toast for tea

The fantastic news is it’s FINISHED! And ELLY VARRENTI is launching it at the Melbourne Writers Festival . EVERYBODY is invited! Date: Sunday 5th September 2010 Time: 4pm Place: Melbourne Writers Festival           Feddish Cafe Bar           River Terrace, Federation Square           RSVP: carolepoustie@optusnet.com.au

It’s a Monday morning and I’ve just finished eating a breakfast of fresh fruit and yoghurt; bacon and eggs, tomato and pan-fried mushrooms; a freshly baked croissant with strawberry jam; and at least three cups of brewed coffee. The big band sound of muted trumpets and the voice of Frank Sinatra wafts overhead. I never have coffee for breakfast. Nor, I don’t think, have I ever eaten mushrooms this early in the day. But then I don’t usually start my day off in the dining room of the local motel. It’s a far cry from my usual routine of muesli and yoghurt eaten on the run between trips to the station and bus stop with teenagers. And today I feel displaced. The dining room is opulent. White table cloths, a waiter in black, cushioned wicker chairs, remarkably real-looking fake palm trees. Business people arrive for breakfast meetings; a young couple lean in towards each other, deep in conversation; there is applause from a conference room to the side. It feels surreal, me here on my own...

Yes, it’s true. The Word Spy is back. She snuck in by bus, train and plane without anyone noticing. And shhh, don’t tell, but she’s uncovered a heap of fascinating facts about words. Reading The Word Spy was adventure enough, but this time the trail takes some tricky twists and turns through language itself. A lot of snooping goes on, I can tell you. The Word Spy’s torch illuminates the origins of language, different types of languages – dead ones and new ones – sign language and Braille. There’s even a real Braille page in the book to run your fingers over! She talks about “the language of the road” and the symbols that swaggies used in case there were angry dogs about.  From babble to Chomsky, over-extension to metaphors and similes, you can be guaranteed the Word Spy has unearthed a fine selection of language peculiarities with her pick – and explained her findings with humour and intrigue. But there’s more.  Nouns, verbs, adjectives, subjects and objects. Don’t worry,...

Marvin and Violet are best friends. They’re like socks and shoes, salt and pepper, two peas in a pod. That’s what Mum reckons. Violet reckons Marvin is Marvellous, so that’s what she calls him. Wolf, Violet’s dog, and Marvin’s chook, T Rex are best friends, too. Being next door neighbours on Raven Street is loads of fun, especially when Violet has a jumping castle and octopus in her back yard, a train in her lounge room and a ghost in her kitchen. But one day Violet has some disturbing news. We are moving, Marvellous. We are going to the moon. Chris McKimmie has produced another pearl. Using his trademark Dylan and Blake font, naive illustrations, magical thinking and understated subtext, there is something to chuckle at or ponder on every page. Like its predecessors, this is a book that can be returned to time and again, each subsequent read revealing extra levels of meaning. McKimmie’s clever use of symbolism may not be apparent to the young child, but the overall effect is powerfu...

My first-born turns eighteen in less than four months. He’s booked the licence test for 11.00am on his birthday. The beginning of a new era. A great-big-wonderful-start-of-your-adult-life world’s-at-your-feet-ground-breaking-breath-takingly SCARY era. And he’ll want to borrow my car. Lately, I’ve been feeling … vulnerable … is that the word? Or is it fragile ? This year my birthday will nudge me closer to the next decade than the one before it. That’s all I’m saying. I’ve been looking ahead, planning out the next few years, imagining the possibilities, bravely accepting the sobering truth that I will never realise many of the dreams I held close to my heart when I was eighteen. I’ve been looking back, noticing the things I’ve let go. Some by choice, some by necessity, and some with great reluctance and an accompanying sense of grief. Some things have simply fallen away without me even noticing. As Joyce Rupp says in her book Dear Heart Come Home: the path of midlife spirituality...

My delicious week on Magnetic Island…   Horseshoe Bay Sitting out the front of Noodies Cafe eating pecan pie and drinking excellent coffee while I watch my teenagers crisscross the china blue water in their catamaran. The sky is cloudless and the shade of the giant Morton Bay fig tree on the foreshore is expansive and welcome. Music filters out from inside the cafe and blends with the shush of the waves as they break on the sand under the palm trees. The occasional moke trundles past and people… well they saunter. No one hurries here. I could get used to this.   The Lagoon I came to see birds. Myriads of waterbirds: ducks, herons, egrets, swamphens, curlews, magpie geese, and maybe even a jacana. It’s eerily quiet. Only the sound of my footfall on the boardwalk that snakes between the waterlilies. This is how many birds I see: NONE.   West Point We’ve come for the sunset. Done some four wheel driving to get here. My first time. The teenagers in the back hoo...

I’m sitting at Gloria Jeans in Melbourne Central. My coffee is hot and strong. Perched on my bar stool, opposite the shot tower just along from the giant clock, it’s a perfect vantage point for people watching. They spill from the top of the elevator like robots off a production line. Since gaining a position as an editing intern at the Victorian Writers Centre, located at the SLV in the new Wheeler Centre, it’s my new Monday morning routine; I dash over to the park with the dog, walk to the station, catch the train, get absorbed in a book, alight and merge into the people river, flow with the current, materialise from the other end of the escalator, order coffee, and settle down to watch. I love it. The extra effort of getting up and leaving early is worth it. There is something alluring about having a leisurely coffee, on your own, and looking at life happen around you. Taking it all in. Filing it away in your writer brain. Observing the small details – the clothes, shoes, the gait...