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| Photo by Dave, and his amazing camera phone! |
What November blog would be be complete without some mention of the weather? This is beyond absurd. With seven days of the month left, an Aussie summer about to start in one week, it's chilly and bucketing down. The plan for today was coffee at the Aldinga Aerodrome café, where they do excellent cappuccino, and then on to Belair NP for a picnic, a walk, "pitch camp" at our favourite area, and spend a quiet hour or so reading. Well, we got as far as the coffee at the airfield part!
It's settled in to rain all day; there "isn't enough blue in the sky to patch a sailor's jacket," and it's not even warm! A week off summer, and I went out in my winter coat! La Niña. What can you say? The forecast is, it's here for the summer, for the seond consecutive year. Sooo ... I'll just settle down and spend the rest of the day with artwork...
Lately, since writing has been impossibly difficult, I've been concentrating on art, and reading my old stuff, trying to reawaken the literary muse. I think I feel it starting to stir awake and whisper into my ear, but all I've been able to produce lately are drabbles and poems; though one or two of those poems, I'm rather proud of. Especially this one ... pentameter is extremely hard to wrangle. But since the computer upgrades in May - July, the software has been bouncing me around like a rubber ball, and it's tiresome. I now have a computer that's faster and faster at doing less and less, because the software has become uncooperative, due to some subtle incompatibility with the hardware, post-upgrade. So --
Writing is becoming more attractive! I'm also going to try a different software system, something called Unreal Engine. That might make it possible for me to do stuff that, lately, has become ridiculously impossible, when it used to simply be slow, before the upgrade! Who'da thunkit?! But yes, writing is becoming more and more attractive, as the art becomes increasingly problematical. I have a short piece to finish, a novel to finish editing, a novella to begin, a number of flash-length items to do, then (gulp) a novel to write. There's plenty of work waiting for me --
And with the pandemic about to reach South Australia at last, I shall have nothing but time on my hands. The state opened its borders about fifteen hours ago, at a minute past midnight this morning. We're about to go from zero covid cases, none at all, to many thousands, with many hundreds in hospital, thousands in quarantine, and scores dead. I guess it had to happen sooner or later, but the fact is, we've kept it out of SA for twenty months, and some of us don't want to let it in. Sigh.
The personal plan at the moment is to "go to ground," lie low, and watch what happens. What can you say? Nothing. Grumbling doesn't help. Much. What can you do? Subtract yourself from the equation, focus on art, writing, reading, go for walks in the national parks, and just don't go anywhere people are t be found in the mass ... and watch how it plays out over four to ten months. Yes, months. 2022 is shaping up as a long, slow year.
I'll post again soon, when the Christmas tree goes up ... yep, it's that time again. I haven't written much here in 2021, because I couldn't find much to write about; also, anything I write, and stuff that's published, lands on my writing blog now. On top of that, I'm about to float an art blog, to showcase my work. Oh, yes, I can keep myself busy, no question of that!
