summer stories

Dear Shah and Alvin,

Thank you for the lovely surprise which I received in the mail today--beautiful music. And the card is deliciously romantic and 'lushiously' erotic--flaming. Pleasure to savour. You shouldn't have, but the gift is appreciated. Val and I enjoyed our trip to Melbourne and catching up with you. I have a picture of Woka and her friend in the street which I will send as soon as Sam brings back my camera and I can unload it. He borrowed it; I keep asking and he keeps forgetting. I took the dogs to the park early today. The grass is getting very long in the paddock at the back and unless they cut it I will be staying on the oval. The dogs cannot be as free there, although I think that they are well behaved and wouldn't hurt a fly OTHERS get cross when they jump in greeting and sometimes kids squeal at their sheer exhuberance-scaredy-cats.

Val is out at the back of the garden collecting dead wood and having a last clear-up and burn before fireban season starts in earnest. I must get to work. I spent yesterday at one of Jeri's seminars on creative PhD's and I felt decidedly marginalised although it was nice to hear what some other people were doing from English and Creative Arts. Cole and Alison did not attend this month. But oh dear! I left my handbag and it was three hours later, after I had been driven to a private function where I thought my bag was being taken by someone who decided to look after it, and taken back by a kind Brodie Beales to uni to where my bag was with security, before I finally got it back. Meanwhile Val was driving up and down looking for me and security had phoned Sam at work to try and contact me. Such a palaver. And I was so cross and tired by the time I got home. The dogs missed out on their walk and I did precious little of any use all day. So now to work.

My abstract was accepted for a conference at Penneshaw on KI in early December -'The Shadow of the Precursor' - and I decided to do a paper on the intertextual links between my creative piece and Murakami, so I must get to work. Rick wants a trial run in November for those people doing papers, and as I am a late entry I must set to sharply.I saw a production of Shakespeare's "King Lear" by the STC on Wednesday. It was very good but gruesome and bloody. The postmodern set worked well. At the height of the storm there was a terrible thunder clap and lightening flash and instantly half the tile fell with a clatter, leaving the 'silhouette' or suggestion of a ruined castle. Very clever effect.

Thanx again. And always be welcome here. Christine (Val and the Menagerie)