Travelling south

I love the NSW South Coast. It's less busy than its northern cousin; could be because it's a bit cooler in general and quite bitter in winter. Most people aspire to travelling north from Sydney. If you travel far enough north, you hit Queensland. This is supposed to be a bonus. Wow! Queensland is glitzy - think white clothes and gold sandals, girls - and it's the place where school leavers go to party after twelve years of teachers and books. Queensland is shopping malls and nightclubs. It's hot and humid. It also has some extremely beautiful natural wonders and exquisite beaches, but it's the south coast that tugs at my heart.

Here's a snapshot of my holiday there last month... maybe you can see why I love it. Bear in mind the temperatures here were warm; in Sydney (and Queensland) the beaches you see in these photos would be crowded. Sadly in saving these pics in Photoshop they have lost a bit of their vibrant colour as I used the 'save for web and devices' option. Just turn the brightness on your monitor to full.

Here is the Sea Cliff Bridge at Coalport, north of Wollongong. We stopped here for some birdwatching, watching raptors soar high above us. Look far into the distance for the southernmost suburbs of Sydney, and wave them goodbye.

What's a seaside trip without a lighthouse? This lovely specimen is at Kiama. Below it on the cliffs is a blowhole. The tide wasn't very high so it wasn't blowing too much. T'other half suggested that it was turned down because it was midweek and outside tourist season :-).

And here's our piece of paradise, our cottage where we spent our honeymoon three years ago:

This place is my secret. I've been coming to this house for ten years. I shared it firstly with a special friend from the UK. True love in the romantic sense never eventuated, but he is still one of my closest and most loved friends. It felt funny when I brought my husband here for our honeymoon... I was so used to visiting with Pete! Anyway, the interior is simple and limewashed, with seaside touches that aren't quaint or trite. It simply feels like home. There are no signs telling you where to put your rubbish etc, the fridge is stocked with generous breakfast goodies, and you can smell the sea from the balcony.

And here is the beach in question, in sunshine and sunset. We swam at all hours of the day depending on what else we were doing. Two days we swam at sunset, cooling off after a warm day's sightseeing.

The local river spills out into the sea... here is the view from a couple of hundred metres in the other direction:

The beaches here are pristine. Locals take pride in their environment, and arrange working bees to clean the beaches. But who would want to litter these lovely natural spaces? There are plenty of litter bins about, and we never saw anything on the beaches that wasn't washed up by the tide (which we removed and binned) or was of the sea itself.

Couldn't help clowning around...

Below , the rocks of Tuross Head. Around the point there is a perfectly good swimming beach, but these pics below remind me of the wildness of the south coast, the hazards for the unwary boatman. I've been here on windy days where the spray hits the top of the cliff and the headlands are shrouded in mist.

Even better is Bingi National Park:

On the little narrow road leading out to Bingi, we saw something most townies never get to see - a mob of wild kangaroos. This photo is just a fraction of them. We estimated there were well over 100 of them! They were grazing in the paddocks beside the road, and at first we thought there were only a dozen. But then we saw movement in the long grass as more and more of them brought their heads up to look at our car. A big male, clearly a leader, came closest and saw for a good ten minutes staring us down. Something spooked them eventually and they were off, bounding gracefully in several directions. Around ten of them jumped across the road in front of us, one after the other. My friends from Scotland got brilliant pics of that. It was a superb moment, seeing these lovely animals in their own environment.

And from the golden sands to the peculiarity that is Guerilla Bay - it reminds me of a Greek island. Very rocky, shingles, whitish sand.

And here's Guerilla Bay at the busiest I've ever seen it:

Magic, eh? It's my dream to live down there one day... away from the hustle and bustle, shopping at the local farmers' markets, walking on the beach all year round, riding my bike on the quiet roads down to the beach...

It's been HOW long? Ooops...

So much for posting on a daily or almost daily basis. It's been a month. We've had people staying with us and have been touring around - to the NSW south coast, to Canberra,to the Hunter Valley, as well as playing tourists ourselves in Sydney as we showed our Scottish visitors around the city.

Sydney isn't as bike-friendly as Melbourne. Bike racks in the downtown area are not utilised as well as they could and should be, but then it's a brave cyclist who takes on aggressive Sydney drivers, particularly in the city itself. That being said I did see some nice bikes around, particularly some 80s vintage ladies' cycles; however my camera wasn't at the ready and these bikes were in full flight, carrying their riders sturdily.

Canberra is a cycle city. In fact there's a shop which combines bicycle and coffee culture quite nicely in Kingston:

A peek through the window showed tables in front and bikes in back. My visitors aren't really cycling people so I didn't dash in to get a fuller measure of what was inside, but a brief inspection through the front door showed the back of the shop laden with city bikes, road bikes and fixies.

But my favourite bike photo from my touring comes from the farm cottage where we stayed. The owner has created a little paradise (more in another post), with touches that really make this place a special haven in which to relax. This poor bike below...many years ago she was abandoned cruelly by the holidaymaker who propped her against the shed, forgetting even about the flowers so carefully chosen and picked from the roadside, and dashed inside for a cup of tea.

Poor thing! She must have been a very graceful creation in her day. She wasn't a brand I recognised - the headbadge was so rusted it didn't make much sense, especially with me lifting the basket of flowers with one hand and trying to shove my compact camera under and around with the other. It looks like a bow, doesn't it? Aside from the pretty headbadge the bike has been plainly built: lugs, but not fancy ones. As always when I see a sight like this I long to have the knowledge and capability (and money) to do a restoration job, as her geometry looks very comfortable. I doubt her owner would let me, though - I've been coming to this place for ten years and the bike has been there all that tine (so, actually, have the plastic flowers!). She's a landmark on the property.

As for bikes I can ride, the hot humid weather broke over Easter, and I was able to take Petunia on a good long run rather than just around the block or to the shops. I hadn't had a decent ride on her for ages - she had a broken valve in her back tyre I didn't fix over summer as it became clear it was a summer from hell and too sticky to do much riding. Any riding I did was on Penelope. Oh dear... it felt so weird riding Petunia again! I had trouble balancing. I even had to put the saddle down nearly two inches, as I'd also lost the art of mounting the proper way and needed to have a toe on the ground. After an hour I was used to her again, but still not as confident on her as I was last year.

So lots of relearning for me and Petunia. Penelope has spoiled me with her lovely balance and relaxed geometry. I'm so glad it's autumn, riding weather! Now... if only it would stop raining :-)

PumpTV - just how much advertising is too much?

I rarely watch commercial television. The commercial breaks and station promos annoy the heck out of me and I get no pleasure from any show I enjoy being carved into 6 or 7 minute segments with 3 minute ad breaks. When I do watch television, it's usually the ABC (ad free) or SBS (fewer ads than commercial channels).

Once upon a time I rather fancied the idea of working in advertising. I used to amuse myself by making pithy captions for products ("Rectinol...shove it up your a*se" was the most memorable). But now, as I approach Grumpy Old Womanhood, I find the constant barrage of advertising in everything from TV to billboards to the internet annoys me. I don't want products pushed in my face. If I want to buy something, I'll research what deals are out there myself. I don't want to be convinced that I need the latest and greatest techno gadget. When this Mac's lease is up, I will lease a new Mac. When my mobile phone dies a final death I'll replace it with an iPhone. Those are simple decisions I have already made. I have no need for a Wii, a Playstation or any other timewaster and entertainer. I read books and ride a bike instead.

So I was both amused and appalled to read this little gem in yesterday's paper about installing little TV screens at the pumps at petrol stations. For heaven's sake! Are we so desperate for stimulation and entertainment that we can't spend 2 to 5 minutes filling up the car without having to watch telly? If you don't want to click on the link, let me assure you that what will be on these screens will be advertisements. Canny marketing merchants have found yet another way to pester potential customers. Quote: "As a result, the spare minutes we once called free time -- which marketers refer to as "dead time" -- are increasingly becoming more advertising time."

Well, we're not allowed use our mobile phones while pumping petrol, so presumably this is to keep the Twitter generation happy and entertained. And avoid the inevitable Tweets such as "Filling the car up. 2c a litre off. Need to wash windscreen." or "Pumping gas, what a waste of two minutes.'. As if Twitter didn't have enough rubbish tweets ricocheting across the ether.

Further on down the article it mentions the possibilities of installing similar screens in men's urinals courtesy of a Swiss invention which is becoming a common site in Europe.

Do we HAVE to be entertained every waking moment? I think not. I relish the opportunities to get away from the computer, the TV, the constant barrage of "Buy! Buy! Buy!" that assaults me at every retail outlet including the petrol station ("Spend $5 in store and get 4c a litre discount!"). I like to have some time when my thoughts can be my own.

And my final thought on TV screens at petrol stations is that it's very clever indeed - people will watch the screen rather than watch how many dollars worth of fuel they are putting into their cars. Ah yes, people who don't automatically 'fill her up' will be spending over their budget and the petrol companies will like that just fine.

Enough from me, I'm heading off for a bit of dead time and a cup of coffee.

Frankenstein's Cat and other stuff

What a ridiculously hectic few weeks it's been. Tons of work on for one of my clients, sadly the one who can't afford a high hourly rate, a not-for-profit organisation. I've been meaning to post on a whole bunch of ideas but haven't got around to it. Some of the stuff I've done has included meeting the Prime Minister, organising a big lunch with another prominent politician as guest speaker, attending industry meetings on behalf of the client, submitting a grant for the client to fund a website redevelopment... it's been manic and I've done no writing, either. I've been working long hours each day, and at the weekend I'm just glad to get away from the blasted computer and work in the garden or just get out and about.

My little girl cat broke her hip several weeks back (don't know how... vet said you have to see them do it to know HOW they did it) and she had a operation nine days ago to cut out the necrotic bit of hip joint which couldn't be fixed. She looks like Frankenstein's Cat, with a three inch long curving wound and ten big stitches. She's limping as they had to cut through a bit of muscle to get to the offending bone, but the vet says the muscle will heal in a few weeks and the limp will improve. She's happier, though. I found her on top of my 2 metre tall bookcase on Monday, sleeping peacefully. She'd jumped up from a little filing cabinet next to it. It's her favourite place in the house, as high as she can get. She hasn't been able to get up there since she broke her hip. When I reached up and patted her, she opened her big blue eyes and I could see the happiness and contentment in them. She was feeling much more her old self.

We have friends flying in from the UK next week and have had to rearrange the spare room somewhat. We have a sofa bed in the living room for overnighters, and a single bed in the spare room which my stepdaughter used when she lived with us. Our friends are staying for a fortnight, so the sofa bed was not an option. We considered buying a new cheap sofa and moving the sofa bed upstairs, but as I pointed out my mother has a sofa bed she doesn't use, and we really, between both houses, don't need yet another sofa. So we swapped the single bed for the sofa bed. I put up some filmy curtains. The whole tenor of the room has changed now. It's my husband's office and with the sofa looks much more businesslike than with a single bed.

T'other half has applied for a job, too. He's been a freelance specialist journalist for 20+ years and has reached the pinnacle of where he can go in the industry in which he specialises. He's a bit tired of doing the same old, same old. And the pay isn't great; we've been a bit starved for cash over the last six months. He's found a government job that pays a bomb, and went for the interview earlier this week. The interview panel seemed impressed with him, thankfully. He'd seen an interview coach (someone I know) and we'd done a couple of mock interviews to get him thinking about responses to standard questions. I really hope he gets this job. We need the money and he needs the intellectual challenge.

The weather here has been revolting. The wettest February in years and when it wasn't raining the humidity was indescribable. I haven't been cycling for almost 3 weeks now. We've taken the dog for early morning walks though; it was a tossup whether to cycle or walk, but she needs the exercise as much as we do, and she loves going with us and chasing a ball in the park on the way.

The local art show is coming up, and they have a new category this year, a 9"x5" challenge. Your painting has to be 9x5 either portrait or landscape, any subject. I haven't submitted anything the last couple of years, but will work on some 9x5 ideas this weekend. It's supposed to be raining and cool but at the moment the temperature is soaring like a lark and so is the humidity. I work mainly in pastels, although I do pen and ink stuff as well. I'm thinking quirky landscapes for the 9x5s.

So that's been my life the last couple of weeks. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!

Yikes! Yike Bike!

A friend sent me a link to this YouTube video:

Small, yes. Folding, yes. 10kg, yes. Impressive the way it packs into a cymbal case, yes.

For me, no.

I can just see myself falling off this.

On the other hand, it's electric, so perfect for those lazy days.:-)

Back in the day... my 1980s bicycles

I got my first bike, a second hand, one speed, coaster brake boy's bike, from my grandparents' neighbours when I was seven. I was a tomboy so the fact that it was very plain and didn't have ribbons on the handles suited me fine. It was rusty red. My mother, as a surprise, painted it purple as that was my favourite colour. I rather liked the red. I got laughed at a LOT with with purple. Still, it was a lovely gesture of Mum to do that, unknowing of how cruel kids can be when you have something that's 'different'. Anyway, I grew out of it in a few years and didn't get another bike; going to high school in town, a ferry and bus ride away I didn't need one. At weekends I went horse riding not bike riding.

Then in the late 80s my then boyfriend decided to start cycling, and I wanted to get back on two wheels too. However, having overbalanced and fallen off while trying his men's racer, I decided I wanted a bike like my little old purple one. Sturdy with wide tyres. Only with lots of gears to get me up hills. The only choice, in those days when comfort bikes hadn't been invented (let alone eBay) was a mountain bike.

Like most beginners I got a cheap K-Mart type bike. In the photo below, when you've stopped sniggering at the jeans, my first bike is the one on the right. It cost me about $250 I think. 15 speeds, and good enough for a while. Then, as often happens with those of us who start researching the new interest we have, I decided I wanted something with better gear on it. More upmarket equipment. Lighter weight.

Thus, the frame I am holding - yes, the purple one! - was my second bike.Better quality Shimano gears, better rims, better most things, CroMoly frame. 18 speeds. $450.

This setup lasted about six months. I then decided I wanted even less weight and more stability. So my boyfriend, who had by then modified his own bike and liked tinkering with mine, went shopping with me and we found this wonderful 80s neon-coloured CroMoly diamond frame, just right for my height. It was made in Italy, and cost me, I think, in the region of $600. We put all the gear from the purple bike onto this frame, and suddenly I had a lovely little bike I was happy with for many years. I swapped the knobbly tyres for city slicks and it went like a bomb on tarmac after that. What I'd built up was essentially a comfort or city bike, I guess, in an early incarnation.

The first bike I sold to my boyfriend's flatmate. Nobody wanted to buy the frame so years later it went to a charity shop.

Here's me with my final two-wheeled incarnation:

Yes, I do see that the saddle is way too low for me when I look at this pic now, but it seemed OK at the time. I think I gradually put it up as I gained confidence and rode longer distances. I hadn't ridden it for many years until a couple of years ago and the saddle was certainly a better height then.

This bike is now in the hands of one of my oldest friends, who wants to get back into riding and wants something sturdy and comfortable like she had when she was a kid :-). Only with lots of gears to get her up hills.

So there... a gentle cycle down memory lane on knobbly tyres.

Sssh... I'm writing!

It's been a bit quiet here lately and I apologise for that. My intention was to a blog on a very regular if not daily basis, but the last few weeks I've been going through a bit of a watershed. Have been thinking long and hard about what I really want to do with my life. Which is essentially what I've wanted to do since I was twelve: write novels for a living.

I got talked out of by my mother, who wanted me to get an office job to bring in some money for myself and write in my spare time. I did write a novel when I was 17 and at my first job but it was so horrifically awful, I realised when I'd finished the first draft, left it for a bit and read through it, that it should be consigned to the garbage. I was writing about things I had no experience in, viz.: a love affair. I burnt it.

After that I lost patience with writing long works. I like the satisfaction of getting a draft done in one long sitting, and have since then written short stories. A large number of short stories (and not so short) over the years, hundreds if you include fan fiction and specific genre stuff. I've had some published in mainstream women's magazines, I've won prizes with three of them.

Lately though even writing short stories has become more difficult as work has become so busy. I don't have the mental space to shift into a creative mode. The only fiction I've written lately, as I joke to my husband, is timesheets.

Now I'm in my forties. The Great Australian Novel has still eluded me. Enough is enough. I've read plenty of trashy, poorly-edited and badly-written novels to know that I could produce one that is better. If some of the dross I've read has made it to the bookshops, there is hope for me yet.

So for the last few weeks I've been tossing around ideas for plots, for genre, for characters. I've developed some characters, had imaginary scenes in my head, but am still working on the finer details of the plot. I've researched HOW to write a novel, as it's a different world from that of the short story. I've declared I will spend an hour a day on the writing process, turning off the phones and email.

This last is the hardest part. Making myself unavailable to clients. There's always someone with something urgent and I tend to drop everything and do it. I really have to commit to myself now, as I'm feeling boxed in by people, by clients, by work, and it's taking a toll on my health.

I need to write this novel. I need to reclaim and rediscover myself. I have the support of my husband (morally... it might have to be financially for a bit if I really get serious on my writing). So now....to plot.