For the price of a movie ticket

Wild Oats the Race Winner

After Christmas in Hobart, the Waterfront becomes crowded with people involved with or watching for the entrants of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race to come in. We saw the winner sailing past the lighthouse near our house early in the morning, and then close up at the water front. The boating enthusiasm is easy to catch and we went on a boat ourselves. A replica of 'The Lady Nelson' from the late 1800s. I don't know anything about boats, but the differences between a Yacht such as Wild Oats and the Lady Nelson both of which have cross the same Ocean ways was apparent even to my eyes. I am sure both were thrilling, although the Lady Nelson took weeks to do what the Wild Oats did in 36 hrs.

It starting to look a lot like Christmas

The weather has been strange-variable-nothing I am sure compared to what my friends in the Northwest have experienced, with all that snow falling.
Yesterday though started off warm, then was cooler in the afternoon due to a cool breeze and too thick of a cloud cover, then by 5 p.m. the sun was out and it felt like 80 degrees in the back yard so even Zok agreed to go swimming. His first time since we've come home. He only donned his short, lighter weight wet suit but was complaining in the water that he was without gloves. There were nice swells and we were out in the water for awhile. Mostly as you can see I spend my time reading or listening to audio books-I follow the sun, after the sun leaves my back yard I go to the beach where I can find the rays again. We call this Christmas.

Turning Left instead of Right

At the end of the street where I live, there is a roundabout. If you turn right you reach Kingston. Here there is tragically, a McDonalds, a Big W (aka Wal-mart in a thinly veiled disguise), Coles (one of two large Grocery Store chains), various other chain stores and a few good places such as the Library.
But, if you turn left instead, the towns are much smaller and the shops more interesting. There are some charity shops along the way, and although I did not find any cute ornaments, I did find a game made by 'the Scrabble people' called 'Shrinkwords', all pieces included for $2.50 AU. We go that way to take our garden waste to the Tip which is Australian for Dump. As far as city dumps go, ours is sort of charming, lots of birds, and a second (or I suppose by the time an item reaches the tip, fifth hand) shop, and the place is not even very smelly. We went looking for rocks to put in our garden, larger rocks to build up in the corner, so we can add some running water to try and grow Wasabi. I love that there is a Wasabi grower on the island, there is also a Saffron farm.
Along the road we found a nice Nursery, two places that sold rocks by the ton, and a small bakery.
Left is better.

The Archers

*photo borrowed from the Archers website

When I was in Sweden for an extended period of time, I discovered Podcasts. I did a lot of wandering around the web and I was lonely for the sound of the English language. This was over four years ago, before the programs were organized on sites such as iTunes or even yet embraced by professionals. As I waded through the different programs in search of a person who sounded better than a kid with his or her first tape recorder, I was reminded of using a CB radio. Now, I don't actually listen to any of the podcasts I started out with. The ones that I liked such as a music program out of Scotland stopped broadcasting (if broadcasting is a word I can use in this context), and others I grew tired of. I do still listen to quite a few, but they tend to come from established sources such as the short fiction program produced by 'The New Yorker', or the music programs produced by KEXP in Seattle. I listen to them when I am walking, gardening, driving, or even doing housework. I learn new things and somehow they are friendly.
I also enjoy a good radio play. The BBC excels at radio plays. The U.K. seems to have never doubted the radio play whereas America seems to have all but abandoned the concept. This brought me to a lovely coupling;
"The Archers"
The Archers is a daily radio show, presented on BBC 4 and also in podcast form. Each episode is about 15 minutes, depicting the lives in an English rural village. The radio show has been running continuously since 1951.
In strange ways listening to the show has aided my understanding of living in a low populated state, and there is quite a bit of farming. Tasmania is more the place where saffron and wasabi is being cultivated but there is also sheep breeding. I, being a city girl find myself quite ignorant of even farmer terminology. Words such as 'farrier' which is a person who trims and shoes horses hooves. Plus the world of the Archers being rural England has much in common with where I live now, there are Pubs, Pasty's, Show Day, and much too much talk about the weather.
I wish there were more ongoing radio dramas. I long for a nice 'Lights Out' podcast.

Cloudscape & Power Lines

Cloudscapes For Monte-

Pretty like that

Australia has a lot of War Memorials but this is the first one I have seen for Dogs. I kinda loved it. Plus most of the cycle way goes through industrial areas so this park was nice.

Riding a bike is a bit of a novelty for me. I think I owned one for a sort while when I lived in L.A. but I might be remembering a roommate that had a bike. I know I never owned one while I lived in Washington. I don't remember ever owning one as a teenager. Zok however is unafraid to make a purchase, so now I have two. One is a standard sort of mountain bike with gears, my feet barely reach the ground when I am on it. I prefer this small one, it reminds me of Sacramento. I did of course ride on the handlebars of bikes, well being smallest meant I was often on the handlebars. Then there was also the borrowing of bikes. There are only a few memories that make me think of Sacramento (the place, not the people) fondly, and riding bikes late at night, in the heat of Summer is one of them. My point being that I don't have a lot of experience riding a bike but now I go a couple times a month. For incentive there is this mostly flat seemingly unending trail that starts in Hobart.
The intercity trail goes for hundreds of kilometers, I went to Berriedale, so about 26 kms all together. I always want to go a bit further than the time before. I am paying for it today though because my butt and legs are hurting. Zok blames the ghost riders' lack of gears but I blame my advanced years.
I read in the Times that Betty Page died. My stepfather had magazines with her in them, and when I was small I always thought 'I want to be pretty like that'. She always looked so happy.

G'Day this is; Sierra... Nevada... Tango

Zok has been taking as many flying lessons as possible. He is very, very pleased with himself. He has been learning how to turn the plane, talk to the radio tower, and tomorrow he gets to complete the whole take off instead of just assisting.
The sun is out, but the temperature only reached 60 degrees which is sad for me-I know that January will come and suddenly it will be Summer but from the wrong side of January that hot weather seems so far away.