Meetings, elevenses and such

The mystery object photographed in the post below is a hand-stitched camel saddle. Amazing. There was a display of tools for the making of saddles as part of the museum exhibition. There was a wooden round-headed hammer-type tool particularly for pounding the straw stuffing smooth.


On Monday, I found more 'parades' to walk around. The trees are impressive now when most of their leaves are around my feet, they must be glorious in spring time. Then Mary collected me and dropped me at Omnibus Books for a meeting with Dyan Blacklock. I heard Dyan comment at one of the Reading Matters sessions about the way Omnibus archive. She expressed concern about the longevity of electronic storage methods. I'd meant to ask her about that, but it must have been about the only question I forgot to ask. She's given me some books for my boys, but I think I might read them too. One is by John Heffernan, whose 'more than gold' I'm enjoying reading at the apartment. John was a Fellow in 2005.

After the meeting, Mary and I had afternoon tea before she dropped me back at the apartment. I will be travelling to the same general area on Wednesday to meet with the chair of the Pedal Prix organisation. I'd considered walking, but now realise it's a bit far!

Today there was a morning tea 'Elevenses' at Tin Cat Cafe, a sort of farewell because the end of my Fellowship is approaching. There were people I've met in my time here and several new faces, a lovely gathering. I spoke about my experience here and also read two poems, 'Iceberg' and 'How to Grow a Flower'.

There were several 'Fellows' present and they shared their experiences. Elizabeth Hutchins has just returned from her Fellowship in Brisbane where she takes credit for breaking their drought...there was 62mm rain in the day or so following her arrival. Well done Elizabeth!

Haighs and circus

Yesterday I wrote the third of the three interlinked stories and worked out just what was going to link them, while still allowing them to stand alone as individual stories. I also workshopped (via email...thanks L) several poems three of which had their genesis here in Adelaide.


My tulips are opening up and just look better and better.



Today I reworked the three stories and kept working on the pesky ending to one of the poems. I had an ending but it wasn't as strong as it should be and I've had several goes at the final stanza. This end of the day, it's feeling stronger.


I also walked through Victoria Park and the South Terrace parklands This parkland has some game grounds but has avenues and is more 'treed' than those along East Terrace. I nearly walked into a small creek (twice) while I looked everywhere but down. The day was warm and glorious, but recent rains have greened everything.


My destination was Haighs Chocolates. They make the chocolates here and sell them too. I'd signed on for the tour with about a dozen others. There was a Swiss couple, some Japanese businessmen, a family and another singleton like myself. The tour hadn't begun and the other singleton was making asides to me about starting late. She continued through the tour, with not one positive thing to say. Not sure why she came really. The Japanese were carrying jars containing what looked like pond water, but may have been herbal tea. We saw cement-mixer-type machines for making things like scorched almonds, marshmallow bars being chocolated, and rockyroad being hand-mixed. Samples at the start, samples at the end, and then into the shop. What more could a chocoholic want?


I've started work on a final project here...an already plotted out story based on circus classes, aimed at younger readers. It's interesting jumping from long work to very short, to poetry, to chapter book. Again, having the luxury of writing all day with no distractions, this isn't as difficult as it would be at home.