Writers' Rooms

Mark Haddon's study

I just had to share this fabulous site from the Guardian Newspaper showing Writers' Rooms. A lovely reminder that we don't need a grand oak desk, or a room designed within an inch of it's life to be creative.

I call my study "the office". As I look around at the moment it has a fabulous newish built-in storage unit teamed artistically with an ironing table, huge pile of un-ironed clothes, an old Officeworks student desk and an untidy pile of soon to be overdue bills. My view, however, is excellent and makes up for my office's lack of designer cred.

PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY QUEENIE!

Books, The Parent Race and YAY Holidays.

I still can't believe what can be achieved when I don't blog all the time. Not monumental life-changing things, just everyday things which usually get put on the "do-sometime-else pile".


I finished reading Carpentaria by Alexis Wright on Wednesday night. It's 520 pages long and written in the voice of a male Australian Aboriginal elder. It is also written in an indigenous storytelling style blending astonishingly frank depictions of life in the Australian Gulf Country with magic realism.

I apologise to all those potential readers who I may have put off reading the book while I was trudging through at the 250page mark - please continue reading, as the last 270 pages are just reward for the difficulties of the first 250. In fact I am re-reading the book - the first 250 pages now appear light, funny and well paced with my head in the 'right place' and my mind used to the language and feel that it could become a great classic of Australian literature.

Yesterday our school held the annual K-2 sports carnival. The day consists of each child competing in a flat race, a novelty race and group novelty relays. Ribbons are handed out generously and there can often be more than one "first" ribbon given out in a race depending on how excited the parent judges get.

There is no such generosity in the parent races however. Oh no, this is a HIGHLY COMPETIVE event for which I am sure some parents train hard. After last year's debacle when I made the mistake of wearing jeans and Birkenstocks and came 4th in my heat - this year I made sure I wore runners so as to be better prepared. And came second last in a field of about 8. At least I think I came second last. When I asked Padawan Learner whether mummy came last he said "no mummy, you just didn't some last, just". I have mentally noted all the fast mums and will make sure I am not in their heat next year...


Who loves school holidays? ME! Today was the last day of school for two weeks. YAY. I know after a while you wish the kids were back at school and you have peace and quiet again, but I can't wait because I HATE making school lunches. I am looking forward to waking up knowing I don't HAVE to be anywhere soon, I don't have to make school lunches, there is no homework to cajole the kids into doing and no after school activities to rush to and from.

We are not going anywhere. The kids have Swimvac for half-an-hour a day in the first week and KelpieBlossom has ballet workshop for an hour a day in the second week. A couple of playdates planned but that's it. Aaaah.

In preparation for the holidays, and for breaking out the skirts and brand new Birkenstocks (the new red & white paisley ones), I have de-forested the legs, had a facial (!) and painted my toenails red (to match the Birks). Now I am all ready and just need to find a sunny spot in the garden with a cup of tea (or glass of wine after 5pm) and read my books.

A Week in Pictures (and a few words)

While I am officially on a "blogging holiday" I couldn't resist sharing these photos with you.

Our Wisteria is now blooming.

I took loads of photos of these Rainbow Lorikeets playing in our Jacaranda Tree.

And on Fairlie's orders I present my TBR pile. March is half-finished, Theft by Peter Carey is my Melbourne bookgroup's November choice, How Language Works is a bedside table staple (sad, I know), Carpentaria is my current read and I have to admit it is a bit of a trudge. The top book is my "blogbook". I put blog ideas in there whenever they come to me.

It's amazing what I can achieve when I unleash myself from the computer. This week I've tackled loads of things that have been languishing on my "to do" list for ages.

• My office is tidy,
• The filing is UP TO DATE, as is the ironing, as is the washing.
• I've finally got council permission to remove a Camphour Laurel from the corner of our property.
  I tried watching trashy tv. Didn't work.
• I've ordered a new desk (ULTRA sleek with white Starfire glass top).
• Also ordered an outdoor setting.
• Did I mention my blogging holiday was also EXPENSIVE?
• I've bought birthday presents for the next 3 birthdays.
  I've been TRYING to read Carpentaria.
• I've updated my computer stuff, deleted un-used programs and generally tidied up my electronic act.

BUT

(close eyes if you are squeamish)

My thumb also had a fight with my kitchen knife while I was chopping vegetables on Wed night. And the knife won. Really gross. No, I mean REALLY gross.

Anyway, back to my blogging holiday until I can't resist any longer.

Byee

Maintenance

New note: labels done, back online my feed reader didn't ping madly so hopefully yours didn't either.

Dear Readers (all five of you),

Tonight is maintenance night. Yep I'm finally getting around to fixing up my labels and other blah and so as to not send your feed readers mad with re-pinged old posts I'm going to go offline for a few hours.

See you soon.


M

Wisteria: the before shot

In our neighbourhood the Wisteria are budding and ready to bloom.

...and now for something a little lighter

I'd like to show you something that should bring a tear to your eye. Inspired by Melinda's recent post involving a lovely rendition of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" I offer you Britain's Got Talent's little Connie:



Just watch it, you won't regret it.

Poll: Reading Habits

After you finish a book do you:

(a) immediately pick up the next on on your TBR pile and start reading
(b) take a day's/week's/month's break
(c) what? finish a book? wouldn't know what that was like (Firegazer, and others who lack book commitment should tick here)

Check out my poll. Closes next Sat.

Dear Diary: I cannot adequately account for myself I'm afraid

Monday: Back to real life with thud after weekend away at Melbourne Writers Festival. Day starts early with whipping KelpieBlossom off to doctor to look at weird rash developing all over her trunk. Looks like chicken pox but luckily is non-infectious thing. Take reading groups in Padawan Learner's class. He "sings" his reader again. Excellent.

Tuesday: Canteen Duty at the kids' school. This is the one day per term I must make small talk with the Canteen Supervisor and whichever other mum is on duty. Our usual hot-seller at recess is the Rice Cup (hot rice, with/without soy sauce); however, the committee has decided that it must now include vegetables stirred into the rice. Sales down by more than 50%. Sales of hot cheese rolls go through the roof. One kid came back for his fourth and we had to say "no more until you've eaten some fruit". Recess is only 20mins, where do they put all that food?

Padawan Learner had to give a talk on something to do with the water cycle. Talk hastily pieced together late the night before. He talked about snow. He ended his talk with "facts about snow"; the last of which was "Don't eat yellow snow". Wanted to be a fly on the wall in that one.

Wednesday: A blur. Cannot account for myself in any substantial way. Agonizing Pilates session involved. Resolve never to go at 9am Wed with the Elite Pilates Crowd again. If you do Pilates and are ever asked to do something called The Orangutan quietly pick up your shoes and make a quiet, yet quick, exit.

Day also involved taxiing kids to various activities and kids frantically completing homework tasks as Thursday is last day of school for the week. I think I might have done some grocery shopping. Hate Supermarkets. I shop on an emergency basis only.

Thursday: I went to the dentist; and for the first time in my memory I came away with a clean set of teeth but NO dental work to be done. Quite pleasant really after the (quadruple) wisdom teeth extraction (in the chair) I had earlier in the year. Kids go to dentist after school. Luckily they too just came away with new toothbrushes but no extra appointments.

APEC in full swing. Firegazer gets to work at 6.30am to avoid traffic on the Bridge.

Friday: APEC holiday. Living near the harbour sounds like we are in the middle of a Vietnam movie with all those helicopters whirring overhead.

Most of Sydney goes away for the weekend, we have the remaining two families over for dinner. I want to cook Fairlie's Blueberry Cheesecake Tart but remember that my Mixmaster is dead and decide to cook FarmDad's Apple Crumble instead (with homemade custard of course). Over dinner we try to remember the songs on the 1979 Australian compilation album "Screamer" but can't. I know one of them is "Sky Pilot" and also "Curiosity Killed the Cat". Couldn't even find them via Google. Does anyone still have this album?

Saturday: Finished The Time Traveller's Wife this morning. Loved it. M and Firegazer are taxi service taking kids to Ballet, Swimming and Ballet again. Almost forgot that KelpieBlossom has a party this arvo. Rush out to buy gift. Notice that the Wisteria is about to burst with flower. Must remember to photograph.

As much as I love the Driza-bone I can't help giggling at the picture of the APEC leaders on the steps of the Sydney Opera House wearing theirs.

Note to self: must get a "real" job.

The Garden is Springing!

Only six days in and the garden has started to Spring.

This Springing has nothing to do with our gardening ability. All credit must go to the previous owner who spent forty years planting a gazillion different flowering thingys. We don't water. We barely pull out a weed. And yet, every Spring this happens. Yay us.

Unfortunately the washing doesn't fold itself so I best go do that. Not yay me.

The Cast of 100 Posts

Today EasternMax celebrates 100 Posts by properly introducing and thanking the cast of characters which have starred in this blog since I followed Fairlie into the Blogosphere on Anzac Day 2007.

The EasternMax Family

M. Widely believed to be the head of MI5 but in reality the head of a much more secretive organisation: the EasternMax family. Fav colour Orange.

Firegazer. Husband of M, prolific watcher of all Foxtel sports channels, and couldabeen/shouldabeen Wallaby, Oarsome Foursome member and Olympic Athlete.

KelpieBlossom (9): Hyperactive tween who divides time unevenly between ballet, tennis, reading and clarinet practise. Does homework on time, and colours it in. Favourite colour light blue. Wants to be a ballerina, artist or ski instructor when she grows up. This means she will never be able to afford to move out of home. eek.

Padawan Learner (7): Font of all knowledge on Dr Who and Star Wars. Gets computers and loves all things electronic. Reads books aloud with expression and sound effects. Has been known to "sing" his readers in class. Doesn't believe in homework. Or school. Favourite colour yellow. Wants to be a Wallaby AND a scientist when he grows up.

Friends

Fairlie: Friends for over 20 years with M and Firegazer. Partner in blog crime. Punctuation Queen. Fellow writers festival groupie. Refuses to fight her trashy tv addiction. Married to The Poolboy. Mother to Queenie (9) and the Impossible Princess (3).

Domestic Goddess: Friends with M since Mothers Group days. Super-organised fellow ski groupie. Married to the Blue Bullet. Mother to Fashionista (9), Fighter Pilot (7) and Micro Hoon (4). Likes tea with lots of milk in it. Keeps an extraordinarily tidy house despite working outside the home 3 days per week. Talented "beadist", should sell her felt & bead creations.

S from TeamSAK: Friends since we crashed her birthday dinner in 1996. Also known as Grasshopper. Married to Ahubby. Mother to Kingsley (7). Fellow blogger. Feared by all shop assistants, tradespeople and service providers. Bravely Fighting the BigC.

ArmyWife: Friends since we moved to Sydney in 2004. In sole charge of her two children while her husband is serving in overseas for 6 months. Facing yet another posting, to a new place. Should really blog about this stuff (hint).

Thank you to you all for providing the fodder for my blog posts. You will be able to read more about your adventures in the next 100 posts.

Image created with Spell with Flickr here.

Sunning it at the Egremont Writers Festival

There’s nothing like a writers festival to make you feel uneducated and poorly read. Quite apart from being unable to laugh at the subtle references to Proust or Kafka I am challenged, from day one, to draw a grammatical line in the sand by having to take sides on the Great Apostrophe Debate. Is it a Writer’s, or Writers’ Festival? I usually give up and leave the apostrophe out altogether. The MSWord grammar checker, BTW, wants it to be “Writer’s”.

Apart from this, writers festivals are not the preserve of the literary elite. They are one of the best ways to expand the range of books you read because there is nothing like hearing an author read from his or own book, or listening to them talk about why they write like they do.

This weekend I flew down to attend the last weekend of the Melbourne Writers Festival. I stayed with Fairlie and attended a total of nine sessions with Fairlie and, on Sunday, with Fairlie and Domestic Goddess. I was curious about how I would view this festival after four years away replacing it with the Sydney version. Fairlie has covered the sessions we attended in depth so here is my overall summary:

• The layout was much better than previous years. Setting up the bookshop in a marquee outside was a master stroke.


• The MWF is a much more intimate event than Sydney but has much less of a festival atmosphere. I wonder how this will change when it moves to Fed Square next year.


• It’s very tempting to buy the sausage sandwich for lunch but much kinder to your fellow attendees if you don’t.


• I’m sorry GossipPop but I just don’t get you. Perhaps if I read Kafka or Proust I would. But I doubt it.


• Alexis Wright has written Carpentaria in the voice of a male aboriginal elder; Adrian Hyland has written Diamond Dove in the voice of a 26yo female aboriginal woman and Gail Jones just has a squeaky voice. All seek to give voice to our indigenous people.


• Mark Crick wrote in 14 famous voices in Kafka’s Soup and did a great job at all of them.


• I thought there was going to be fisty cuffs on stage during the “Politics of Atheism” discussion between Val Noone and A C Grayling. But Grayling didn’t bite. Shame.


• The mob from Victoria University who were supposed to talk about creating identities in an online world had no idea what they were talking about.


• Visa Dockets are a perfectly rational source of notepaper. As are the backs of invitations to Quaker meetings.


• Alexander McCall Smith, Michael Robotham and Adrian Hyland all live surrounded by females and assume female personae in their books. AMS does, however, have a male cat.


• Katie Hickman was fascinating on the subject of Courtesans. She tells us that Lord William Melbourne, from whom Melbourne gets its name, is widely rumoured to have been the product of an affair between Lady Melbourne and Lord Egremont. So in a parallel universe we may in fact have attended the Egremont Writers Festival.
  

So what books did I think I might put on my TBR pile:

Courtesans by Katie Hickman
The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham
Diamond Dove by Adrian Hyland
Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

And perhaps

Caravan Story by Wayne Macauley


and finally, only readers of Kafka will find this funny:

“All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers is contained in this blog”

Don’t get it? Don’t blame you. See the original quote here.