The "Other" Me

To save my readers here, who joined up to a craft blog(!), the tediousness of my history obsession, I've been writing my proper "history" posts in another blog. But, there are those here who might be interested so I direct you to: Historian @ Work for lots of history-goodness. But, I do understand that not everyone loves it as much as me, so please just stick around here for various other bits and pieces instead. I will keep both blogs going.

A little teaser from one of the posts over there.

Morning at the River

I've never really considered rivers as things to be fond of, although I've been aware that others do. I guess I've haven't lived near enough to a significant one to spend time there so that I became fond of it. But, that is what is happening now. The Swan River is a lovely river. It meanders gracefully around the suburbs of Perth and almost everywhere its banks are lined with trees dipping their leaves into the water and wonderfully sandy tiny beaches.

Today Bess (the dog) and I went off in search of a new stretch to explore. We arrived in Bassendean, a suburb that sits in a curve of the river just across from the historic Guildford. We went to Success Hill Park and discovered a wonderful little oasis of bushland and riverbank and had it all to ourselves (granted it was 7am on a Saturday). Besides being beautiful, Success Hill is a bit famous and a bit infamous. Famous because perhaps Stirling (our intrepid first Governor) 'watered his horses here' in about 1830 and infamous (although that is not really the right word) for an Aboriginal massacre that happened there a little later on. The Australian ability to take on this little known information and then continue with a morning's walk amazes me, even though I am also very capable of it too. I found out this information from an interpretation board - one of about eight in the park - and I could write a little essay about the way the information is presented, but I won't here.

So, let's just get onto the photos and let go of that prickly, difficult national issue, shall we?

This walk at the river I did take my camera, although I'm having to relearn my old lens because my newer and better one is, sadly, broken. Not all the photos I took worked out and that hasn't happened to me in a long time!

But, Bess and I had the glorious experience of wandering through bushland together, just like we used to. She with her nose to the ground, tail wagging and me with my camera and wide open eyes. Lovely.

New Book!

What heaven to be in Paris, to be young...everyday after we'd dunked our brioches in our bowls of chocolate, we sallied down to the foyer [...then out ] to explore Paris. It was not spring, the chestnuts up the Champs-Elysees were bare - but it was still the most beautiful and romantic city in the world and has always remained so to me.


So Australian Eugenie Louise McNeil (nee Delaure) wrote in 1902 and so Rosemary Lancaster opens her book Je Suis Australienne: Remarkable Women in France, 1880-1945 and which I will be starting, sinking into, devouring and gloriously enjoying tonight.

Superhistorian!!

This morning was lovely; I went walking with my puppy dog down to the river and I wished I'd brought my camera but I didn't, so I thought I'd do a post just with words and with my amazing words you'd all know what I saw this morning...

But then!

I watched this video which is all kinds of awesome!

So you should watch that instead and I'll do my little word painting another time.

One door closes and another opens

The thrill of just leaping out into the void and seeing what happens, following a dream or goal, knowing what you want your life to look like and just making it that way, is thrilling.

Yesterday I finished off my first consultant project. I worked at the tail end of a very large project, bring together everything and handing it over as complete as I could make it. I even, in the stresses of the last minutes, started delegating work to the people who'd employed me! Oopsie. They didn't seem to mind though and I brought home made jam cookies to soften them up. :) It was a fascinating project, lots of itty bitty research to do and I now know almost the entire history of a random small town in WA. Just the sort of thing I love taking space up in my brain.

It is a little bit annoying not being able to talk about what I did, but it doesn't matter too much. You just need to know that I throughly enjoyed it and my business earned some money. Win-win!

Look how pretty it is!

WA has just published its first Historical Encyclopedia (well, a proper one anyway) and I bought my copy today. Apparently they are a bit hard to get a hold of (who knew there were so many history geeks in Perth!), but I managed to waltz into a little independent bookshop and buy mine with a business cheque. Hooray! Now it is sitting on my bed, tempting me with its secrets and you'd better believe I'll be reading it cover to cover. Oh, I know, so sad!

The open door then, is a pretty exciting opportunity that I've put my hand up for. Again, I'm not going to tell you much but hopefully I will be able to say more after Tuesday. I don't want to jinx it! It involves a little museum and a fabulous chance at some real experience. More next week.

And now, well...I might just take it easy and do a bit of pottering around. Hopefully manage to drown out the sound of Red Bull Air Race planes that are currently buzzing the city. Did you hear one crashed into the river yesterday? I find that unsurprising.