2016

I've kept this blog, on and off, since 2006. In 2015 I used it to chart daily encounters, images, thoughts and feelings about volcanic basalt/bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria, especially in the first part of the year. I plan to write a book provisionally titled Bluestone: An Emotional History, about human uses of and feelings for bluestone. But I am also working on quite a few other projects and a big grant application, especially now I am on research leave. I'm working mostly from home, then, for six months, and will need online sociability for company!


Friday, January 11, 2008

Bats, Boats and Books

Another burning hot night and day, with the temperature already at 34 degrees at 10.00 in the morning. The hot northerly wind is howling around the house, sending the birds flying in all directions under a pale white sky. Clouds are drifting south, but really, waiting to be sent north-east by the cool winds that are anticipated this afternoon. The hydrangeas are struggling on, and the basil and parsley plants we bought two days ago are still in the kitchen; we won't plant them till it's cooler.

Here's a link to a wonderful photo of a bat, cooling off by swooping along the river. Well, technically it's called a flying fox, but we like to think of them as bats. We see them after dusk, if we are sitting outside in the garden.

(I'd love to post this picture, but I'm assuming there are all kinds of copyright reasons why I can't...)

It's the last day of my "holiday" today. Since we aren't going away anywhere, this is code for "not going in to the office till next week". I've sent off my essay on Wade's Boat, and have one grant application to read today before I sit down seriously amidst the horrendous files and piles of papers and try and sort them into my filing cabinets. I am "shepherd" for my school this summer. I'm an appalling filer at the best of times, but the problem is compounded by my working on lots of little projects last year, and then moving all my papers and books when my study was renovated. Still no bookshelves, but no reason not to sort out the files. The good news is, I've now cleared my list of "things to write" that aren't my books, and I am determined to get this Garter book finished this year. Just as soon as I sort out my files.

2 comments:

David Thornby said...

That really is a marvellous picture. It looks like such an enormously risky thing for a bat to do, given their furry bodies and the wings that seem so fragile. I was put in mind of a sort of reverse Icarus when I saw it.

This old world is a new world said...

Very nice! an antipodean take on a myth if ever I heard one.