Perth Words… exploring possibilities.

I haven’t taken part in this challenge for a long time, but found an interesting picture for this one.  During the summer days we visited the West Cork Model Railway Village in Clonakilty, Co Cork.  This was such a fun place, not only for kids and train enthusiasts, but for the whole family.

Their website describes the village as a fully scaled handmade model of the old West Cork Railway Line with fully working trains and the towns that the railway served , Clonakilty, Kinsale, Dunmanway and Bandon.
Each model is a replica of the town as it was back in the 1940’s and it’s a great way to make local history real for all ages.

There is also a museum, and this old machine was one of the attractions – it looks like its making eye contact with me…like an alien from another time sending me a message!

My…

I’ve had my own (limited) experiences of Hollywood and, fortunately, haven’t been required to be other than my shabby self to do it. The writer gets a lot of visual latitude.

Some days, everyone you meet there tells you they’ll make your book into a movie, while desperately scrambling to find someone else’s money to do it with. ‘I’m definitely going to make this movie. I haven’t read your book yet, but I read the entry in your publisher’s catalogue and I’m definitely going to make this movie.’ Someone actually said that to me. As a good thing.

But the actor side of it is far more interesting. What it does to you. How it makes you contort yourself. How it puts mirrors in front of you all the time, and then tells you what you see. How it tells you you’re perfect, but in this instance not quite good…

Isn’t it great that you can still have dolls repaired? In South Sydney, the  Chapman family  have been bringing favorite toys back to life for 101 years.   I love the idea of NOT being disposable…  wish we’d all go back to favorites again.

My daughter’s favorite was a pink and white Panda made for me by a grateful patient when I was nursing in Harrogate General, way back in 1969. Only natural that I would pass it on to my beautiful daughter in 1976.   Before I traveled to Ireland in 2002 I carefully packed it away with lots of stuffed toys in a storage box marked especially and guess what – that was the one that went missing.  Wish we still had the panda because I know my little grandie Bella, would love it!

The whole subject reminded me of a very favorite poem by Pam Ayres –…

It’s my great pleasure to be introducing Rashida Murphy’s accomplished debut novel twice this week—first, here on looking up/looking down; second, on the occasion of her book launch on the 31st (details here)

I absolutely love The Historian’s Daughter—the intelligence and vulnerability of young Hannah; the tender relationships between the sisters, between them and their mother, and between Hannah and her ‘mad aunt’; the novel’s pace alongside its sophisticated use of restraint; and the lyrical prose that sings from the page as the narrative takes us from India to Australia to Iran and back to ‘home’.

Here is the book’s blurb…

In an old house with ‘too many windows and women’, high in the Indian hills, young Hannah lives with her older sister Gloria; her two older brothers; her mother—the Magician; a colourful assortment of aunts, blow-ins and misfits; and her father—the Historian. It is a world of secrets, jealousies and lies…

You can sit in your easy chair
mocking tired old commercials
and checking lotto numbers
to see if you got lucky,

or you can be like the cardinal,
up at 5:00 am each morning,
tapping on my window,
(even on Saturdays)
just to make sure I’m awake,

then, leaving me
in a red cloud of dust
with a smile

and seeds
to grow a poem.

~

In 2007, photographer David Hulme came across a baby black rhino near the body of his poached mother. He took the little orphan to family friends, Anne and Roger Whittall, in Zimbabwe.

They named him Jimmy. Incredibly, they successfully raised him, and he quickly became a part of the family, bonding with Anne and befriending the family dogs. Even years after he was released, he still came to visit them regularly.

tell me again

about how we met

one more time

before I forget

I’ve lingered in your pause

in your held breath

I’ve waited in your palm

in your collecting sweat

I have been pledged

to your knees

for a lifetime

it seems

darling,

please

tell me again

about how we met-

just one more time

before I leave

and forget.

– sheila c