Many thanks for two awards

blogging-award3-2Firstly I want to thank Luccia Gray  from Rereading Jane Eyre for nominating me for the very inspiring blogger award. A huge honour from someone who is inspiring themselves (which was obviously why she was awarded this trophy herself. Luccia loves everything to do with Victorian England and her blog started out looking at this fascinating time. She was soon caught up however in the world of blogging, interacting with other bloggers, joining in the photo challenges, blog hops, writing challenges, poetry, writing 101 and so much more. If you don’t know Luccia drop by, you’ll be delighted and she will be welcoming as she truly is a very inspiring blogger.

These are some ‘rules’ that go along with being a nominee. I will share them now and then follow suit immediately after:

1. Thank and link the amazing person(s) who nominated you. (DONE)
2. List the rules and display the award. (DONE)
3. Share seven facts about yourself. (BELOW)
4. Nominate 15 other amazing blogs (DONE) and comment on their posts to let them know they have been nominated. (DONE)
5. Optional: Proudly display the award logo on your blog and follow the blogger who nominated you. (DONE)

Seven Facts About Me: Difficult to come up with facts you don’t already know so here I am going to give my answers to the next award that I am accepting which is the

liebsterawardLiebster Award kindly awarded me by Geoff LePard at TanGental. If you don’t know Geoff drop by and have a read. His writing I find most enjoyable to read and there is always something in each of them that I just have to make a comment about, something that pings. Thanks Geoff.

The rules for the Liebster

 

1) you should post the badge on your blog, (2) thank the blogger who presented this award and link back to their blog. In this case you should (3) answer the questions proposed and (4) write 10 questions for those you nominate to answer in turn.

So here are my answers to the questions which are also serving as the seven facts about myself

1. If you find yourself in the condemned man’s (woman’s) cell, what is your last meal?

I would request a huge hot colourful curry as that is probably my all time favourite meal followed by mulberry pie and ice cream. I would hope that the final outcome as my sphincters relax as the procedure is carried out that my demise will be as unpleasant for the executioner as it is for myself.

2. What music would you choose to be played at your funeral?

This one is easy as it is already picked. As I slide into the furnace it will be to the tune of I see her everywhere, everywhere I go There she goes there she goes.

3. If you had the choice of our next Prime Minister (or President or Potentate or minor deity, depending where you are and who you are ruled by) who, from anyone living, would you choose and why?

Tanya Plibersek – she is an impressive woman and in her roles to date has shown that she not only works hard but is an achiever. She is more likely to be compassionate to refugees given her parents refugee status and she is much more likely to take action on climate change. Health is definitely an interest.

“To understand Tanya Plibersek, says her husband, you have to understand her relationship to Jane Austen. To say she is a fan is like saying the sky is blue. Elinor Dashwood, the heroine of Sense and Sensibility, is Plibersek’s favourite character: “I admire her ability to carry on despite her sadness and loss,” she says. Austen provides “insights, advice and cautions for a young lady legislator”, she told the Jane Austen Society of Australia in Sydney in 2007. “I thank Jane Austen for the merciful release from melodrama she has provided in Elinor: for demonstrating that strong feelings need not be on constant display.” (I had to put this bit in for Luccia).

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/tanya-plibersek-cool-calm-elected-20120921-26bh9.html#ixzz3735F9eBt

She speaks well  and possibly most importantly she is not a lawyer. (sorry Geoff).

4. When you are driving what irritates you most in other drivers/road users. If you don’t drive, move on.

We have a lot of roundabouts where I live and I find it really annoying that people don’t indicate correctly as to what their plans for exit are. Plus it is dangerous also.

5. Do you prefer first or third person books and why?

I have just read a third person book and found it most annoying. I could not work out who the narrator was and became sick of she, she, she. It doesn’t normally bother me but this really rankled. As a memoirist I would have to say first person but in reality I don’t care as it is ultimately the story and the writing which matter to me.

6. Imagine you had to lose a sense: which one and why?

If I had to lose a sense at this time in my life I would definitely chose to lose my sense of smell. Although I delight in the unexpected beautiful smell of a flower or scent I would probably miss this sense the least. If it was between sight and hearing I would choose to retain hearing as having seen things I could now imagine from description what a scene looked like. To lose hearing isolates you from the world and there is nothing I like better than to be debating some point or other. I enjoy my food too much to want to lose my taste and it is also nice to have the sensations you have with touch. So definitely in answer to this question the smell goes.

7. Do you believe freedom of speech is an absolute or conditioned right, and if conditioned what principle limitations? If this offends you to answer, move on.

I do believe in Freedom of speech and I am loathe to temper it by saying it should be a conditioned right. At one point in time people took responsibility for what they said and tended not to exceed unwritten limits thereby not hurting people and inciting extreme responses by emotive reporting. If people could censure themselves I would say no conditions attached. If conditions were to be attached it would be to limit speech to what was in the public interest to know and not delve into innocent private lives.

8. If you had your time again what put down or response would you like to have made but didn’t think of it in time?

I have to admit this has me stumped. I don’t bother remembering things like this. To remember is to harbour unhappy feelings and what is the point.

9. What’s your funniest funny in under thirty words?

Why did the chicken cross the internet?

To get to another site.

10. What is your favourite cartoon/graphic book/novel? Mine is Tintin (The Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham’s treasure double bill).

Eloise in Moscow by Kay Thompson. I have always wondered where my copy went as I loved that book. Sadly it is gone as it would now have fetched over $1000 US dollars if I were to sell it which I wouldn’t.

My fifteen recipients for the very inspiring blogger award

Christine R

Paula Reed Nancarrow

Livonne

The Reading Girl

oneanna65

Patriziaphoto

My Life Lived Full

Wandering Iris

Ben Garrido

Psychosomatically in love

Cheryl Wright

Shelina

Shh Can’t you see I’m writing

Deb

better not broken

 

My ten recipients for the Liebster award

Drew Delaney

Celia Fitzgerald

Its Always to early to quit

Gaby Bennett

Lydia Devadason

create this simple

Las Mariposas Muertas

Nicholas Rossis

pixiejan

Aisling

The ten question for my Liebster recipients to answer:

1. What are you passionate about and why

2. Which is your favourite book from childhood.

3.How would you describe the way you normally dress

4. What is your favourite holiday destination and why

5. Is there a city that has changed you in some way and why

6. What advice woudl you give to your younger self (fun, fictional or factual)

7. What makes you smile

8. Are you a planner or are you spontaneous

9. What is the hardest thing you have ever had to do in your life

10. When did you start blogging and why. Has your purpose changed since you started.

 

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Brisbane, history and a bit of culture

We took the bus the other day to Brisbane organised by U3A Noosa for participants in its art appreciation course. Forty-three retired people were taken and dropped at South Bank where GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) and the Queensland Art Gallery and State Library are to be found and left to their own devices.

On the way down I found a section in IQ84 by Murakami which is on the subject I have been pondering deeply of late. I did what I never do and ear marked the book so that I could return to it easily in this book 1,381 pages.

“What with history being rewritten so often, nobody knows what is true anymore. They lose track of who is an enemy and who an ally. It’s that kind of story.”

“They rewrite history?”

“Robbing people of their actual history is the same as robbing them of part of themselves. It’s a crime.” ……….

……..”Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. If our collective memory is taken from us – is rewritten – we lose the ability to sustain our true selves”

I found this interesting as at the moment I am looking at memoir being essential part of forming identity and personality. But there is no time to dwell on that as first we go to GOMA. Modern art often leaves me a bit cold. You have to look at it in a different way, somehow tap into the emotions it creates rather than a scene you like. The theme was harvest on the lower form with an aboriginal exhibition on the upper floors.

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From there to the Australian watercolour exhibition in the Queensland Gallery. It showed Australia from the 1850s to the 1980s and it was a superb exhibition. The change in painting as you went through the ages was apparent. At first the scenes had English colours as this is what the artists were used to painting. As time went on the colours became vibrant and intense.

After looking at a Picasso and a few of the old masters we could not take any more in so we went for a wander down South Bank. A wonderful space in the middle of the city bordered by the Brisbane River. We have our very own eye and  a beach in the city.

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A wonderful outing. We met the others to board the bus and headed back on our two hour trip getting home just on dark. The longest we have ever left the dogs alone. The only disaster that confronted us on our return was a small cocker who had attempted to eat the fish food, scattering it from one end of the house to the other as he carried it around.

You have to laugh.

Posted in daily events, photography | Tagged , , , , | 29 Comments

Sunday Stills The Next Challenge: Entrances and Gateways

© irene waters 201

© irene waters 2014

This is an entrance gate to one of the buildings in the Royal Palace complex in Phnom Penh. The intricate lace work gate looked so delicate yet I have no doubt that it was successful in keeping either people out or people in.

 

http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/sunday-stills-the-next-challenge-entrances-and-gateways/

 

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Wordless Wednesday: Akaroa

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

Posted in photography, Wordless Wednesday | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Photo a Week Challenge: Wildlife

 

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014This is a new challenge that I came across today. Here’s how it works:

1. Each week, Nancy will come up with a theme and post a photo that I think fits. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog (a new post!) anytime before the following Thursday, when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “A Photo a Week Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use the “postaday″ and “Photo a Week” tags.

3. Follow nancy merrill photography so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements.

http://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/a-photo-a-week-challenge-wildlife/

 

 

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Bite Size memoir No 9: Cycling

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

I can understand Lisa’s choice of prompt as Yorkshire sees the start of the Tour de France. We watched it on the television stunned at the number of people turned out for the occasion. Over a million we were told. That is almost a quarter of the population of our largest city, Sydney. It makes me claustrophobic just thinking about it.

Nevertheless it does start you thinking about cycling. Not a pursuit that I have had much success at. I imagine at one point I had a tricycle. Most kids seem to have one of these but I did not have a bike in my childhood past this. I don’t know why. I’m sure I begged for one but it was never forthcoming. My brother on the other hand had the tricycle, followed by a larger three wheel version and then his pride and joy a two-wheeler. From that time on his cycling was constant. He rode to school, then uni then off to work. He even left for his honeymoon on a couple of fold up bikes. His bike has caused him numerous injuries as it seems that a prerequisite to riding is that you will at times take a tumble – or perhaps that is just the risks he takes in riding.

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

I owned my first bike when I was doing my nursing training. It is a trifle embarrassing looking back on it. What a nerd I was………..

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

BITE SIZE

The Bay City Rollers were visiting Australia when we purchased our bikes and though the music didn’t appeal, their attire did. We practiced around the nurses home before venturing out on the road. We felt we were free, neither of us having at this stage any other form of transport. On the first occasion we could correspond our off duty days we decided to ride from the hospital at St Leonards to Gosford, a trip of 75 kms. This turned into the longest walking trip of my life as a bike without gears just couldn’t make it up the hills. We walked up them and after discovering my inability to stop the machine with its back pedal brake I also walked down. On the odd bit of flat road I rode. My friend, having more courage than I, rode some hills but for the mostly we walked and did what girls do best – talk.

That was my last attempt at bike riding until we moved to Noosa. Everyone rides in Noosa and I was not going to be the exception. Prior to purchasing a bike I saw someone with a tricycle and decided that was definitely the way an ageing person with not good balance should go. Three wheels just couldn’t fall over I surmised. My lovely husband duly gave me for Christmas the wanted trike. Putting it together wasn’t easy but finally done I went for a ride. I was terrified. Due to the amount of rain that we get here our road is high in the middle with a noticeable fall to the gutters on the side. To ride a three wheel on this I felt as though I was constantly going to tip over. I don’t have a lot of perseverance when I’m scared and after three attempts it sat idle in the garage. Recently I sold it to the man across the road who put in seats for his twin toddlers at the back. The entire family happily ride it and I watch on pleased that it is no longer rotting in our garage.

I am happy to say I know that my cycling days which never really began are now officially over.

 

http://sharingthestoryblog.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/bite-size-memoir-no-9-cycling/

 

Posted in Memoir | Tagged , , | 26 Comments

Risk Taking

photo courtesy Colin Mathers

photo courtesy Colin Mathers

Reading a post “The Past is always tense, the future perfect” Geoff from TanGental advises that  we either “run shrieking with delight into the sea of possibilities or we can poke it suspiciously with a stick to see if a serpent lurks within.” That is we either take risks or we don’t. He suggests that as we get older the serpent often wins out by preventing us from taking new risks.

This has had me thinking all weekend and incited me to put some of my thoughts to paper.

When we are young most of us take risks by doing some foolhardy action simply because we think we are invincible. Those that take the greatest risks probably aren’t here to talk about it but most of us survive this time. There is a percentage of us though that probably have never taken a risk in their lives. My mother is one. Her life has always been ordered, planned and controlled. Probably, according to the article on how to live a long healthy life this is the reason she has lived to 86 despite her heart condition.

There is a huge difference between my mother and me. You can see it when we play cards. She will immediately put down her  cards at the earliest possible moment for fear of being caught with them in her hand whereas I will hold the cards for the longest possible time in the effort to go down in entirety. Sometimes the risk pays off, occasionally I get caught but it doesn’t stop me wanting to take the same course the next time. I can see some very subtle differences as my Mum has become old. Her ability to take any risk is now zero. When we went to a trivia night we were given the option of choosing a category in which we would be given double points for each one we answered correctly. Mum says “I can’t choose until I know what the questions are going to be.” On another occasion when she had her heart turn the other day and the paramedic asked “on a scale of one to ten what was your pain level?” She replied ” I can’t tell you I’ve never had any pain to know where it fitted.” She simply cannot take the risk of being wrong.

My brother and I are both risk takers. My brother on a more physical level than myself. He will climb to the top of Mont Blanc for the first time at sixty years of age, ski down off- piste slopes that scare the living daylights out of me watching them on the video taken from his helmet camera. He’ll hang off cliffs and basically be up for any type of extreme sport and activity. I couldn’t do these things and luckily I don’t want to but I will take other kinds of risk.

There were probably many risks that I took as a kid. Stealing the beans from the green grocer was a risk and one that I wouldn’t try again and running away from home was another. The first real risk I took however was at the end of high school. My girlfriend and I were both going to train as nurses. She wanted to be a children’s nurse and really wanted me to go to the same hospital. The temptation was huge. We were inseparable at school and the idea of starting our working life together was very appealing. I took the risk and we did our training at different hospitals.

From there the risks came thick and fast. For ahwile, after reading the Dice Man by Luke Rheinhart I lived by the options obtained from the thrown di. Despite it all I survived. The biggest risk was giving up a career and moving to a remote island in Vanuatu (Tanna). Here the risks came daily and although it changed our lives forever it didn’t stop us from taking risks. We became farmers with no knowledge of farming, t general store keepers with no retail knowledge and restauranteurs. Deciding to retire after this experience we had to do something. We were both younger than retirement age so we decided to fill our time  renovating,  working as the builder’s labourers. Then, determining that we knew as much about building as we needed to know we decided to do away with the builder and build our own house.

Yet I ask are these things risks when you consider them adventures. Before Vanuatu we had looked at a tourist cruise ferry on Pittwater. We really wanted to do it. Cruising up and down on the water serving sandwiches to the tourists sounded like a career move we would enjoy. But we looked at it and couldn’t make the figures turn it into a viable venture. Luckily as it turned out as it sank with a boatload of American old age pensioners on board. So did we only take calculated risks?

It’s true that now I’m older I do take less risks but I don’t think that this is through choice but rather that I am no longer in a position to be actively seeking out adventure. I suppose doing my masters is a bit of a risk but a fairly safe risk – all that can happen is not succeeding but at least I’m trying. Writing is a bit of a risk in itself- particularly memoir as it opens you up to censure and exposes your vulnerabilities and failures and there is always the risk of destructive criticism (I love constuctive criticism as this is the only way that your writing moves forward).

My husband on the other hand takes more risks. Stupid risks like not doing up the ladder to prevent it from jack-knifing as he climbs. The risks he takes are due to impatience and possibly a little laziness but perhaps as the number of risky ventures presented to him become fewer perhaps he just has to make a few of his own.

I’d be interested on what you think about taking risks. Do you think you are born a risk taker? What do you think about taking risks as you get older?

 

Posted in family, musings | Tagged , , , | 25 Comments

Silent Sunday: South Island New Zealand

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

Posted in photography, Silent Sunday | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

99 Word Flash Fiction: The Future

The difficulty of looking ahead is difficult not only for Charli but for me as well. I am, after all, a memoir writer and in order to write life narratives the events must already have happened. It was easy to look back in time as instructed by last weeks prompt. This week poses a far greater challenge as we are heading into the future.

I’d love to be able to write about the future where those humans still surviving live underground in tunnels like ants where they bemoan that their forebears didn’t take action on climate change. Huge cockroaches are the only thing inhabiting the deserted cities above ground where fire and extreme heat are the norm.

Alternatively I could write about a society that no longer has a memory. Identities have been lost as stories handed down through the ages can no longer be retained by the shrunken brain that the now ancient technology had removed any need to remember and also made societies concentration span so small that they couldn’t be bothered remembering these events anyway. They hadn’t realised that these stories of forebears and self gave them an identity and without them they became mindless robots.

That is about as far as I can travel forward. Fantasy and sci fi are not high on my reading lists and to try and make a futuristic story from these skeletons of stories just has my head reeling. I do need to connect my characters to the past. A future without a past makes no sense at all. For my flash this week I am going into the future but from a past that makes sense, to me anyway.

FLASH

“The only way you can pay ma’am is with your mobile phone.”
“I haven’t got a mobile phone.”
“Your kids’ll have one?”
“I haven’t got any of them either.”
“What about friends ma’am?”
“Dead. They’re all dead.”
“Who helps you then if you ain’t got kids and you ain’t got friends?”
“I help myself.”
“Then you need a mobile phone. No cards since last week and the banks’ll only talk to you on the mobile phone set up for your accounts.”
She left the store with purpose. At last, a use for the length of rope in the garage.

If you want to join in  July 2, 2014 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a futuristic story that looks ahead. What possibilities inspire your writing? Do you need to connect your future characters to the past or is it freeing to write something previously unimagined? Is the future bright or bleak? Write a future near or far. Tell that story in a flash. Respond by noon (PST) Tuesday, July 8 to be included in the compilation.

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Skywatch Friday: 4th July 2014, 1.45pm Noosaville

© irene waters 2014

© irene waters 2014

Posted in photography, Skywatch Friday | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments