July 31. Day 213. Muddying the waters

Throw enough mud and some of it will stick.
We hear it all the time and it is, unfortunately, true. And it stinks (a little like the mangrove mud flats on the North Bank of the Brisbane River which I photographed on my walk this morning).
So media-driven hysteria has allowed us to believe that somehow being the fifth fastest swimmer in your event  in the world is a sign of being fat and lazy and heading off to London on a tax-payer funded jaunt.
Let's be honest, elite athletes can only ever be on top of their game for a short period of time and you can muddy the waters all you like with all the unflattering camera angles and unnamed sources you can generate but that doesn't change the facts.
Wouldn't it be nice if we actually celebrated the remarkable achievements of our athletes instead of throwing mud all the time?
And a little bit more realism, graciousness and humility by all of use might mean that less people come out with mud on their faces when the pots of gold don't materialise.

July 29 Day 211. Sweet as

I've always considered it a delicious irony. Today was Queensland University of Technology Open Day and thousands of perspective students flocked to our Kelvin Grove campus to learn about the university courses available to students about to take the next big step into adulthood.

My job today involved leading six tours of the facilities and hosting three seminars about the journalism program.

I like to think that these were very informative but do you know what the big drawcards on the day were?

The biggest queues were for the free fairy floss, the free popcorn and the balloons.

The little packets of colouring pencils we were giving away were also a big hit.

Yep, there's a lot to digest at a day like today so you might as well have a spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down.

University may be just around the corner but that doesn't mean you are too old for spun sugar and food colouring.

Four-year-old Shishi is still a little bit too young to be considering a career as a journalist but her big brother is getting ready for uni so Shishi and mum came along to join in the party.

The talks may not have been her cup of tea but the fairy floss appeared to be going down a treat proving that there was something to suit everyone's taste.

July 26. Day 208. Strangely reflective

Today I had a very strange exchange with a man on the street. This big burly bloke was unloading his van at West End as I walked passed.
In a very jolly, almost sing-song voice he said: "Good afternoon. How's it going?"
Me: "Fine thanks. And you?"
Him: "Shit house actually".
Okay then. Why don't you tell me how you really feel?
Funny isn't it that we so often ask people variations on the "how are you?" question but there's an unspoken rule that you are only allowed to accent the positive?
It's a strange pantomime we go through.
The woman at the checkout really has no desire to hear how my day has been, so why does she ask?
Had I bothered to think about it rather than just give the expected answer I would have said it didn't start that well but a long walk cleared my head and I was rather happy with the photo I took at West End. It summed up my strangely reflective mood.
Truth is, it really doesn't hurt to spend a bit of time actually reflecting on how it is going. We should take stock. We should ask those around us how they are feeling and we should listen and reflect on how we can help if things are not travelling so well.
But if you don't care about the answer, don't ask the question.
Reflect on that if you will.

July 25. Day 207. Hosing down

For my mother holding a hose is like relaxation therapy.

When we were growing up you'd see her out in the yard, hose in hand almost in a trance.

She would often be chewing on her thumb, in a world of her own, finding the flow of water quite hypnotic.

I could see her point as I watched the gardeners giving the produce at Delectable Queensland at South Bank a drink this morning.

Before the crowds arrive there is quite a team making sure the thousands of plants are looked after. I love the water dripping off this lemon plant.

I tried to catch Mum's love of gardening. Epic fail. If a plant in the garden can't survive on water from the sky around my place it will not survive.

The couple in pots have my mother to thank for their existance. She takes pity on them and throws water their way when she comes for the weekly Sunday roast.

Hosing down rumours, that I can do. Hosing down plants, I'm afraid I'll have to leave that to others.

Thanks Mum.

July 24. Day 206. Wheelie nice start to the day

A bird pooped on my head this morning. It wasn't even dawn yet and the early bird should surely have been off getting the worm but no it found time to drop its load right on top of me.
Had someone had a video camera on me at that moment it would be going viral on YouTube right now and I would be well on my way to my first million. Instead I got to go home and wash my hair.
That could have been enough to ruin a good walk but Brisbane is just glorious in the mornings right now and a morning walk really sets up the day. The light is lovely and it's cool and refreshing but not cold. Perfect.
Even though its only a week since I took a photograph of the Wheel of Brisbane, I really like this angle taken this morning.
A couple of things have happened since I last photographed the wheel. Sails have been erected so at night it can become a giant screen for a laser show. This also means its not operating right now which is a shame.
Only a week ago I rode the wheel with family in town on a visit and it was great. It wasn't my first wheel ride but I never tire of the view of the city from the gondolas.
I also never tire of the view of the wheel itself from South Bank or the city. It's a beautiful addition to the city.
Even a bit of bird poo conditioner isn't going to dampen my enthusiasm for that.

July 23. Day 205. Skeletons in the closet

Mr O, aged 14, is working on the world's next great novel. (By great I hope he means well written and not just best selling because I'd hate to think another 50 Shades was inflicted on the world, but I digress).
It's a piece of alternative history where you have to envisage what would have happened IF one critical event had gone the other way. How, for example, would US history have evolved differently if the lone gunman in the Texas School Book Depository had missed?
As best I can follow, the great novel is set in Europe at the time where the great monarchies still reigned supreme. But the course of history is changed and the revolutions that saw them overturned were suppressed.
Key to this are several spies each with a guilty secret which if it got out could be their undoing.
So Mr O is deciding what these secrets would be. He wants things that today we wouldn't batter an eyelid about but which at the time were scandalous. He wants skeletons in the closet.
He's decided there will be an unwed mother, a gay man and a divorcee but he wants another one. So he asks me. Someone as old as his mother must know what things used to be frowned on in the distant past.
I suggest a severe mental illness somewhere in the family.
He looks at me like I've somehow not understood the plot. Mental illness something to be ashamed about?
He tells me matter of factly about 14-year-olds in the playground or library  discussing their psychiatrists. Counsellors and psychologists are quite common place.
Now you could say that's a sign the world has gone mad (pun intended).]
Actually while I wonder about the amount of stress that we place on our teenagers I do think that it is a step forward that discussing mental health plans is akin to taking about managing diabetes or an asthma management plan: where mental illness is no more or less stigmatised than physical illnesses.
We need to get those skeletons out of the cupboard. The skulls in today's photo were not in the cupboard - but not far from it.
They were piled in a plastic bag in a strange room on campus I presume to be an art studio. There was just one pottery rose among the skulls. Also in the room was a bra made out of clothes pegs, a necklace constructed from a string of gold teeth and a painting of two men wearing reindeer ears kissing. I'm sure in days gone by the artists responsible would have been locked up. You could have been certified for less. Now we call it artistic freedom.
Yep, at times it does seem that the world has gone mad. At least we are free to talk about it and don't have to hide it in the closet.

July 22. Day 204. Old School

I send Thank-you letters.

We eat a roast every Sunday.

I'd rather phone someone than text them.

I know, how very old school of me.

The subject of what's "Old School" has been a hot topic in my house this week as my son has been brain storming ideas for the school photography competition. Interpret it as you will.

He decided to take a very literal interpretation and he took a photo of an old school building at the Caboolture Historical Village yesterday (pic below).

But the discussion led me to think about my own school days (I am, of course, very old in the eyes of my 14-year-old).

Things I fondly remember include hopscotch, marbles, skipping and elastic (although I admit I no longer have any idea how one plays elastic).

My 10-year-old niece Cleo tells me she still plays hopscotch. She even has a hopscotch mat. There are hopscotch lines on the playground at school.

So we went to have a look and while the lines are there we drew our own in chalk.

Apparently hopscotch isn't so old school after all. Even the cool kids still know how.

July 21 Day 203. Wash day blues

In so many ways we have it so much easier than the women who went before us.
Like the laundry for one. The idea of boiling water, washboards and hand scrubbing one's smalls is quite simply deplorable.
The modern woman has been liberated from such drudgery, a fact I was reminder of today at a visit to the Caboolture Historical Village.
Of course the vision that all these modern labour saving devices would result in a world where we could sit with our feet up and sip pina coladas all day as simply not eventuated.
Sure the business of doing a load of washing is no longer a full day of hard physical labour. I had a load on the line blowing in the wind before 9am today and that was after a lie in.
But with the washing out and the other domestic chores done, there was a shift at the Tertiary Studies Expo to put in, the drive to the Historical Village to facilitate the school photography challenge (with the theme Old School), shopping, dinner to cook and them a couple more hours on the computer to answer emails.
Yep, the modern women can have it all provided she accepts that she will have to do it all.
But I'd rather do it all than spend all day doing the washing. As the song says "Look how much I've gained".
It's just some times you will hear me roar.

July 18. Day 200. Totally rooted

Two hundred days down. I choose not to count how many images I have taken in that time. Too many.

How do I feel? Pleased to have survived the journey this long but slightly rooted by the whole thing if I'm entirely honest, hence this photo.

It's now back to the business end of the university cycle - Orientation Week for Semster 2 - so  today there were meetings, official student meet-and-greets and yet more forms.

The photo today had to be squeezed in between appointments and I took it in the work car park.

I like it because the tree's roots hang and are not in the ground. This plant seems to be able to suck the energy it needs from the air around it. This is quite the opposite to crazy, busy work days where the air seems to suck the energy out of you.

But anyway I just happen to like the way the roots look and that's what the Project has been best for - finding something beautiful in the every day even when you are feeling totally rooted.

July 17. Day 199. I'm forever blowing bubbles

Being a teenager totally sucks but I have to tell you being the parent of a teenager can be totally sucky at times.
There are days when you feel like you are just going to explode much like this bubble did just after I took this photograph at South Bank today.
Fact is, every age presents parents with both challenges and rewards.
This bubble was created by a mum playing with a toddler at the edge of the pool. I looked at the huge amount of baggage she had to carry just for an hour or so at city beach. And I watched how vigilant she had to be watching the little one near the water. At that age they are so physically demanding. Certainly there are advantages when they are less totally reliant on you for their every need.
But there is also something really special about their innocence and the joy they have in simple things like popping bubbles.
A teenager is a bit more like the bubble itself - fragile, reflective and prone to bursting at any moment but beautiful just the same.

July 12. Day 194. Ladybird, ladybird fly away home

Meet Michelle Matlock. She's a ladybird. Now if I was a ladybird I'd be staying well away from open flames still haunted by the most dreadful of childhood rhymes:

Ladybird ladybird fly away home,
Your house is on fire and your children are gone

But Michelle, the star of Cirque du Soleil's Ovo which opens in Brisbane on Saturday, seemed quite happy to climb into the basket of a hot air balloonright under the giant gas burners and take off.

Actually she seemed delighted (the fact that her image is on the side of the egg-shaped balloon may have had something to do with that)

You might assume that if you'd been playing the same role for almost two years it might be just another day at the office. If that was the case she was certainly hiding it well at the media call this morning.

While photographers were taking her picture, Michelle had her mobile phone camera out and was making sure she was missing none of the action. Her excitement was genuine and infectious.

I reckon a job like being a performer with Cirque du Soleil would do that for you.

Certainly I feel a child like excitement every time the Grand Chapiteau (that's Cirque speak for Big Top) is in town.

But then I'm a bit of a Cirque groupie, having seen productions not only in Australia but in Las Vegas and Macau.

But Ovo (meaning egg) is new on me and is on its first Australian tour. I hope it's all it's cracked up to be.

If Michelle is anything to go by it should soar.

July 10. Day 192. Hair-raising

The best thing about being a child is that you can tie yourself in knots and have your hair stand on end without it being related to stress.
Both my niece Jess and I were exhibiting signs of that hair-raising stuff today. Ten-year-old Jess is a little monkey and loves just hanging around as she showed in the playground today. I, on the other hand, was waiting for a call from the mechanic after the car had to be towed from the highway last night.
I don't understand cars but I have come to learn that when a mechanic makes a "tutt tutt" noise you are about to experience a severe pain in the credit card. That is knot in the stomach stuff. I was steeling myself for it.
So while I watched Jess, the mechanic rang and he made noises. But they were not "tutt tutt" noises. Just all done. You can pick it up. Total damage $94.
If I was able to do cartwheels or headstands I would have been out there with Jess. I suspect had I tried tomorrow's post would be about the cost of a good chiropractor.

July 8. Day 190. All I want for Christmas...

One of the things I despise most about the "reality" TV show Toddlers and Tiaras - and there are lots - is that the pageant  mums actually buy mouth implants to fill the gaps in their children's mouths when they have lost their teeth. As though fake tans, false eye lashes and pole dance routines are not enough, somehow these mums and the judges think that a child can not be beautiful with a gummy smile. That gappy grin, modelled this morning by my delightful nephew Connor, is simply adorable and an important milestone in growing up.
Come on, they grow up fast enough without wishing away childhood.
Before long the tooth fairy will have paid up big for all those baby teeth (I hear the going rate in Australia now is $5 per tooth!) and you'll be getting a second mortgage to pay for orthodontics. You just have to embrace every stage as it comes with all its challenges because it will be gone in a blink in an eye.
And you can always ask Santa for those two front teeth for Christmas.

June 24. Day 176. The kindness of strangers

I was stopped at traffic lights today when a woman passenger in the car behind got out ran up and told me I had a flat tyre. I thought "%^*&@$" but thanked her because this stranger had made the effort to alert me and not knowing in this situation could be far worse than knowing. I drove around the corner to a service station and before I could even ponder how I would tackle the task ahead of me a bloke came up and asked would I like a hand changing the tyre. Would I? Hell yeah. David, Dave my new buddy, didn't "help" change the tyre. He totally changed the tyre while I looked on sort of pretending I could do something productive. When the job was done Dave would take nothing in return. He and his wife simply drove away. A random and totally appreciated act of kindness from a stranger.
With air in my sails and in my tyre I headed off to the World Refugee Day community festival.
There in a park in Annerley thousands of people were gathered to thank those who made strangers from strange lands feel comfortable in Brisbane. And for native Brisbane-ites like myself to recognise the huge contribution refugees have made to this city
Today's photo is of Sharon Were who was volunteering in the Kenyan Association tent.
Sharon did not come to Australia as a refugee. She came as a student studying microbiology and now Brisbane is her adopted home.
She explained that during a celebration like today's it was important that people from Africa come out, fly the flag and offer support regardless of how they came to be in this country. You can't argue with that.

June 20. Day 172. Ice, Ice Baby

As  a teenager I had the worst hardware imaginable to straighten my teeth. There was so much that I couldn't safely travel close to a magnet and hope to be able to walk away. We are talking serious orthodontics. Frankly I think less engineering is required to hold up your average high rise building.
And then, after the worst 18 months of my life (or at least that's how my teenaged self saw it), the braces were removed. The next day I went ice skating and I was totally crap at it. My poor mother watched from the sidelines as I desperately tried to break something and it seemed the newly straighted and very expensive teeth looked like they would be first to go. Fortunately I survived and had a really great time.
Back then there were a number of ice skating rinks in Brisbane - now there are only two at least for most of the year.
But right now the Winter Festival is on in Brisbane and King George Square right outside City Hall is  home to an ice skating rink. Okay, it's not exactly the Rockefeller Center but it looked like a truck load of fun.
These three girls really reminded me of me (except for the lack of braces). Not one of them is likely to pose a threat to Torvill and Dean but my goodness they were giving it a good go and having a great time.

June 15. Day 167. Spinning a yarn

You've got to love someone who can spin a good yarn. Today I met Knitted Nancy the creation of Penelope Lowther a circus performer, puppeteer, visual artist and all round story teller.
Nancy is a real character who today at the Out of the Box Festival was a bit like the Pied Piper, where she went a tribe of children couldn't help but follow.
At first it was the costume that drew the kids in. Not everyone can get away with wearing an outfit that looks part rug, part tea cosy and part doily. Nancy looked like she had climbed out of Women's Weekly craft book from the 1960s.
But once Nancy had their attention she became something of a magician pulling not a rabbit out of a hat but all manner of knitted creatures from secret pockets or patches on her dress. So many pockets, so many creatures to reveal.
Then she started spinning her yarns and when Knitted Nancy spoke the kids listened. Really who could fail to listen to someone who looks like her headwear is fashioned on one of those knitted dolls you used to see covering spare toilet rolls?
"Lady" Penelope says her aim is to celebrate the absurdity of life. I love her for that. OK, wearing a knitted cosy is not my cup of tea but not taking yourself too seriously, being able to spin a good yarn and having people hang on your every word, I'll drink to that.

June 14. Day 166. The calm before the storm

At 6.45am it was calm and quiet out the front of the Queensland Performing Arts Complex. The city looked almost like a cardboard cutout framed by the banner of the Out of the Box lighting rig. It was the calm before the storm. A moment of silence before the bus and train loads of school children arrived. It was beautiful.
I could never be an early childhood educator.
I love the innocence and enthusiasm of children. I admire their boundless energy and wish I could harness just a fraction of it. But they are exhausting and watching parents and teachers trying to herd them to events this week has made me glad I teach people old enough to open their own drink bottle.
Kids may be hard to control but this is what makes them so interesting as audience members. There's a real honesty about them. They will not clap politely if they are not enjoying the show. They fidget or wiggle. They want to go to the toilet. They whinge or simply turn away. They are a tough crowd - but a very rewarding one if you get it right. Everything I have seem at this year's 20th birthday Out of the Box Festival for Children suggests that the organisers have got it right. The enthusiasm was genuine - and loud. That's infectious. I love it but secretly confess to loving even more being able take it all  in without the soundtrack of childhood blaring out.

Review. Stradbroke Dreamtime

The children sit crossed legged on cushions on the floor around an upturned boat painted in traditional dot art. Three indigenous performers have then eating out of their hands as they tell them stories from "Aunty Kath" , the Aboriginal poet, author and artist who became Oodgeroo Noonuccal.
Stradbroke Dreamtime is a collection of stories of the then Kath Walker's early years growing up on Stradbroke Island. They hear about carpet snakes in the toilet and in the baby's crib, they hear about children being punished for being left handed and about traditional hunting and fishing.They hear songs and get to play the grasses and the trees and the birds. They seem totally engaged.
This production was created especially by QPAC and the Queensland Theatre Company for this year's Out of the Box Festival. It's an intimate work without the wizardry of performances in the larger performance spaces but it is well worth a look.

Verdict 4/5 stars. Recommended for children aged 4-8. 40 minute show.

 Stradbroke Dreamtime is playing at Studio 2 QPAC until Saturday. Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for children. 

 

June 5. Day 157. Barbed wire

Sophia Lauren once said: “A woman's dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.”
Yep, you gotta hold it all together, keep the bits in you want to keep in and keep out those things not welcome, thank-you very much.
A dress should, of course, also be beautiful, something barbed wire never is. Or so I thought until  I saw this piece of fencing under the Captain Cook expressway protecting one of the disused piers near the QUT Citycat terminal.
The intent is clear - you can't come in here but the form of the wire outlined against the water and the fence is quite striking. And like Loren said it doesn't obstruct the view it rather enhances it. Certainly it caught my eye as I walked passed  this morning.
 Clothing has been a bit of a theme for me today mainly because of my complete inability to dress myself properly and appropriately. Somehow I managed to rush out of the house without a jacket, not the smartest of moves given the wind chill factor. That's not the worse of it. I'd been at work for quite some time before I realised half of what I did manage to put on this morning was inside out. Somehow the bits digging in failed to alert me to yet another wardrobe malfunction. Good grief.
Perhaps it isn't Sophia Loren I should be turning to for advice when dressing but the ancient cowboy proverb that suggests you should be "careful as a naked man climbin' a barbed wire fence"
Had to get a barb in somewhere.

May 28.Day 149. Balancing act

Do you ever dream of running away to join the circus? I do. Frequently, generally on a Monday when I look at the diary of the week ahead. To make it work I know there will be juggling, balancing, dealing with clowns, taming the lions, tying myself in knots. Okay, maybe the circus isn't my best escape plan.
But I admit I am attracted to circus, both the old sawdust in a big top type circus and the far more artistic type we now see that is more likely to be a Cirque rather than a Circus. Graceful, fluid, mesmerising and captivating.
Today in the most unlikely circus venue - the Myer Centre food court - there was a lunchtime display of the most extraordinary tissue acrobatics by a performer from the Aerial Angels group. Watching her it was possible to think you might have died and gone to heaven. An angelic display to be sure. Shoppers were left speechless although one word did come to my mind: "ouch".
Yep, I might think there's a lot of bending over backwards in my life but I've got nothing on this girl.
Confirmation again, that I'm not cut out for the circus. I'll leave it to the experts like this little angel.

May 22. Day 143. Talking about the birds and the bees

Yesterday it was birds so now it's time to start talking about the bees.
I rather fancy myself as a queen bee, that one in a million creature that gets to lie around the hive while literally tens of thousands of minions swarm around doing all the work and feed me royal jelly.
Nice work if you can get it.
But there's a sting in this tale (hideously bad pun intended). I'm a worker bee. I constantly seem to be buzzing around in a never ending drive to ensure those around are provided for.
Now that sounds all very negative but the Queen Bee does miss out:
1) She is expected to breed all the time
2) She has the most distended stomach
3) She's not the one that gets to suck nectar all day
4) She never gets to go out and smell the flowers
That is what this photo, and in fact the whole Project 365 thing, says to me.
It is very easy to get weighed down by the drone of all modern daily life throws at us. Forcing myself every day to take a photograph of something that appeals to me for whatever bizarre reason focuses not only the camera but the mind on something nice.
If I didn't have the camera in hand, if I wasn't looking for something to photograph, I would not have stopped to smell this flower. I would have walked right by. That's would have been a missed opportunity. I think it is the bees knees (another hideously awful pun intended).