Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist)

Welcome and come on in for a cuppa. I am well and truly organised now and can offer you any beverage you want, hot or cold. Don’t ask for any food though as I’m not quite on top of that yet.

If we were having coffee I’d be telling you what a hectic week we have had. So much has happened in such a short space of time although I am still not managing to visit as many of your sites as I would like to.  Sunday and Monday we continued getting the house in order. Downstairs is looking quite respectable and I am trying to bring 3 boxes from our storage shed twice a week to hopefully eventually not have to keep paying for the shed. So far I have done this and managed to find homes for all the box contents – some was sent to St Vincents.

Tuesday we went to Brisbane on the bus to Old Government House in the morning and then the afternoon at the art gallery. It is such a nice way to travel so the whole day is totally stress free.

© irene waters 2017

Old Government House was built for the independent colony of Queensland in 1859 (completed 1862) for the first governor sir George Bowen. Eleven more followed him hosting social events and administrative offices.

© irene waters 2017

It had quarters for the staff at the rear. In 1910 it ceased this function and became part of the University of Queensland. It was taken over in by the National Trust and restored, finally being open to the public in 2009.

© irene waters 2017

Apart from being a beautiful structure to wander around it now houses the William Robinson Gallery. He is considered one of Australia’s foremost living artists. His humour comes through in many of his figurative expressionist works and I loved his creation story with an Australian slant. The one above is an equestrian self portrait which won the Archibald prize in 1987.

© irene waters 2017

We went to the Art Gallery to see the three women artists – two Australians Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington-Smith and American Georgia O’Keefe in an exhibition called Making Modernism. How I wished I could photograph it but in this one cameras were prohibited. All women were attributed with making the transition into the modern time by rejecting artistic and social conventions of the time and depicting views in a different way.

Prior to entering we saw Australian artists hung in a different fashion with interactive screens allowing you to zoom in and giving you information at your finger tips. Our day was a real success.

If we were having coffee I’d tell you the rain started on Wednesday. Not masses but enough to give a feeling of worse to come, which of course it did on Thursday. All activities Thursday were cancelled , schools were closed, shopping malls shut, the buses were free to get people home quickly. Power was lost in the middle of the afternoon as we waited it out. Mum of course couldn’t get to meals as the lift was out. Somehow they managed to cook and delivered her meal to her room. We were nice and cosy inside. Luckily one of the boxes I’b brought from the shed had all our hurricane lights in it and not knowing where to put them I’d left them on the kitchen bench. Very handy as it happened.

© irene waters 2017

© irene waters 2017

Despite the brilliant blue day the next day we still had no power. Multiple power lines had been broken with the trees falling on them. Consequently our normal Friday lunch with Mum was postponed until today.

© irene waters 2017.

We started setting up the office today also. I had hoped to be up and running by now but it is close. I haven’t done any writing but have done some pictorial blogs in response to challenges. I posted a new Times Past prompt this morning.

Now it is your turn. How was your week? Has your weather been warmer/colder, wetter/drier. Have you read any good books or seen any good films?  Thank you for dropping in for coffee and thank you to Nerd in the Brain for hosting our weekend coffee. Other places to drop in for coffee can be found here. Hope to see you next week.