It didn’t take long for Steve and I to start work on the new footage. This evening we did the video frame captures and the titles for the four videos. The plan is for us to put the videos together and upload them to Vimeo in a week’s time.
Today I paid for my flights to Uluru, where I will stay for three nights in mid-October. I will be joining Simon and Nicole who fly in the day before, whereas I will overnight in Sydney. Ever since I saw photos of Ayer’s Rock in the 1950s, I yearned to see it up close. Other places, seen as a photo or a tv clip decades ago, have had a comparable impact. It has been my great good fortune to visit a majority of them since I moved to Australia over thirty four years ago. It’s just that they are all overseas. My travel in Australia has been limited, largely confined to coastal Queensland as far north as the Daintree, and to Longreach and Tasmania’s Tamar Valley.
For the first time in ages, I selected frames from new time-coded footage which I collected from Steve last week. The two-and-a-bit hours I had accumulated between September last year and February this year will only yield a paltry forty six frames and four new videos. Namely, of giant and shiny-leaved stinging trees, an Australian bag moth larva – an additional species, ditto a potter wasp and her peculiar antics. Regrettably, the footage of a tawny frogmouth adult and two chicks in a nest, of a Lewin’s honey eater nest, and of a paper wasp nest, did not improve on existing material.
For the first time in ages, I selected frames from new time-coded footage which I collected from Steve last week. The two-and-a-quarter hours I had accumulated between September last year and February this year will only yield a paltry forty seven frames and three new videos. Namely, of giant and shiny leaf stinging trees, an Australian bag moth larva – an additional species, ditto a potter wasp and her peculiar antics. Regrettably, the footage of a tawny frogmouth adult and two chicks in a nest, of a lewin’s honey eater nest, and of a paper wasp nest, did not improve on existing material.
This morning I set up my table at the book fair outside the mountain’s library in Main Street. It is a lively part of the street’s annual Five Senses Festival, which was cancelled last year due to the pandemic. In bitterly cold weather I nonetheless sold six of my books. Although it is not written for children, the illustrations are ideal for children to explore or be shown. I was particularly delighted that three books were bought by parents with young children, after I approached them to let their kids leaf through the pages. The first sale was to a mother with a three year old daughter and a five year old son. When she asked them if they wanted her to buy the book, they proclaimed a resounding ‘yes’. The second sale was to parents with a seven year old boy and the final sale was to parents who had only moved to the mountain from Sydney, the previous Sunday. Mum had an infant in a baby carrier and her eight year old daughter was engrossed in a book illustrating the birds of South East Queensland. She loved the illustrations in my book, which her parents were happy… Read Complete Text
On Monday I at last emailed the libraries of thirteen inner Melbourne cities and by today had received three orders from library suppliers, an unusually quick turn-around. Greater Melbourne’s prolonged lockdown last year, delayed my campaign. PS 28.5.21 By today, I have received five further orders from suppliers, which may include orders from the 24.5.21 mail out to another fourteen libraries. Not all librarians let me know that they have ordered the book nor do the suppliers name the library when they email an order to me. This makes record-keeping rather haphazard. As of 27.5.21 The State of Victoria entered an initial week long lockdown, bringing my campaign to an abrupt halt.
This morning I parked in Main Street to pay a bill at my bank. On returning I noticed, of all things, an exquisite magpie moth resting just below the tread on the driver’s side rear tyre. Its name indicates the moth’s colour. It has black fore wings with a band of white patches two thirds of the way down and a single patch on the hind wings. Its wingspan is 4 cm. Alas, I didn’t have my camera with me.
This afternoon I got back from my annual visit to Simon, Nicole and their blue cattle dog Pepper. The timing of the return flight was ideal, as it enabled me to buy essential food items, including vegetables for tonight’s supper. I always love being in Longreach and staying with Simon and Nicole in their spacious, comfortable home. They are busy at work and continue to flourish. They have already had their first covid jab. Pepper, who has the silkiest coat, licked me to death whenever I allowed her to. Because of Longreach’s remoteness, all eligible adults who wanted the vaccine were given it.
Whether seen from the air or the ground, the country looks green, but much of the tall vegetation is weed and not grass. Still, there was unusually little roadkill on the road to Ilfracombe and from Ilfracombe to the 12 Mile Stone Pitching, a noteworthy hydrological construction which we visited.
The bird life in town during my stay was plentiful, with flocks of kites, little corellas and galahs filling the sky. Regulars at the feeder and bath in the backyard included sparrows, apostle birds, yellow-throated miners and peaceful, diamond and crested doves. Unlike last… Read Complete Text
The books were stacked on the pallet in four towers of thirteen. Yesterday I was perturbed to notice that the two towers further from the side wall were looking like the leaning tower of Pisa and even the two next to the side wall were beginning to lean. Prompt action was needed to prevent a damaging topple. While I was visiting friends, the handyman, who also happens to be a resident of my unit block, re-stacked the books.
Today we relocated 52 boxes of books from the container to my garage. The people renting the container will relinquish it at the end of April. The move saves me the $100 a month I paid for storage. I have a pallet in my garage which held the 15,000 copies, awaiting distribution, of my bi-monthly Tamborine Mountain Visitor newspaper – published between 1993 and 1998. I paid a handyman to fix a sheet of plywood against the back wall to complete a neat corner in which to stack the books.