G'Day,
Today it is cold. Yesterday was worse and a bit of a shock to the system, nuthin' I can't handle though in my present frame of mind. It has been predicted to get to 12 degrees today I think. Yesterday it got to 8 degrees on this side of town. There was sleet, but luckily I wasn't in it. Snow in the higher places of New South Wales and Victoria. I let Rufus our pup sleep inside the house last night because of the cold, I hope I don't live to regret it and have made a bad precedent with that. Poor little fella though. Brrr. When he looks at you with those puppy dog eyes....
Yesterday was my first day at the new job. Nothing too hard there. Only about 2 hrs for Mike and I to do the stuff allotted to us. The job is cleaning a school for 2 hrs each afternoon. Not lots of money but a nice supplement to the family earnings just the same, and there might be room for more hours if all goes well. Its funny though, when I went into the first class room the smell bought back memories and I smiled and thought, that smell never changes. The smell of dry paper and pencil shavings and kids. Not an unpleasant smell, not to me anyway.
I have not had the chance to follow up on my pottery yet here in Canberra. I had a look at a government sponsored art facility on the other side of town called Straithnairn. It has heaps of kilns , woodworkers, sculpture, painting etc and looked really great, but such a long way to travel. There are work studios and kilns that I can hire there and exhibition space, but I don't know, not yet. Also run, sponsored by the govt. is Canberra Potter's Society which has its own gallery, workshops for hire and lessons, etc, much better than Wagga club but I just haven't got around to joining there either. That doesn't mean I am giving up, just that I need to make money and look after my family first before I get back into my beloved pottery. I think maybe also that if I get back into my old life style I will be duplicating some of the things that made my life in Junee very busy. And I want to slow down for a while.
If I lived in a perfect world I wouldn't have to earn money and I could play with clay all day, but that would mean chasing a market, otherwise what would I do with the stuff that I made. Or maybe I could go to university to study ceramics but that's not gunna happen. That is a dream.
Years ago I went to T.A.F.E for 6+ years learning pottery just for the fun of it but then T.A.F.E. decided that they weren't for hobbies and they should be teaching people who want to make a career out of their chosen subject. So that spoilt it for me and I gave up going there. I never wanted that. If that had been uni I would have had a degree by then, but where I lived was inaccessible to a Uni, (Urana, nearest T.A.F.E college was at Corowa 3/4 hrs drive away) and I had babies to look after. It was however an escape from my mummy and wife duties for one day a week and probably kept me sane.
Anyway, on to a different subject. I took Mum to the Kingston bus depot markets on Sunday. She had a ball. She went from one food stall to another, sampling and buying everything that took her fancy. We came home with fudge, Turkish bread, wood fired bread, baklava, caramelized macadamia nuts, my favourite rose flavoured Turkish delight, a bottle of tiny marinated figs, honey mustard sauce, creamed honey and boutique cheeses. Yum. Lots of fun too. No she didn't buy all of that herself, he he.
Tomorrow morning I have to go back to the Drs to get the results of my back x-rays and blood tests. I have also been given a blood pressure machine to play with and have had to keep a record of my B.pressure for the week. When I was at the pathology place having my tests done last week I was talking to the lady there and she said I had chosen a very good Dr, so that was good to know.
O.K. that is about all for today.

Bye Love Linda.