transported : and a lucky dip

one minute i was in rainy England

the next [well, not quite, more like 1560 minutes later] I was back in rainy South Oz

i flew back on Emirates and while their seat wasn't quite as comfy as Qantas

the food was simply fabulous. best airline fodder ever.

[long haul Delta still does the best cocktails]

you may think these are small things...

not if you are spending 26 hours in transit.

i finally arrived home at about 11 o'clock last night

and after the usual formalities [saying hello to a multitude of furred and unfurred people] tucked myself up with a loudly purring Martha-cat

in the later afternoon today the sun came out and so i pulled on the wellies

for a plod about my favourite paddock

 stacked a few stones

[you can't tell in the picture, but the stones of home are sparkly]

 found the soak to be full [small happy dance]

 enjoyed the setting sun

and the rising moon

and then i had a very good idea

if those of you who purchase the bundle book

[and those who have already bought it]

email me a copy of your receipt

then

i will make a lucky dip

choose three names from a tsunobukuro bag

and send a hand-embellished ecoprint tsunobukuro bag

to each of those three people

if you happen to mention the book on your blog or facebook

[and send me the link]

you will receive a bonus entry for each separate site on which you do so

entries will only be accepted via this email address

wanderbear[at]gmx[dot]com

the lucky dip closes at sunset on August 3rd 2014, Pacific Ocean time

and on the seventh day

Saturday and Sunday are generally regarded as days of rest
but i had things to do

a warp to wind
text to tame
a book to bind
and some serious weeding

somehow my morning walk
became an evening walk

and unsurprisingly i found diversion in the cow paddock
where the stones were just too tempting
and made a very nice pile
with an elegant cantilever detail

i wasn't carrying the pocket rocket though
so trotted back to the house to get it

by the time i returned to take an image
the moon, bless her
had decided to take a seat

moon, stones

weStFootwork

looking for a place to stay in Perth? don't put the All Seasons Hotel at the top of your list.

my booking through wotif.com resulted in a windowless dogbox room that i wouldn't have offered my worst enemy.

reception disclaimed responsibility and said it was all the fault of wotif.

not impressed. All Seasons should bear in mind that 'word of mouth' is not only the best but also sometimes the worst, form of publicity. [think of Charles Dickens]

so for an extra $30 per night i moved to a room upstairs to where i could at least stand on a ledge near a window and gaze at the rising moon before dawn

in the upstairs room there was another bonus

some enterprising previous guest had shower-capped the smoke alarm.

highly illegal but rather helpful to one who likes boiling up the travelling dye cauldron

on the bright side, if you're looking for good coffee in Perth, head for Milk & Honey 82 James Street Northbridge

lovely smiles

good service

lovely blooming moth-orchids

and theatrical strength hot coffee on request

for more substantial nourishment head to Mela Indian Sweets & Eats, corner of William and Robinson, also in Northbridge. best masala dosa i've ever eaten [and that includes the real McCoy on the sub-continent]

and for the curious, here's what the surreptitious dyepot rendered...

a marvellous night for a moondance

there's rather a lot of fuss about the moon in recent days...and who left which footprint with what and where.

where were you when it was all going on 40 years ago?

i was at school in Germany. we started our day early at 8am...but by 1300hrs we were home again and sitting down to a lovely hot lunch cooked by my delightful great-aunt. there'd be at least 10 people around the table on any day, often quite a few more as starving students would turn up in the hope of a feed. after lunch we'd disappear into the park across the way or the beech forest just up the hill and play to our hearts content.

that month we watched the moon landing on a crackly black-and-white tv. i skeptically wondered why the flag was fluttering, and what the fuss was about

Woodstock had a much greater impact on me - but only about 10 years later, when i finally realised what it meant...not realising it had happened just down the road from where we lived only a little later that same year

here's a clip from the movie "A Walk in the Moon" filmed at a summer camp much like the one we lived at in the fall and winter of '69...excepting we were at Aloha Manor [Vermont] after summer camp was finished and everyone had gone home and back to school

imagine two children aged 10 and 7, running wild in the red leaf fall. paddling canoes on the lake, playing hide-and-seek in the forest. romping in the snow. good times.

lunar tunes

i've always found it somewhat ironical that the patriarchal church that went to such lengths to undermine women and reduce them to doormats still calculates the timing of Easter (the name itself nicked from the fertility festival Oestre) according to the phases of the moon.
not only did the church encourage the burning of women at the stake for such crimes as being able to heal sickness with herbs they also labelled the number 13 as unlucky. why? because it roughly corresponds to the number of moonths (moon months) in a year which in turn roughly corresponds to the number of times women (if unaffected by modern environmental pollutants) might reasonably be expected to bleed in a year.
and because this bleeding was considered rather unnerving, given it could be quite dramatic and yet women didn't usually die of it, the whole process (although quite normal) came under a cloud. must have been embarassing for those big tough guys, to have to accept that we all have to have mothers.