I am once again down the Great Ocean Road on a writer's retreat. It is supposed to be late Spring, however last night it was blowing a gale, tipping down and generally miserable. Due to the stormy conditions, I've only had three hours sleep. Although I'm amped on coffee and Ritalin, I'm not sure I'm up to looking at the meaning of life. I think I'd rather sit by the fire in the dining room and nap.
Regardless, I'll give these a go. I probably won't have much to say - I'd like to get back to penning my novel. And I'm sitting here in a Metallica t-shirt and sparkly pink gumboots. This is my writing uniform. I can't waste this time, especially as it looks like I'll be going back to work soon.
1. If you could go back to any age, which would you choose and why?
I'm going to say 42. I had most of my crap together at 42 and it was just before the joys of perimenopause started to bite. Fun, heh!
2. If you could snap your fingers and change any single aspect of your life today, what would you change?
Seriously, I'd love to be a size 14 (I think that equates to size 10 in the American sizes. I've always been big, but I reckon size 14 would be a great thing to be. Size 16 is my aspirational, happy place size. I know it's a number. I know I'm healthy, but being bigger makes getting clothes hard. It's better than it was - and I'm not that big - but you have more choice when you're smaller.
3. Define a "good" or "successful" life.
If I'm really honest, if you are stable, have friends, have your emotional, spiritual and physical needs met, get to be challenged every now and then and
4. What's the best compliment you've ever received?
Not so much a compliment, but I love when people tell me they have no idea what I'm thinking.
5. What's the most valuable thing your parents taught you?
The car is packed. I've thrown out the rubbish, turned off unnecessary outlets. The bed is made. The dishes have been washed
I've got the snackies and the drinks and the car trips necessities.
All is well.
Now, I just have to get the cat into his carrier and we can go.
He knows something his up. His blanket isn't where it's supposed to be. I've been moving stuff around the place, taking the weekend's needs down to the car.
Just wish me luck.
At least chasing around an eight-year-old cat is a little easier than chasing round a two-year-old critter.
I'm three seasons into Slow Horses and loving every minute of it, which is making packing for this three days down the Great Ocean Road a little bit slow.
The clothes are in piles. The books for the trading table are in a bag, as are the bits and pieces required for a weekend away where I intend to write - jelly snakes, half a block of chocolate, coffee pods, my keep cup, a brick of almond milk, protein powder... you know the drill.
As I'm still between gigs (good news pending, but I won't say anything until the ink is dry) I'll be spending another night down at the retreat location - an old chapel that overlooks the sea, maybe with one or two others, maybe alone.
Lucifer will be ensconsed in Blarney's spare room for the weekend.
I've got the book I'm on the way to finishing (Katherine Stockett's The Calamity Club - good, but far too long) and the book group book for this month..
My travel laptop and iPad are charged up and in my backpack, with the peripherals.
Lucifer's food and litter are ready to go. I'll take his blanket and his manky mouse too. He loves his manky mouse (I just wish he'd stop leaving it on the bed.)
The car was topped up with petrol and the tyres are now all compliant and free from punctures.
My meds are in my suitcase.
Yep, I'm ready to go away with my strange, fun like-minded mates.
It should be wonderful.
And now I can go back to Slow Horses. One of the most odious characters has just been knocked off. It's great. Psychopaths the lot of them.
This is not my election - but it's taken up a lot of the day.
Earlier this morning, there was the interview, which I thought was last week. It went well. They're seeing other candidates, but my fingers are crossed. I burned some green candles to help the energy along. I'll know by early next week. Mercury is in retrograde until next week. Communications are help up. I just have to remember to relax and have faith.
With the interview out of the way, I raced into the bathroom, removed the make up, watched another episode of Slow Horses (lastest obsession, but I've loved Gary Oldman since he was Sid Vicious, and in The Fifth Element and everything else he's done. Plus, he can dance)
The only problem is that around lunchtime, the American election results started to come in.
As a political junkie, it was necessary to keep my eye on what's going on. I find all of this fascinating, not that it's my election to commentate, but it's been very entertaining. Friends were messaging over the day. "Did you see this?" and "Are you watching?" and "TALARICO!"
The cast of Hamilton said it well.
I'm in Australia. None of this has any direct effect on me.
I will say, it does feel like a bit of normality has been restored to the world. People with some backbone, morals and humanity appear to have got in. Some who don't skip leg day. (Ahmed Al-Sayed anyone?) Christians who don't think that one of the tenets of the Bible is to screw your neighbour over (James Talarico). Women. Queer folk. First Nations people are getting to be in the highest offices in the land. It's a wonder to behold.
It's going to be hard. The nation feels like some of the divisions have been corrected. Oversight might actually happen now. Who knows what's going to happen, but it's going to be fun to watch.
A little bit of my faith in America has been restored.
Now we just have to do the same here are drive out One Nation....
Who knew that a fairytale could have so many good feminist messages about going against the grain, being kind and accepting people for who and what they are?
Wicker provides this in spades.
It’s wonderfully bonkers, but with Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgard in the lead roles, it was bound to be a bit left of centre.
I loved this. It was predestined. Written in the stars and a part of the moon cycle. It's the perfect film to go to with your friends, sit back and enjoy.
The story is based on a short story, The Wicker Husband by Ursula Wills.
It tells the tale of the local fisherwoman (Olivia Colman), ostracised by the village locals for not conforming to the social norms of the day. Unmarried, she lives alone outside of the village. The rest of the women in the town are kept under then thumbs of their rather tedious husbands. Women are married by having a metal collar placed around their necks. Joy.
After a wedding tradition goes wrong, where she does the equivalent of catching the bouquet at the wedding, she asks the local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband. This he does.
A month later the fisherwoman turns up at the church and her husband is present in the wicker form of Alexander Skarsgard. Oh my. The basket weaver did a bloody good job.
The other thing about the wicker husband is that he lacks the social norms that have made the men so, to be frank, awful. The wicker husband is kind, attentive, helpful. He pays lots of attention to his bride, who doesn't always know what to do with all of this.
The women of the village, particularly the tailor's wife (Elizabeth Debicki) aren't happy with this. They get jealous and start rumours about the wicker husband. The men of the village can't see what they're doing wrong - like they've always had control of their wives.
In the end, all of the rumours and back biting come to a head, with consequences for the whole town .
I will say no more.
Anything with Olivia Colman in it is going to be wonderful. She's brilliant in this. Alexander Skarsgard, under some amazing makeup and costumes, is perfect as her wicker groom. And the rest of the town is a hoot. Nobody has a name. The dishwasher, the drunk, the tailor and their wives. It's very cool.
Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer have done a wonderful job of writing and directing this joyous fable about finding your person, no matter what the greater society says about your choices. As gorgeous as this film is, the feminist message is strong, but not that is slaps you about the face.
I’m an adult. This means that when the tyre light goes off in my car, I make my way to a servo to check the tyres. Because I am an adult. I’m also going down the Great Ocean Road on the weekend, the last thing I need is a flat tyre. Considering when I checked the tyres yesterday, the back driver’s side one was down to 5 PSI, this had to be done fast.
I rang what used to be called Kmart Tyre and Auto (not rebranded with a new wanky corporate name). They couldn’t fit me in at the Richmond Branch, but they could get me into the one in Brunswick at 11 am.
It me, Brunswick is another country.
I live in Richmond. I get Richmond. I love the different pockets or Richmond, its ever changing viewpoints and cafes and ‘flora and fauna’ as one of my neighbours calls it. (This is the same neighbour who dobbed in my friend Lola the Border Collie, who comes to work with her builder dad and demands snacks at the back doors of the local restaurants.) I’m used to the community.
I don’t feel that in Brunswick.
Regardless, the tyre needs fixing, tomorrow is a public holiday and as I’m between jobs, what else do I have to do. So Brunswick it is.
I make my way out here, running the gauntlet down Hoddle Street and Alexandra Avenue. The traffic is good. Then I remember that it’s a fake public holiday as tomorrow is Horse Race Day, something I don’t give two rats about. If I was working, I’m probably be pissed off as it’s an unnecessary day off with no pay.
Arrive at the tyre place. Park the car, go into reception, where I’m greeted by a harried young bloke named Lewis. Fixing a puncture shouldn’t take more than an hour. He asks if I can come back at two. Three hours away. Unfortunately they’re six men down. Something about a ‘stomach bug’ going through meaning nobody has turned up.
“Umm, you want me to hang around Brunswick for three hours?”
“Would you mind?”
“I come from Richmond, umm…”
“How about come back at one?”
“Okay, thanks. I can occupy myself for two hours. I’ll find the library.”
Thankfully, I’ve brought along my charged up iPad.
Anyway, I feel like a fish out of water here in Brunswick. I don’t have a wolf cut. I don’t have an staffie or a greyhound in tow. Although I’m wearing black and a denim jacket and Birkenstocks I don’t feel like they’re the right cut or style. Being a fake public holiday, most of the coffee shops appear to be closed, and I’m not really feeling like ramen, sushi, Mexican or kebab for breakfast (I was hoping to get home and have lunch from food in my fridge, but I’m getting a bit peckish).
There are great op shops, but they’re expensive. I wandered into Dangerfield, but reminded myself that I’m trying to get out of my goth phase.
There was this awesome second-hand grocer, Cheaper By Miles, where I found some gnocchi, cheese and dumplings for $10 - bargain!
Now, I’m sitting in the library, where the wifi is plentiful and I’m out of the rain, and hopefully the harried Lewis will be able to get my tyre fixed.
Still, I feel like a fish out of water in this little pocket of town. It’s strange that this area of town some five kilometres away feels like another world.
October has been a great reading month. I've technically got through ten and a half books - the half is a huge book which I'll finish in the next few weeks, but the rest are done and dusted. If I look at the stats, there's been five audiobooks, four paper copies and one on the kindle. There have been eight fiction books and two non-fiction books. The average page count is around 300 pages, though this averages out as two books were really short.
Also, all were good to read.
So here we go, in order of reading.
1) Whistler by Ann Patchett - Paper - 4.5 Stars
Ann Patchett novels are gentle. Gentle, beautifully crafted, sensitive and often end with a glorious gut punch. Whistler is one of her finest.
A family story, Daphne is reunited with her step-father, Eddie at an art museum in New York after many decades. He suddenly disappeared from her life abruptly after an incident that left everybody confused. Over the course of the novel, you discover the intricate family dynamics and characters that make up this family who are very good at glossing over things.
This is a novel for grown-ups, beautifully crafted, each chapter egging you on to find out more. I loved this. It's going on my book group long list for next year. Ann Patchett is a master.
2) Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver - Audio - 4 Stars
Barbara Kingsolver is another favourite author of mine. Demon Copperhead and The Poisonwood Bible are two of my favourite books. Unsheltered has been sitting in my TBR pile for ages, but I picked it up on sale on Audible. Barbara Kingsolver is a writer with ideas and a social conscience. This is no different.
In Unsheltered, we find two interweaving stories. Journalist Willa finds herself trying to protect her family in harsh economic times - not they would normally be perceived to be in trouble. Her husband, also an academic, cannot get tenure, and they're placed in a sub-standard house for the academic year, with no real knowledge of where they will go next. Her son is dealing with a newborn baby and a tragedy. Her avant-guard daughter is roaming around the place and her father-in-law is causing massive difficulties. With all this going on, Willa, starts to investigate the town and the street they live on.
The other story is set in the 1800s and looks at the street and the people who lived there, with some rather big associations to a lot of big historical scientific figures.
Willa must try, against the odds, to keep the family together.
Although this wasn't at the same level as her more famous novels, this is still very engaging. It made for a great listen.
3) Reckoning by Magda Szubanski - Audio - 4 Stars
After seeing Magda Szubanski at the Melbourne Town Hall for the launch of her new book, I was intrigued to listen to her first memoir, Reckoning, that takes on her father's story. The audiobook was read by her, giving this an even more intimate view of her family's story and her own life in Australia up until the early 2012 when she came out to the nation.
Born in Liverpool to a Scottish mother and Polish father, the family moved to Australia on a skilled workers passage, her father being a scientist they family settled in Melbourne. Szubanski looks at her childhood, her family and her ascendancy to the comic stratosphere. She also talks of her father's surprising role in the Second World War, both sides of her family and her own struggles.
This is a fascinating memoir and well worth delving into this intelligent, thoughtful woman's life. I want to read her second memoir too, which broaches her mother's slide into dementia and her own health battles.
4) On Friendship by Andrew O'Hagan - Kindle - 4 Stars
My other non-fiction book for the month, this small book of essays discussed the themes of friendship. The essays are lovely to delve into, where O'Hagan discusses various elements of friendship under many guises.
I loved listening to him speak at the Capital Theatre at the Australian launch of this book. For better or worse, he discussed most of the essays in detail at this talk, which left little to discover for me. Still, he's a great Scottish writer and this was well worth the (second) read.
5) The Lady with the Dog by Carrie Tiffany, illustrations by Noel McKenna - Paper - 4 stars
Another slim volume, Carrie's extraordinary writing takes us through her mother's last months and her battle with dimension. More a book of vignettes, rather than a cohesive story, the novella looks at life, love and loss as her mother declines. The words are beautiful, the accompanying drawings whimsical in their simplicity.
Carrie Tiffany is always worth reading.
6) The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes - Audio - 3.5 Stars
I'll start this by saying that The Brightest Star in the Sky is not my favourite Marian Keyes novel. Sure, it's entertaining, but having consumed this on an audio book, I found it rather convoluted and I had a bit of trouble keeping the characters in line until I was about halfway though the book.
The novel looks into the lives of the residents of 66 Star Street. They all have their problems and issues. They're all okay as characters go, however, you don't really work out what's going on until the last fifty pages. You have to put in a lot of work to get there.
I prefer Keyes's Walsh Family saga more. It was okay, but I can't write much more about it without mentioning that it left me frustrated in places until I got a real handle on the characters. I might have been better reading this on paper.
7) The Underworld by Sophie Laguna - Paper - 4 stars
This was our book group book for the month, and as with most of Sofie Laguna's work, it spoke to me on a deep level.
The Booktopia website provides the blurb of:
"Martha Mullins is a misfit. Her mother is glamorous, aloof and judgmental. Her father, mostly absent. If only she had brothers and sisters with whom she might share her feelings, her confusion ... Academic and shy, Martha finds herself fascinated by the underworld, a place she learns about in Roman mythology classes at school. To Martha, the underworld and its divine inhabitants provide a place of refuge, escape, imagination and desire.
But Martha also finds joy in friendship. Connection. Intimacy. It's Martha's band of friends who show her the value in spontaneity, fun, laughter.
Until things go wrong.
How will Martha find her way in the world where she cannot be herself? Will she ever find a home for the love she feels? The call of the underworld is difficult to resist..."
I was always going to like this. As a misfit and a Classics student, I got a lot of what Martha was about. The alienation. The finding your tribe.
I really enjoyed this.
8) Nine Days by Toni Jordan - Audio - 4 Stars
I was going to love this. It's set just down the road and up the hill in Richmond. The novel looks at the Westaway family, taking a day out of one of the family's lives, from 1939 to the modern day, taking in the family folklore and mysteries. Jordan has the remarkable skill of taking your right back to working-class Richmond, the back streets, the times, the people. First published in 2012, this is well worth a read. The structure is interesting, but it works well. You also get a forensic look at a family with their secrets that need to be kept for decades.
For me, I had to take a drive down some of the streets she mentioned just to see how much they had changed.
This is another novel to hunt down, particularly if you live in the area and like social history.
9) Women and Leadership - Real Lives, Real Lessons by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala - Audio - 4 Stars
I picked this up after the tragic events concerning Helen Haines in Wangaratta. The book is extended research into woman who have taken the highest offices of their respective lands. Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala interview women leaders from both sides of politics. Theresa May, Hillary Clinton, Jacinda Ardern, Erna Solberg, Michele Bachelet, Joyce Banda and Christine Lagarde are asked the same questions and provide interesting perspectives on what it is to be a woman in politics.
The book is engaging, inspiring and frightening all at the same time as these relentlessly strong women tell their stories.
It's another book I'm glad I consumed.
10) The German Ward by Pip Williams - Paper - 4 Stars
I'm a big fan of the authors other books The Dictionary of Lost Words and The Bookbinder of Jericho, and this book takes on the view of another associated character from her Oxford stable, a very minor character in her second book.
Tilda, a good friend of the twin's mother, finds herself as a part of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) in the second world war, working as a nurse at the Etaples hospital base in France. Tilda is a bit of a reprobate. She is also very capable and her skills are noticed, along with her unconventional way of living. It is there she takes on shifts in the German ward, where enemy prisoners are nursed back to health. It is there that she meets a German doctor, Hugo. Over the years she spends doing night duties alongside Hugo, a forbidden love develops.
Nobody would know about this relationship until a researcher uncovers a woman war artist's drawings at the Australian War Memorial over 100 years later.
The writing in this is urgent, visceral and tender. It shows the horrors of war and the redemptive nature of love in all its forms. Williams research, as always, is remarkable.
You could read this as a standalone book however, I reckon it reads better if you have the knowledge of her first two books as it rounds out the experience and gives it more depth.
