Island living
Jan. 21st, 2013 03:45 pmTonight I am going to this: MONA Bushfire benefit concert.
Yup, MONA, our crazy-beautiful private museum (MONA) and arts festival (MoFo) people are putting on a bushfire benefit concert tonight on the waterfront and I've just bought myself a ticket.
I could have gone for free entry. Our top-end taiko drummers are performing, y'see, and I was down to be a roadie, but given I was sick yesterday and I'm still limpy from the gimpy knee acting up I passed on my place to someone more able-bodied and was just going to go home and sleep tonight. Friends are catching the concert though, and it'll be ace to see my friends up on stage, the only Tassie act in a show featuring the likes of David Byrne and Neil Gaiman (MoFo just wound up and most of the acts are still in town). It makes me feel a bit better about missing the entirety of MoFo this year too. So after work I'll hobble down to the waterfront and spend a lovely evening in the wonderland I call my home town.
<3 Hobart.
So, yesterday, I started to feel a little less virus-ridden by the afternoon so I hopped into the car and took myself off for a scenic drive in lieu of the walk I'd planned. I picked up a pair of European back-packers in the city and let their destination dictate my route. They were headed out Margate way, so after dropping them off I continued down to the Channel.
At Kettering I stopped off at Nutpatch, a chocolate shop run by a family with a hazelnut plantation. It's a tiny shop and all the chocolates are made on site. I'd been planning on checking it out for months, only to find I'd arrived a little past closing time. The owner-chocolatier was still on site though and insisted I come in, handing me a creme-brulee choc as I entered and happily chatting away. After 3 free samples and a chinwag with Giovannni I bought more than intended and went on my way, following the coastline around to Cygnet in the golden late-afternoon light then shooting home through the Huon Valley.
One day I might buy myself a little place down the Channel somewhere. Perhaps the village of Woodbridge, so pretty nestled between the hills and the water and only half an hour to Hobart. I could have my own cottage and a garden big enough for a veggie patch, some fruit trees, a dog or two and some chickens. It would be lovely, and in my mind's eye I can see it, beautiful.
It's not what I want right now. For the moment adventure is calling and I want to immerse myself in the wider world. I think I'd want to come back here though. This place is home. Not Brisbane, not Melbourne, but my lovely little Tasmania with her wild country and kooky inhabitants, with more artists and scientists per capita than any other Australian city, balanced out by the most narrow-minded NIMBYs and uber-bogans. This strange little island where magic things happen and the Mountain sings to my soul.
<3 Tasmania.
Yup, MONA, our crazy-beautiful private museum (MONA) and arts festival (MoFo) people are putting on a bushfire benefit concert tonight on the waterfront and I've just bought myself a ticket.
I could have gone for free entry. Our top-end taiko drummers are performing, y'see, and I was down to be a roadie, but given I was sick yesterday and I'm still limpy from the gimpy knee acting up I passed on my place to someone more able-bodied and was just going to go home and sleep tonight. Friends are catching the concert though, and it'll be ace to see my friends up on stage, the only Tassie act in a show featuring the likes of David Byrne and Neil Gaiman (MoFo just wound up and most of the acts are still in town). It makes me feel a bit better about missing the entirety of MoFo this year too. So after work I'll hobble down to the waterfront and spend a lovely evening in the wonderland I call my home town.
<3 Hobart.
So, yesterday, I started to feel a little less virus-ridden by the afternoon so I hopped into the car and took myself off for a scenic drive in lieu of the walk I'd planned. I picked up a pair of European back-packers in the city and let their destination dictate my route. They were headed out Margate way, so after dropping them off I continued down to the Channel.
At Kettering I stopped off at Nutpatch, a chocolate shop run by a family with a hazelnut plantation. It's a tiny shop and all the chocolates are made on site. I'd been planning on checking it out for months, only to find I'd arrived a little past closing time. The owner-chocolatier was still on site though and insisted I come in, handing me a creme-brulee choc as I entered and happily chatting away. After 3 free samples and a chinwag with Giovannni I bought more than intended and went on my way, following the coastline around to Cygnet in the golden late-afternoon light then shooting home through the Huon Valley.
One day I might buy myself a little place down the Channel somewhere. Perhaps the village of Woodbridge, so pretty nestled between the hills and the water and only half an hour to Hobart. I could have my own cottage and a garden big enough for a veggie patch, some fruit trees, a dog or two and some chickens. It would be lovely, and in my mind's eye I can see it, beautiful.
It's not what I want right now. For the moment adventure is calling and I want to immerse myself in the wider world. I think I'd want to come back here though. This place is home. Not Brisbane, not Melbourne, but my lovely little Tasmania with her wild country and kooky inhabitants, with more artists and scientists per capita than any other Australian city, balanced out by the most narrow-minded NIMBYs and uber-bogans. This strange little island where magic things happen and the Mountain sings to my soul.
<3 Tasmania.