Hello

I've not updated for a while because I've been that busy. Life at the moment seems determined to prevent me from working on my book. There are bills to pay, a housemate who is in and out of work like a dog down a ferret hole, and several circumstances have added up to rental apocalypse. So...

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A photo taken . . . holding a moment in time, suspended . . . contemplating a tree. The two of us just sat in the mid-morning sunshine, on a bench in the Sydney Botanic Gardens, a coffee comfortably nestled in our hands, contemplating a tree. Simple things can be so good. It wasn't just any tree. We knew its botanical name. Did someone once say that until something has a name it doesn't exist. It was an Araucaria cunninghamii better known as a Hoop Pine.

Let me explain. As part of the multi facetted project we have embarked on, we have decided to photograph some of the 900 Australian native plants mentioned by Allan Cunningham in Robert Heward’s “Biographical Sketch of Allan Cunningham FLS MRGS” published in 1842.

Why? . . . because it sounds like an interesting thing to do.

Allan Cunningham collected plants in Australia between 1816 and 1839 and he collected them from areas not touched by the “colonial” hand, pristine wilderness. Plants are part of history just like buildings, roads, bridges art and literature. This man sacrificed his life in the pursuit of rare specimens . . . in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. I see him as a bit of a botanical warrior.

In Australia we don’t have a lot of architectural history, not before the 1800s anyway. No wars are recorded, no famous philosophers' thoughts to muse on, no Roman roads or ruins. It’s an ancient land once inhabited only by people who lived in harmony with it, as part of nature. Sure they had their tribal fights, wherever man is there is conflict, but there were no written records, no bricks and mortar, no paper written on, no written language. Back beyond 1800 our history is the land and what grew on it and what it looked like, how it breathed and how it was. We may not have material things that depict our country’s early history, however we do have the natural history of the plants, the animals, the rocks and the earth plus the living memory of the aboriginal people.

My British, bookish, botanical warrior collected thousands of plants and sent them back to Kew Gardens, to his friend and colleague Robert Brown, for classification. Some of those plants can be found today in the herbariums of the world.


More of that later . . .

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Spent a lot of yesterday evening feeling shattered and napping before … um … going to bed, so decided to stop the rot today by taking a De-Stress pill first thing. So far, it’s working, aha! Still think I should have brought the darn things into work with me though. Once again, I have been running round the campus replacing arrows so that students don’t get lost in the bushes on their way to various registrations. Or not too many times anyway. M’dears, it’s utterly exhausting … Pause for smelling salts and an elegant sinking onto the sofa …

Not only that but the boss deposited a full box of chocolates on my desk last night – sadly not for me (arrgghh!!), but for the students while they register. So I was forced to hand the choccies over to the Registration people for them to distribute this morning, sigh … But all was not lost, as I did nick one last night …

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Well, I think I’m finally falling apart; I was at the hospital yesterday morning, at the face clinic and I am suffering from DMT which means, Dysfunctional Mandibular something. She said that my jaw might not return to the way it was; I should get my mouth open wider than it is now, but don’t think I’ll be facing a future that includes Big Macs. They had to take impressions of my teeth to make me some kind of shield that I’ll need to wear at night to gently relax the tissues in my jaw area. Apparently, I’ve been overworking my poor old jaw, because I have to chew on one side – there being no teeth on the bottom of the other side! Long and convoluted, I know, but let this be a warning to those of you out there chewing on one side…GIVE IT A REST!




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Ye gods, but it’s been a hellish morning. I ran around replacing arrows directing Freshers to places for the second day of multiple registration, discovered that the big chocolate tin in the office was empty when I came back (oh God, empty – how can such things happen???), panicked because we seem to have missed a talk and left students waiting for someone who never turned up, and was given a hugely patronising bollocking (in an irritatingly smarmy way which of course made it ten thousand times worse) by one of my (thank God) more geographically distant colleagues who then decided he hadn’t browbeaten me enough and rang back to make more criticisms. Plus a request to go and get him something from the Health Centre. Which is next door to where he works, and I am near neither of them. Harrumph. I ended up simply putting the phone down on the smarmy bugger and felt a lot better for having done so. Last time I do something nice for him then … And thank the Lord I don't have to speak to the mealy-mouthed b*****d very often ...

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My hands hurt. It's been a long time since this last happened, since my last bout of repetitive strain injury. Maybe 8 years. Back then, my whole arm went numb, I had to stop typing for several months, which is very difficult for a journalist. I remember I dabbled in voice recognition software but just couldn't get used to talking to myself. I had to stop knitting, too, which I was sad about. I had a lot of chiropratic treatment etc.. and that helped. Then I discovered yoga, and that really really helped.

I haven't had pain for years, I've been doing yoga regularly, sitting properly at the computer (I think), not really knitting. Then a few months ago I took up knitting again, delighted, because it's pretty trendy now, I don't get called "Grandma", everyone wants hand-made jumpers. But I must have overdone it, or over-used my laptop, or been careless about posture or something, because now I have those familiar twinges, mostly when I am not typing, not writing.

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This from the BBC
"Fantasy author Jordan dies at 58
Author Robert Jordan, whose was best known for the Wheel of Time series of fantasy novels has died of a rare blood disease aged 58.
Jordan - whose real name was James Oliver Rigney Junior - died at the Medical University of South Carolina.
His personal assistant, Maria Simons, said the disease caused the walls of his heart to thicken.
Jordan's first fantasy book, The Eye of the World, was published in 1990 and went on to sell millions of copies.


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The book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, introduced me to Bill Bryson. I love the way he communicates with his reader. It's direct, like a friend sharing their experience, it has all the wonderful ebb and flow of a really good conversation, mainly of the listening kind.

So, while having a luxurious slow browse through my local bookshop recently I came across "A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail". I was interested but I didn't think the American Appalachian Trail was a subject that would get me. On the front cover it said "a seriously funny read". They weren't wrong. I laughed out loud so many times, in coffee shops, on the bus, in company, every time I read a few paragraphs, real belly laughs. This book was in the travel genre, if it had been in the comedy genre I would have missed it (I'm a bit of a serious person) I rarely if ever would read a book written purely for laughs.

What I loved about the book was the way he wove interesting bits of information and personal insights into his human experience. And that's how it is when you walk, thoughts and insights drift in and out all the time, it's one of the joys of walking. There was a bit in the book about a place called Centralia in Pennsylvania. It's a town slowly disintegrating because there is an underground coal fire that has burned since 1961 underneath it. Apparently it could burn for 1000 years. I went onto www.youtube.com (have you discovered it) and was able to find a video showing exactly the place Bill was describing. How wonderful is the internet when combined with "active" reading. And when you are reading something geographical you can't do without combining your reading with Google Earth. The main thing is to remember to continue reading your book and not get tooooo distracted.

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Well, they’re here. The campus is full of confused-looking students clutching maps and frowning. Lordy, but how it takes me back. I absolutely and utterly hated my own Freshers’ Week up in Durham about 120 years ago now – I seem to remember I spent most of it sobbing and wondering how I could escape. Well, really, can you imagine it? – I was forced to meet people, go out in the evenings and look as if I was having fun whilst doing it. Three of my Worst Nightmare Scenarios – at the same time. The relief when my Freshers’ Week was over and I could actually get down to doing some study (bliss!) was indescribable. I can only hope that now our new first years have a better time.

Anyway, first thing this morning, Ruth and I were out treading the campus and placing stickers on walls and floors and pavements to try to explain how to get to Registration. Then from Registration to Health Registration. Then from Health Registration to Library Registration. And if they manage to do all that, then they definitely deserve a beer or two at the bar tonight. But – alas – we have no stickers for that route, so they’ll just have to find their own way there. And back ...

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There was a documentary/fan worship programme on BBC 4 the other night; Jonathon Ross in search of Steve Ditko the co-creator of Spider-man.

I have not watched the whole show, as I taped it but I did see contributions from Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore, so I expect the comments to be meaningful.

But what I want to consider is how much of an impact on writers of a certain age did Marvel have on us to nurture a need to tell stories and expand our imagiantion.

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