Being Busy

Being busy these days. It's so easy.

Some days it's overwhelming; email, texts, blogs, social networking; catching up.

But like the slow food campaigns, today I'm going slow, and enjoying that; the sun slants in, the dog's in her basket near my feet, my wife's preparing another wedding. That makes for a good day. 








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Drop in days

A quiet walk along the beach just past the yacht club at Victor Harbor. A cool day, just right, enough sun to feel at ease, the sounds of the waves loud. No wonder we hear the sea at night from where we are.
The Hindmarsh river flowing at last out to sea, rippling, calling sand to drop in to the flow.

Drop in days.






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The First fires

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It's cold here this morning, bursts of rain, wind sweeping in from the sea. I'm sitting in front of our wood combustion stove. Watching the wood burn, the trembling glow as heat quivers on a piece especially thick but now almost resinous with heat.

I think of the first families huddled together in the dark, the first discovery of making a fire, the first inventions, the many quick changes of our world now.

The world, made closer by technology, can have us sitting far apart, alone in front of a computer or iPad and tablet. Words drifting across the world like the foam from waves on a wilder beach.

Poems in Translation

 Fantastic book of poetry by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, A History of Clouds, remarkably well translated from the German into English by Martin Chalmers and Esther Kinsky. What skills : the poems are succinct, often poignant and funny. Love them!


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The Land

I've been reading a chapter by Linda Hogan called 'Creations'. It's part of a book called The Heart of the Land : Essays on Last great Places, edited by Joseph Barbato and Lisa Weinerman. The book came out in the 1990's but it still has great relevance today, perhaps even more so

Linda Hogan writes with astonishing beauty and love about the connection between the land and people, all living beings. Her words are a call to memory, renewal, the sacredness of life

.'We remember our ancestors and their lives deep in our bodily cells', just as turtles she describes return to the beach where they were born. The deep mystery of it all.







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Holidays

Holiday time. The population here in Victor Harbor doubles, sometimes trebles when there's a long weekend. Nothing by British standards when small towns like Penzance have long lines of cars weaving through the town. Nonetheless, more people means more cars, more queues. Locals get disgruntled, unless they're storekeepers or retail managers.

It's an especially poignant time now. Tomorrow is ANZAC day and commemorates those who've fought and fallen and those who've survived the overseas wars that have traversed Australian history.

Nearby is Port Elliot, where servicemen and servicewomen came for recreation. A memorial garden, the type found in many an Australian and New Zealand town, has pine trees dedicated to the memory of those who perished. It's a sobering place, sad, and yet beautiful too, with the sweep of Horseshoe Bay below the gardens.

People often marry in the Gardens, ourselves included, and so the cycles of life are lived, shared and remembered in this special place.

Autumn Days

Autumn days here, warm with that cool breeze cutting in from the sea. A BBQ day in England, that sort of temperature, the low 20's centigrade. I've just lit the fire, not for a BBQ but the indoor wood combustion stove. It gets cool here quickly in the late afternoon, and this house can get cold. The stove's brilliant for slow cooking. We often cook ahead, preparing meals for the week, sometimes only for tomorrow's breakfast. I like it, it's light cooking, even. More natural. Perhaps it's the tending of the fire, not too quiet, not too active. The waft of the food as it cooks, gentles its way down the corridor to here where I type. The sun's slanting in too. The dog waits patient in her little basket. She knows dinner for her is soon.