Sunday, 10 May 2015

Serial poetry

Petits pas = arriver

My singing eye
Dances to the din
Of dizzy dandelions
Wishes colliding
On the tapestry
Of life.

Become a serial letter writer!

The Robe of Skulls by Vivian French

Two wonderful evenings spent listening to the audio version of this book with my kids, in the car and at home.
I have been reading to them for 12 years so it was such a treat to experience being read to again!
Lovely quiet, calm and relaxing.

The Robe of Skulls...we loved it.
Fantastical adventure, an array of interesting, curious and likeable characters including an excitable path!
Great descriptive imagery especially Gubble, all brought together by Nigel Planer's reading.

Lots of smiles and laughs for us.
Will be looking for the next in tales of the five kingdoms and using my costume skills to design a robe of skulls!

Saturday, 25 April 2015

CAIRO by Chris Womersley

Straight away my intuition was that there would be a tragic element at the end of all this.

I knew all along more or less what would happen, like when you witness something but are powerless or prevented from speaking or warning.  

There was a real cringe factor.  Youth, naïveté , denial, deception...all so blatantly obvious.
The cruel self interested games of manipulation people play.
So sad.
Could have been worse for Tom.

I enjoyed it without loving it.
Liked the familiar streetscapes.

Some small relief with the present? Left behind by sally.
I couldn't think of anything worse than going away with those disjointed couples.
Perhaps the experience wisened him up, one would hope it woke him up to the importance of doing your own thing, being your own person.
I felt uncomfortable because I recognised my own naive self.


What letters reveal...

Hi Andrea,

Just thought I would touch base and give you an update.

I hope your break was reposing.
Our summer and autumn holidays were lovely and full of distractions.
Like Oscar Wilde, I can resist anything but temptation!
My main one being books which is promising for a hopeful future librarian but not for getting anything else done!

Unfortunately, I didn't quite reach my 2014 end of year study goal and am paying for that now with a term already gone.  I don't know where it went but it lost me along the way.
I will be doing my best to get it together this weekend after having re-attacked my tasks on Thursday so it is all fresh in my head again.

I believe I need to complete 9 electives and figure I will be working hard to finish up this year and hope you will guide me in choosing these soon.  I have some direction already but not being in a library will surely govern some choices.
There is a large possibility that we will head overseas early next year so hopefully a little urgency will do wonders.  If you have any information about the course equivalences in Europe that will be helpful.

There have been a few life and family things harder to juggle over the months but some balance has returned. 
So many roles we play...
We talk about using 'the cloud' these days but honestly I think I've been doing that for years already!  Not that I can retrieve anything in mine.

Some of my casual work has become a lot more demanding recently and my own creative ventures are always overwhelming me so I am trying hard to prioritise and concentrate on what I feel most passionate about.  I really do feel that I will find satisfaction blending library/education together in some way yet to see or imagine.  If I am honest, classroom teaching is not where I want to be.

So there is plenty to do and I will be working hard on my focusing/discipline strategies to achieve it all.
Lucky I'm an optimist.

happy weekend adventures,
Tina Pech

Thursday, 9 April 2015

Dear Mr Sprouts by Errol Broome

I love books I can pick up and read in an evening!
This is inspiring in so many ways.  
Correspondence is such an appealing story format and this demonstrates nicely how powerful a written relationship can be.
It is an unexpected journey about a chance meeting, unlikely friendships, discovery, growing up...of trees and youth, place, identity, of sowing seeds, words and all of which these may grow in to.
 A lovely way to have spent my evening.

Sunday, 29 March 2015

Baradine Bookworms March 2015



At the first meeting of the year for the Baradine Bookworms, we discovered an interesting list of summer reads.  Many genres were included from fantasy, crime, biography, travel and general fiction.  Some of the titles were;

BONE DEEP - DARIAN NORTH
THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE KING OF SWEDEN - JONAS JONASSON
ALMOST FRENCH - SARAH TURNBULL
THE SHIPPING NEWS - E. ANNIE PROULX
THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH - NORTON JUSTER
THE RANGERS APPRENTICE SERIES - JOHN FLANAGAN 

Baradine Bookworms are a friendly bunch of keen readers that meet in Baradine Library at 5 pm on the last Thursday of each month.   We are a theme based reading group, sometimes reading the same book but mostly just sharing our passion for books in general.
Anyone is welcome to join us, whether you read a little or a lot.  The next date is April 30th and we are; 'reading a book we always wanted to read but never got around to'.


22 March 2015

I often wish I could disappear.
Not due to unhappiness,
Simply because my desires
Long to take me somewhere
Else.
Elsewhere.
Other than here
Or there.