the end of summer

Quilted Thai pocket - book cover

In two days it will be autumn, although we may hardly notice the difference. Last week was cooler, but now the summer heat has returned with a vengeance.

Its been an incredibly rough and tumultuous summer, with the Christchurch earthquake last week being the most recent in a series of natural disasters in this part of the world. I was in Christchurch in March 1977 - my first Antipodean autumn in my 'gap year'  - I remember waking up in a tent to the bell-like warbling sounds of a magpie, very different to the melodious British birdsong I was used to. We went to Cathedral Square, and encountered a strange man with a beard who called himself  'the Wizard', talking to a huge crowd of onlookers. He was hugely entertaining, but I have no idea what he was on about. I remember he had a toy telephone and he said it was a 'hotline to god'. That's my memory of Christchurch, 34 years ago. It looks nothing like that now.

We are planning to revisit New Zealand later this year, in early December. I want to walk the Routeburn Track again, an amazing mountainous track starting at Milford Sound, which takes about three days to complete. Very few buildings are involved.

view from Routeburn Track

I'm almost two months into this blog, and it is a real struggle to write today. The academic year starts tomorrow, and the next three months (and a half) are likely to be full-on, with teaching, admin. and marking activities. Its enjoyable, but the start is always daunting. Especially so this year, and there is new technology to grapple with, and we have lost our regular teaching space, and although I know it will all be fine, I have been waking up at 4am most mornings with a mild case of anxiety.

This has been exacerbated by two weeks of less than perfect health, starting with a sprained ankle, closely followed by asthma, which got slightly out of control. Both things were manageable, but they have prevented me from doing much at the gym,which is an important part of my stress management system! So really when I needed it most, I have been limited to walking the dog and doing body balance.

Yesterday we had a journal-making workshop for our new students. They get to make their own visual journal, faciliated by one of our graduates. Its one of my favourite activities and I have already shown some of my journals in this blog. This is the one I made yesterday, opened out to show front and back covers. The covers are quilted, appliqued and embroidered:

journal cover

I sewed tiny coloured ladybird buttons onto the front cover (on the red flowers). I keep coming back to textile work, I find it very creative and at the same time, comforting. I'm doing a lot of quilting at the moment. The image at the top of this post is another book cover, as yet unfinished, photographed from an unusual angle. I quilted two pockets from a traditional Thai jacket (I was never going to wear it) and glued the mini quilts onto card which will become book covers. It will be fiddly to make, as the covers are not a standard size, such as A3 or A4, so the paper will all have to be cut to size.

I am not going to revisit all my goals again, as I did last month. However, I can report that I am going well with not buying clothes. So far this year, I  have only bought gym gear: a pair of gym shoes (badly needed), a gym singlet from the discount Reebok shop opposite the Mater Hospital, and a pair of track pants - $15 from K-mart. I read about this little brown dress project, whilst waiting to have an x-ray last week. Alex Martin from Seattle wore the same little brown dress very day for a year (she was allowed to wash it). It demonstrates how constraints can sometimes inspire creativity.

That is so cool. I couldn't go that for though. My next goal on the clothes front, is to clear out my wardrobe and chest of drawers (again). Now I have stopped buying things, it should be easier to decide which clothes I no longer wear, and to get rid of them. Perfect time to do this: the end of the season.

Next week I am doing my Pyjama Foundation training, after which I hope to be given a family to visit for reading duties. And the Federal Government is finally talking about introducing a carbon tax, under pressure from the Greens. Or is it a carbon price? Who cares, just get on with it...

more later.