Life These Days

Hi there,

Well I've just returned from a lovely evening. A friend who got out of detention recently exercised his more-than-a-bit-fantastic cooking skills and cooked up a big feast for a bunch of his friends tonight. It was absolutely beautiful! So I have a tummy full of hearty, warm Afghan food. Yummo.

The photo above is a picture of my father's house in the Grampians, a mountain range about 3 hours from Melbourne. My dad LIVES there. PERMANENTLY. Lucky bastard. Incidentally, the opening sequence of the Refugee film is all this house, and the beautiful mountain range behind it. The last time I was there was on the way to Baxter a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I had food poisoning so it wasn't the *most* fun I've ever had...!

Anyway, on Sunday I am going to spend the week there, going hardcore bootcamp on my thesis. I hereby declare that I want to have finished writing the damned thing by the time I get back. Ouch. Now that I've said it out loud, it makes it a bit scarier. But I want to have 14,000 words on the page. They don't all gotta be brilliant, but they gotta BE there.

I have been looking forward to this sejour to the mountains for a long time. Dad will be at work for most of the time, but I will take my dog with me. Those of you who know me will know that I love my dog quite a lot, so we will have some quality time of snoozing and walking and tummy scratching before I go overseas. This week I had a coffee with a Monash academic who supervised my Honours in 2004, and with whom I've worked closely since, and when I told him about my plan to escape and write, he raised an eyebrow and dared me to leave my mobile in Melbourne. Oh my goodness. So tempting.

Anyway it is lots past my bedtime. I just thought I'd post this picture to make everyone feel maybe the tiniest bit jealous. I am so looking forward to it...! You should HEAR the birds singing in the morning...!

J x