Month: August 2024

Weather Whiplash

I must have blinked and missed it. A week ago, night-time temperatures were in the single digits but today spring has arrived and daytime temps are in the twenties. Trees that seemed dormant a few days back are suddenly blooming. Not just one or two trees, but rows of trees along streets that appeared bare the last time I looked.

Officially, spring is at least another week away, yet Sydney basked in 27 degrees today. This past year has been the second warmest on record, but fortunately rainfall has been average, at the very least in the Eastern states. Luckily, because bushfire season is starting earlier each year and dry vegetation acts like kindling.

For the 16 years that we lived in the Blue Mountains, every spring brought with it that heart-in mouth feeling as fire trucks raced by. My daughter developed a keen sense of bushfires. She can smell one miles away. This is the inadvertent training young children get who live in fire prone areas. We saw the destruction around us with alarming regularity and knew several people who lost their homes. I never knew the full extent of the effect it had on me until I left.

Unfortunately, it is expected that we will have to endure more heatwaves, extreme conditions in summer and increasingly hazardous weather conditions earlier than ever before and not just in Australia. We will all have to learn mitigation tactics and put an end to being complacent about our impact on the planet. It is high time we stop talking about the weather and work together to actively improve the climate.

Fitting room fiasco

Swimsuit shopping is an ordeal like no other. You find yourself in a cramped cubicle with lighting that makes you look pallid and anaemic at best. Every blotch on your face is magnified, every fold on your hips highlighted. A bored twenty-something salesperson is on the other side of a flimsy curtain, and you’re left regretting every life choice that led you to this moment.

The four-item limit per cubicle is a cruel joke. If nothing fits, you’re either forced to wait with chattering teeth for the salesperson to come back from their morning tea, or get dressed and face the horror of starting over. It’s enough to make anyone want to avoid getting wet.

Determined not to miss out on future beach ‘fun’, I braved online shopping. My one-piece swimsuit arrived, but it didn’t fit. I swapped it for a tankini and bottoms to go with it—success with the pants, but the top was bursting at the bust. Multiple returns later, I finally have a swimsuit. It almost fits perfectly. At this stage, close enough is good enough.

At least this process was less of a nightmare thanks to a responsive online store that has a real shop front in Brisbane. But honestly, I hope I never have to do this again. Maybe I should’ve ordered two—one for now and one for ‘Ron.

To the lighthouse

Attribution: This photo is taken from the Lighthouse Art residency application form

Rarely do I receive an unsolicited email that I decide to read. This one, however, came from the Hunter Writers’ Centre and it piqued my interest. It was advertising a fresh round of residencies at Nobbys lighthouse in Newcastle. The photo was enough to make me want to apply. Imagine spending a week on the stunning Nobbys-Whibayganba Headlands looking out onto the Pacific Ocean!

No sooner had I decided to apply than I talked myself out of it. Why would they offer it to me? There were much better writers out there. Who was I to think that I was worthy of this opportunity? Luckily, I saw this chatter for what it was – a self-limiting belief that didn’t deserve the airtime it was getting. So, I shut down the megaphone in my head and applied anyway.

I was thrilled to receive an offer letter for a week in December. From 8 to 4, I will have a desk in a room with a view. Pedestrian access along Macquarie Pier is the only way to get there, and the walk is long and in parts steep. It is exposed to the elements. In Awabakal language, Whibayganba means ‘the place of the one who makes it windy’. I have been forewarned.

I am very grateful to the Hunter Writers’ Centre for the chance to dedicate a week to a final edit of my memoir. It will also be a chance to ponder what lies ahead in 2025 and beyond. Few of us ever dedicate time to profound self-reflection.I am committed to make the most of this opportunity and look forward to a week, where my only distractions will be the vagaries of nature and awe-inspiring scenery.

The National Library: A Sanctuary for the Curious Mind

Stained-glass window by Leonard French

One of the delights of living in the capital city is access to the National Library. While I can’t borrow items to take home, I can request anything from their collection which has more than 7 000 000 items. It also houses a delightful café and a bookshop that I can never resist. As a Friend of the National Library, I receive a 10% discount at both the bookshop and the café which makes it a desirable place to visit.

The National Library and I share a birth year. However, time has been kinder to the grand lady on the lake. She has grown into stately resplendence and made her mark on the landscape. Her wide steps invite us to enter a modernist cathedral built to venerate history and knowledge. This is echoed within the building by the tall stained-glass windows on either side of the foyer, which functions like a church narthex.

Once the foyer is traversed, a sentinel verifies the visitor is fit to enter the hallowed halls. From there on, a hush descends. It is one of the few libraries that still has rules about eating and drinking, remaining quiet and using mobile phones. No-one complains.

Today, I spent two hours in the library reading. I observed students, researchers, members of the public accessing the latest issues of magazines. I love that in a world of user pays, this facility is free to use and available to anyone in Australia. You don’t need to be an academic or a writer, just someone who is curious to follow a line of enquiry.

The National Library is a cultural treasure, a gift to the country. There are always interesting exhibitions; currently there is one about migration. In August there is a webinar on family history for beginners, a lecture on Aboriginal perspectives on landscape and a book launch of Australian flora, to name a few. There are collections focusing on maps, oral histories, performing arts, Australiana and Australian writers, and many more. You can access many resources through Trove, a library database owned by the National Library at https://trove.nla.gov.au/.