60th Birthday and Blue Mountains trip

 Hi all!

Can you guess what I am doing today? I am turning 60! Right this minute in fact.

Turning and turning until I’m all 60ified. By midnight I’ll be all done. 

It’s quite something this moment. Apparently if you and your spouse make it to 60, at least one of us has a 90 % chance of making it to 90, according to our Superannuation expert. So now Cris and I fight it out?

I remember turning 50 and it felt super old. Almost older than this to be honest. I’ve got used to being semiretired and menopausal and all the ailments starting to creep up. It doesn’t feel nice, but I’ve got a bit used to putting myself in the older bracket now. I think menopause really changes things, duh!

The fun part of today has been receiving a flute. I used to play quite well as a teenager, and then it was put on the back burner while I learnt the violin which I received for my 21st (notice a trend here?)

So now I get to revisit old times like an old timer does. It’s amazing how much it has stayed in my fingers.

I managed to get through the whole first book in one day, reminding myself how all the notes are played. And now I just have to become better at moving between them. My emboucher could use a little work!

Now to the Blue Mountains.

Aiden and I went off for a jaunt a few weeks ago, so I thought it would be nice to record the moment for posterity in the old blog.

I’m not sure how I will choose the photos to show because it was one of those times when you couldn’t take an ugly shot.

We stayed in a cute BnB, with leadlight doors to the kitchen (which blocked the front door, but who’s counting?)

Super cute overgrown garden (Aiden looks happy to have arrived)

Built in verandahs with mad vintage items

A toilet and bathroom down stairs. I felt like I was making a great dramatic entry every time.

And cute little ‘Adventure Island’ chairs, (as we used to call them after a favourite TV show), sitting on a pint sized verandah overlooking the bush.

While there we spent our first day at ‘The Three Sisters’. It has grown dramatically in tourist numbers since I was last there. I can’t say I enjoyed that part of it, but the scenery can’t be faulted.

We climbed down some very steep stairs to explore the first ‘Sister’. Pushing past people on a steep precipice with a back pack on is not my idea of fun. We decided to leave and move on to other areas, where we found some quieter but no less enjoyable beauty.

On our way home we explored Wentworth Falls from a lovely lookout we had all to ourselves, just arriving when people we were leaving, and leaving when people were arriving. Such a treat to feel all that majesty in silence. We may or may not have carved our initials in the railing paint. Amazing we could find a blank spot!

The next day we headed off down the end of our street to explore the pathway in our local ravine behind the house. I thought we would take 20 minutes but we arrived home three hours later!

But what views we had. We could have happily just done our local valley and called it a successful holiday.

And with that we were on our way home again.

A swift break from our daily routines which we plan to repeat throughout the year, introducing Aiden to the wider world. (At least the world we can fit in between trampoline lessons)

Til next time,

Keep on creating!

Love,

Jazzy Jack

Scrapshot 4

 

clouds have fallen 

into our lake

overnight 

and the steel surface

ripples gently

a bird flies low

tipping its reflection 

and bubbles surface

teasing of treasure 

below

10/10/22

Scrapshot 3

 

the tracery of lines

against the grey clouds

from the winterised trees

echoes the drips of raindrops

from the umbrella 

over my cafe table

as the car tyres

swishing past

create dashing sounds.

everything is

a line sketch today

7/10/22

Scrapshot 2

 

mesmerised 

I stare at my washing 

spinning and swirling 

in the laundromat washing machine

thinking big thoughts 

about gravity

and planets

and the whirling of the spheres

and how our universe

is made up of twirling objects

like a circus performer 

making us go

wow!

6/10/22

Five months’ catchup and Scrapshot 1

Hello Hello

All you lovely people in internet land!

I have recently become aware that a few people are reading my missives, so I have been motivated to missive again.

To catch up from last time, we still have our lovely cat Jasmine, who is now nearly one. She and Winter our dog, are making friends and we don’t need to segregate them at all now. Well, there may be some touchy moments around dinner time, but Jasmine has become so brave she even jumps over Winter if she is lying in a doorway. And Winter doesn’t chase her!

So peace reigns once more in our tiny house in the sky. But with the added benefit of having a beautiful cat to drape around the furniture and bejewel it. (Can you tell I’m a cat person?)

To catch you up on other news, Miles is currently on a two week long trip up to set foot in Queensland. That will be his fifth Australian State, having visited Cris recently on a trip to Victoria. We pop back and forth to NSW all the time and we lived in Hobart, Tasmania for 6 months when he was 3. Now to cross off South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Aiden has been focussing on his trampolining which he has been doing once a week for nearly two terms now. He has found it very interesting and is making great progress. It’s also been a great social outlet.

Working on his front flip!

The boys now have all their licences both car and motorbike, as Aiden recently passed his bike licence, on a day with 70 km/hr wind gusts. We are super proud of them both. Miles has been camping all around the state this year on his bike, exploring the back country.

Currently we are looking forward to a two week holiday at the beach at the end of next week! So many preparations are in place for that. We are allowed to take both our animals with us, although Winter will be an outside dog. Hopefully she will cope with the change from being indoors in the sky, to outdoors on the ground. But she’s been super adaptable up til now. We are preparing Jasmine by taking her for walks outside in her backpack. She is very cute.

And now to the next news, I’ve been writing some new poems in a new format I’m calling Scrapshot. Basically a short minimally edited snapshot of a moment in my day. Mostly some time on my morning walks. I am writing them in an analogue book (!) because I want to know where all the poems are. I keep losing poems I’ve written online. Then I decided to draw a little sketch to illustrate it and take a photo of the moment. You’ll see what I mean in a minute. I hope to post a few of these to have a series. I hope you enjoy them!

Til next time, keep on creating!

Love,

Jazzy Jack

moth headbutts the lake

mistaking its reflections 

for reality

17/11/22

Jasmine comes to stay

 Greetings!

We now have a new member of the family.

A little six month old rescue kitten called Jasmine has come to live in our tiny apartment.

She is braving the big dog and the four enormous humans with aplomb. 

Winter (our dog) is desperate to play with her, but we are not quite trusting her “playing” is our playing.

So visits into the shared zone are heavily supervised with one hand on the dog at all times!

But since Winter has had a cat companion before, we trust eventually they will learn to live together most amicably.

Here are a few photos of the little scamp to record the moment.

Love,

Jazzy Jack

BeautyScope 458 : Mind Shadows

awake early

I try to remember 

the wonderful poem idea

that threaded my mind

last night

but the remnants of sleep

cloud it out

and I gaze, entranced

at the sunshine filled wall

entwined with shadows

11/6/22