Good King Wenceslas

How to celebrate Boxing Day.

One of the suggestions is to attend a sporting event. There's one happening this week: The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. But, I digress.








The short version is that Boxing Day is associated with the feast of St. Stephen.


Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath'ring winter fuel

Although, there's plenty of sunlight at this time of year here, I'm remembering my favorite solstice hymn:

Time to welcome the darkness
and, know it's the seed of light.
Time to know that the brightest morning
begins with the darkest night.

Here's hope for a peaceful new year. Happy holidays to all.

Wallabies, wombats, and devils

We had a fun time at Bonorong Park a few weekends back. It's a wildlife park where you can feed the wallabies and small kangaroos. The ranger gave a really good talk and demonstration with a wombat and a Tasmanian Devil. Also, he brought out a koala, perched it in a branch, and fed it some eucalyptus. Koalas are not native to Tasmania, so I was glad that they had some to see up close.


Lots of my pictures here. Let me know if you need the password.

We're heading over to the kids' house later today for a sausage sizzle, tea with the wonderful neighbors, and overnight to wake up xmas morning. Then, on Monday it's Boxing Day when some music buddies from the New Sydney Pub are throwing their annual bash. Translation: 5 minutes of eating and 6 hours of jamming. :-)

Hobart Old Time Stringband

The HOT Stringband, or subgroup of, gets most of my fiddling attention these days. Once a week on Thursdays they have a round robin jam or rehearsal for upcoming performances. I got to know them a bit, jammed on the side with founder Fred a few times and chatted with him about putting together some cross tuning workshops when the cold weather returns again. (You know: 'our winter, your summer'.)

Anyway, after getting a feeling for who was jamming when around here, I decided to call some Appalachian old timey jams on Saturdays at noon. I announce it over a list-serve that is administered by the Tasmania Folk Federation, a great resource for finding dances, concerts, jams, and all things folkie. I announce it as Appalachian old time, and publish some links to educate folks about the genre. Haven't had anyone show up wanting to play hard core bluegrass or cowtown tunes yet. I chose Sat. at noon because that is a few hours before some other Saturday jams, and I figured I might get some interest. Yes, indeedy, there's been a steady crew of about 5 people who want to learn more tunes and techniques. We meet at an outdoor location, near the Salamanca market when the weather's nice, and at the Lark Distillery when it's rainy.

[Side story: My umbrella was mangled to bits by a gusty gale. I was walking with some folks from the outdoor venue to the Lark, and I had just announced "Look at the American with her umbrella in a windstorm!" when a good gust turned my umbrella inside out, sideways, and backwards. Now I understand why real Hobartians eschew 'brellies'. They are really useless when there is both rain and wind. Folks tell stories of seeing dustbins full of umbrellas after windy storms. :-) From here on in, it's just me and my rain coat walking to the Lark on rainy days.]

I've recorded some northeast U.S. festival tunes on CDs (loving my Mac) and passed out my tune list to the folks who show up at the OT jam. Also, being without a car, I give some CDs to folks who've been nice enough to cart me around. If you'd like a copy of the tune list and need the password, just drop me a line.

The HOT Stringband have been gearing up for performances at the Cygnet folk festival and the Tamar Valley folk festival. So, Thursdays have been more rehearsals than jams. But, in getting to know them, there have been opportunities to do all sort of other things.

They had a holiday party at a member's home about 30 miles to the south of Hobart. We had great fun jamming. They wanted to play more new tunes and more new tunes. They tend to call them 'American tunes' in juxtaposition to the traditional Aussie tunes. I am careful to call some Aussie tunes from time to time and not monopolize the jams with my overbearing OT emphasis. But, as one of them said 'We're like little sponges!' and they just kept calling the southern US tunes.









Towards evening, though, they switched gears and a guy with a guitar played a whole bunch of traditional sheep shearing tunes.



Another outcropping from the HOT Stringband - Fred suggested that the women from the Thursday group do a set at the festivals. So, we've been having some side rehearsals. They wanted to learn some new tunes so we've settled on Emily's Waltz, Shoes and Stockings, and Ruffled Drawers. We got to trying on some other waltzes, and I wouldn't be surprised if we got around to having some waltz jams at some date. And, there was some talk of the 'Hobart Women's Waltz Ensemble'. We'll see. As long as the gals were learning new tunes, I started calling them at the Thursday night sessions, and guys are learning them, too. They had a little trouble remember the names at first, and so now the tunes are jokingly called "Fluffy Knickers" and "Boots and Socks".

Since the Cygnet and Tamar festivals happen 2 weekends in a row in January, we decided to rent a campervan and spend the week in between exploring around Tasmania. Cygnet is a small hippie village, south of Hobart. The Tamar Valley is in North central Tasmania. So, we'll see a little of the south and a little of the north.

Upcoming, in February, we'll fly to the mainland for an OT gathering near Melbourne. Sounds a bit like our Black Creek, Harry Smith, and Lake Genero gatherings in the states. Then, off to New Zealand until Easter, when we'll return to the National Folk Festival in Canberra. Then, back to Hobart in late April. Music sure is a great way to meet folks, eh?

If you're considering a visit, think about joining us at any of these festivals. After Easter it will start to get colder and damper, and we'll certainly welcome company then, but it might be a little more low key, indoors, bundled up, kind of experience. And, now you know to leave your umbrellas home.

Tasmanian music scene

I've been wanting to post about all the great music that I've been able to dabble at here. But, I've been so busy dabbling, that I haven't gotten to it yet. So, I should probably chip away at it bit by bit. Let's start with a description of what traditional Tasmanian music is like. This site is by one of the directors of a group that has let me tag along. They are mostly teenagers. The directors are professional music teachers and I feel like I get a good lesson each time I rehearse with them.

Southern hemisphere astronomy

Liz mentioned that she thought she saw Orion a few weeks back. So, when we were on Bruny Island, we took advantage of the total darkness and took a star gazing walk. Turns out, you can see Orion here. Upside down (according to a northern hemisphere orientation). We looked closely and sure enough, the 'sword' is hanging upwards in the sky.

I went looking for more info and found a ton. Some really cool links to photos of auroras, like northern lights. And, folks talk about seeing satellites with binoculars. I'll have to head up to the roof more often when it's clear. Not long after we first arrived, I saw a mammoth shooting star out of our kitchen window. Read reports from Germany, Scandinavia, and Japan of similar sightings. Apparently a meteor shower with some big debris was passing by. Don't get me started about UFO's.

And, I have to mention that each time we speak of Orion, we recall a story that we heard a long way back from Jay Goldspinner, the chorus of which goes "Hippolyte - Queen of the Amazons!" Heralding back to the days when the constellation that is known as Orion nowadays went by a different name. So, we pointed to the sky and chanted her name that in the dark night on Bruny Island, but I pretended to stand on my head.

:-)

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

These are a few of my favorite things.

Everyone has an electric tea kettle, or some version of an appliance that heats water super fast. Places like church halls have taps on the wall that dispense boiling water for tea, instant coffee, or Milo. I spend time in church halls with my musician peeps when we rehearse and play for dances. There's a nice routine whereby the people at the Thursday night session take a break and have a hot drink and biscuits (cookies) and actually talk with each other. I get a kick out of sampling different biscuits each week.



Our kitchen sink is designed just perfectly. There's an upper shelf that has a drain in it. So, there's no bother about dishes dripping in the drainer.

I asked Liz this evening if she missed having a dish washer. She reckoned it was no big deal, because we only have about 4 dishes. Ha. Ha. Well, we have a few more than that. But, I reckoned that without coming home tired after a work day, taking a few moments to wash a few dishes is a fine trade off to having a dishwasher. And, then, we have this sink with an extra drain right where it's needed.

I know. I know. Some of you are probably saying, "Oh, sheesh. This is like when she wrote about buying socks!" Well, yeah, but it's one of those things that I'd like to share.

I could've sworn the water went clockwise this evening, after I did the dishes. I'll have to look into that.



The last flight of stairs in our apartment building goes up to the roof. I've been playing my fiddle up there lately. It's higher than most of the neighboring buildings. And, a few of the buildings are not residential, so I don't worry very much about disturbing anyone's peace. There is this nice reminder that the first step is a doozy coming back down, though.



Anna really likes to come visit. Sometimes we bring her up for lunch when we're out running some errands. We have no high chair or booster seat, so she gets to sit at the table like a big girl. She acts all pleased with herself, and is extra careful not to sling stuff around.



And, on this day, she came up to the roof while I hung out some laundry. Aussie translation: Pegged up the wash. Yes, that's me with the clothes pins and do-rag. Just call me Mrs. Lukacko.

Average age of Tassie cars = 12 years

Look at this handy work.



Some old Citroens around.



More on forest activism in Tasmania. The bright green triangle is a symbol of the Green Party which is very active here.



Here's a hybrid itsy-bitsy-SUV.

Bruny Island

We took a short ferry ride from south of Hobart over to Bruny Island this past Sunday, overnight to Monday. That's some of our stuff on the white station wagon.



Mike and Ginger set up their tent on the other side of a dirt lane from the 'camper with unit' that Liz and I had reserved. The camper's on the left and the unit is on the right in this photo. It was fun sitting in the diner-like kitchen. The living room had a few lounge chairs, a TV, and a couch/futon piece of furniture with a top bunk. Some of those amenities were especially enjoyed by Owen. And, it was nice to have a place to gather for meals.



There was a communal barbecue in a shack down the lane, but that's a whole separate story for another time. Let's just say, I found it kind of strange to try to cook on a barbie with 3 families on holiday together arguing amongst themselves about what's the best way to cook fish. The gas heated flat griddle that passes for a barbecue here remains a challenge for me. They say that letting flame hit meat is carcinogenic. It was easy enough to grill the burgers and hot dogs on Sunday afternoon. But, I had some trouble determining if our chicken kabobs were done that evening. And, while I delivered the meat back to the camper with unit, someone cleaned the section of barbie that I used. Leaving me to wonder if I'd somehow flunked the barbie etiquette test. Live and learn.

There was a little lake where Owen and I tried our luck fishing. Those of you who know me well, understand that means very little luck. But, I had great fun watching him get the hang of casting out the line. I had gotten him a junior fishing set as a show bag at the Royal Hobart show. It was a telescoping light rod, with a sampling of gear 'perfect for a 6 year old' as the salesperson said. This was the first chance that we'd had to try it out. It had some rubber, squishy, fake bait, and we also tried bread balls that Mike made. And, some leftover hot dog pieces. O was very excited and had lots of fun. Until he lost the bobber. That was a very sad thing. I felt bad that I hadn't warned him enough to expect losing hooks, sinkers, bobbers, lures, and the like. I tried explaining with stories about losing bobbers in trees, snagging them on sea weed, having to cut lines that were stuck. He was rather inconsolable. Pretty much, until I said he could eat the remainder of the hot dog that we'd brought as bait. So, I went and got him another bobber this week. Not so much to throw 'stuff' at a loss, but to say along with it "you'll lose this one too". Live and learn.

We could hear the pounding of the waves from a short walk to the other side of the road and a over bit of a berm.



We went on a hike that was billed as suitable for all ages. Well, the first part of it was anyway. Perhaps we overshot the official easy trail, and soon found ourselves in a muddy, skinny path next to a stream. Liz, Ginger, and I turned back. Mike, O, and Anna investigated further. We all met back at the trail head where we discovered who had collected leeches and who had not. Mike's was just on his sweatshirt. Ginger's was on her ankle. Good thing Liz's childhood had plenty of leech experiences, so she advised that we head back to the camper with unit and pour some salt on the sucker. Worked good. Live and learn.

Liz, O, and I took a sunset walk. O loves to tease the waves. It was a little chilly so he was very careful to not get very wet.



The following day, Liz and I took the easy way and spent some time walking on a sandy beach. While the younger folks with good knees went off on a more ambitious hike. There, they witnessed a guy catch a small shark while surf fishing. Ginger captured the moment in digital video. Owen had the good fortune to see someone catch a fish.



Predictably, Liz and I wandered over to the Penguin Cafe and had some scrumptious raspberry meringue tarts and a flat white . Penguins are a bit of a theme in these parts. There is a special boardwalk built by the ocean on Bruny Island, where you can view little fairy penguins coming out of the ocean and waddling up the hill to their nests. We took a ride out to the observation point on Saturday night. On the ride home, I spotted my first Tasmanian devil on the roadside. They are rather cute. We also saw a few wallabies, but they stayed out of the road, thank goodness. We had gone to another penguin nesting area up in the Coles Bay area, and on that ride home, Mike had to drive like a slalom skier in some sections of the road, because the wallabies were jumping into the road every so often.

We met up again and had a really fine lunch on a hill side in sight of the isthmus that connects the north island with the south island.



After lunch we toured around by car for a bit. We stopped at Cloudy Bay, where the clear skies, indeed, clouded up more. But, it was still a very fine day. O was snoozing in the car, so Liz volunteered to hang back while the rest of us wandered over the hill to a sandy beach that had a large rock field.







There were many, many of these jelly fish scattered along the beach. Actual size ranged from tiny to about the size of your thumb for the balloon-like appendage.





The waves were spectacular, about 4 rows of strong waves. There were some surfer dudes sitting on a rest stop bench, just watching the waves. I didn't know if they were waiting for better waves or resting after a session. I asked them what the red tint to the water near the shore was and they said algae. Well, actually, they said 'alg-eee', but I understood what they meant.



We sure did a lot and brought back many stories from just an overnight trip. I'll see if I can pick some photos and load them up onto the Mac drive soon.

Tomorrow, though, I will be busy at an Appalchian old timey jam session at noon, a Cape Barren Island session at 1:30pm, rehearsal with the Tasmanian Heritage Fiddle Ensemble (that's the mostly teen aged group) at 3pm, Irish/mixed session at the pub afterwards, until the dance starts. Saturdays sure can get jam packed. Good for my calluses.

Mount Wellington cam

Here's a link to the Blundstone Boot website. It maintains a web cam on the mountain that we see from our apartment.

Camping Sunday and Monday

Off to Bruny Island for an overnight camping trip. We'll be staying in a camper at Captain James Cook Caravan Park. M, G, and kids will be in their tent. Perhaps I'll have a fish tale to tell. Or, maybe not. We'll see. Stay tuned.

Grocery shopping

We borrowed the car last week to go do a 'heavy' shop. That is, items that would be a pain to carry the 6 blocks or so from the store to our apartment. The supermarkets here a somewhat like the ones in the US, but not on such a huge scale and not with as many choices. They encourage you to bring reusable bags. We have about 5 cloth bags that we often leave home when we go shopping. Argghhh. Must remember to plan. Some stores charge for disposable plastic bags. TAS is trying to move toward no plastic bags at all in a few years by legislation.

Here are some examples of prices. Sometimes it's a mind-twist to determine if things are expensive or not. Metric to US weights and measures are not calculations that I can do in my head. In the case of this trip to the store, I picked up some mangos that weren't clearly priced because someone told me that they were cheap this time of year. It wasn't until I was doing the calculations for this post that I realized I'd paid 8 bucks for 3 mangos. That seems steep to me now. But, they're very tasty mangos.



I didn't calculate the weight or volume conversion on this chart. But, if you're wondering how many ounces in a kg or pints to liters, here's a link to a conversion site. The US Dollar conversion is based on this website.

What time is it?

OK, so many of you have recently "fallen back" and changed most of your clocks. What does that do to the tricky question of 'What time is it?' once again.

Here's a little visual aid.



It works on the other side of the day as well. When it is 11am here in Hobart, it is 7pm in New York.

Hobart is always ahead. New York is always behind.

It is Sunday night here. It is Sunday morning in New York.

We have to go to sleep in our night time not knowing what the special prosecutor says in a news conference while we're snoring earlier in NY's day. By the time we wake up, it's old news for the folks in NY already. Even though we are ahead in the time zone. No matter. It's still good news. What time is it? It is time for some truth.

Any questions?

Update: Tasmania 'sprang ahead' earlier than the rest of Australia, as you may remember from a previous post. This world time zones map is once again correct, now that the mainland has sync'd up with Tasmania.

New pictures in the bin

There's a new slide show on the .mac site. Pictures from the Royal Hobart Show. Let me know if you need the password.

And, its about time for more signs, don't ya s'pose?

From the pond at the botanical gardens.


There's some big cannons out in front of the Defense building.


Here's what the sign in front of the cannon says.


Well, yeah! Of course. It'd be a shame someone was hurt by a gun.


On the other side of the spectrum, a car rear window sticker.

Rainbows and gum trees

Here's a picture from our balcony on a rainy day. The usual view of Mt. Wellington is hidden behind the mist and clouds.



A gum tree stands out directly under the rainbow. It is an interesting tree. It keeps its leaves and sheds its bark. The trunk and branches give the mountainside an appearance of light colored sticks interspersed throughout the greenery. The one that we see from our balcony is fun to watch throughout the course of the day. As the light changes, or the clouds gather in different configurations, the tree takes on a different emphasis. At sunset, the light comes from behind the tree and it becomes a tall silhouette in front of the high mountain.

Here's a mountainside with gum trees. This view is from our hike to the lookout over Wineglass Bay, on the northeast coast of Tasmania.



When we first got here, Owen showed me an elongated, shiney, maroon colored leaf from the gum tree. I nodded with some interest. "Oh, how cool, you found a leaf." But, now that I understand more about gum trees, I understand that he was showing me a very special leaf, one that I had likely never seen before in my life. As are so many things that we see here.

For example, have you ever seen hens and chickens as large as your head?

Australian visa information

If you're thinking of coming for a visit, you'll need to apply for a visa. Never too soon to start wading through this info to begin to collect your thoughts and questions. Our visas are due to expire in early August 2006, FYI. We are going into summer time now. In March, or thereabouts, the rainy and cold winter time will begin.

The immigration people have lots of rules.

One example that threw us for a loop was our attempt to stop over in New Zealand. The airport hot-shot check-in lad needed proof that we had a flight out of New Zealand before he would let us fly in. He could tell that we had Australian visas and they are good for travel in New Zealand as well. But, this lad had to see the ticket to guarantee that we would leave New Zealand. Well, we had E-tickets and hadn't packed the right paper proof of that ticket. He lamely tried to verify the ticket with Qantas, who lamely came back with no proof. You should have seen us scramble to find an internet connection with a printer in order to print out the confirmation numbers. Liz ended up being escorted into the VIP lounge by a very helpful, Air New Zealand gentleman, not-a-lad, and was able to convince the lad just minutes before our flight took off from L.A.

So, there's an example of checking all the details and fine print ahead of time.

I must say that the online application process was fairly easy to use and we got our visas within 4 - 6 weeks. When I say 'got our visas', don't think that we got a piece of paper, or a sticker for our passports. We got online confirmation and a number that could be verified at entry points.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Although, I'm no expert. This website has lots of info.

Big grin

A few boxes still outstanding, but this is a real treat. Forget what I said about not missing my stuff. I'm so glad to see my colored pencils, Saratoga cap, quilt, toothpicks from Japan, belts, shoes, music books, rainbow beach towel, cold medicines, and the like. They were delivered to Watkins Avenue today.

High resolution grandkids and goings on

Had a request for more kids and bigger pictures. So, here's a link. Email me if you'd like the password. It's the same as it's ever been. I appreciate the feedback!



Update on stuff: We got one box. Warm clothes for Liz, a Melitta coffee drip, and filters. I bought a music stand. And, for those of you who are thinking that this is mundane information, it is. I know. But, it's a day in the life of the Tasmaniacs, so I want to share it.

:-)

We've been busy taking care of the Schmidtlets for the past couple of weeks. I'll take the camera tomorrow and see if I can get some more photos. I am enjoying of walking Owen to school and spending the day with Anna. Some days we borrow the car and run some errands. Driving is getting easier.

Thursday we are all going to the Royal Hobart Show, which is a big fair sponsored by an agricultural association. Their website is nothing special, so I won't post a link. But, the event is a big deal here. It runs all weekend, and it's a holiday for most people. The kids are off from school, and the adults get the day off, too. Food, rides, animal exhibits, prizes, wood chopping competitions, and show bags. We will find out what show bags are when we get there, Until then, I have no idea.

More signs, as promised

Caught this one way back in Auckland. A very special flatmate wanted, indeed.



Another from Auckland. This was on a bus during the elections. Notice the spelling of enrol. But, also the many ways of registering.



And, another from New Zealand. There are similar road signs here in Australia, though, too. Give way = yield. So, not only do I have to concentrate on driving on the left side of the road. I also have to figure out what the signs really mean. And, when we're walking, we still aren't sure if the cars need to give us way or if they just have to give way to other cars.



Here's the very long name of that hike that we took in Swansea, up the east coast in Tasmania.


This is a park near our apartment in Battery Point. There are grafitti artists here, too. Errol Flynn was from Tasmania. He went to school across the street from where we live. There's a lot of info about him in the internet cafe where I used to connect. One of my favorite quotes: "Anyone who dies with more than $1.15 is a jerk."



Actress Merle Oberon was also from Tasmania. And, you'll see in the current news that the Princess of Denmark who recently had a baby, was from Hobart, too. The papers here followed her in the news throughout the pregnancy.

Stuff

I've had an interesting relationship with stuff over the past year, as many of you know. Many people have asked me about it with questions like “what is is like having to decide what to keep and what to let go?” and “how did you decide?” I'd like to muse about that for awhile.

My thoughts and reactions are not what I would have expected. Much of my life has been focused on collecting things. Not necessarily expensive things. I guess more often than not, I'd lean toward things that were unique or out of the ordinary. I quite enjoyed scaling back and discarding things that hadn't really been used much. We had a lot of space and that space collected a lot of stuff that was kept just in case it would be needed. My auto mechanic told me that his rule of thumb was: if you haven't used it in 5 years, face it, it's more trouble than it's worth.

There's the natural desire to protect one's things. I'd curiously read accounts of disasters wondering how I would cope if one day I'd lose everything in a fire, for example. The recent accounts of hurricanes and floods remind us that our stuff could be gone in a moment. After much consideration, I still have to say that the inventorying and decision making felt good. The letting go and the giving away and the recycling routinely resulted in a feeling of lightness and relief. Surely, I understand that I had the power to hold on to what I wanted, so there was not a sense of losing things without my control or permission. I still have my fiddle. My backpack. My bluejeans. I have on my keychain nowadays: my eigth grade school ring, my highschool senior ring, my grandmother's wedding ring. Oh, and some nailclippers and a whistle.

Then, during the same time frame, I became responsible for dealing with my mother's stuff. She was in the position of involuntarily giving up a life's worth of possessions. I was in the position of trying to choose what most meaningful things could fit into one room for a memory impaired person. Her last words to me as I left for Australia were “what about my clothes that were in the closet?”

All of her clothes, by the way, were with her or packed away for her, except for things that didn't fit her. So, in a sense, she'd lost things that she actually still had. She just can't remember that she has them.

One of the things that is striking about downsizing possessions is their perceived worth, or monetary value. Much of our stuff was sold for a song. Much of our stuff was given away. Yeah, yeah, yeah, many people told me to sell things on Ebay. You might think I'd radiate toward that sort of solution, but I just couldn't deal with learning one more thing or organizing one more logistic like shipping my stuff to other people. I was trying to work out details of shipping my stuff to me on the other side of the world, and didn't want to muddy up that water with facts about how to ship stuff to Ebayers. At this late date, we still have my old desk at a consignment shop, now down to 160 some bucks and unsold.

Rather than drive my gas sucking SUV into the Hudson River, I had to let it go for $3500. And, I'm happy that it went for that. Forget Kelly Blue Book estimates on those things.

I asked for a high price for my mandolin, unconsciously hoping that it wouldn't sell and I'd have to figure out how to get it to Tasmania. That being the case, I had to cut my own custom sized box for it. Still waiting.

Still waiting for 8 boxes of clothes, toiletries, shoes, some pictures, recordings of festival jams, music books, extra glasses, silly knick-knacks, political buttons, jewelry, belts.

Still waiting for 1 big box that Liz shipped, and the post office accepted, before we discovered there was a size limit.

Still waiting for a box that I shipped from Vancouver, jettisoning stuff that I thought I might use on the trip over. Art supplies, mini-disc recorder, tour books, some clothes.

Still waiting for the custom size box with a mandolin, sneakers, pillow, some odd bits of clothing as padding. But even though we're still waiting, and I'm wishing for some of the stuff in the boxes, I am quite satisfied with my day-to-day life here. My lack of stuff is not causing any real hardship.

Not still waiting for the box with our phone and router that I'd shipped insured and quickly. You may have already read my whine about how the customs folks trashed the router. The update is that Vonage revealed their fine print, and the phone probably can't be used in Australia after all. Argh. Catching the irony here? The only box that we go so far is the box with stuff we can't use.

Not waiting for the small crate of stuff in storage that we wanted to keep for the future. Photos, kitchenware, cookbooks, some clothes, bedding, keepsakes, vacuum cleaner. As I sit here trying to remember what's in that crate, I'm coming up short. But, I know we'll have some fun opening it up and seeing what we thought we couldn't leave behind.

Some of our furnishings and household goods we gave to Ben. It was a very good feeling to see my houseplants thriving in the large windows of his apartment. And, to know that he likes the odd pillar made from wood. And, just to know that we could pass stuff along just at the time he'd moved into a bigger apartment.

I liked being able to give some stuff away. My cousin left our house one day with a few bags of CD's. What the heck, we gave her the CD rack for her birthday present. Ben and Nat have some of the collection. My fiddler friends have some. Janet, in particular, wants to just hold on to some old timey CD's so that other folks can borrow them. And, someday she hopes to give them back to me.

I broke down and got some more socks today. Tired of wearing my 3 pairs for the past 2 months. There's a good chance I'll hit some second hand stores this week, too, and see if there's some clothes that I can wear while I wait for my 'real' clothes to get here. This philosophical discussion about stuff should not ignore the fact that I don't have to go to work. So, there's a whole category of stuff that I don't need. I love not having a car and all the associated car expenses. I do have work clothes coming in one of those boxes, but only so that I'll have them next time I have to jump back into the work force.

People ask “Is there anything that you miss?” The answer is tempered with the fact that we're finding Tasmania to be well worth what we had to do to get here. I suppose if it was the pits, I'd be moaning more. But, there's very little stuff that I actually miss or feel like I can't do without. I miss my music stand. I'll have to find another here. I miss a shelf full of seasonings, but it's kind of fun to collect new ones and to punt in the kitchen. I have a collection of seedlings out of the balcony. I don't miss my greenhouse.

I probably miss you, unless you're some stranger that just tripped into this blog.

Well, enough about me. What about your stuff? Drop me a line, eh?

Music updates

Last time I posted about my search for fiddle music here, I'd discovered a mixed / Irish / singing session at the New Sydney Hotel. There was a few old timey tunes played, so I suspected there'd be some interest. Turns out there's a regular old timey session every Thursday. A couple of guys, who picked up on my enthusiasm, invited me and they seemed interested to hear more. It's an open group called the Hobart Old Time Stringband, acronymized as the HOT Stringband.

In the meantime, I'd been down to the Salamanca Market and chatted with Bruce, the windchime maker and fiddler. I made a few CD's for him culled from my collection of jam tunes. He hadn't brought his fiddle that day, but played mine and we traded back and forth. He said he was interested to try more cross tuning and we agreed to meet up again. Last Saturday was too rainy, so I haven't been back yet.

Liz and I did go and check out the Lark Distillery. It had a very warm tavern atmosphere. Packed to overflowing with the Friday after work crowd. The band was playing western music, though, something akin to Hot Club of Cowtown. At that point I was fearful that what folks percieved as Appalachian old time was actually bluegrass or country/western. But, then I went to the HOT Stringband session and all was well and good.

The people in the HOT Stringband are a friendly, welcoming group. Usually, they would go round robin and choose old timey tunes, either Appalachian or Australian. But, that night, they were rehearsing for the upcoming Buttongrass Ball, so the session was more structured. I am very impressed by the organization. They have a leader, Fred, and he passes out sheet music and play lists. He started the group and runs fiddle/banjo/mando workshops, in part to bring in a steady stream of newcomers. I gave him my tunelist and phone number 'straight-away', as they say here. He called a few days later to ask if we could get together and jam, and he's interested to have me do a cross tuning workshop. We know a good number of tunes in common and I'm looking forward to many more sessions with these folks.

I've learned that Tasmania has a rich culture of old time music. It's been collected and documented. I found a book in the library, The Tasmanian Heritage Apple Shed Tune Book. It has some tunes that were played at the HOT Stringband session. The description says "Traditional Schottisches, Mazurkas, Polkas, Waltzes, Reels, Jigs and Novelty Tunes as played in rural Tasmania 1840 - 1960".

Those of you who are interested, the Trad and Now website has a wide variety of information about the Australian traditional music and dance scene.

Well, here's the short version of the music update... I met Keri at the HOT Stringband session. She's a compendium of music events in the area and beyond. Also, Cathy, who invited us to the Danceholics Unanimous night, that was actually going to be a party for her partner David, the dance caller. At that party, I met the people who collected and authored the Apple Shed collection and got invited to their Tasmanian Heritage sessions, where I can learn more traditional old time Tasmanian tunes. It was great fun meeting the local earthy crunchy dancey crowd. They would fit right in at the Dance Flurry. Liz had fun dancing and I played for the dance with a subset of the HOTStringband. Truth be told, afterward Keri suggested that I get together with them and practice some of the tunes. At first I worried that meant that I didn't always play the same notes as the band. But, after getting to know them better, I understand that they were just being welcoming. More often than not, I'm invited to join in.

Still waiting on our stuff in the mail. I hope to get some recording done and get some sound samples up on the .Mac folders.

Gotta stop for now. It's Saturday and I want to catch up with Bruce.

For the record, it is anti-clockwise

I have a movie. It's giving me a wicked time, trying to upload it to my iDisk, so you'll just have to take my word for it. The water rotates counterclockwise as it goes down the drains here.

Which reminds me, I saw a tee shirt the other day with a cute description.
"Tasmania: Down under down under"

Which adapter should I use?

Well, I've learned a bit about voltage and current, adapters and transformers. Still have more to learn before I can sound informed, though. I might have fried one router. Or, it was busted by customs breaking into it to look for who knows what. This was the router that was supposed to make our Albany phone number work in Hobart. So, I asked the voice over IP company, Vonage, to suggest an alternative router that would work in Australia. They sent me a canned response suggesting the very same router that customs had trashed, with a power supply that would not work in Australia. To be continued. I replied that it would be nice if they did more research. We'll see what they actually know about international connections. I'd still like to have a way for state-side folks to call us without having to call internationally.

If you are planning to visit. Leave your electronics home, or do enough homework to understand what modifications might be needed. I thought I could just plug things into an adapter, but that's not always the case.

Here's a link with some introductory advice.

Walking to West Hobart

To get to the Schmidt's, we walk about 30 minutes. It's a city walk, with traffic and many kids walking to the 4 or so schools that we pass along the way. They are in different uniforms, depending on the school. This first shot is going past the Defense center, which I think might be like an army reserve center.



There's a little downhill.



Then, there is a 3 block stretch that is quite a hike uphill.





Near St. Mary's College, it levels out and we're almost there. This is not really what we'd call a college. It's a high school campus, bustling with girls in green plaid jumpers and blazers. Owen's neighbor friends go to school here.



Here's the beginning of Watkins Avenue.



On a typical day, we'll walk Owen to his school about 5 blocks away. Then, return to the house to be entertained for the rest of the day. This is in the back yard.