This week

By Vita Forest

This week I have been

READING The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

ATTENDING

many many meetings on many many topics
Book club at Vastra’s.

WATCHING The Fugitive

ANNOUNCING which kids made it into our performance group (let the complaints begin…)

MEETING Sui-Sui in Newtown for a spot of brekkie, a long chat about my novel (getting pretty close) and some browsing in book shops.

ENJOYING some cooler weather

Homework sentences

By Vita Forest

Actually not by Vita Forest – these are a selection of homework sentences from my class this week… (the main focus were words that change their form completely when a plural is made).

“Men are different to women because they get head lice more often and have bigger feet.”

“Twins are very similar to each other.”

“One man wearing a bright orange shirt stood out in a group of men wearing black uniforms.”

“A teaspoon and a tablespoon have a similar shape.”

“The climate in Sydney is really hot and there is a bit of lighting (sic).”

“I watched some similar YouTube clips they were all about this dude that jumped off London Bridge.”

“Most people in my class don’t have lice.”

Thank goodness for that…

This week

By Vita Forest

Autumn and Winter from our collaborative artwork on the Four Seasons

This week I have been

READING Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

FINISHING our fantastic Four Season display in the classroom

MEETING the parents of the children in my new class

HOLDING another dance audition… (I think everyone has had their chance now)

SLEEPING in on the weekend after a huge week

SWIMMING at Balmoral and Cremorne Point

A busy afternoon at MacCallum Pool, Cremorne

CELEBRATING Briony’s birthday where we were

EATING sponge cake with caramel icing (a combination from our childhood)

Walking around Cremorne Point towards Neutral Bay

This week

By Vita Forest

A glimpse of the harbour pool at Cremorne Point

This week I have been

READING Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (but not very much just yet)

WRITING Lapping (my last Kiama past from the last trip)

LISTENING to the wonderful ACO at the Tognetti, Tchailovsky, Brahms concert at the City Recital Hall and letting the music just wash over me!

SWIMMING and SKETCHING at Cremorne Point

CATCHING up with Gemma and Vastra and Saskia (how lovely!)

MAKING a fantastic collaborative artwork with my class – photos next week?

CELEBRATING my niece Pippi’s 8th Birthday

Fish and chips with a view before seeing the ACO

Lapping

By Vita Forest

I was swimming back and forth across the pool. The pool edged in rocks and shells and soft green moss. I was swimming with my head above the water, legs moving like a frog below. I was feeling the wind on my face, and remembering how yesterday, the high seas had sent waves over the sides of the pool, pushing me away from the rock wall. How I laughed with a stranger as our bodies were swept back by the cold effervescent water that poured in from the sea. But today, the seas have calmed, have dropped back down to a more civilised level. The Surf Beach is open again, red and gold flags fluttering in the breeze, the whole bay no longer churning with white water.

I had swum in the surf with my kids, the waves still looking mighty big as they came roaring towards us. But the bay was not completely awash with white water. And the flags were out, and the lifesavers. So it seemed alright. But now I was back at the pool on the headland, stately stroking onwards in a kind of moving meditation. Above me, a pelican arced overhead like a kite, doing its own kind of laps, floating back and forth over the meandering edge of the black rock headland, wings outstretched, held up there between the sun and the sea.

There were a few of us crossing forwards and backwards along the far side of the pool. For exercise, for fitness, or was it a remnant of body memory from when we were kids? When swimming meant racing or squad training, counting the laps, watching the clock, pushing your body until it felt like it would explode. I have mellowed since then, but I still feel the need to swim up and down. Now I do it at lower speeds with my head out of the water so my ears don’t ache and I can look at the scenery as I go.

There were others in the pool who had obviously never been competitive swimmers, whose eyes didn’t automatically divide the water with invisible lines, straight and narrow. They splashed and floated across the pool, or hovered in pairs chatting by the rocky outcrops or leapt in right where I was about to swim. I could see the look of frustration on the face of a fellow lapper, but really, who was right? Why did we think that swimming should be done this way and not that? And we were on holidays after all. Did it really matter if we had to detour around the woman lounging on the blow-up bed holding herself in place with a hand cupped over a bulge of black rock? If speed and straightness was really what you were after, you could always go to the chlorinated indoor pool up the hill, with its lanes marked out with rows of black tiles and by rigid ropes strung tight between hooks at either end of its fifty metres.

But I prefer this pool with its unruly edges, its uneven rock floor and the occasional fish that floats beneath our feet, causing the boy with the goggles to shriek excitedly, “Two fish! Really big ones!” I prefer my fingers to stroke the green moss softening the jagged rocks on the pool’s edges, where you can stop and look out at the sea and perhaps catch a glimpse of a crab sidling along, emerging and submerging beneath the water.

When I climbed up the metal ladder and balanced my way across the concrete path, back to my towel, I heard a small girl announcing to her mother as she held up a shell, “Look! He’s still inside his egg. Look! He’s still there!” And they peered into the heart of the small rounded shell she had pulled from the rock pool at her feet, and I pulled on my hat and my clothes and walked up the hill and saw that pelican, still cruising back and forth along the rocky coastline below me.