Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens

Yesterday we visited the Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens. It took us two and half hours to get there because their are lots of traffic lights now on Old Windsor Road. This is what we saw; first me and the family walked down through the beautiful gardens to the fish pond. After we took a relaxing stroll down to the woodlands where we saw these funny seed pods that had spikey outer shells that the kids couldnt wait to pick up. Of course as soon as they did they found out how sharp they were and dropped them with a loud ouch. Its Autumn in the cool climate garden and many of the decidious trees are going golden and red. The view was clear today back to the foot of the Blue Mountains with the cut through the hills at Kurrajong highly visible.
http://www.mounttomahbotanicgarden.com.au/
When the pics get loaded onto the hard drive I will post them as well.
In the meantime enjoy the official website.

Anzac Day 25th April 2010

The Soul of Australia

In the light of dawn, the break of day,

Through the waters chill they fought their way,

Like their sires of old, to the Motherland

they came oér the dae, and they sprang to the strand;

Aboriginals, Angles, the Scot and the Celt

Grew hot in their veins as the war fire they felt.

J.H.M.

The Brisbane Courier, 25 April 1916

Happy 3rd Birthday Leo

Happy Birthday to Leo seen here with Aunty Ange and Heath at Disneyland. Turning 3 years of age on the 30th April in Los Angeles. May you be happy and bright, and enjoy the company of family and friends. Have a wonderful birthday, love from Aunty Terese & Uncle Jon, Tom, Alex & Nick.

Playwrighting Week 11 and Finale

Well it's all over and no the fat lady didn't sing. The last six plays were read through by the actors and other roles taken from within the writing team as needed. Anna's play was a longish 25 minutes about feminism and the duality of mentor - sponsor relationships. Her play was really memorable. Gerald's play Spider was creepy and salutory. Written about the pervasive world wide media and the paparazzi, there was a cast of thousands and I even got to read an acting role in it. The rounds of applause for the final plays were solid and encouraging. We talked about post dramaticism and the new plays that leave their scripts and actors wide open and polarise audiences. Daryll was a keen listener to Anna's play but he didn't hang with everyone until the night was over. We toasted Hilary and the writers past, present and future of William Street. (Slessor, Sayer, Nowra, Macauley, Franklin etc) The moon was a dramatic half hanging lowly in the north western sky above the city. We went out into the nights with promises to keep meeting and I am really hoping that we do.

What do we do at Bushcare?

What do we do at Bush Care besides having morning tea?

• We weed out feral plants from the undergrowth
• We poison feral plants that have invasive root systems
• Clear paths
• Remove vines where they are non-native and or crushing saplings
• Observe the changes to our habitat
• Swap photos of the wildlife
• Learn new bush care ideas from our Trainer - Helen
• Enjoy each other's company and conversation

Jon and Thomas

Teaching Shakespeare

Created on www.wordle.net

The Australian Museum Excursion

Dinosaur skeletons (not found in Oz) against the Wollemi Pine Forest Screen
Bat skeleton X-Ray

The Kid's Lab

Coelacanth Fish - caught off Zaanzibar and a living dinosaur from Middle Devonian Era

Feral Fox - Vulpe Vulpe

Nick connects to the world and we write to Ange in L.A. who is online

The Hermit Crabs

Australian Museum facade with its corinthian columns in College Street, Sydney

The Archibald Prize NSW Art Gallery

Tim Minchin by Artist: Sam Leach, Winner 2010

Grandma was in town and we knew that she would be at the Archibald Prize in the NSW Art Gallery from 10am in the morning. We headed off to the City by bus and made it to the gallery by 10.10am. Bought our tickets and went downstairs to the exhibition. Meeting Gran and Jenny in the portrait section. They had been travelling from Northern NSW by car and plane since 4am that morning and were only in Sydney for the day. This year the Archibald was won by Sam Leach for his portrait of Tim Minchin a comedic actor. It was the smallest entry to win only 60cm by 80cm, in oils and fibreglassed. It had the appearance of a very glossy water colour, and while small by Archibald standards was a stand out entry.
we don't have a bus back to the Crag in the middle of the day so then it was off to lunch and The Australian Musem. See the above entry for photos of this adventure.

Playwrighting Week 10

It was actors and read through time for the first six plays. Everyone was nervous and had brought in their rewritten drafts for the actors in multiple copies. Daryll, the stand up comic went first with his play about The Conceptual Artist - Grayson and his assistant Helena. Daryll had chosed Anna a professional actress to read the role of Helena while he read Grayson. They had been e-mailing each other all week in preparation for the performance. Which was definitely the stand out of the evening. My play now titled The Portrait Artist was apparently not a 10 minute play but ten minutes of a play of much larger scope. I had also still included the filmic scenes that would be difficult for a low budget theatre company to do. Too many props and the need for the main character to also be artistic on stage drawing and painting etc. Robert listened to the actors read his play about Mavis and Gerald who have experienced the loss of the Temperance Society's membership money when Gerald gambles it away on a horse called Certainty in a race. This time his play was much tighter and there were more laughs from the audience. Evan's actors read his play about two Special Forces opperatives - a strong repartee between two characters that had a great ending. It was a polished redraft and also very good. Caz's play set in a dodgem race track was massacred by the actors who somehow loused up the subtext and comic aspects. We had heard her read out the draft the week before and this memory kept our listening on track.
Next week we hear the final set of plays read out by the actors. This is the end of our Beginners Course in Playwrighting. Some of the things I have learnt are:

• think of what the audience will be left with at the end of acts and coming in and out of intervals
• include the information the audience needs to know up front
• keep in mind what is at stake and the motivations of each character
• use rich detail of mundane tasks to create subtext
• you can always try the transitive verb exercise within a draft if you loose the plot
• keep the dialogue happening without the needs for lots of stage direction
• include silences when they amplify the dialogue
• give minor characters roles of substance
• don't keep a character off stage for a long time as they will loose their mojo
• bring important details forward in a script and use other characters to question them
• give the main character a likeable aspect for the audience to enjoy them
• end with how you want the audience to go off into the night

Well - till next week and the last blog entry on this course. I hope you have enjoyed following it as much as I have attending it.

Playwrighting Week 9

Its the finale of the course. After several re-writes of our new ten minute plays taking into account our esteemed teacher's feedback and the input of our fellow writers, this is it. The actors are coming and we will hear our play scripts read with momentum and the spin that the actors bring to their readings. I am hoping that this is an enjoyable moment for all of us and not too terrifying. Some of our work already has a buzz to it. Which was obvious from the readings. Generally the actors, the performance art director and Daryll our stand up comedian had a head start on audience response. I have managed to throw away the unnecessary dialogue that didn't move the action forward or give a greater understanding to the play itself. I have also worked on making the words more naturalistic to allow the actors their own subtext. I'm still bashing away at the keys and making changes. The ending needs more of a moment. I also need to time a spoken read through to see how close I am to the ten minute mark.

The Show

The Wood Chopping
Robosaurus was a big hit with the small kids

Australian champion flower arrangement

Best in show - Roses

Bush Poetry Competition - all verse in ballad form

A wedding dress made of flowers

Maeve O Mara at the large state produce displays

Tom's favourite piece of art in the art show section

The prize fruit cakes


We visited the Easter Show on Thursday. Travelled by bus to Olympic Park, Homebush. Bought our tickets online. Spent $20 on showbags each. Took a packed lunch. Arrived home six hours later feeling tired and dusty. The trees at the new showground are finally growing. There is a little more shade and it is easier to find all of the things that you like to see. The part of the show we missed this year was the circus, there was a cattle auction there instead. This year we watched a dog show, the wood chopping and the free style motor cross team.

Playwrighting Week 8

Everyone has read out their ten minute plays now. Daryll the stand up comic wrote a humor filled satire about a conceptual artist and his assistant. We had a play about a spooky encounter with the other side and another one about something that completely escapes my memory. It was the Wednesday before Easter and I had to leave early to pick up kids from a primary school end of term disco. We are now all working on our second, third and final drafts. Then we are e-mailing them to Hilary to pass on to the actors who will perform our plays in the final two weeks. Then our course in beginning to write plays will be over. Over in meetings but not over in our minds. As we continue to work with how we feel a play needs to read vs our writing of it.
Most of my play draft has been consigned to the delete key and I have to re work my script from the middle of the action. Rewriting is the harder task, even though it has a more rewarding result.

Manly Ferry Ride

Catching a Manly Ferry to the City is a great way to pass the time and see the harbour. Sitting outside on the deck with the wind in your face, feeling the rise and swell of the ocean through the Heads, and keeping an eye on the yachts blown by the wind. Once in the City we caught the train to Town Hall and walked to Darling Harbour where there were circus acts of magic and aerial trapeze artists. At Imax we watched "How to Train Your Dragon", on the big 3D screen. Travelling back to Manly we watched the clouds and the rainbow in the western sky.