The Church centenary celebrations in Cleveland

With my teaching work rumbling across the landscape like a volcano's ashes and mire, filling every gap in my busy life with student examination stress, marking and resulting, it was a welcome relief to relax last night at the Uniting church's centenary concert. Old ladies with fruit bowls on their heads, smiling faces glaring down through stage lighting, and children - the church of the future - adored by an audience who recalled their own debut in a concert fifty years ago or more. Who cares if mistakes in wording or tune were made? Nobody. It was as if we were transported to a safe place from our past. The church concerts of the past. Memories had already settled positively in our minds, those of us who had participated every few years, all our lives since those innocent Sunday school days. So many changes to society, to our lives in general. The warm fuzzies of the church concert ensured its success from the start of preparations and the laughter will continue to echo throughout the lives of all who attended last night.

My book's character's heartache and confusion

Edit:
This is a tiny part of my manuscript. I am still working on the edit.

He went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror as he washed his hands. Why had this happened to him now, just as his jaw was sagging, his muscles softening and his joints aching? Just as he really knew love again, he began to wonder if his ageing torso could perform as he willed it to. Self doubt crept in as his reflection reminded him of a lost youthful zest for love. He wondered if he could dig up his past feelings and go on from here. His doubts drew him closer to the mirror inspecting gullies and creases across his brow.

He had a feeling of emptiness that stretched between both countries. He recognized it as homesickness and stubbornly withdrew from its pangs. Homesickness is for children away at boarding school, for the elderly in nursing homes, a longing he had to dismiss or he would cave into its depths. A sense of missing out on something, a longing for that glimpse of pleasure across the horizon, the promise of togetherness with a woman who was passionate for his presence. These are the things that Andrew had longed for all his life and they were within reaching distance now. Sometimes he would stare out the window at the park opposite his small unit, barely able to breathe so he wouldn't miss the sound of her footsteps approaching. She filled the gaps and made life for him real. When she filled the void, he was content and excited but when life took other directions and she was trapped with distractions of work and her children, he was unhappy. The emptiness and homesickness overwhelmed him. The little unit seemed large and empty of feelings. The icey loneliness overcame his memory of her presence and he forgot why he was here in the first place.

The long weekend - Queen's birthday

It isn't really the birthday of the Queen, but we have a day off work tomorrow anyhow. It is, however, Queensland Day on the Saturday, 6 June. People were celebrating that in various ways officially. There was a huge concert of 2,000 school children for three hours last night, and I believe yesterday afternoon too, in Brisbane. For Qld day.

I decided to curl up and read a good book when the sun was hidden by a thick fog yesterday morning. 'The Good Parents' by Joan London, the author of Gilgamesh. The novel is set in Australia and written by an Aussie, and it was very good. She has international awards for her writing, and one can only agree with her winner status after reading this book. It tells the tale of a contemporary family from a country town, how we are shaped by our families and our environments. How intertwined we are. Although at times, it was complex recalling all the characters, I enjoyed the story very much. After I closed the book, I felt like doing some writing myself and focused on my own manuscript, sitting in the corner of my study gathering dust. I wanted to write of the male character's feelings of homesickness.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY QUEEN ELIZABETH II.