The temps have dropped this week and I'm living in my new Uniqlo cardis (so look like I'm in my PJs apparently all the time...but so toasty!!)
I am happy that I can do my 11km walk without difficulty, but just a little slower than normal. However my friend is away for 2 weeks so by her return, I hope to be fighting fit. Not sure my brain has recovered fully and I still get the ringing in the ears...this COVID stuff is so tedious. It is keepig me off the booze so that has to be a good thing...(not that I'm noticing a weight drop!)
Apologies for the green dot...
Jonquil season is upon us - my favourite time of year. I got these for $8, and while not the best condition, they smell gorgeous so hopefully I track some nice yellow ones down for next week...
I am more of a summer person but planning overnight adventures in the Hunter and Southern Highlands for some chilly school holiday outdoor fun.
I made us go out for a pub roast (the big yorkie at the Forresters) and we went with friends who we used to go for pub roasts with before kids, so over 20 years ago. We laughed about how as the kids grew up, we were reverting back to our old ways. And I guess there's some truth in that. You seek out those parts of you that got lost with the demands of raising kids.
I am realising what a creature of habit I am, and I live a very 'seasonal' life.
My favourite of VIVID this year was Barangaroo House. It was so simple but so beautiful.
I'm very disappointed I missed a lot of VIVID due to COVID but glad I still have a crack at Lightscape with the extended time. (it runs for the school holidays too as does Dark Spectrum).
I also really enjoyed VIVID House - the immersive film screening to music. My favourite moment was when this appeared:
The whole room audibly gasped in unison at the beauty and it made me (and many others) smile at the shared delight. It gave a strange sense of community at this shared experience.
For those of you overseas, if you can't come to Australia in Summer, VIVID is definitely the winter time to visit. There's so much to see and do, a lot of it free. And it never fails to enchant me, and I go every year!
Do you travel for festivals and events?
Also linking with #AwwMondays because when the arctic landscape appeared, the whole room went Awww in unsion.
I looked at my diary to write this post and realised I have a dinner tonight with friends but then nothing written in for the next week - including the weekend! How is this possible?// I guess when I had coivd is when i would have been booking in things for now. So that's the 'hang over' so to speak...
One of the adult kids said they'd see a movie on the weekend with me, so that's a treat.
I want to book Lightscape - last year I purchased tickets for it in Melbourne twice and then had to give those tickets away (twice) when I had to cancel my trips there (two times....). As I was already burnt by this expereince, I didn't buy my tickets in VIVID, which is good because I would have had to give them away too, due to COVID.
I have offered to see a friend's son's band with her on the weekend but haven't heard back. Wouldn't mind trying to talk my husband into seeing Lazywax at Shell House but that might be a push...
Want to do the new North Head walk or maybe get out to see some whales....I'm sure something will come up.
What's on my calendar? For once, I don't know....
What are you up to?
(Not the best pic but the sun was reflecting off the leaf, so brightly but the camera didn't catch it)
A few people in this link up had recommended Dark Mode to me as a gripping page turner or that they read it in one sitting so I was intrigued, even though that's not my usual thing (see curiosity). I was delighted to discover it's set in my area. I knew the garden shop exactly even before she confirmed the location. The murder was up the road from me, I shop at the shopping centre. It was hilariously familliar. As for the story, while I sort of figured it out before I got to the end, I was indeed devouring it, and finished it in 2 days. It's been awhile since I've felt the need to do that with a book. It's a good feeling. There was also a moment in the denouement where like the main character I was unsure of what was happeneing, and I really liked that feeling. Doubt that my idea of the conclusion was right. I guess the 'edge of your seat' feeling. I did enjoy it, creepy content and all.
I also read Clementine Ford's How We Love. While I loved Fight like a Girl, I was a little bored in this one. It's different, more memoir and a look at love and relationships, but not with the political and intellectual angle, just personal stories. It's not terrible, just not my thing. To be fair, she opens with the explanation that this is a different type of book, and had I bothered to read anything about it, including the subtitle 'Notes on a life', I probably would have realised....
Not a whole lot of reading this month....must get myself back into it....Do you have any recommendations?
This article talks of how a 3 year old will ask 100 questions a day but by 10 or 11 the child stops asking. They go on to say that curiosity rarely outlasts childhood. In a visit to a museum a while back, I noted that we used to go all the time but then stopped when the kids got too old for it. However I derive much pleasure from it. Why do we stop visiting museums when we do visit art galleries?
In lockdown I did a number of Uni courses online, and that day devoted to learning was the highlight of my week, each week. I was energised and charged, even though I was easily the dumbest in the class - I guess I had a lot to learn so I was constantly stimulated, not just by the lecturer but by the global chat of ideas and opinions.
When we were at Mona, I was informed that they rewarded curiosity, and because I had asked what was behind a curtain, I was allowed into the hidden salon. In Tokyo, as I recently explained, my curiosity was again rewarded. This article talks of the importance of novelty, and it's curiosity that seeks that out. It asks if we can genuinely spark curiosity, and I do believe we can, simply because once you've had your curiosity rewarded, you are keen to repeat that experience.
I think one of the saddest things as we age is that we lose our curiosity, while at the same time we don't see it as a fault in ourselves. We belittle the thing we don't know about, we stay close to home, we don't try new things. It becomes a small little world that we know, and we have no interest in broadening it. We can't be bothered. We're reluctant to try new things. It's so sad and disappointing. This is a great article on why we begin to lose our curiosity.
Curiosity in many scientific studies shows positive impacts on adaptive ageing and happiness. Bottom line is, we should all live like Alice (in Wonderland). She followed her curiosity and explored new worlds, made new friends along the way and had mostly a lot of fun. It is not so much the end result of learning but the discovery that makes curiosity so vital to our well being.
“I could never be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Have you noticed your world view shrinking a little with age?
Once you leave Barangaroo to head down to the Cutaway for VIVID House and Fire Kitchen, the installations use the water or the landscape as their back drop to reflect on.
It intensifies the colourful beauty of the works. Flying fish was one of my favourites but I could not capture.
VIVID really is a showcase of this harbour city, both above and below ground. And with the drone show, in the air....
I am happy that I can do my 11km walk without difficulty, but just a little slower than normal. However my friend is away for 2 weeks so by her return, I hope to be fighting fit. Not sure my brain has recovered fully and I still get the ringing in the ears...this COVID stuff is so tedious. It is keepig me off the booze so that has to be a good thing...(not that I'm noticing a weight drop!)
Jonquil season is upon us - my favourite time of year. I got these for $8, and while not the best condition, they smell gorgeous so hopefully I track some nice yellow ones down for next week...
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