History.

Look how incredibly beautiful the sunset was in Hobart last night:

It was just like something straight out of a John Glover painting:

('A corrobery of natives in Mills Plains' 1832)

Except that there are no full blooded Tasmanian Aborigines in Tasmania, now. European settlement and the disease, violence and warfare that went along with it made the indigenous population virtually extinct.  It was one of the first recorded modern acts of genocide, here in Tasmania. What a tragedy.

Finally, there are flowers in our garden. The rhododendron is putting on a show:

Conveniently, it matches the library:

And here is a Camelia:

Tonight, we are going to Venice, as I am cooking dinner using this as my guide:

I love the quote on the back of this book, 'As many times as I went out was as many times as I got lost. But I was never lost. I was always somewhere in Venice'. Sigh. Here was us lost in Venice back in 2008:

This afternoon, in the small window of opportunity offered while the baby was asleep, I made the Tiramisu:

And now all I need to do is put the Lasagne di Pesce, which I concocted around feeding the children, in the oven.

This is what I wore to embark on Saturday morning manoeuvres:

And here are my sidekicks, also dressed:

It was 9.30am and our other two children were already at sport and dancing. There are no languid sleep ins at our house.....on Saturday, it's game on EARLY. Those of us who were left had to go to town to acquire birthday presents, so that when they showed up to parties later in the day they weren't empty handed. I have a rule that we only give books for children's birthday parties.....because plastic NEVER biodegrades. And who doesn't love a book?

Look at the display going on out the front of Fuller's Bookshop:

Oh my. I couldn't help myself.....I had to spontaneously giggle at the chain. They said that this book is significantly contributing to keeping the shop in business.

I love my printed pony skin handbag that I bought on sale at Max Mara in Paris:

But today while I was speculating as to exactly which animal it looks like, I began to think that the colours and stripes are a bit like the extinct Tasmanian Tiger:

Another living creature totally eradicated by European colonisation in Tasmania. I hope that they can find a cure for the facial tumours currently decimating the population of the Tasmanian Devil......so that they don't vanish forever, too.

R

Port Fairy.

Finally, today the sun shines here in beautiful Port Fairy:

With the bad weather as an alibi I've been on a book a day.  When I finished all the reading material I packed, I set to work on $2 books at the op shop. Side by side with the trash were Madame Bovary and The Great Gatsby. I left them there for someone else to read.  Funnily enough it was walking down the main street which sent me a subtle prompt:

So I dug Fifty Shades of Grey, which had been downloaded by a friend onto my iPhone, out of my trash and succumbed to reading it - much to my husband's utter horror. Fifty Shades of Grey has been doing the rounds of the school gates in Hobart as 'Mummy Porn' yet the grey haired bloke in the bookshop at Port Fairy described it as 'Granny Porn'. I suppose it depends on where you are at. He also showed me this Amazon parody on YouTube. And there I was thinking Port Fairy was a sleepy, retirement town. I finished the book, yet can't say that I'll be rushing out for the next two instalments. Now, I've moved on to Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending. As I keep telling my husband, it 's serious literature as it was nominated for the Man Booker Prize last year. He's happy with that.

Since we have been in Port Fairy I've taken up coffee again. In my defence I have also taken up jogging, as the closest Bikram Yoga studio is in Geelong.......three hours away. Most days, in the quest for coffee and milkshakes, we all descend on Rebecca's cafe at least once if not twice:

Rebecca's is a charming cafe with a really lovely buzz. They do a delicious traditional Irish stew (there was a time when Port Fairy went by the name of Belfast) and very good eggs benedict.......not to mention the take away buckets of mini yoyo biscuits.

For some inexplicable reason, I am incapable of using the ceramic cooktop in the beach house - I have burnt everything I have attempted - lamb shanks, polenta and even toasted sandwiches. I seldom burn anything on the gas cooktop at home......oh, except for rhubarb fruit mince one Christmas. The catch cry in the beach house is.....'I can smell burning.....Mummy must be making lunch'.

So we have been forced to dine out. If you find yourself in Port Fairy make sure you have lunch in the Cafe at Basalt Wines, on the highway at Killarney:

It's an old weatherboard cottage quirkily decorated with an eclectic mix of taxidermy, art and strangely curious antiques. My favourite combination. The food was really interesting:

I was talked into the tripe and it was delicious. I still remember how fervently I tried to avoid tripe in France - my greatest fear was that I would accidentally order it - maybe I shouldn't have been so paranoid.

Probably the best thing about Port Fairy, and we are talking about a gorgeous, historical town (it boasts no less than fifty National Trust listed properties) with sweeping dramatic oceanscapes is the fact that it has it's own island complete with lighthouse. Griffith's Island is something straight out of Enid Blyton's The Famous Five. It is just how I imagine the fictitious Kirrin Island to be. Even better, it's an easy walk from town along the river and is attached by a walkway so you don't need a boat (or to swim) to get there:

You can circumnavigate Griffith's Island in an hour, even if you take a stroller. Camelia has been channelling Lady Jane Franklin's tour of the West Coast of Tasmania as her stroller has turned into a sedan chair, carried not by convicts but by her parents.

Anyway, there you have today's post - from  Fifty Shades of Grey to The Famous Five. And I bet you thought it couldn't be done!

R