing. I don’t have to justify it to anyone, I’m happy doing what I do. But apart from this newsletter, I really never talk to anyone much about what I do. Would they be interested anyway? And finally, in my seventies I’m beginning to realise that’s okay.

Took time to get there, didn’t I?

Other things:

There’s been no swimming sadly. We’ve had a week of swells and waves and that’s a red flag for me. But the good news is that the swells preceded a southeasterly weather system which traditionally brings rain to our coast. We had thought maybe 5 mls, 15 if the Gods were smiling. But we got 78 mls – 3 inches! Because the rocky gorge surrounding the district dams has little soil, the rain flowed off the boulders and the primary and secondary dams are now overflowing. If there’s a negative, it’s that silt from further up the catchment is now flowing down the river and out into the bay and so my swimming beach is brown.

But it’s as it must be. We needed the rain and the sea will clean rapidly over the next couple of weeks and then I’m back into the chilled water, doing my best jellyfish interpretation and maybe some freestyle if I’m brave enough to put my head under. But rain we have had and golly we’re happy!

(Beautiful AAAA merino wool from Camden Farm)

Fortunate then that we finished shearing literally hours before the rains came. The sheep are robust and in excellent condition, thanks to our son’s sheep husbandry and the weather is mild, with no wind. So they coped brilliantly with the lack of fleece and with pregnancy. As long as they had full bellies – lucerne hay and barley grain – happy as pigs in mud.

I was very privileged this last weekend to attend a stitching workshop where we learned about the Bayeux Tapestry and the particular stitch that most medieval embroiderers used. We stitched a ship based on an 800 AD rendition within Aachen Cathedral. For 7 historical fiction novels, I’ve talked of women sitting in solars embroidering and this is the stitch they would have used.

There was a moment, where we were listening to a Hildegarde von Bingen chant

We contemporary women were silent as needles plied, and I closed my eyes to see Soeur Cecile or maybe it was Ysabel, Gisborne’s ladywife, stitching, heads bowed over the linens or silks that came from Gisborne’s trading house. Fresh images, so clear, and I realised I look forward to returning to that 12^th century world next year with The Oblate.

I was supposed to attend a session of the inaugural literary festival here on the island this week. But we had been busy and I was too tired and stiff to use my ticket. Instead, we walked the Pupsicle in a night-time river fog drifting down the Derwent River. I’ve never been in such atmosphere as the brume masked the lights and shapes of the eastern shore. A phantom fuel tanker hooted its way past the Garrow Light and the Pilot’s Boat was barely discernible apart from hazy port and starboard lights and a thrumming motor that was muzzled by the layers of mist. A longhaired dachshund and its owner appeared out of the gloom and the dogs greeted each other civilly as we exchanged pleasantries and oohed and aahed over the unusual night.

This new outdoor experience beat the literary session hands down. Will I regret that I missed mingling with more literati? Maybe. Most likely not. Perhaps I’m not really a writer after all.

I’m reading a beautiful book currently - a keep-on-the-shelves-forever kind of book. Kathleen Hart crossed my bows as https://substack.com/@poshpedlar and her daily life in the Machars of Scotland fanned the fires of my own coastal life. But I discovered very quickly that Kathleen is far more doughty than I. To survive as she has done, to have created the life she has as she crawled from under the worst odds, I dare you to read this and not be inspired. What a beautiful little community she inhabits. I just want the friend who watches over her as she wild swims to bring me a hot toddy and some shortbread as well!

Back to perception again – my life feels so limited compared to PoshPedlar’s. For sure, I believe life is short and that we must make the most of every moment of every day and if that is all that Posh and I have in common, then it must surely be enough. Don’t you think?

No music this week. Instead, a delightful short movie – about shearing and even fogs and rains of a sort. It all depends on your perception, I suppose…

Carting water through the drought.

My husband has temporarily (we hope) redirected used household water into a child’s wading pool and thus daily, we fill buckets and watering cans and hydrate our garden.

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6mls of rain fell the other evening, and the garden beds soaked it up but as to our water supply behind the local dam and which waters Orford and the town of Triabunna, the level continues to drop, and we wonder what will happen because one can see bedrock here and there.

My husband heard about a desalination pod currently moored off one of our beaches and he researched the detail. This is what we need, then we could surely reverse-pump potable water up the existing pipes and back into the dam. To me it’s logical but God knows what science and government bureaucracy thinks.

I spend time in my friend Willie’s garden before she leaves for the city. The nasturtiums are wildly enthusiastic, the white lilies are just finishing. And I detect a feeling in my friend that she doesn’t want to leave. I can empathise. I feel the same every time I must leave the coast. So does the Womble – his amber eyes deepen and he becomes maudlin – ‘Why must we leave?’ And for the duration of his time in the city, he is the living embodiment of canine hiraeth.

I find the need to wander in our small little city garden. The terracotta tubs I filled are still virgin-like, but I check every day to see if there’s any sign of growth therein. Yes, I do believe some Tête a Tête’s might be peaking above the soil. Maybe even one or two of the rare Galanthus that Willie gave me. But weeks yet before flowering – they are spring blossoms after all. But I don’t mind. The little garden has such extraordinary power. I just look at it and feel soothed, taking a small video for Instagram.

‘I like gardening – it’s a place where I find myself when I need to lose myself…’ (Alice Sebold).

Other things:

Watched the most delightful series on The Shetland Islands and it occurs to me how similar island mentalities are. So many Shetlanders are content with their islands, with their lifestyle, maybe even the remove from the rest of the world. It’s the same with many residents in Tasmania, myself amongst them. Perhaps in one’s seventies, one finds contentment in anchoring one’s feet in the soil, in the bush, in the sand; golly, even in the water! There are those who have travelled and seen the world and are happy to sink back into the quietness of the island’s nooks and crannies and I empathise. Our mountains and coasts are extremely rugged, but Shetland’s coasts seem even more raw. In each place, when the sea turns angry, it is absolutely awesome and I want to learn how to paint angry seas. That power!

(by Janet Kerr, Shetland artist)

Also watching Roots, the twice-monthly visual podcast by Jo Wiley for the Royal Horticultural Society. It’s wonderful – thus far have watched Monty Don but I can look forward to Dame Judi Dench, Richard E Grant, Dame Mary Berry and many other gardeners.

Also Travels with Agatha Christie and Sir David Suchet. Itself a fascinating journey through the end of the British Empire when Agatha Christie travelled on a government mission for The Great Exhibition. What a lovely man Suchet is and how the name Hercule Poirot rolls of his tongue. A beautiful voice and glorious smile! I look up and see he is in Hobart sailing on the Governor’s boat, The Egeria. Later, and following in Agatha’s footsteps, he tours into our highlands to see what was then the first hydro-electric power station in the empire. Indeed, it’s well-known that Tasmania runs on hydro-electric power, but with newer and more sustainable wind and wave models appearing. Because did we ever think we would have less and less rain in the highlands? I doubt it back in the day.

In addition, this great series indirectly becomes a mouthpiece for First Nations in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada. It’s handled in a delicate, respectful and quite emotional way. 11/10. (I am spurred on to read Christie’s entire crime backlist.)

Ballet class after a two week injury-induced break. The quad is not too bad, but the left foot ligaments are still tender which made demi-pointe a little uncomfortable. But we all laughed a lot as we struggled with our two left feet whilst Lisa, our teacher, broke her toe in class the week before, so I have nothing to complain about.

And just between us, I’m distraught that Britbox is not streaming the Chelsea Flower Show for 2026. Those outside of Australia can upgrade to Britbox Premier of course and watch it quite happily, but Premier is not offered in Australia. It seems I must trawl Youtube for whatever I can find. Shame on Britbox! And thank heaven for Instagram where I have indulged in reel after reel from Chelsea with no upgrading required!

So in between town appointments and commitments this week, I sit in the slanting sunbeams of the tiny town garden. There’s limited low sun in the garden now. Whilst the house itself is filled with light, it shields most of the pocket handkerchief lawn, and the bottom terrace sits in shade – which is why its planted with tree ferns and shade plants. However, shade or not, Monty Don says there is always beauty in gardens, and he is a person who suffers SAD’s through the winter months. He keeps busy, saying one works through the seasons with one’s plants because one can count on the seasons turning without fail, and that predictability provides us with perennial hope.

I love winter – the cool crispness, the form of bare trees, the excitement of pregnant garden beds and tubs, and the chance to try once again to get it right…

Earthly delights indeed…

Music this week? In my time I’ve been a huge John Denver fan. This sweet little one fits the bill!

The boards at the cottage gleam – a satin glow since we had them polished last week.

But they needed to be cossetted and covered for up to 10 days. Which is why we stayed in the city for a few days. When we returned, we laid groundsheets and old towels for another couple of days hardening which our Womble Dog thought was wonderful as he pulled up all the tape that was used to join one cover to the next to stop them moving as we walked across.

All was going swimmingly (this term has relevance, stay with me), until I walked in from outside, the groundsheet slid forward beneath my feet and I fell. Legs flew east and west along with the bowl of berries I had just picked and an empty black bucket I was carrying to the kitchen. One leg bent back under my full weight, ankle and toes crunched under my buttock. The other slid forward – an inelegant split as I landed on a right wrist bent backward.

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I lay for a moment, waiting for the pain of a snapped tendon or three. Been there, done that. My husband, who is currently off-balance with vestibular neuritis, wanted to lift me and I declared for him to take care of himself and his balance and leave me where I was. Eventually, I sat up, nauseous and hurting and then rolled onto my knees. He kindly brought me an icepack for the ankle and toes, and I limped to the sunlounge on the patio where the Womble joined me, cuddling up close as if his warmth could help.

Nothing seemed broken apart from my spirit. I suspected shock – and yes, it came. But surely nothing that cold water immersion couldn’t ease. So I pulled on Mum’s old red swimsuit (it was Mother’s Day after all), slipped on a neoprene jacket and took my neoprene gloves to the beach.

I sucked in a breath as I walked in, breaking the meninscus that is the calm surface of the water. The depths were clear – ice blue with rippled white sand beneath. The seabreeze had snuffled to nothing and I just willed the sea to take away my aches and soothe my spirit. I hung weightless, all cares gone, pain dulled to deep-freeze numbness, or so it felt, and stared into the lapiz sky. I wallowed, a septuagenarian jelly fish, for about 15 minutes, bare legs raw and chilled, feet apparently non-existent. All I wanted was for dolphins to arrive, to have fish floating round my legs, but perhaps they understood that almost winter-May is a time to wander further afield. Above me, a fairy tern swept along the foreshore before diving, catching and then streaming up like an elegant white rocket.

I thought of this week’s salutes to David Attenborough, who is rightly our hero, and how much he lauds the sea’s value. As I floated, every fibre of my being agreed with him – such power, such wonder…

I limped home and dressed, goosebumped and frosted, and then sat on our bed in the late afternoon sun, electric blanket on and a hot water bottle tucked behind to warm and ease the aches. It took more than 2 hours to lift my core temperature and at best I felt tepid. But I’m convinced the cold water did the trick, halting any swelling and bruising. Of course it did! It’s the ocean after all! However, I decided no matter how perfect the day, late afternoon is not cold water swimming time.

Nor is it wise to cover the floors in groundsheets. Not when you have two olds with not much balance between us.

Just this afternoon, I discovered a massive ditch has been dug and lined with boulders to direct stormwater away from a new #Orford #WestShellyBeach development which is being prepared (and for which we currently can’t provide adequate household water and which is likely to get worse with climate change). That huge culvert empties over the edge of a shoreline bank and will run straight across the beach to our beautiful bay. I am in turns livid and sad and wonder why any of us even tried to protect our river from developers, or the bay from salmon farms when this is the kind of Don’t Care attitude that exists. Patently the owners of the new development couldn’t give a s**t that the jewel in our crown is #SpringBay in which we, our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren swim and in which there are all manner of species from squid, through seahorses, rays, sharks and many other aquatic species. I think of David Attenborough and wonder what he would do and can almost feel his hand on my shoulder. I wonder if I have the energy now to battle for the environment against grubby moneymakers and nefarious local and state government like I did twice before. Hmm… )

Other things:

No ballet class this week because of a torn thigh muscle, product of the splits. May have to have a couple of private lessons after I get the all-clear so that I can catch up!

But walking is permitted, so we have been tramping the coastline, shell-seeking, breathing deep and just loving the impossibly blue skies and water. I’ve been trying to catch that blue in two different watercolours and it looks almost twee.

Watercolour hasn’t been my friend this week. My first effort ended with an accidental drop of neutral tint as I washed the paper and which would not budge, no matter what. In the end, I threw that precious 300 gsm sheet away. The next one has been washed and sits with its first elements drying. I’ve got the vision but reality is a whole other thing. King Charles paints softly tended landscapes and it’s my dream to paint in that gently rendered style, but we will see…

And then there was Mother’s Day…

Mother’s Day in my own family was considered an irrelevant day – Mum always said that love and respect should be given to mothers every day and that she wanted no part of the commercial hoopla. She also believed that it was a day that excluded all those who weren’t mums for whatever reason. A wise point which has even more relevance in these days of opting out of parenthood or being unable to conceive.

I share my mother’s views and on Mother’s Day, I relished the lack of weekenders around as my little fella and I walked the deserted beach and swam. Other mothers must all have been at restaurants and big family lunches and so the emptiness made our day perfection.

I don’t want my adult children to feel they must follow some commercial tradition. I’m a lucky mum – not a day goes past that I don’t receive a call enquiring if I’m okay. That matters a billion times more than bunches of expensive flowers, lunches, and gifts that cost an arm and a leg. Let my offspring save their money for the future – it’s not an easy world in which to live and it may well get worse. It’s enough that they care in ways with much more meaning.

Watched with joy:

1. The Assembly Australia on ABCiView. Blockbuster questions, especially from Silas.

2. Monty Don’s Spanish Gardens. So impressive in scope, in beauty and we had no idea that Spain had such dedication to ‘green’ urban environments. Green space on steroids to which I say wake up Australia, wake up Tasmania and for heaven’s sake, wake up Hobart!

From my point of view, Monty Don could read an Ikea flat pack plan in his dulcet tones, and I would listen to him till the cows came home. On another point entirely, am loving the Insta ads for Barbour that he’s currently doing.

3. Landscape Artist of the Year UK. So inspiring and I’m learning such technique although thus far, no artist is using watercolour…

Favourite reads thus far this month:

1. Benet Brandreth The Spy of Venice. His interpretation of William Shakespeare is wicked and unconventional!

2. Dee Macdonald’s Murder in the Scottish Highlands – the first in a cosy detective series. Enjoyable.

3. Robert Thorogood’s Murder on the Marlow Belle – part of the Marlow Murder club series. (TV series as well, starring Samantha Bond as Judith Potts) Good fun, but not at all keen on the narrator.

I’m much warmer now. There’s something about the rug my Mum crocheted for me. That and a handful of Cadbury’s chocolate that my little dog gave me for Mother’s Day. I told him to save his pocket money but he obviously didn’t listen. Not complaining of course…

Music for today?

A little video that speaks of warmth, of coastal living and… of mothers.

I worry about nature when it has been this warm. We’ve always been known as a temperate state – rain falls, we have four seasons and life is pretty tickety-boo.

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But not this year. This year the bees are tired and there’s little to sustain them, all wildlife is hungry and the birds are very happy with the birdfeeders and water-bowls in the garden. Some species of birds seem to be pairing up, and of course the garden is all over the place with strappy bulb leaves well out of the ground and spring 5 months away.

*I spend time talking. With the ladies at the small supermarket and we chat about the lack of rain and what it might mean for our coast. Such lovely women, always ready for a laugh. The kind of people I suspect one could rely on if one needed. Our little area has a choir, table tennis, a cold-water swimming group, an art group, a men’s shed, a small maritime museum, taichi, yoga, a gym, a movie theatre in the local hall, and a boat club all run by volunteers. Then there’s the regular things: tennis, bowls and golf. (Sadly, no ballet…) One could be busy all day if one wanted. But then when would I walk with the Womble? Or garden, swim in still water (the swim group swims at a surf beach), cook, paint and most importantly write? Maybe a gentleman I know who writes poetry and myself should start up a writer’s group and called it Inkblotters or somesuch.

I talk with the lady across the road who runs small holiday units, to the painter in the next street called Blue and whom our dog adores. To my brother who I see at the beach walking his kelpie and exercising his own knees after their double replacement. I talk with a petite octogenarian who is recovering from a fall and has four stitches in her head but which didn’t stop her planting this year’s garlic. I talk with far more folk than I ever talk with in the city. People smile and make time to pass the time.

But more than anything, I talk to my friend, Vita’s and Baci’s mum. Most often we sit on the verandah on the bright cane furniture, our bottoms nestled in thick down-filled Marrimekko cushions, the afternoon sun hot where we sit sheltered from the nor’easterly blowing in from the ocean. As the waves break and the sea breathes, we drink pomegranate tea from fine blue and white bone china cups and saucers, and she debates moving back to town with the closing in of the days. I will miss her, the Womble will miss Vita and Baci and our visits will be restricted to her city garden. I will need to plan and organise those for our short times in town. The coast runs to its own schedule, spontaneity is the key.

LATER: *We’re in town for a few days this week, just as the weather freefalls from high twenties to single figures (Brrr!).

I welcome the time to spend in the garden where the water is more plentiful. I pot up all my newly-arrived bulbs, transplant young hellebores that were struggling with the drought on the coast. Here, in a bucket and receiving water regularly before we transplanted them, they had already begun to shoot. We’ll fill the little garden with good soil and bed it down with lucerne hay.

That has as much to do with muddy paw prevention, as feeding the garden with precious nitrogen. I’ve plant winter annuals in French blues, whites and blacks. All for a touch of softness and life, knowing on the couple of days a week that I come to the city for ballet class, I can gaze at green, at growth and colour and indulge my love for this special little space.

You know, a garden never gets old. It regenerates every season, grows, stretches, puts forth roots, shoots and leaves in a never-ending cycle and I wonder if it’s why so many of us drift toward gardening as we age. It gives us confidence and hope.

*I’ve seen many elders speaking on social media and in the press about the invisibility of old age and I’ve never really taken much notice because in a world like mine – mostly introverted and quiet – invisibility is neither here nor there.

But I had cause to wonder this last week when elderly physical pain was mentioned and it was glossed over by those who should know better, or else ignored entirely. The assumption appeared to be that elders needed to suck it up because they’re lucky to be here anyway. My mouth assumed a prune shape and I bit my tongue.

I went for a walk with my dog and seethed a little, before pulling on the shreds of my equanimity cloak. But in between those shreds was the whisper of a thought: Their turn will come. As sure as night follows day. Because one thing is for sure, everybody ages, everybody becomes old. I guess some just do it more gracefully and kindly than others.

Music for this week? Not really music, but a beautiful video on ageing by Kelly Boesch. It speaks to my soul.

I wonder, does it speak to yours?

I think I may have used up everything from the Chalice of Eloquence when, blinded by the sun, I walked into the back of my husband’s ute today. With blood dripping, I emptied the Chalice - fulsomely. So please excuse content on Knots this week, it may lack a certain amount of fluency.

I did have success over the last week in not watching any sort of global news anywhere, either on TV or electronic media and one would think that would create space for eloquence to re-seed, but it’s not to be. Except perhaps in a page or two of Phoebe’s Prime.

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We enter Stage Three water restrictions on our patch of coast. Everything is bleached, and in the pastures of those farmers not on irrigation – stark, dusty brown with no grass, the waterholes almost empty and stock waiting at gateways for their daily feed.

Here on the coast, it’s been maybe 20 years since we last had to save bathroom and kitchen water to bucket round the garden. I was much younger and carting water was easier. Now I have arthritis in my shoulders, spine and sternum (pretty well everywhere really) and I can’t say I’m looking forward to this next however-long.

But I love the garden and if I do nothing else this winter (or at least until it rains) I will try to keep it going. We haven’t had meaningful rain for perhaps 8+ months, only scouring winds and warm days. Even today, the 1st of May, it is a record temperature of 26, not recorded for over 100 years.

So – we’re allowed to hand-water from 6-8 AM and 8-10PM every second day. Our shed is filled with soil-wetting products, with glass demijohns which we fill with water, pierce the lids and upend everywhere. We have more hay for mulching, and once the trees have dropped their leaves, there’s composted soil to cart everywhere.

Yes, it’s dry and we face a tough time. But I can still dream, plan and be excited for the future – for when it does rain. That’s what gardening does! It’s never really over in nature. There’s always something to do, something to see, something to plan. This week, I found a valiant little autumn crocus battling away and the potted fritillaria are a short millimetre above the soil. Truly, gardens are a natural way to remain positive. Thus we plan our glasshouse, I decide what to pot up against the odds and I design (?) my bug hotel. I’m still able to be inspired!

Other things:

*Apart from reading about drought-proofing my garden and planning for better times, I find my lost Liberty hanky stuffed deep in a pair of jeans I haven’t worn for a couple of weeks. I also pick up the second pair of glasses frames to place in my ‘in case’ drawer. And we drive to the Channel nursery again (so much greener than our southeast), to pick up more drought-tolerant plants. We pull over so that I can record the polka-dotted paddock and on seeing the image, my son decides it’s a perfect thing for lambing - warm patches of higher, thicker grass in the paddocks and in which lambs can shelter. Unfortunately this year, the grass is too short to slash because of the drought.

On to ballet class. Such a hard class this week, my mind stretching to capacity. We were doing a piece in the centre which involved half-turns in a sequence – a very elegant movement and done swiftly, it looks beautiful. But even a half turn for me is a half-turn too far and I stagger and almost fall. This annoys me. So I move to the back bar and have the security of the support. I’m hoping that eventually, my brain and the left vestibular nerve will connect (the right vestibular is beyond redemption), and I’ll be able to complete the move more gracefully.

Then there is a quick pas de bourée with delicate pointed feet; oh, and arms in the correct position. Ah, so much to remember and coordinate. Perhaps you think that I should know all this. But this class is the most advanced I’ve ever done, we’re learning more detailed routines and completion of each movement requires much more physical eloquence, shall we say. And so I must, as Shane Wuerthner decrees, ‘Practice. For Many years.’

A beach walk, fossicking for kelp, other seaweeds, a handful of shells. Sea urchins and starfish, a dead cormorant, and the skull of a gull. Some things I leave at the shore, some I bring home to paint because the coast is such an enigma – life and death within metres of each other. I read of the brutal beauty of coastlines and of nature this week – it was like looking through a glass darkly.

between two seas

there is tenderness

It is the season of the tender and the terrible; a new-born lamb wobbles in the morning sun, a baby rabbit is swallowed whole by a gull, a skylark sings his heart out, birds court and frolic and fight in every corner of the island while a female starling lines her nest with wool, while a male white-fronted goose chases a female who does not want to mate…

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3 months ago · 96 likes · 28 comments · rebecca hooper

And so while my small finds are drying and de-smelling in the outside air, I decide to paint the last of our berries.

There were three or four washes used and as I watched the pigment settle and then begin to fade, it spoke of medieval alchemy, even magic. It’s such a curious, alluring paint that puts this beginner student right in her place and I hear the words ‘practice makes perfect' and wonder if Shane Wuerthner just paraphrased.

This week, while watching The Assembly – a touching, revealing and heartfelt programme with neurodivergent adults studying to be journalists - I hear of a young autistic man who also suffers from Tourette’s. In order to counter his stuttering, he set himself the task of reading and linking every word in the OED. His persistence is a lesson, especially when you hear him speak clearly and without pause.

Perhaps if I practice with words more, I too shall become as articulate.

Music for this week? A track called Eloquent - of course. By my favourite master of AI: Kelly Boesch.

As the world rolls toward more trouble, tentatively rolls away and then rolls forward again, and life has its ups and downs, I decided I had to seek the good … the gentle. I may be putting my head in the sand but this week, I actually don’t care.

Best of all has been the arrival of my replacement glasses. When I slipped them on in the shop, it felt right. The kind of right one feels when one puts on favourite jeans or a colour that suits. The kind of right when a long bath is heaven or one’s little dog does crazy zoomies when one comes back from the city.

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By the way, I did purchase the last remaining pair in Australia to stash away because I can’t ignore the fact that I may be reaching the forgetful stage. The old glasses haven’t turned up… and I’ve lost my super-favourite Liberty hankie. The navy blue one with blue and yellow flowers!

The week has become warmer. Normally, as we approach ANZAC Day , the weather cools rapidly but at the moment it’s mild and in the middle of the day I wear short-sleeves and shorts. It would be even lovelier with some consistent rain. But the bonus is that the soil is still warm, so that with a little bit of irrigation, things will grow. That said, we begin Stage Three water restrictions here on the coast on Monday. There’s nowhere to go after that. So I won’t plant out the coastal tubs with bulbs and annuals this year. Our water entitlement plus saved bathroom and laundry water will be used entirely for the existing plants, shrubs and trees. But it will rain one day… I’m sure.

The gardens are still wonderful to grub around in. There’s no colour and I’m gradually doing the big cutback, but I now get to see last year’s framework of the garden, find out what needs doing. Thus we decide we must bring in ute-loads of composted soil so the gardens can perk up. Just like we women do with a spoonful of powdered collagen in our tea (I haven’t tried that yet, have you?). Or if you’re like me, some porridge, yoghurt and honey.

I spent an age removing twitch and a host of dandelions from the flower meadow patch I planted behind the windbreak on the coast. It’s to encourage insects, mainly bees, to our garden. And like Jennifer Granville

Jenny's Folly

No Glamour, Just Graft

Short and sweet-ish this week. I can’t offer you a week full of London culture and glamour (that’s ironic btw), nor a week full of grandparenting and travel, this week has been almost entirely slogging in the garden, slogging over my audio book, slogging over mistakes I’ve made in publishing and slogging over my…

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3 months ago · 13 likes · 6 comments · Jennifer Granville

I’d like to have a bug hotel fixed to the windbreak above the wild meadow. And don’t laugh but my wild meadow only measures approximately 12 feet by 4 feet. Probably good in this drought.

I motored by the side of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel to a favourite nursery this week, ostensibly to collect some grasses and some lime green euphorbia. The trees flowed like melted toffee, like fluid amber, like blackcurrant or raspberry cordial essence. Autumn has arrived, and in some places it’s breathtaking. Even the pasture further away from our dry southeast was a little greener.

I passed the most beautiful vineyard – the house, the vines, the gardens – and on the other side of the road, the calm waters of Trial Bay and an artfully slashed paddock – large polka dots! As if a spacecraft had hovered here and there.

That drive, our own beach, the dog and two swims were some of my saviours this week. The emptiness of our coast, the chill of the water and my hairy little fella. Also Kana Chan’s perfectly gentle post on Substack.

Tending Gardens by Kana

Doyō: Seasonal In-Between's

Happy Earth Day, earthlings…

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3 months ago · 58 likes · 9 comments · Kana Chan

The sound of a small shower of rain on the roof - anything’s better than nothing. Harold’s Instagram which always soothes me every time I watch the reels.

The arrival of Walden by Henry David Thoreau – it’s a very dense narrative, not at all what I was expecting, so I don’t know how I’ll go despite his obvious wisdom…

Then there was a postcard from Martha, with a reassuring note about Act III. In short, she loved it! One of the things I also took to heart this week was the idea that ‘this too shall pass’. We all need to believe this as the world flips this way and that. Sometimes I think it’s like a party balloon that flies around the room expelling air, so erratic (and rudely noisy) are the flips…

Another thing – listened to an interview on ABC Radio National with a South African wildlife photographer and environmentalist. He said that it would cost a $1billion pa to successfully protect every single national park on the African continent – all those magnificent (and threatened) species. So what does the world do? It turns its back on the needs of our planet and sends a multi-billion dollar rocket to the far-side of the moon. Beggars belief.

On the bright side, did you know that it’s possible to individually recognise 97% of lions by their whisker patterns? No, neither did I. I was telling my son, and he said it’s the same with humpback whales. Their barnacle patterns are uniquely identifiable. What things I’m learning this week and how can we not want to protect our unique home?

Further to the good, I finished Phoebe’s chapter and I’m happy. It’s Annie’s chapter now and she’s researching drug crime with a solicitor friend because she thinks she’s found the plot of her new novel:

And here she was, four years later, battle-scarred but still living a valued life. It had to be enough, despite the lack of self-belief. So often she lived with Imposter Syndrome. That she was a writer, a published writer, a writer whose books sold. She, Annie Tremayne! And there was a thing. Her agent and the publisher wanted to release the new novels under a different name. New genre, new appendage – C.A. Tremayne, because in truth, her full name was Charlotte Anne Tremayne but she’d only ever been known as Annie.

To change her name felt odd. As if she was almost farewelling the part of her writing life, the enormous part, that she’d shared with Alex. Of course, she knew such an attitude was all in her head, that it mattered not one jot. But, she thought, that was so typical of her emotions.

‘God, Annie!’ she muttered as she stared up at the flickering starlight, ‘Get a grip! It’s a new genre, a new book. Nothing more nor less!’

Her publishers had signed her for two books in the new genre and they obviously had faith in her to deliver. Cold air cut through her breath, her chilled nose threatened to drip, her beanie insulated her ears and her fingers were warm in cashmere gloves that Finn had sent from Copenhagen. All the while, her little dog trit-trotted in front of her, and along the bike track the subtle sound of waves stroked the beach, so that when she opened her gate and walked along the path and into the warmth of her house, she had resumed her sense of direction and proportion.

She had a list of things to do. A basic character guide and the loose vestige of a plot. All would be well…

Wouldn’t it?

Music for this week? It just has to be this to match with the re-imagined title of the post:

Gosh, I’d prefer to think on nice things, wouldn’t you?

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*Dogs – specifically El Puppo and his lover! They are a symbol of all things joyful - they know nothing of uncalled-for wars and a crashing global economy. The embodiment of the saying Ignorance is Bliss. They just eat, play, love. And it’s not all about bonking, you know. There’s zoomies and wrestling, hunting and lying together in the sun. Rather nice really. But as I have said before, it’s as well Vita is spayed…

*Walking the beaches. The tides have been spectacularly low which gives more distance for walking and then yields finds like Chinese fingernail shells and sea slugs like peeled bananas.

I watched a black cormorant today. I walked on the damp sand of the riverbank and the bird looked at me, deciding I think, that I was disturbing its feeding. It raised itself so that it could run along the surface of the water – flack, flack, flack, before lifting into the air and circling to settle back in the water behind Pup and I. What a stupendous bird – to float, to dive gracefully, to swim beneath the sea, then to walk on water and fly. How insignificant we humans really are…

*I swam for the first time in three weeks after some freezing nights and howling winds. There’s a bite to the water as it vacillates between 12 and 15 degrees Celsius, creating graphic white fingers as the Raynaud’s kicks in, along with a perishing ache in an ankle that needs orthopaedic work. But the water is developing that exceptional winter clarity and I felt ‘high’ for the rest of that day after the cold immersion. Whilst in summer I can pretend to be a cormorant, in cold water I tend to float here and there. Probably more jellyfish than cormorant.

*Painting this week was mildly successful. I painted an A4 riverscape with reflections. One of my masking agents worked immoderately and left me with nowhere to go to show the detail of two white yachts and a bridge. The white gel pen had run dry and so I quit while I was ahead, on the understanding that moving to A4 from a pocket travel pad was not as daunting as I’d imagined. I collected another gel pen during the weekly city trip.

*On a country road walk today, we met a young Japanese tourist complete with massive backpack and we chatted. We had noticed he kept checking his phone as he walked toward us and in the course of conversation, he mentioned his isolated destination for today, and then his planned itinerary. We are concerned his phone GPS is giving him the wrong road route to make sure he gets back to the airport by Monday for his return to Japan. However, we flagged down an acquaintance with a ute and Jim loaded said tourist in the tray (his front seat was filled with groceries) and they departed with the our Japanese friend chortling away at the rough ride in the back of the ute. My husband wondered later if he should drive to Rheban, find the man and offer to drive him to the nearest intersection with the Tasman Highway. Good karma perhaps?

*Husband purchased a flatpack glasshouse which was supposed to be marvellous! I’ve wanted a glasshouse for ages but the flatpack is not really like the one in my imagination.

I wanted the romance of a white English style where I could have a chair and could pretend I was a famous writer or gardener.

The flatpack was a total failure for our windy garden with one reviewer saying if the wife was involved with putting it together, to have a divorce lawyer close by! We will go back to the drawing board and hopefully I can be involved in choosing a design. We do want to start off seeds and early veg under cover ASAP. We hope this will help with our family’s cost of living owing to the war as supermarket prices surge. Life really is a work in progress, isn’t it? And in any case, we are donating the failed glasshouse kit to the local Mens Shed who think they can make it work for someone who wants to grow their own veg.

*Managed to find a rather nice oyster-coloured puffa-jacket for city walking. A little more upmarket than the coastal taupe jacket that the pup’s claw ripped last year and which I had to embroider so the stuffing didn’t leak out as I trotted along. It’s still wearable for windy beaches, finding sea slugs and stargazing at night.

*Watched the last of the second series of Our Welsh Chapel Dream on Britbox and was delighted to find that a third series has been decided. It’s a gently positive show, and the couple seem so in love with each other and life, and both not afraid to cry over the littlest things. Keith Brymer Jones is famed for it. What I think is wonderful is that he has so much love for creativity and allows it to unlock his soul at any given moment with the choked ‘Brilliant!’ and then tears falling!

*Watched a fab night of Britain’s Got Talent auditions and did a Keith Brymer Jones and cried at the excellence and joy of practically everything. Such a relief from the relentless news. Isn’t it the best thing to go to bed happy and light-spirited?

*Finished listening to Dee Macdonald’s fictional romp through Europe with three outrageous characters in The Getaway Girls. Loved it! I don’t normally read such light literature but quite honestly, in this time of horrid flux it’s all I can manage.

*Still loving Rule of Three by Jennifer Granville on Kindle.

Then there have been the not so good things:

Let’s start with the specs.

Somewhere in our tiny cottage I have lost my everyday glasses. The ones I need for … life! I’ve turned the place upside down over and over again, replayed my movements like some crackly old video rippling through my head. And let’s face it, there’s not a lot of space or furniture to turn upside down. We’ve searched in sensible and not so sensible places and I’m sure if the Pup had eaten them, we would have seen the result when we bagged up the poo. But friends, there has been nothing – not a single thing. Then comes the awful need to select new frames when I was so in love with my five year old ones, because I like subtlety and moderation. Not at all up for big and bold.

But! I had a Eureka moment whilst in the bath; just like Archimedes! Next day, I rang my glasses supplier, explained my problem and asked if they could go back through my records to see what brand the glasses were and if it was at all possible to source them still. The good news is that there are still two pairs left in Australia – the bad news is that Italian company, Vanni, no longer makes that style. I ordered one pair, but should I order the remaining other, do you think? They have only gone up $A30 in 5 years. Sadly, I had to miss half my ballet class to go to the optometrist because life without daily glasses is intolerable.

*I wore red this week, along with the vibrantly red hot air balloon pendant that my daughter gave me. The colour gave me strength and purpose. Mostly I like wearing pale blues, beiges, browns and taupes, navy and creamy butter yellow. But this week, I actually saw red! That is, I saw my first petrol station closed and empty and wondered how on earth we’re going to supply farm vehicles and at what insane cost? I despised Trump all over again!

*Vaccines. OH and self have been seedy ever since, after flu and Covid shots in each arm. Still, it’s free – paid for by the federal government because we’re old. Sometimes age pays…

*Here in Australia, in Canada and elsewhere, liberal democracy is alive and well and to any who want to read about what constitutes a liberal democracy and how to maintain it, I offer this link.

I think it might prove a salient lesson to all those who want to rebuild the lost democracy of the USA and, let it be said, how to make sure it is never under assault in our own countries.

Finally, can I ask any Australians reading this, if they would mind signing the attached petition. https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN9549 Someone we know and love suffers from FND and to have the Australian federal government recognise the need for support would be such a bonus. Many thanks.

And so that’s it this week, except I commend a beautiful Substack I read – so short, simple and powerful…

Muse Mints

A Time to Chill

If you’re not ranting these days you must be living on the other side of the moon. Or on Walden Pond…

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4 months ago · 9 likes · 8 comments · Randall Tremba

Thus, I’m off to find a copy of On Walden Pond which just might become my constant for the year…

Music for this week?

As I write, I can hear a soft wave on the Front Beach and during our night walk, the sky was so infinitely black and the street lightning so absent that we sucked in our breath at the awesome breadth of the starry ceiling above us. As clear as day, putting us in our place. Do you think that those humans who don’t deserve a place at the table feel such humility when they look at the nightsky? Just a thought…

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Ten days we’ve been away and I haven’t been here to water my garden every second day as per Stage Two water restrictions. My husband calls the land ‘pinched’. Farming land, our farm too, is dry, struggling. Our garden which had freshened after a brief rainy night a couple of weeks ago, is paling to taupe, losing the promise of a green blush. The vibernum plicatum has shed most of its leaves, the nectarine tree has died. The big trees are in a harsh, forced autumn mode. Survival. Like the wallabies thumping along the streets at night as they search for grass to eat because the native bushland offers nothing. Our huge liquid ambers are now a flush of ruby, gold and deep burgundy. The Japanese maples – yellow with crispened edges. The euphemistic lawn is covered with a dessicated layer of fallen leaf.

Can I water madly tomorrow on the assumption I wasn’t here for five of my allocated watering days? Or must I take up now as I will go on, watering on ‘even’ days?

It’s so odd to have come 80 kms northeast of the city where water was readily available. The Matchbox’s pocket handkerchief lawn was rich green and we filled the ute, cutting back plants that have overly prospered with a daily drink. But here on the coast? I need to do a rain dance. We all do.

Perhaps while we’re at it, we can do a peace dance to encourage this momentary hiatus, this… ceasefire… to become a permanent where men of power learn that hubris invites karma. Just a thought…

Other things…

I told the Pup at the beginning of the week that in two more sleeps we’d be back to his favourite place. Did he understand? I’d like to think so. His joy and mine are a shared experience after all. But no. He dug around in my half-packed bag and found my new angora/merino gloves and proceeded to rampage round the house with his trophy. He gave them back nicely for a dog-choc but it proved his point. Let’s go, Mum… or else!

Easter was spent with family and food. Herb-filled fishcakes with an apple and red cabbage coleslaw recipe from my friend, Pan. Elderflower bubbles sparkling liquid gold in glasses. A dessert of vanilla gelato with Mum’s hot chocolate sauce. Picnicking with slow-cooked lamb, cheeses, chutneys, breads, hot cross buns, fresh jam, grapes.

(Perched alone as he seeks the best shot to illustrate a country stream - image taken by my daughter.)

My daughter had given her nephew, our grandson, a camera and some film and thus ensued a photographic expedition. He loves bushwalking, carefully notices the detail around him and was very deliberate about what he recorded. I hope it continues – some of the happiest and most mindful people in the world are surely nature photographers. That was such a memorable day – to see an interest budding, perhaps to grow.

And on the topic of pictures, my daughter is moving back into creative endeavour within Floating Studio again, and I really love this image she put together and which describes our family Easter Sunday with elegant subtlety.

However, I kissed goodbye to the little townhouse and sped back to the coast after ballet class. Pulling on old denim shorts, a faded navy cotton sweater and salty boatshoes, clipping the worn lead onto the Pupsicle’s harness and pootling to the river to wade in warm water as far as the ocean beach. The Pup was ecstatic. Wading, rolling in the sand, chasing common gulls. Standing with his hair streaming in the stiff seabreeze, the soft strands, all city washed and conditioned, parting and reforming to a seadog style. His black nose lifting as he tried to discern fish, bird and water scents.

He boggled with joy when we turned off the beach to visit his girlfriend, Vita, and my friend, Willie. We sat on the sunny verandah overlooking an autumnal garden as the dogs alternately bonked and wrestled (thank the stars Vita is spayed!), drinking cold Pellagrino as icecubes clinked against the glass.

I saw the further developments in Willie’s lyrical rendition of her summer native garden. But of course, winter is coming and she will return to her town garden and Vita and Baci will go with her. The pup and I shall miss them. But we will visit…

If you would allow, dear Reader, I’d like to recommend some stunning posts from this last week.

How I relate to this writing!

between two seas

universality

Skylark (30.3.26, ~8am…

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4 months ago · 85 likes · 24 comments · rebecca hooper

Then this one. Jennifer’s journey into publication, via gardens, family, the arts and London is pure delight. I can just see her sitting with me on Willie’s verandah! I’m currently reading The Rule of Three and it’s fresh, pacy and very sharp writing.

Jenny's Folly

You make the thing. Then you show up for it.

It’s been awhile since I’ve really talked about my garden – partly because it’s been cold and wet and there’s been no real incentive to step outside. But this week all that changed. As regular readers know, I am opening it for the National Garden Scheme…

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4 months ago · 13 likes · 8 comments · Jennifer Granville

Ramona Grigg who provides a very powerful list of Free Press writers in the States. People need to read the links. It’s elucidating and frightening…

Constant Commoner

Loud, Louder, Loudest

I’m sorry, I’m going to have to keep this short again. The pain in my hand is tendinitis and it’s flaring when I least want it to. I thought I might talk this into a microphone, but trust me, I’m really bad at it. I’m going to need more practice, and I need to say this now…

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4 months ago · 46 likes · 15 comments · Ramona Grigg

And this! Wow!

A Letter From A Maritimer

HOW DARE YOU!

Yesterday, the President of the United States threatened to erase a civilization…

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4 months ago · 101 likes · 20 comments · A Letter from a Maritimer

Finally, finally, my enduring gratitude to Cindy Hattersley, American interior designer, writer and stylist, for featuring me and my obscure life on her most recent post. I attach links and it should be noted that when I saw the montage with music on Insta, I felt like a movie star!

Blog: https://cindyhattersleydesign.com/my-readers-are-more-interesting-than-me-meet-author-farmer-prue-batten/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CindyHattersleyDesignBlog

Instagram:

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/chattersley/

Despite flaws and freckles and heaven knows what, I leave you with our music for the week. Something calmly surreal from the inimitable Kelly Boesch. Those colours!

I’m supposed to be writing a piece to attract interest and hold your attention!

Really?

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But how hard it is to think after ballet class. Honestly, we work our little derrières off. But lest you think ‘Why the hell does she do it then?’, I love it. It’s extremely difficult to explain to folk who don’t know of the level of concentration required to keep the feet, legs, hands, arms and torso in sync and flowing. Trust me, it’s a lot.

Your face must always look as if you are enjoying yourself. And despite it all we are! We turn up the following week, so that speaks volumes, and what we’re noticing is that the work we’re doing seems up quite a notch on what we used to do which is in itself thrilling and challenging and we want to meet those challenges head-on.

( These are the feet of our graceful and elegant teacher, Lisa, showing us an intricate tendu set.)

What I find awe-inspiring is that our whole class is late 60’s-mid to late seventies in age. Amongst us, there are hip, knee, ankle, back, tendon, balance and essential tremor issues. Some of us have had brain tumours, double jaw replacements, hip ops, knee replacements and bowel reconstructions. Golly, all hail to the medical profession! But the general philosophy amongst us seems to be Use it, as they say, or lose it.

So here I am, post-class, feet up on the couch, looking out at the sky and wondering on life.

We had planned to rest our veg garden through the winter, but it may need to be planted out for economy’s sake. We still have to fill up farm vehicles with diesel fuel, and I do wonder if the little Orange Man with the Small Hands and his cronies have thought how the cost of fuel will be have to be passed on by food growers to the consumers everywhere across the globe. Farmers cannot possibly absorb this into their weekly budgets – trust me, my family farms! Food will be expensive! I’m sure you’re seeing it in your weekly shopping trips. And this despite the fact that the fuel excise in Australia has been frozen for the next three months.

I wish my parents were still alive to tell us how they lived during and post WWII. Phrases come to mind: tighten the purse strings, tighten the belt, live within means. And above all, Keep Calm and Carry On. My parents always grew their own veg and fruit, and Mum preserved masses of food for the pantry, made her own jams, sauces, pickles and chutneys. I wore homemade clothing when I was young – lucky that Mum was such a beautiful garment-maker. I wore hand-knitted jumpers and cardigans. It was only later, after economies had settled in the fifties and the comfortable sixties eased us into the beneficent seventies that Baby Boomers hit their straps and became the fortunate generation. How many of you remember how lucky we were?

I commented to my husband on the irony of growing up in the 1950’s with parents who still lived in the straitened post-war style and here we are at the end of our lives, having to face something similar. Because every commentator from here to the UK and the EU is saying even if the wretched war was to finish tomorrow, global economies will suffer for an unforeseeable amount of time.

You know, once we used to talk of Faustian attributes (…Faustian…refers to a deal or pact where someone sacrifices their moral integrity, spiritual values, or soul for worldly gains like power, knowledge, or wealth. It implies a dangerous trade-off with inevitable, ruinous consequences, rooted in the German legend of Faust who sold his soul to the devil – Wikipedia). I think Faustian has been replaced by Trumpian, don’t you?

Other things:

*How quickly the nights have darkened as we speed toward the end of daylight saving. As we walked along a back road surrounded by the sentinel stands of crackling, dry eucalypts, and carpets of copper-toned and dessicated bracken fern, strips of shed bark lay across the ground like frivolously tossed ribbons. Our little Womble was en-garde, his rough Jack Russell coat gleaming in the darkening dusk, his bannerol tail quivering as a dormant hunting streak began to vibrate through his young body. To the right and the left were the thump-thumps of unseen wallabies, crashing through the high stands of bracken. Somewhere further up the hill, a lone kookaburra, knowing he was the king of the bush, laughed at the paltry humans and their even more paltry little dog. We were specks of dust below him in his high-above world.

*My husband had to use his head torch for the first time since October and it reminded me that despite the summer heat this week, winter is coming. I’m at peace with that thought, because on the coast, far from city lights, the night sky is a beauty to behold. A navy and black firmament studded with pinpricks of glittering light and the veil-like stain of the Milky Way. Perhaps this is the year I study the celestial chart and learn to read my way home in the dark.

*I’ve made little visible progress with Phoebe’s Prime, but in my mind I’m chapters forward. I lay my head on the pillow at night and tell myself the next chapter and the next, so that it feels as if someone reads me a bedside story. It’s doubtful I’ll make any progress because of Easter and the thought occurred to me, what’s the point? Apart from the enjoyment of stitching words and imagination together, if we do have a global financial crisis, it’s likely that book sales will diminish as people tighten their spending.

*We’ve left the coast for the Easter period. It’s the busiest time for the village, busier than Christmas – a massive and unattractive increase in population and noise levels. Being what we are, we’ll seek peace, empty spaces and country with our family. The Easter Bunny will find us wherever we are. I hope he (or perhaps she’s a she…) will find you as well.

I have such a curious sense of loss when I’m away from the cottage – a form of homesickness, a profound feeling. Our little pup feels it too – he doesn’t eat for a day or so and walks around with Princess Di eyes accusing me of letting him down. I asked him if he’d like to walk on the beach one evening (a city beach) and his little eyes lit up and I thought to myself how in sync we are. He crept into my arms and licked my neck and when we arrived at the beach, he revived enough to eat his dinner when he returned home. I promised him that it’s only a few days and he’ll be back in his coastal garden.

The nice thing about being in the city is time to get a haircut for all three of us (I had over an inch snipped off and miss it terribly), new ballet shoes and elastics, delivery of Easter hearts and chocolate eggs to the paediatric ward at our local general hospital, time also to book tickets for a literary festival in May, a ballet in June and space in an embroidery course, also in May. Time too for the tree men to trim our trees, and for us cut back the jungle-like city Matchbox, to power hose the townhouse path and to plan the planting of ordered tulip bulbs and winter annuals.

Time will fly. Doesn’t it always?

One final note:

CRIPES INDEED!

i opened my emails a few moments ago to see masses of new subs from Substack and I truly thought I’d been hacked and frantically wondered what on earth do I do about it. Then I saw Cindy Hattersley’s email:

https://cindyhattersleydesign.com/my-readers-are-more-interesting-than-me-meet-author-farmer-prue-batten/

I had forgotten the publishing date of the interview on Cindy’s wonderful blog and had been blithely walking the coast with my dog whilst my husband works with my son at the farm on trying to unblock the silo outlet. But on seeing the link on Cindy’s email, it all fitted together.

I’m delighted to welcome all the new readers and thank you so much for taking the time. I hope you will stay with me as we journey through age-ing together, through finding the good things in life and sharing the best of joy.

In the meantime, have a safe and peaceful Easter Break and see you on the other side…

Music?

Some royal blue cool from Dan Fontaine

Flown by at gale-force speed it seems.

He’s had to share me with family, dogs and horses and a profound love for Tasmania’s east coast. I’ve had to share him with family, with his still ongoing media career and the farm. But that’s the point really. It’s all about sharing and compromise.

And laughter.

The tie that binds everything and loops over and under like some Celtic wedding knot is infinite love. And pride in a man who has been rock solid and who has achieved so much and of whom people speak with admiration. A very humble man who in his time had an entry in Whos’ Who in Australia.

We’ve had two children together, nine dogs, three horses and a farm. The children always managed to contrive their accidents and dramas when he was away nationally or internationally so that I was a sole parent and I thought perhaps it was/is a way of teaching me to be strong, who knows?

He has consistently tried to kill himself.

Not deliberately, but he does seem very accident prone. Setting himself on fire at the farm, crashing the farm UTV with multiple injuries and thereby inspiring me to write a contemporary novel called Passage, knocking himself out repeatedly when mowing at the cottage because he’s bald and wears a hat and can’t see branches on trees! And requires me to drive a half-conscious man at breakneck speed the 80 km to A and E. He’s also had heart issues, viral meningitis and cancer. Geesh! But I remember, ‘in sickness and in health’.

Historically, there was the Montana Incident, when he attended school in Choteau, Montana on an AFS Scholarship and he and his friends went looking for firewood in the snow, the chainsaw slipped and cut through his leg. His mates packed the massive wound with snow, carted him back to medical care, and 35 stitches later he still had his leg. The scar beneath his nose - motor bike accident.

Or when he and his Australian schoolmates decided to blow a stump out of the paddock at the family’s sheep farm using dynamite. They practically launched the stump to Outer Space. Ultimately, it landed in bits the back garden of the farmhouse. And so on and very so forth! So many more dangerous escapades.

This is my husband. I am lucky he lived for us to celebrate 50 years!

I wanted nothing as an anniversary gift. The very fact that we have made it to our Golden Anniversary together with love, respect and laughter is the best gift of all and can be outshone by nothing. We’ve never been particularly keen on dining out and thus we choose to celebrate quietly, with local scallops and flathead and a particularly special coffee sponge (my Mum’s recipe) I have made for the occasion.

It’s what we are. Fairly simple people with fairly simple tastes, a desire for peace and country/coastal surroundings.

So be upstanding as I offer this toast to my husband to thank him dearly for fifty years of trust and love.

Here’s to you, RB…