Adelaide etc.
On Monday I was mindful of kangaroos and emus on the road as I travelled the 600 km back from Adelaide after a fabulous frenzy of festivals. The only kangaroos I saw were dead ones (perhaps my friend Deb's gardening buddy Joe had passed through the night before!) but there were scores of emus (live ones!) and I was mindful of the fact that if one strikes out across the road, a second will inevitably follow. We made it home without hitting anything, even the kamikaze bush mouse that flirted with death near Yunta.Did you know that there is one cafe at Burra that gives Gluten Free bread its bad name and makes a lousy hamburger but that another one, the Gaslight, makes a fantastic GF Chocolate and Date Cake and has a wonderful old books collection? 
Did you know that the ruined house used for Midnight Oil's Deisel and Dust album is just outside Burra and nowhere near the Centre? As previously thought. And we discovered that that self same ruin is becoming VERY ruined indeed and the target of a fundraising campaign to make it less precariously ruined without diminishing its ruinedness.
It was Mad March in Adelaide which truly lived up to its reputation of Festival City. With my darling friend Jane, I saw Frank Woodley and Simon Yates in Inside as part of the Fringe Festival. Cleverly staged, dark, and thought provoking. I heard one of my favourite authors, Toni Jordan, at the Writers' Festival (and went up and said hello to her and we reminisced about an email exchange we had when I lived in Nepal. As you do. Nine Days is a MUST READ!!! ) And we caught up with lovely friends and listened to fantastic music at one of my favourite annual pilgrimages, WOMAD. Highlights this year were Aussies: The Bamboos, Mia Dyson and Cat Empire. Another highlight was Mari Boine, a Sami from Norway. Among others! The odd CD was purchased.And now it's back to work. On Friday, Jane dragged me into a craft shop would you believe and so, just to keep her quiet, I followed. Lucky me-they had some plaster cloth which was exactly what another friend Rusty had suggested may make my bust making a bit easier. RUSTY YOU ARE SOOOOOO RIGHT. Transformed the future baby! Photos soon but boy oh boy. Plaster cloth may just be the beginning of a new creative direction and what an exciting, if slightly messy, thought that is.I will leave you with one of my favourite quotes from Toni J:Most people miss their whole lives, you know. Listen, life isn't when you are standing on top of a mountain looking at a sunset. Life isn't waiting at the altar or the moment your child is born or that time you were swimming in a deep water and a dolphin came up alongside you. These are fragments. 10 or 12 grains of sand spread throughout your entire existence. These are not life. Life is brushing your teeth or making a sandwich or watching the news or waiting for the bus. Or walking. Every day, thousands of tiny events happen and if you're not watching, if you're not careful, if you don't capture them and make them COUNT, you could miss it. You could miss your whole life.