This week

By Vita Forest

This week I have been

WRITING school reports!

READING Fire by Kristin Cashore

WATCHING Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock with the kids (Max is studying it at school)  Wow!  Is it our new favourite Hitchcock??

VISITING Vivid in Chatswood with the kids and enjoying the atmosphere while eating a gelato from Gelateria Gondola (the best).  We liked all the music-making, interactive fun.  No doubt we’ll get to the city sometime too.

SKETCHING with my niece Pippi in the Royal Botanical Gardens, Sydney.  Then we went

LOOKING in the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Pippi’s first visit.  Her verdict – “There were lots of butts, some of them were quite detailed…”)

PLANTING some lovely things on my balconies after being inspired by our apartment’s gardener

UPDATING our block’s garden.

LOOKING forward to seeing it all in bloom.

This week

By Vita Forest

This week I have been

WRITING

• Things you can and can’t do
• School reports!

READING

• Her Father’s Daughter by Alice Pung
• The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore

WATCHING

• The Good Fight
• our apartment’s garden get transformed

ATTENDING my writers circle where we were

RELOCATING to a nearby food court when the library fire alarm went off and

RECITING poetry at a shared table with a stranger eating his dinner in our midst and

FINDING out later that the drama at the library was all due to a woman in a bathroom at a restaurant

DOUSING herself with an aerosol perfume…

RESTING and RECOVERING over the weekend with the flu or some such

Things you can and can’t do

By Vita Forest

You can’t buy happiness

Says his t-shirt

But he’s trying… shopping bags cutting into the palms of his hands as he walks.

Can’t resist

A  bargain.

 

You can train a spider

Says my friend

If you break its web often enough, it learns to move on to another locale.

It learns to

Weave Elsewhere.

This week

By Vita Forest

This week I have been

READING

• Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
• Her Father’s Daughter by Alice Pung

WATCHING Jasper Jones with my kids

KNITTING a tea cosy from some lovely wool from lovely Sui-Sui.

COPING with a sudden switch to proper autumnal weather (quite a shock I have to say).

COOKING a big pot of Albruzze soup

MAKING a gift for a friend with a big birthday coming up…

HOPING to get back to some writing next week

This week

By Vita Forest

This week I have been

READING

• The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
• Tom Appleby Convict Boy by Jacki French with my class

RETURNING to school after the holidays

DECORATING the back wall of my classroom with a forest of multicoloured trees and hand- drawn ships of the First Fleet

GETTING the kids in the performance group to try on some of the costumes

WATCHING The Handmaid’s Tale Series 2

ATTENDING my Writers Circle and discussing a chapter of my novel

PICNICKING at Cremorne Point with Sui-Sui and Alessandro

WAKING early on Sunday morning and painting a drawing ifThe Grounds of the City with watercolours

VISITING Barangaroo with Molly and Pippi for The Finders Keepers Market

DISCUSSING with an artist at the market how you have to be bold and brave to use watercolour (she was!)

SITTING with the sun on my back on the sandstone slabs of Barangaroo and

TAKING a photo for some young lovers as they posed on the Rocks with Sydney Harbour Bridge as a backdrop

THINKING about a new poem