The Trad Pad

For those who live outside Australia, I would like to tell you that Mem Fox is a national treasure in her own country.

We fell in love with her when she published her first book, Possum Magic, and it has continued ever since. Mem burst into the news with the rise of Mark Latham to the leadership of the Federal ALP and his adoption of her views on reading and by his reading to children in schools. Recently, Andrew Denton interviewed her on Enough Rope and the transcript of that is here. Literacy is a controversial issue in this country - and I would be surprised if it was not in other countries around the globe. At the core of this is how reading is taught. This debate tos and fros and in the middle of it pops up the topic of phonics.

Mem had a recent opinion article in The Sydney Morning Herald which, to me, seems to put phonics in its place. She points out in a convincing manner that phonics has nothing to do with reading - but everything to do with writing.

So make up your own mind - and, if you want to join in the Great Debate on literacy and phonics, don’t be shy. Have your say here. After all, it’s all about reading and books and magic - even Possum Magic!

Pentecost
Beth Griffith, Jill Somers & Victor Wendt.
Sponsored by St Paul’s Cathedral Flower Guild.

Last night, Shelley and I went to the opening of In Paradiso. In Paradiso is an exhibition of religious floral art at St Agnes’s Church, 114 Booran Road, Glen Huntly. The exhibition will continue daily until Wednesday 31 August. There will be a demonstration of church flower arranging by Peter Bennett and Nigel Wright on Monday night, 29 August. Enrol by phoning 9571 3932.

The work is a delight and is a fine tribute to the skills and talent of the artists.

The exhibition was officially opened by Lady Potter (Primrose), widow of Sir Ian Potter.

The exhibition was by invitation.

Three of the exhibits are from St Agnes - by Peter Bennett, Elizabeth and Iain Gilbert, and the Vicar himself, Fr Nigel Wright.

The other six churches represented are St John’s, Bentleigh; St Andrew’s, Brighton; St John’s, Camberwell; St Peter’s, Eastern Hill; St John the Evangelist, Flinders; and last, but not least, St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne.

Christmass, Ken Whelan, St Andrew’s Brighton
Advent Flowers,
Gwen Wilson,
St John’s Bentleigh

Pentecost
John Barren, St John the Evangelist Flinders
I am the vine..
Margaret Kelly & Lyn Beaumont
Sponsored by The Vestry of St John’s Camberwell

Liz Prideaux
St Peter’s Eastern Hill
Sponsored by Flowers Vesette, Fitzroy

The exhibits below are from St Agnes’s:

Easter - St Agnes’s Day - Flowers for a wedding
Peter Bennett - Nigel Wright - Elizabeth & Iain Gilbert

FootFoot’s Friend Fred
We live in a lovely spot. We are the only place in our street who does not have a road running in front of our house - our road entry is at the side. We do have a footpath, though, going past our house on the way to the park. We get to see all sorts of people and their dogs going past to play. That is how we got to know V and Fred which is now a continuing friendship.

V and Fred are very special to FootFoot. When Fred turns up it is Puppy Party Time. Fred and FootFoot romp around. Trixie does a little - must keep one’s dignity and not get too carried away. But Fred and FootFoot are boys on the romp. Everything gets sniffed and explored.

And then there is V.
FootFoot loves V. She is his girlfriend in spite of being someone with two legs. She is special. She reciprocates with pats and scratches and cuddles.

Last night I surfaced at the Melbourne Writers Festival, one of THE drawcard Writers Festivals in the world. I am a volunteer from time to time at MWF and I talk about this at Volunteer.

The blogosphere can be a small world at times. This week through blogging I have met Kitty Cheng of Peregrine Sojo - Kitty’s Kronicle . She discovered the MWF at Volunteer and suggested we go together. Kitty chose The Artists’s Life and I am so glad she did. When faced with a program as large and extensive as MWF, I know I can’t go to everything. So one has to prioritize. This meant that I had not considered The Artist’s Life yet what a treat it was.

It took the form of a panel session chaired by Jane Clifton.

The writers involved were Shalini Akhil, Merlinda Bobis, Alice Garner, and Gail Bell.

Shalini - the youngest of the women - was enchanting. In 2001, she entered a competition run by the Melbourne Writers’ Festival in which writers were required to pitch ideas for novels to a panel of judges and a vocal audience. She went on to win this competition, and considers it her first foray into stand up comedy. She later entered the national stand up comedy competition ‘Raw Comedy’, run by radio station Triple J, and went on to become a national finalist. Now studying Professional Writing at Deakin University, her first novel, The Bollywood Beauty,has just been published by Penguin Books. For all of us who dream of being published, her mood swings of anxiety and excitement, her post-published depression were a revelation and an insight into a fantasy fulfilled.

Merlinda Bobis blew my mind. A strong, sophisticated Filipina woman now living in Australia - her manner of speaking, the delightful, considered, powerful language of her speech, her discussion of the use of language captivated me. If I were to be a writer, hers is the mindset, the model I would aim for. I have not read her work but you can be sure that any day now I will be off on a Merlinda Bobis odyssey. One of my dearest friends, Sylvia who lives in remote Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory and comes from Manila, has just had her Christmas present selected.

Alice Garner has my utmost respect. Alice Garner is a Research Fellow of the History Department, University of Melbourne, where she obtained her PhD in French history in 2001. She is also a professional musician and award-winning actor, with starring roles in the campus comedy Love and Other Catastrophes and successful Australian television series SeaChange and The Secret Life of Us. She is the initiator with Kate Atkinson of Actors for Refugees/ I have seen AfR in action and I highly commend them in bringing a difficult, angst ridden, and divisive issue to the Australian public in such a superb manner. Alice, the daughter of Helen Garner, has lived the artist’s life as long as she could remember: as a child in the household of her parents and friends and in adulthood in her own right and now with her musician husband and two children. All this and her soon to be published book, A Shifting Shore.

Gail Bell was the last speaker and, though a little younger than me, gives me hope that one day in these later years I might produce something wonderful like a book and be published too.

Kitty and I found it a wonderful night - and a great stimulus to creativity.

This afternoon I drove over to St Agnes Anglican Church at Glen Huntly to hear a concert of Sydney Carter music and poems given by Franciscus Henry.

Franciscus was communicative, talented in voice spoken and singing, and in guitar playing. The audience responded well to him. I love Carter’s music and its Quaker-ly way of thinking, of exposing hypocrisy, and of deep thought. Franciscus toured with Sydney Carter on an Australian visit so there was the added touch of some intimacy with the composer, writer and singer himself. Although Franciscus pointed out that Carter believed his music should be seen as a blueprint on which others could build. The afternoon was finished with some warm fellowship over a glass of red which was much appreciated on a very cold and blustery day.

This week time has been scarce as I have done my monthly job of editing St Thomas’s monthly newsletter, Crossroads. Getting to the top of my to do list is The Herb Assessment. This is the state of death and survival among the herbs. The Basil has gone - frosted out of existence. The Rocket is bolting and making a lovely display of white flowers prior to seeding. The three varieties of Sage are looking pitiful. The Marjoram and Oregano are doing OK and the Garlic Chives are mysterious but the Mint and the Italian Parsley are exuberant. Somewhere underneath them is the Pennyroyal holding its own and beside them all a struggling Thyme.
In the vege garden, the traditional Parsley planted with the Silver Beet is doing well. I think the pot of Red Onions is OK - but please can someone tell me how to tell when things that grow under the ground like Garlic, Onions and Potatoes are ready for harvest.

My recent singing of praises for an early spring has turned into a squawk. Yesterday the weather turned icy cold and brought snow to some unlikely places : not the usual ones in the Alps. Snow came to sea level localities like the Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland. Snow clouds loomed over the Dandenongs all day but I have not heard of any snow there. I have heard that snow fell at Mitcham a few suburbs away. But then it is rather high above sea level. At 1.40pm it was 8 degrees at Upper Gully but an hour later the sun was shining and the prospect of snow evaporated. There is only one certainty about Melbourne’s weather - and that is its changeability. To-day it is quite cold and to-night temperatures in our neighbourhood are expected to go down to 4 degrees Celsius.

To-day is the Feast of the Transfiguration. It brings to me the message of how much our world needs to be transfigured - from war to peace; from destructivity to creativity; from ugliness to beauty. This is why I have included a photograph of a fruit tree in blossom in my back yard. It is being transfigured from winter barrenness to spring glory and then will come fruitfulness. It also occurs to me what Transfiguration could mean for us in the southern hemisphere. In the northern hemisphere, Easter - the Feast of the Resurrection - comes along with the full impact of a northern spring which is missing from southern celebrations. What an impact might occur could we of the south feel if we made a major event of Transfiguration.

In the backyard, between the house and the bungalow there are three deep pink camellia bushes blossoming madly.

There is a magnolia tree which is magnificent.