This week

By Vita Forest

This week I have been

READING The Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

WATCHING a preview of Love, Simon with Lucy

FINISHING a writing course and thinking about joining a local writers circle…

SKETCHING in The Rocks and

WANDERING the markets and laneways

SWIMMING at Balmoral Beach with Lucy (she even did some laps with me)

SNORKELLING at Shelly Beach (fabulous fish again!) and

SHARING my snorkel and mask with Lucy… think I need to get my kids their own! They keep hogging mine!

This week

By Vita Forest

This week I have been

WRITING

• updates for my novel.
• Shelly Beach

READING

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• the synopsis of my novel aloud to my children and watching them squirm (Eww! Nude life drawing! Eww!)

SKETCHING at Union Square at Pyrmont after getting rather lost.  Lovely to catch up with some sketching pals!

EATING blood orange gelato from Gelato Gondola (so good! Possibly my new favourite) after

WALKING with Max

SNORKELLING at Shelly Beach with Max and Briony – stingrays and many many fish.

WATCHING the whole of the final season of The Bridge on SBS On Demand…  Let’s just say OMG!

Shelly Beach

By Vita Forest

Lying on the surface

While striped fish streak through my fingers

And white rays shimmy down into the sand

And kelp wrings forwards and back on the tide

Hiding and revealing the groper

And its widening and shrinking jaw

Leaning on the wooden rail

While heavy clouds squat on the horizon

And the sky loses itself in the sea

And the procession of paddlers follow the leader

Tracing a curve around the shoreline

And swerve to avoid the snorkelers engrossed in the sights below.

This week

By Vita Forest

This week I have been

An unknown land…

READING

• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• The Girl who circumnavigated Fairyland in a ship of her own making by Catherynne M. Valente

WRITING Layers

PAINTING

Galleons and sea creatures encountered on the voyage to the unknown land…

• my galleons and sea monsters and antique-style map at school.  Our Year 4 classes made maps, ships, sea creatures, storm clouds etc and wrote short narratives about them.  Then they made common craft style videos of their voyagers adventures to the ‘unknown lands’ using their maps and paintings.  What a fantastic day of creativity!
• my sketch from the Tramsheds at Harold Park (see Layers)

LISTENING to Melina Marchetta talking about Looking for Alibrandi as we were

DRIVING to Manly through heavy traffic on a Sunday afternoon.

GOING for our first swim of the season at Shelly Beach, Manly (it was mighty bracing to start with, but then merely refreshing).  We were not the only ones there…

On the non-peaceful side of the headland at Shelly Beach. Look at all those people on the sand!!

WATCHING a crazy plan doing aerobatics over the water at Manly as we floated about.

On the peaceful side of the headland at Shelly Beach, looking north.

 

 

 

 

 

This week

By Vita Forest

Snorkellers and Surfers near The Bower, Manly

This week I have been

READING

• Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
• The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville

WRITING

• Reverberations
• Teaching programs for Term 2
• Lots of chapters of my novel… revisions and new ones based on Sui-Sui’s suggestions and some new ideas I’ve had.

VISITING

• School for some planning..
• Homebush Aquatic Centre with Lucy.
• The Chinese Garden of Friendship, Darling Harbour, for some more sketching (and some experiments with some lovely black ink…)
• Shelly Beach, Manly, for some snorkeling where we were lucky enough to be

SEEING

Two Gropers, a Crimson banded wrasse, lots of schools of different fish and lots of jellyfish.  Another gorgeous autumn day in Sydney.

Junior snorkellers, near The Bower, Manly

WATCHING Dead Poets Society

The Chinese Gardens of Friendship, Sydney

This week

By Vita Forest

In the quadrangle at Sydney University

This week I have been

WRITING Mobile Tales Despatch 5: Christabel and the Huntsman

READING 

• The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante (Phew! What an experience, great ending too).
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit (another gem).

WALKING 

• part of the Great North Walk at twilight and seeing herons, tawny frogmouths and water dragons.
• over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and around Barangaroo with Briony and some old school friends.

SNORKELLING at Shelly Beach, Manly in the crystal clear water amongst schools of fish and a teeny tiny seahorse – magic!

VISITING Sydney University with my sketching pals and 

GOING out of my comfort zone with an architectural subject (as another friend said “challenging but good”).

VISITING 

• the MCA for the Tatsuo Miyajima Exhibition (poignant and introspective).
• the dentist…

WATCHING 21 Grams again (what a great film).

MAKING a chair cover for Max’s armchair.

ENJOYING my staycation – Sydney is a great place to be in summer.