Three Saturdays in June.

 

What a month! The first half of June was all about preparing for my Semester 1 exam for Criminal Law. I felt happy with the way the exam went, in contrast to most of the semester where I felt like I was constantly behind or playing catch up. One of the joys of working full-time and studying, I suppose! Busy all around is an understatement. Here are three images that have been captured on three Saturdays in June, in three different places.

1 // Alice Springs, Northern Territory
I adore winter time in Alice Springs. The afternoons are bathed in glorious golden light and the mornings are clear and chilly. Many people assume that the desert is always hot and are surprised to hear that it becomes very cold during winter, with morning temperatures hovering around zero degrees (or below). Soup, baking, soaking up the daytime sunshine, reading under a blanket, walking in the afternoon all rugged up, riding to work and feeling the sharp air stinging my cheeks and fingers are all things I relish about this time of year.

2 // High country, Victoria
Amidst all the craziness of a busy time at work I managed to sneak a couple of days off and headed down to Victoria to visit my sister and niece. While Alice Springs winter consists of cold mornings, the sun generally makes an appearance during the day. In contrast it was nice to get a taste of cold, drizzly, misty winter in the Victorian high country. The fire was burning constantly and we warmed up during the day by going for long walks or country drives. I was there for winter solstice and we went to a bonfire night at a nearby property. It was the biggest fire I have ever seen. The sky was blanketed in stars, which gradually disappeared when the wintry mist rolled in.

3 // Darwin, Northern Territory
I had a day in Alice Springs before travelling north to Darwin for the week for work. Darwin in the dry season is infinitely more bearable than Darwin in the wet. The mornings are cooler (relatively speaking, around 17-18 degrees; people who live here actually complain about the cold!) and the air is dry and the breeze refreshing. It's still warm, around 30 degrees during the day, but minus the stifling humidity that renders you to a sweaty, lifeless mess during the wet. Yesterday we ate lunch with this view and a lovely breeze and it was rather pleasant. All the changes of climate (and the time spent in air conditioning, I suspect) have left me with yet another head cold but this time around I've managed to retain some energy.

Winter weekend stills.

This weekend was all about winter. Right on cue, the night time temperature dropped down to 3º C. Just the right time to wrap the bed in super soft flannelette sheets. I had all the best intentions of getting stuck into studying this weekend (and I did do some), but I really needed to recharge from a super busy couple of weeks.

For me, this meant getting outside into the garden. I've been a bit of a tardy gardener this year, especially since the chickens razed last year's garden to the ground! I checked the Alice Springs sowing calendar and decided I could sneak into winter by planting spinach, silverbeet, broccoli, rocket and parsley - all those delicious greens.

Other weekend highlights included tapas with a friend, sitting in a laneway lined with candelit tables, live music played by a gypsy jazz band - we really had the sense that we could be anywhere! I also caught a film, Rich Hill, as part of the Human Rights Art and Film Festival. It was a harrowing documentary set in a small town in rural America, following the lives of three teenage boys and their families amidst poverty, violence, mental illness and other challenges. It didn't give a lot of hope - maybe just a small glimmer - that the cycle of disadvantage would be broken.

1. On Saturday, I met friends at the Steiner fête, a famous school fair at the lovely campus set against the southern side of the MacDonnell Ranges. I think my inspiration to get the garden going was spurred on by the fabulous kitchen garden in the school grounds. I also picked up a vintage cashmere-wool blend coat, it's soft and warm and a real bargain - $5.
2. Boss of the chickens. This one is brazen and bolshy and will sprint around behind me, sometimes even pecking at my heels.
3. Broccoli...
4. Spinach...
5. Silverbeet.
6. Super snug winter bed. Sooooo warm. Sooooo hard to leave in the morning.
7. From the garden - eggs and mandarins in abundance.
8. The mandarins are just how I like them - more tart than sweet. 

Joining up with Em's weekly Stills link-up x

EDIT: Oh, and speaking of gardens, have a gander at the green thumbery happening over in Prue's backyard. Go on!

Change of season.

Yesterday morning started with this golden, late summer light; by evening, winter had arrived. Today was cool, hovering around 15 degrees for most of the day after a top of 19 degrees C. Whilst the more temperate climates of the southern and eastern parts of the country enjoy the seasonal transition offered by Autumn, here in Central Australia we seem to go straight from summer to winter. And then back again all too soon. I am embracing the change and welcoming the cooler weather. Winter: I am ready!

It's been five months since Peter and I began doing the Territory Tango. He's living at one end and myself, the other. He's just up the road, really; except that in real terms, there's a distance of 1,500 kilometres between us. The Northern Territory is a really, really big place. Alice Springs is far away from a lot of places. We have just spent two weeks together - me, a week in Darwin and then he, a week in Alice - a luxury as we live together, apart.

Our last book club read was Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. This was actually my choice, as we've been taking it in turns to select a book. I chose it for two reasons: it is set in Iceland and for a long time I've been fascinated by this remote island country; and secondly I heard the author interviewed a while ago on Radio National (listen here) and thought the process of forming the book was interesting. I appreciated the richly tactile and textural descriptions of the landscapes; the dim, cold interiors; the smells, sounds and touch of the characters and their environs. Kent received a seven figure advance for this, her first novel - astounding! But don't read it with this in mind. Read it for the harsh yet gentle narrative of Agnes Magnusdottir, the last woman in Iceland to be publicly executed.

Another recent read is Tracks by Robyn Davidson, the 1980 memoir of Davidson's journey walking with camels across the desert from Alice Springs to the Western Australia coast. I started reading this on a flight from Melbourne to Alice Springs and it was poignant to be reading her descriptions of 1970s Alice Springs whilst looking out of the window at the ancient (yet timeless) scorched red desert country. I thought the Alice Springs of her description was a place I wouldn't want to live - which, if you've been reading this blog for a while, is not the way I feel about this town, today. And, a spoiler - I almost sobbed out loud (this time, on a flight from Alice to Darwin) when her beloved companion, a dog called Diggity, becomes poisoned by strychnine. I won't tell you the rest. It's too hard to imagine having to do this to any animal to relieve its pain, let alone a beloved companion - a friend. The descriptions of Central Australia and the communities Davidson passes through - Areyonga, Pipalyatjara, Wingellina - are interesting and familiar. It's certainly not a comfortable read, and many aspects of this journey made me cringe. I haven't yet seen the movie - have you?

Now, I'm partway through (and quite enjoying) The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and am also going to start our next book club read, Room by Emma Donoghue. Oh - and speaking of books about Alice Springs, I heard an interview on the local ABC with a writer who used to live here, so I've ordered one of her books, written to reflect her time living here - it's called The Rest is Weight, by Jennifer Mills, who also blogs here.

So that's a bit of an update on what's been going on around here lately. What's been happening in your part of the world? Has winter arrived yet? Or summer, for that matter?