Welcome to the blogspot of Melbourne writer, Elizabeth Jane

Welcome to the blogspot of Melbourne writer, Elizabeth Jane

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Elizabeth in London


Here I am on Time magazine when I was four years old.

It's Raining!

It's raining. Yeah!

It started in the middle of the night on Easter Monday with thunder and lightning - torrential downpours.

We were camping but I didn't mind.

We packed up amid drizzle and headed down the Hume Highway counting puddles along the side of the road.

It was raining Yippee!

It had been raining in Melbourne too. The earth was dark and moist. We pulled out damp canvas and hung it to dry.

We didn't mind. It had rained.

Today it was still raining. I got wet when I went shopping. I ran the food into the house with water slipping down my neck.

I didn't mind. It was raining.

The floor by the door is muddy. Did you hear me? Muddy! Rows and rows of camp clothing hang dripping on the washing line.

This evening it is still raining. Hip hooray!

They say it is going to rain for most of the week. On Saturday I am going to work in the garden. Yes!

The the earth will raise its face to the sky. Thirsty plants will remember their life. The soil will be moist and sweet.

It is raining. Yes, raining. I lift my voice.

Friday, March 14, 2008

A bit of this and that ...

Last weekend we went to the Port Fairy Folk Festival. The weekend before that was St David’s Day and my Mum came to stay. This weekend I am working. The weekend after this is Easter, then school holidays. That means a busy time for me at the library. My Blogging has suffered. But there are a few things to note.

St David’s Day was great. Mum and I went to the concert of the Victorian Welsh Choir. Sunday we were scheduled to attend a Cwmanfa Ganu at St Michael's in the city. As we were walking to the concert, Mum fell over and cut her head open on the pavement. A very helpful man from the choir called and ambulance and we spent the rest of the afternoon in casualty. The next day she woke up looking like this:



I don't know why but she seemed to expect sympathy.

The folk festival was great, as usual. I saw five people I knew the festival: three librarians, one fellow writer and a Welsh language learner. That pretty well sums up my life really. The music was fantastic. I enjoyed seeing Casey Chambers live, again. I also really enjoyed a British folk singer called Martha Tilson. It was very hot at the festival. The temperature in Port Fairy was thirty-nine degrees. Do bear in mind that we were sitting in tents with hundreds of other people. Surprisingly it was not too smelly.

The hot weather has continued on into this week. It was thirty-nine degrees again today. I feel a tad lethargic. My preparations for the school holiday programme at work, involves a session called Hysterical History. I have booked the library laptop and data show. We are going to read stories about inventions – useless ones in particular. This is my favourite one so far:



It is for those heavy hayfever days.

I have been learning about the three-act story model at TAFE. It has been mind blowing. I now understand consciously what I have been trying to do in my novel instinctively. Carine is here for the weekend (I am calling her the boomerang exchange student). I gave her a detailed run down of the three-act model with an in depth analysis of my novel this afternoon. Now, that’s what I like about Carine. She sat right through it and even managed to look interested.

Next weekend is Easter. We are going to Beechworth. If you are Victorian you will link the word Beechworth with Bakery. We are looking forward to sampling its delights. More exciting, however, is that we are meeting Jack and Ness there. It will be the first time we have seen them since they moved to Canberra. We are looking forward to catching up with them. I will take lots of photos and, no doubt, eat lots of chocolate. I will be on a crash diet by the next time we speak.