New camera joy!

Today I learnt that I can take my time to process things and I can take my time with grief. Because I feel so crammed into the mother, wife, woman roles I feel that I have to process things in quick time. It’s ok to feel things but make sure you do it quickly so dinner is on the table, the child is picked up on time, everything has it’s place and everything in it’s place. Good, done, now tidy up and get on with it.

But when I do this – when anyone does this – I just find myself not ok. I find that I want to ruin things and ruin myself. You know, that old self destruction thing that so many of us are ace at.

Totally not the kind of post you thought you were going to read with that title, hey? Same here.
Well anyway, I feel shit. I am still sad about many things that happened this year. So when kidlet is at school I am dropping the run errands, go be social, clean the house, cook food stuff and think I’ll trade it all in for some f**king self care, watch the birds, potter in the garden DRAW type stuff.

And whilst on my gardening mission this weekend ( bought a lot of seedling and soil with poo, woo hoo! ) I was charging the old faithful to take some pictures and Husband gave me a gift – a new camera. Sony alpha a6000! One that has lasting battery life! One that is portable! One that is MINE! And so I’ve been on a few wanderings taking pictures since.

nck Kitty – who is currently laying in a patch of sunlight, playing with her tail.

decorations Paper decorations.

cricket Little cricket friend.

havinawalk Cold Sunday evening stroll.

sunlit

pinecone

pathway

cave

waterrush

There are many, many more but they are of my kidelt and she can do with them as she will when she’s older.

friday_oct_lily_mae_martin
That’s me on Friday, I feel a bit better today then I look in it 😉

Photos from the past

ww2_lily_mae_martin

This photo is from World War two. I have no idea who took it or where, but the whole album creates a visual story of family before, during and after this war. I didn’t see this photo at first, as it is tiny. I was studying the portraits and trying to see who looked like who, then I noticed photos of people on boats and trains and a camp and then this one. I am not sure if these images are placed within a group of portraits for a particular purpose or not – but it is clear that they are of significance.
I am going to buy a new album to keep these pictures in and to keep them safe. I hope to one day maybe track down the family and give them back the photos of their family.

Road trip adventure!

newstead_one

I love to explore. This weekend had both the Newstead short story and Clunes book fair on so we made our way to those parts. In-between book buying, reading, listening to stories and eating cake with friends we went driving and walking and photo taking. The weather was spectacular, the autumn sun was very generous. Kidlet and I did drawing in my new sketch book ( Which I will post later ) – she drew a naughty woman who cut the hill in half and had a fanny on her head.

babe
^ babe ^

walking

shambles

racecourse

We decided to stay the night in a motel, all sleeping in the same room. We haven’t done that in long time so it was really fun. It also meant we could go to the fire stories and stay for the whole event. I didn’t know how long we would last, but we managed to stay AND I managed to toast some marshmallows for us to enjoy.

marshmellows

marshmellow

The stories and music were great, kidlet danced and danced. I especially enjoyed the reading by Kirsten Krauth and Joe Dolce’s music and stories.

kirsten

joe

fire
^ Photos by Gene! ^

The next morning we were greeted by a cup of tea in the warm sun, bird prints all over our car and chats with Lin while the horse next door trotted proudly about. We didn’t stick around, opting to take back roads from Newstead through Moolort to Clunes, so I could take some pictures.

bridge

jmac

pinkrabbit

^ Kidlet took this! ^

We came across and old bridge and pulled over so I could take some snaps. I took the wrong lens but found it to be so beautiful I had to get the other two to join me.

lbridge

This is the McLennan Bridge – you can read about it here.

birchcreek

walktocreek

utb

hat

trees

It is so beautiful.

Eventually we made to to Clunes and ate bagels in the sun. It was quite busy by the time we had arrived. I’ve never seen Clunes like that! We looked at some books and popped into see a few things. We got to see Tai Snaith and Nicholas Jones in action. Which was pretty special as I was just reading Tai’s latest book to kidlet just recently.

taiandnick

After that we though that maybe we should go home as we were running out of steam.
How awesome is Victoria!

Paris

Paris is so so big and so so beautiful and so so overwhelming.

Gene and I made the ridiculous decision to catch the train from Berlin to Paris in the heat – we arrived sleep deprived and sticky.

paris

paris2

paris3

paris5

paris6

paris7

paris8

Paris gets very hot1. We didn’t have the right clothes for the heat – I’m pretty sure we sweated out a few kilos! The food was amazing, the buildings were beautiful.

I’m a lucky duck.