Welcome Rain!

Happy, happy! After some serious heat for several days, it's cool and damp this morning. A slow wind out of the west is bringing some welcome rain that'll put out the fire that's been blazing though a blue gum forest (okay, it's a plantation, but it is a forest) at Luicindale, in the southeast, between Naracoorte and Mount Gambier. Haven't been there in years, but we went there two or three times, on our way to and fro on the Limestone Coast. The thought of a major bushfire is always disspiriting, and every season brings another.

I couldn't resist taking the "flat camera" into the garden this morning, between showers, and a haiku came to mind, which says it all:

Silver morning sky,

Soft rain, cool upon my face ―

How the garden sings!

I'm very impressed with the "flat camera," which is obviously a phablet, not a camera, and certainly not a phone. Am just starting to get the hang of it, and for wide shots, macro and bokeh, it's exactly what I need. Good choice of birthday present, that one.

Nothing much is happening here, though I've recently started to write again. My muse is talking to me at last -- at least insistently enough that I've completed two short stories and am working on the end of a third, much longer "short."

Dave is working in full PPE, and I don't know how he does it. He's holding everything together, and the lure of a new bike brightens his world. It's on order; not sure when it'll arrive. For myself, "holding it together" has a lot to do with art. We still need to get this computer back to the workshop to have an HDMI socket replaced, so that I can get my graphics tablet, which was my Christmas pressie, installed! There's no hurry. Dave has the month of March off, free and clear, and it'll be a simple matter to get the work done then.

For Auld Land Syne

On this troubled New Year's Eve, let me take a moment to wish everyone a safe New Year, and I'll add a personal wish. May 2022 be a garden, tranquil, restful, peaceful, filled with the scent of flowers, the hum of bees, birdsong, and a cat on the lap or a dog at feet, or both. To family and friends everywhere -- be happy, be safe. And as the saying goes, "See you next year."

Merry Christmas to all!

Marking the date, on Christmas Night, after a curious day. It's been fraught with so many problems, one would have thought a gremlin was on the loose! Technology refuses to work -- Blu Ray players, plural, graphics tablet, phone, computer drivers, so many technical issues, I'm speechless. The net result is, though we just put a Blu Ray player under the Christmas tree, we'll have to buy another immediately; and the graphics tablet won't be online for weeks, till we order, and receive a cable. 

And against all of this, of course, it's the C word. South Australia opened our borders and invited the virus in, four weeks ago. To go from "Covid-Zero" to a runaway infection rate in so short a time has been disconcerting to say the least, and downright scary, to put it more honestly. The future has become tremendously uncertain. It's an odd feeling, at Christmas of all times.

Dave is working right through this season again -- the fourth consecutive year. He's an essential worker, and I rather think that even if he'd booked holiday time, he'd have been called in to work ... things are so dire, essential workers (and their families) are making all kinds of sacrifice, of necessity.

There's not more more to say here. I hasn't really been "Christmassy" at all, but we do what we can and hope for the best. Perhaps 2022 will be better ... but I have the traditional "bad feeling about this." I think we'll need to be flexible, and just roll with it, see where the new year takes us.

La Nina decides to stay for the summer

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!