Life has skipped along quite rapidly. We often exclaim at how often days and events reassert themselves on us, seemingly at odds with the laws of physics and those of time and space: like,
"Surely we only got the Saturday papers a couple of days ago?" "No, unbelievably, that was last Saturday!" There are numerous examples of this, some truly mind bending. We don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, so we'll just roll along with it, I suppose!
As I mentioned previously, I'm less disciplined these days when it comes to photo taking and great swathes of our lives go un-recorded. Somehow, we're still able to function and live normal lives and no one is any the wiser or poorer for our lack of posting on social media! I have managed to scrape together a few shots (above) so I haven't totally ignored the camera. Ironically, I'm now in possession of a phone with a cutting edge camera, so if the whim takes me, I can utilise such!
Recently, I convinced Cass to drive into town for our morning walk, bucking our usual routine, and combine the walk with a viewing of the outdoor sculptures up at Fort Scratchley. The sculptures were terrific, the day shiny and bright and we rounded off the viewing by walking out to the end of the breakwater. Then, everything turned for the worse! The sunny skies quickly gave way to rolling grey, black, then ominous green clouds as we hurried back to the car. Halfway home we were assaulted with the cliched golf-ball sized hail bombs and we crawled along till we dived into the safety of our underground garage. Damage done, the pockmarked Jag is a sorry sight and probably would be written off if we made an insurance claim. Hard to believe our luck!
Other than that, we've had a few celebratory lunches for birthdays (Valerie) and just because we can on other occasions with each other and friends as well as a few regular coffee catchups. We've had dinner with Mark and Mihoko and also Wayne and Josie, but unfortunately, these were other occasions where the camera remained stubbornly in my pocket! We even managed a night of comedy with the irreverent Tom Gleeson at the Newcastle Comedy Club and a Musicaviva concert at the Town Hall with the brilliant Garrick Ohlsson. Cassy was brought to tears when he played her much practised Chopin piece in an impromptu second encore!
We recently caught the train to Sydney, stayed overnight and the next day visited the Art Gallery of NSW. Our secondary purpose was to inspect the brand new, multi million dollar expansion known as the North Wing. It's received it's fair share of criticism and seems to have polarised opinion and we can see why. It has a shopping mall vibe and strangely, despite the obvious quality of its expensive finishes and materials, it still manages to feel both unfinished and slightly cheap. If one was to describe it and the levels and connections within, it would sound great, but the feel of the place just isn't right. Maybe it's "the vibe"?! Put it this way, when we popped next door to the South Wing, the original building, we felt much more embraced in an artistic cocoon and succumbed to that grand feeling of being immersed in beauty, both from what was on the walls and the building itself.
Our main purpose for this lightning visit was to attend cousin-in-law Erin's poetry launch! Erin has been working up to this collection for many years and her training, practice and experience have culminated in a most delicious selection of work compiled in her first volume of poems. There were readings and testimonials from many, including poetry luminary Judith Beveridge, who delivered a magnificent tribute to Erin's particular skill and craft. All this bookended by drinks and canapes and signings and chat at the whimsical Griffith Theatre Company. It was a triumph and a well deserved celebration of a highly intelligent and accomplished poet: we were so honoured to have been invited!
We've both read a few books recently, but our current ones are John Banville's "The Singularities" (Cass) and Michael Trant's "Wild Dogs" (David). I also finally managed to do my birthday pushups the other day which has been postponed since my bad condition on our return from the Middle East. I'm bizarrely proud of this each time I do it and it's yet another thing that seems to come up quite often!