Full Steam Ahead.

An excellent weekend down at Rye, and then the excellent news that my application for a study grant had been approved. This means the Department of Education will pay for me to undertake some study over then next twelve months. Yay.

Of course it also means I'll have to get back into studying and writing essays, but I think I can cope with that.

On top of that I had an idea for another short story as I was walking along the beach. This is one I'm quite excited about, and over the past three days it's been thrashing itself out in my head.  Can't wait to start getting it down on paper.

I've also been doing some prep for the panels at Continuum this coming weekend. Should be a lot of fun. And if that's not enough, I've also been marking essays for my students. Some of them were quite good.

All in all, a pretty good time.

As We Wind Down.

And so the year winds down. But I find myself with lots to do and little time in which to do it. I have some reviews to finish writing, a short story to rewrite (yet again) and several more (currently clawing their way through my brain trying to escape) that need to be written.

My parents-in-law are visiting from overseas at the moment, and so I'm spending a lot of time with them. We certainly don't get to see them often enough. It's great to have them here, and they are doing great things in my garden. We spent a weekend down at Rye (where I found a couple of great books in the local op-shop) and visited Camberwell Market the week before (where I bought a saw) and spent a day driving all over the countryside (just like the Leyland Brothers).

As for school, my senior students received their VCE results today, and I was pleased with the scores they achieved. Not everyone did well, but the ones who worked attained good marks, and those that didn't got better marks than I expected. I'd like to think that's the sign of good teaching. None of them should be surprised, anyway.

And I got to see The Angels live again!

Paradise, Oh Paradise.

So there I was, walking down the main street in Rye when I saw a sign outside a venue listing all the live music that was playing there over the next few nights.

I was thrilled when I saw Mick Pealing Duo for the following night.

Back in the late 70s, my friend and I used to spend a lot of time together listening to music. In particular we played lots of Fleetwood Mac, The Police, Blondie and Stars. One of my favourites was the latter's Paradise album. A brilliant mix of country, rock and blues, the album still holds up and doesn't sound dated - no mean feat after 33 years. In fact it was only last week that I played it at home.

So to see Mick Pealing in a small venue while on holiday was thrilling. I asked a friend to join me - not that he needed his arm twisted - and I must say I was blown away by Mick. He sounded wonderful, and I thought voice was as pure as it was on that first album. Playing mostly covers, with Steve Wade (spent some time in LRB, I believe) on guitar, they held the small but enthusiastic audience in the palm of their hands. I was emotionally moved when they played Look After Yourself and Back Again. 

And they were very approachable.  I was able to chat to both Steve and Mick (Sorry guys if I was annoying, but you said all the right things) and even request a song. And for me, that request turned out to be a highlight.  In fact my friend agreed The Last of the Riverboats never sounded better.

And to the young fellas there that left after a few songs because they didn't play Khe Sanh just because you kept calling it out, next time check out the heritage of these guys, stick around and learn something, and enjoy the music they did play.

A Few Days Away.

I've spent the past four days staying in a friend's holiday house down by the beach at Rye. Although we had a wonderful relaxing time, my wife was still a little disappointed. Here it is spring, but the weather has been very wintery.  Not only was it cold and mostly wet, we've also had a few days of extremely strong winds.

My wife and I took the dogs out most days for long walks along the beach.  They loved it, but we had to keep an eye out to make sure they didn't decide to roll in something dead, as dogs are wont to do. And be aware that due to the ceaseless vigilance of one of my dogs, our shoreline on the peninsula is safe from invasion by birds.  She ran after every bird she saw.  Don't worry, she never got close enough to even worry them.

I was even able to spend an hour or so luxuriating in hot springs. It was wonderful to sit in the hot spring water with a light rain falling, overlooking some beautiful landscapes.  We visited Box Stallion, a winery with some very beautiful wines, and we were able to restock our cellar.  I would also recommend Bamboo, a restaurant in Rye. We met up with some friends, and each one of us thoroughly enjoyed every course of our meal.  The service was very good too.

I ended up not getting any writing done. I wanted to spend as much time with my wife as I could so I grabbed the opportunity to do that.  I promise, procrastination had absolutely nothing to do with it.  Does it matter that my Q3 entry for Writers of the Future still needs some work?  I have three more days to get it in the mail, don't I? At least I came away with a stack of notes and ideas for future stories.

Speaking of WOTF, they have started posting Q3 results.  Congratulations to Felicity Dowker and to several of my Forum mates for their HMs.  Special congratulations to Jason Fischer for winning first place for his Q2 story. Good to see Aussies doing well. 

But enough from me.  Back to the keyboard to finish my story.