#terence the seahorse

[marine-indie-gal]

One of The Most Underrated Non-Disney Movies that I saw long ago in my Childhood. Given the fact that I haven't watched this film is so long ever since I've grown, I showed this Movie to my Parents and they actually really liked it. Although despite myself not reading the Original Book that the Movie was based on, but I have heard of the Racism behind the Original Story itself and how it was against Irish, Americans, Jews, and even Catholics (shame that the Original Story and its Concept felt Interesting despite some Old Stories having some controversial tones). Here we have is Tom (The Main Protagonist of this Story) and Toby (his Dog) swimming with their Sea Creature Friends (Claude The Swordfish, Jock The Lobster, and Terence The Seahorse). The Water Babies (c) Charles Kingsley

[ch703-c4rt00nst4r]

Here's my characters I like and love them so much

[yeonchi]

Sea Princesses: Into the Liamverse Part 13: Blue Tang Princes Ramon and Ramiro

Original post

Names: Ramon and Ramiro

Occupation: Blue Tang Princes

Race: Salacian

Residence: Blue Tang Kingdom

Gender: Male

Date of birth: 24 November 2000 (age 7, Sagittarius ♐)

Hair colour: Red with brown highlights

Eye colour: Blue

Skin colour: White

Height: 75 cm

Relationships:

Blue Tang King and Queen (parents)

Bethany (younger sister)

Juli and Alicia (girlfriends and future wives to Ramon)

Beya and Bella (Ramon’s future children)

Jessi and Anna (girlfriends and future wives to Ramiro)

Dina and Della (Ramiro’s future children)

Clownfish King Derek and Clownfish Queen Sheila (parents-in-law)

Jason and Jacob (uncles-in-law)

Seahorse King Terence and the Seahorse Queen (parents-in law)

Enemies: None

Status: Alive

First appearance: Drawing (19 June 2022)

Likes:

Reading comics, studying, playing video games, making mischief (Ramon)

Reading comics, extreme sports, exercise, making mischief (Ramiro)

Dislikes: Whatever the other twin likes (from time to time)

Ramon and Ramiro are the twin Blue Tang Princes, sons to the Blue Tang King and Queen and the older brothers to Princess Bethany.

History

Ramon and Ramiro are identical twin brothers who seem very different from each other, yet are almost the same. They both like to do different things, with Ramon being more studious and Ramiro being more physical. They both love playing pranks and playing with their little sister Bethany.

Ramon and Ramiro would meet and fall in love with the twin Clownfish Princesses Juli and Jessie. However, when the twin Seahorse Princesses, Alicia and Anna, came from the Farlands, they fell in love with the twin boys. This led them to struggle whether to be with the Clownfish or Seahorse Princesses, but in the end, they decided to enter polyamourous relationships, with Ramon being with Juli and Alicia; and Ramiro being with Jessi and Anna. In the future, the twins would have children with their wives.

Personality

The boys have different interests but they are the same in terms of personality.

Appearance

Despite being identical twins, they have characteristics that differentiate them; Ramon and Ramiro are of average height with thin build, round faces, small noses, blue eyes and red hair with bangs and mullets. They wear their blue tang crowns on their heads and they wear blue, yellow and black shorts. What differentiates them both is that Ramon has glasses and Ramiro has freckles on his cheeks.

Relationships

Juli and Jessi: Ramon and Ramiro are very nice to Juli and Jessi as they make them laugh and they like to play with them.

Alicia and Anna: As with Juli and Jessi, Alicia and Anna get along very well with the boys and are very close with each other.

Bethany: Bethany loves her older brothers very much and likes to play with them.

Curiosities

- Ramon and Ramiro are the third set of twin OCs following Jason and Jacob (the uncles of Juli and Jessi) and Alicia and Anna.

- They are both in a polyamorous relationship with two sets of twins, which some may find strange.

- Both Ramon and Ramiro are based on some Sonic OCs which can be seen below. Ramon and Ramiro’s designs are adapted from said OCs, with changes made to fit their new aesthetic.

[u-friend-or-ufo]

Terence the Seahorse from The Water Babies 1978 film

[starkeaton]

the adventure zone: graduation character list

Well, i accidentally deleted the original graduation character list post, so here i am making another one. Oops. And as always, if anyone has important details i should add then feel free to suggest them!

Here are all the characters introduced in episodes 1-25. Named characters only!

Also i can’t hide spoilers! So, um..... I can’t put spoilers on this one. If you need the version with spoilers try this version of the post that i made on the adventure zone subreddit but youre not missing out on much.

# -EPISODE 1- (19 characters)

Hieronymous Wiggenstaff (he/him): Head of the Hero/Villain school. at least 400 years old. wears shining blue armor with gold accents. also an elf. according to Tomas, he led the charge at the "battle of blood valley", brought the Kingdoms of Rickart and Dawnbreak to a peace treaty, and founded the school. a little boastful, a little prideful, [SPOILERS OMITTED], and overall a pretty good dude.

Higglemas Wiggenstaff (he/him): Head of the Sidekick/Henchperson annex, cranky old elf. has a dog named hero who shows no signs of anything strange at all, ever. 

Gary (he/him): friendly room gargoyle. pseudo-hivemind.

Groundsy (he/him): the groundskeeper. a pretty nice fellow. don't go in his shed.

Hernandez (he/him): beautiful centaur professor of animal handling.

Jimson (he/him): human battlegrounds trainer for sidekicks/henchpeople, world famous featherweight champion, wields a staff. married to crushman.

Crushman (he/him): silver dragonborn with a sickle, and self-described beefy boy! heavyweight blood champion married to jimson. never lost a match for 8 years. full name Frostus Crushman.

Rolandus Fontaine (he/him): former prince, son of deposed king, kind of an asshole, maybe. wears a cape (important detail)

Zana (she/her): "terrifying" tiefling villain sorcerer, friend of rolandus. barkept the test tavern in ep2

Rhodes (she/her): hero ranger, friend of rolandus.

Buckminster Eden (he/him): hero guy. son of "The Iron Lord". their dad is stronger than rolandus's dad. his wiki page says rogue so i think hes a rogue? i never caught that and ive listened more times than i wish i did

Leon (he/him): softspoken buff, bald "fighter" (although i dont remember any clarification on how exactly he fights), sidekick of buckminster, around 28. anyone else keep forgetting he's bald? i keep forgetting it. >!gets sorta-drafted into becoming a falcon for higglemas and so far hasn't done much else.!<

Rainer Michelle (she/her): cheerful villainous necromancer with a floating chair. also, her name is pronounced "rainier" despite not being confirmed as such? travis ships her with fitzroy.

Tomas (he/him): human man with "kind eyes" and a good (psychic???) memory. guidance counselor.

Stewart LeBoeuf (he/him): brawny human man. serves food. there is no joke here, i promise

Mulligan (he/him): teaches potions. mentioned but doesn't appear yet. and we're like 25 episodes in. maybe we'll see him someday

Germaine, Victoria, Rattles (he/him,she/her,???/???): Skeleton crew. They live in the training room i guess, and as a result can never die, because "no one dies in the training room!" (note: someone now HAS to die in the training room). also their races are never explicitly stated but i guess they're probably human? in episode 3 travis brings up something about how many bones are in "the human body" and at this point i think i'm looking too deep into this so i'll just forget about it and you probably should too.

# -EPISODE 2- (9 characters)

Riveau (he/him): halfling, blame-taking teacher.

Mimi (they/them): gnome sidekick who builds cool robot prosthetics

Bartholemus (he/him): owl aarakocra accountant teacher, known for being the best accountant in the land and having a face some might describe as "smoochable". very pro capitalist :’( hope he gets better

Ramos (she/her): goliath teacher of shieldwork. *

Dip (she/her): sidekick, half-orc twin of pip

Pip (she/her): hero, half-orc twin of dip

Festo (they/them): fairy with "beautiful gossamer wings", independent study teacher of magic, loves to party

Snippers (he/him?): Let me tell you my story about Snippers the magic crab. When Travis gave the list of animals that Griffin could choose as Fitzroy's familiar's current form, he listed crab near the start, and this gave me excitement. Now i knew that crab was pretty unlikely but god i hoped that he would choose it. When the list went on- Bat, Cat, Crab, Frog, Hawk, Lizard, Owl, Poisonous Snake, Fish, Rat, Raven, Seahorse, Spider or Weasel- I nearly lost hope. I was hoping so hard that Griffin would choose the crab, but i was ready to accept a non-crab familiar. It was just buried in that list. It wasn't the most useful animal and it was an obscure pick. And as Travis informed him that it didn't have to keep the form for the whole campaign, Griffin said those five words i wanted to hear so, so badly. "Well then it's a crab." Folks, I do not often react physically when something happens in media. But in that moment, i remember very clearly, i fist-pumped and yelled, "YES!!!!!!"

so anyway, Fitzroy has a crab.

Jackle (he/him): kenku teacher of sneakery. creepy dude. apparently knows something about argo? also his name is not spelled "jackal" for some reason. Also in later episodes theyve started calling him "The Jackle" for some reason??? *

# -EPISODE 3- (1 character)

Dakota (they/them): tavern instructor, clad in black/red leather. no race stated? probably human. *

# -EPISODE 4- (6 characters)

Gerry & Tom (she/her, he/him): shopkeepers at barns and nobles who seem to have very bad names. also constantly competing for customers? these guys got dropped faster than the heathcliff quests, which is honestly just sad.

Barb (she/her): the bartender. runs Springs Eternal in Last Hope. has a sweet seeing-eye hawk familiar. 

Jaryd Reginald (he/him): owner of Reginald Ore. Wants the workers to be held responsible for the damage caused by the xorn. (fun fact: originally i wrote down "Jerrod" because i wanted it to sound like a fantasy name, then realized it was probably "Jared" because theyre named after listeners, but i was pleased to find it confirmed that it's actually "Jaryd")

Candice (she/her): A Miner. thought those werent allowed in bars but, i guess not. Wants the mine owner to be held responsible for the xorn's damage.

Jade Johnson Esq. (she/her): lawyer.

# -EPISODE 5- (1 character)

Xorn: a big hungry gem eating guy from the plane of earth Low-Down Deep with 3 arms and 3 legs. why did travis just say "multi-armed" instead of specifying it was 3? who knows! Anyway it leaves

# -EPISODE 6- (3 characters)

Osric (he/him): the man, the myth, the bursar. finally shows up after being mentioned in episodes 2 and 4. he's an elf. 

breeze through the willows (she/her): Pegasus attacked by demons, lost her parents. introduced in ep1 but gets a name here so fuck it. also in ep>!16!< we find out shes a "white arabian pegasus" and i dont think thats a spoiler bc we shouldve really known it from the beginning

Sabor (he/him): Librarian/research teacher. also a TORTLE. Really good at recalling stuff, i guess. kinda reminds me of Tomas's memory thing but i'm sure that's just a coincidence... *

# -EPISODE 7- (1 character)

Mosh (he/him): The goliath blacksmith who welcomes argo into the unbroken chain. Also, and this is specific to the tumblr version of this post, all the characters with an * at the end of their descriptions are also members of the unbroken chain. if someone knows how to do spoilers on tumblr please tell me

# -EPISODE 8-

:)

# -EPISODE 9- (2 characters)

Eeiïäá#æ&éñn (pronounced like "Ian") (he/him?): an imp but without a shitty voice. also happens to not be violent. what a coincidence?

Terence (he/him): a chain devil with a real demonic name. minor boss of the imps. very convincing and very threatening. has the frightening ability to make you zone out during his fight

# -EPISODE 10- (2 characters)

Althea Song (she/her): elf with autumn-orange hair. representative from heroic oversight guild. i'd like to personally thank travis for spelling her name out.

Crabtree (she/her): Artificing teacher. Long gray hair with a long grey beard. no mentioned race, one might guess dwarf but that would be an assumption i suppose. also unbroken chain member, presumably the dwarf argo didn't recognize in episode 7.

# -EPISODE 11- (3 characters)

Marie (she/her): Grey-haired elf woman. She's the school's physician, i guess. Member of the unbroken chain.

Dendra Maplecourt (she/her): Fitzroy's mom. Has hot mint gum, i guess. She was mentioned earlier but i wasn't convinced she was a real person until this episode

Cool Gary (he/him): AYY ITS ME GARYR

# -EPISODE 12-

no new characters again!

# -EPISODE 13- (7 characters hhhyyyuu)

Kale (???/???): Head of the Placement Department, in charge of real world assignments. First mentioned in Ep4 but i missed that the last few times bc it is so brief. Gives exposition about missions i guess????? is that the only reason this chara cter exists

satyr thief (unnamed) (he/him): tries to rob thundermen, dies instantly

Ogre (he/him): teamed up with the satyr. his name is ogre.

Moon (he/him): A Sidekick. small pale sullen guy. no mentioned race. Why is there another FUCKING sidekick WE HAD ENOUGH hhhyuuuuuu

Deanna (she/her): A bigoted centaur with an obnoxious voice. Malwin the Strong's second in command.

Malwin the Strong (she/her): Leader of the centaurs of the scarlet woods. Wants to appease the spirit of the scarlet woods so that thecentaurs of the scarlet woods will be protected in the scarlet woods. Had a relationship with Arturas in the past but their clashes are currently known to get pretty heated.

Arturas (he/him): Leader of the Centaurs of the Valley, i guess. Had a relationship with Malwin. Centaur. Did i mention centaur? i cant think of anything else about this character

# -EPISODE 14- (2 characters)

Calhain (he/him): Human wizard, Malwin's magical advisor. Kind of an amateur wizard in a job high above his skill level. Graduated Wigginstaff's as a hero.

Spirit of the Scarlet Woods: A spirit who requires sacrifice in order to keep Malwin's herd safe and prosperous. Not keen on dubiously canonical combos, i guess. i wouldnt be either. also apparently the sacrifice depends on personal value, not how much value it has to the spirit.

# -EPISODE 15- (2 characters)

Sylvia Nite (she/her): Fitzroy's magic theory teacher at knight night school, who he turned into a catfish by accident. oops!

Chaos (they/them, maybe more): Presumably a deity, gave Fitz his powers and wants him to give in to his chaotic desires. (physical desc: 9 foot tall, iridescent 'mother of pearl' skin, pure white eyes, fine burgundy cloak with gold/onyx lining. their physical form beyond that seems to change every time they show up.)

# -EPISODE 16-

none -w-

# -EPISODE 17-

some demins happened. the big dudes are called "Pit Fiends" and the armored demon ladies are called "Erinyes", by the way. that was incredibly hard for me to figure out the first time, especially without headphones, i thought travis was saying "pig feet" and i just could not discern what the other things were

# -EPISODE 18- (6 characters)

snow on the mountain: shire horse pegasus

storm at sea: peruvian paso pegasus, vehement defender of The Guardian. doesn't have a goofy voice.. but he could have....

thaw of the spring: a winged horse

night of no clouds: a winged hhorse

The Guardian: "An ancient and powerful being that guards the unknown forest." Has protected the flock from demons for many many years. apparently is the voice that was talking to our firbolg in episode 1?

Grey, the Demon Prince (he/him): wants to cause a war, originally wanted to kill hiero and higgs, forces the heroes to build an army to fight his. As "Fauxronimous", he has skin the *color and pattern of* (but not necessarily made of) slate splashed with liquid, pointed ears, sharp teeth, shining eyes, horns of unspecified shape. 12 fucking feet tall. wonder if the slate-looking skin is related to garys. plot twist detected? Also i recently looked at the episode descriptions and found out his name is spelled "Gray", but really does it truly matter?

# -EPISODE 19- (2 characters)

Shabree Keene (she/her): Argo's mom, killed on the Mariah, possibly by the Commodore. Long auburn hair, green eyes. Mentioned earlier but described here, so fuck it.

**Thomas** (he/him): Argo's first mate on the Mariah, as the Kraken, in his chaos-dream. may or may not actually exist.

# -EPISODE 20- (1 character)

The Commodore (he/him): Reknowned hero of the seas, military regalia, great naval hero, presumably responsible for the death of Shabree Keene. No mentioned race. Seriously, they never mention this guy's race. The only thing described about him is how he's dressed and his evil smile. Does that mean he's human? Elf? Dwarf??? Who knows! maybe it just doesnt matter. 

# -EPISODE 21-

none

# -EPISODE 22-

not any of them. not any.

# -EPISODE 23- (1 character)

Ozymondelius (sp???) (it/its): A warforged teacher who just so happens to like war or something? i guess its in the name. only mentioned in this episode, doesnt show up yet.

# -EPISODE 24-

they have a fight in the training room but nobody dies :\\ maybe next time. also no new characters. pog

# -EPISODE 25- (4 characters)

Gherkin (he/him): Tall lankier skeleton, has a scimitar and a merkin, which is a pubic wig... and he wears a jerkin? which i guess is a kind of coat? also i think hes mute 

Tibia (she/her?) : Shorter skeleton with gold teeth, and long canines. i think both of the skeletons are mute actually.

The Lich King aka Gordy (he/him): Rainer's dad. Commands armies of the undead. lives in The Crypt. described as a hooded, skull-faced man with intricate black lines on his face, but changes to a shaved-head man with dark skin and vetiligo. Abandoned as a babby, raised by traveling parents, had necromancy powers, took Rainier in. Not actually very scary at all i don't know why he did the creepy laugh. Kind of a warm fatherly figure actually. hm. also people are speculating Gordy might be short for Gordita and his parents are maybe supposed to be lup and barry but THAT S JUST A THEORY.

our firbolg's father (he/him): A firbolg who lived by the code and was there when our firbolg was banished. Came to respect our firbolg's interest in a new way of life, in his final moments.

TOTAL: 72 NPCS! (well, including 2 extra PCs, i guess.)

Average: 2.88 NPCs per episode.

i was gonna not include the bone-PCs and have it be 69 but our firbolg's dad was just too important to not respect with a spot on the list.

anyway as always make sure to smack me with a blunt object if i forgot any characters!!!!!

[noirkat]

are the agents of dio mers half mers or humans? if they're mers i wonder what the darby bros tails would look like

I don’t have headcanons for all the agents, but N’doul is a full mer. I think the Oingo Boingo brothers are half mers. And Hol Horse is a seahorse mer 😂

The D’arby brothers would have similar shaped tails, like the same silhouette and tail fin shape. And the markings they have on their face would also be featured on their tails. Daniel’s would run along the sides, while Terence’s runs down the middle. Their tail colours would probably be the same as their stands, so Daniel’s green and Terence’s pink and white.

[booksontheshelf]

                                         Scallywag Reading 2017

I‘m surprised that a book was opened at all this year. So much of my time is reading online, so it seems a triumph of sorts that I am still managing to read books at all. It is not possible to do justice for all books mentioned here individually.  They all add up to the string of pearls that sustains me in some sort of equilibrium and continues to provide threads to places that only a particular book can reveal, at the particular time you are reading.  

Some of the books here were chanced on in bookshops. You never regret time spent in bookshops. There didn’t seem enough time this year though to enjoy this gentle past time. Which is probably a good thing for me, as I truly have enough books at home to read already. My daughter tries to stop me adding to my collection all the time. Can you imagine taking off one day, just to visit all the bookshops in the world? 

One day this winter, heading down Bourke St after a meeting, I stepped into The Paperback Bookshop. There I chanced on a book of poetry  by anthony lawrence called headwaters.

It has the lines

‘Her dreams have night vision, and in her sight Our bodies leave a ghostprint where we’ve laid. My darling turns to poetry at night Between abstract expression and first light.’

I’ve just finished You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me - A MEMOIR by Sherman Alexie. Hard not to proclaim this book loudly enough. Strangely the book’s poetic, diaristic chapters look superficially like the incredible work of American fiction I read this year called Lincoln in the Bardo. Perhaps the Trump-dark atmosphere of 2017 made George Saunder’s romp with the ghost of Lincoln’s past presidential time and place so strangely alluring. (The book was purchased with intelligent guidance from Readings’ Acland St staff.)

The year began with the death of one of my favourite artists/writerJohn Berger. I remember we thought 2016 was bad for the death of larger than life artists. John Berger was such a great humanist. But I love that I can still read him and hear his fabulous voice in my head. I did order his last work of essays Confabulations and made a concerted effort to gather all the books I had by him in one place. They are now housed in my studio. Vale John Berger. I return to you all the time. Thinking of artists, I loved reading the The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington by Joanna Moorhead.

You might gather by the next titles we have Alzheimer’s in the family - my Dad has had the disease (as far as we know) the last 10 years. Books that have helped me try to understand what is happening for him and helping me deal with it this year have been: Learning to Speak Alzheimer’s- A Groundbreaking Approach for Everyone Dealing with the Disease by Joanne Koenig Coste.   The Forgetting Alzheimer’s: Portrait of an Epidemic by David Shenk.   Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. And In Pursuit of Memory- The Fight Against Alzheimers by Joseph Jebelli I am rereading Missing Out by Adam Phillips with newly minted insights from thinking about memory and who we are without it.

I thoroughly enjoyed Geoff Dwyer’s book on Tarkovsky’s film Stalker called Zona. I need to see Stalker again but as Geoff Dwyer says- it has to be cinematic not at home! The ignition of crazy nuclear war thinking by America’s President Trump, who thinks he’s eviscerating ‘Rocket Man’ with a tweet, sets a dé ja vu tone  reading about the haunted nuclear-strange Beckettian terrain of the film Stalker.

I love a good graphic novel and I have thoroughly enjoyed two by Riad Sattouf - THE ARAB OF THE FUTURE A Childhood in the Middle East 1) 178-1984 and 2) 1984-1985. I also enjoyed the short graphic novel by Jason Lutes called Jar of fools. One for the young at heart to the very young is by my friend Trace Balla- who wrote the book RiverTime. This year I read her book Rockhopping, taking me all the way to the source of the Glenelg River in Gariwerd (the Grampians).

Feeding into my marine thinking for projects, I am still working my way through The Sounding of the Whale Science and Cetaceans in the 20th Century by D.Graham Burnett. I am also in the midst of The Reef A Passionate history by Iain McCalman. Hoping that Pelican1 will be on her way North to the Reef next year too. As we have worked on the Cape a lot in the last 15 years, I have also been reading the story of the explorer Edmund Kennedy in a book I found second-hand (Daylesford) called Kennedy of Cape York- Edmund Beale. Trying to get some insight into the newly colonial world and the exploration of the Eastern Cape (before the impact of the gold rush). The book tells the story from a very colonial perspective. Larissa Beherendt’s book FINDING ELIZA Power and Colonial Storytelling was a good follow on read. 

I then found myself rereading gularabulu - Stories from the West Kimberley by Paddy Roe edited by Stephen Muecke.

'This is all public, You know (it) is for everybody: Children, women, everybody. See, this is the thing they used to tell us: Story, and we know.

Paddy Roe

Back to the science books, I learnt a lot from Where The River Flows, Scientific Reflections on Earth’s Waterways by Sean W.Fleming. Had me looking at graphs of sine waves (there was a reason to learn about them in maths after all!), thinking about ‘Digital Rainbows’ and diving deeper into scientific connections between rivers, land and ocean and understanding that the physics of rivers and the quantum leap in understanding being made about their dynamics is one of the many tools that will be needed to help care for this crowded planet. The Ocean Of Life-The Fate of Man and the Sea by Callum Roberts was another regular dip in as I gather ideas to try to incorporate plans for sea projects and understand our oceans more deeply (haha). A new writer  for me this year was Yi-Fu Tuan with his book ROMANTIC GEOGRAPHY in search of the sublime landscape- A geographer’s meditation on place and human emotions. I found two new wonderful reference books, the first second hand from South Melbourne Market -The Seabirds of AUSTRALIA by Terence R. Lindsey. And SEAHORSES- A Life-Sized Guide to Every Species by Sara Lourie.

Looking at the politics and economics of our times I managed to read The Secret World of Oil by Ken Silverstein- an enlightening exposé of the behind the scenes snake-oil salesmen. The old rule of following the money results in a thorough investigation of oil’s all too human underbelly. I am still reading Kate Raworth’s book Doughnut Economics. 7 Ways to Think like a 21st Century Economist. A complete creative overhaul of economics, pulling it out of our old ways of understanding the world to make ideas for a better future world possible. Highly recommend.

It’s been another tough year for journalists and the book of writings by Anna Politikovskaya Is Journalism Worth Dying For? reported from Russian frontline and includes the piece that she was working on at the time of her murder. ‘What am I guilty of? I have merely reported what I witnessed, nothing but the truth.’ It was a journalist who wrote a difficult and intense book about the 2011 tsunami in Japan that I’ve just finished. GHOSTS of the TSUNAMI by Richard Lloyd Parry. I have not stopped thinking about that wave and our visit to Japan’s Irate prefecture 3 years post the event left an indelible memory and deep affection for all the people we met still picking up and recovering after the trauma and destruction from that most unsea-like wave.

Back to Oz I loved reading Sophie Cunningham’s book Warning: The Story of Cyclone Tracy. I was very fortunate to take part in one of Sophie’s walks, following the footsteps of William Buckley from Sorrento to Dromana. Though footsore, it was a terrific way to connect with the Bay, while thinking of this man’s path and how different, perhaps, Australia could have been if his attitude to the First People of this Country was shared across the country. I reread much of the fictionalised account again by Craig Robertson (Buckley’s Hope -The Real Story of Australia’s Robinson Crusoe) to get me in the frame of mind for the 20k meditative walk. It was on a recommendation that Sophie shared on Facebook that I now have Phillip Pullman’s latest book The Book of Dust by my bed.

The year has been a terrible one for our ongoing torture of refugees who are STILL languishing in our offshore prisons. I heard that New Zealand had offered to take ALL the men on Manus and that offer has been refused by Dutton and MT. I went to the launch of a book that was trying to navigate the extremely polarised political territory around asylum seekers and I highly recommend it. Bridging Troubled Waters Australia and Asylum Seekers by Tony Ward. During the year I went to a wonderful event organised by Behind the Wire (http://behindthewire.org.au) and came away with their incredible book of first-person narratives called They Cannot Take The Sky- Stories from detention. I reckon our pollies should be sat in a room and this is read aloud to them.

A book that has been a good one to read this year was Hope in the Dark Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit which I read with the new foreword and afterword.

From the gifts of Christmas I have a pile that includes John Clarke- A pleasure to be here. A very sad loss to the Australian landscape, he will be missed for a very long time. The Man who Climbs by James Aldred and looking forward to A.S. Patrić’s new book Atlantic Black. Also on the pile is Robert Mafarlane’s The Old Ways- A Journey on Foot.

And looking back out to sea with a beautiful book I have just started. The Seabird’s Cry - The Lives and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers by Adam Nicolson.

Might have to do a separate post on the poetry that is always by my bedside but all I can say is as I get older, reading poetry becomes more and more pleasurable.

If you have got this far in my rambling through my ambling reading, I want to wish you a very Happy New Year, illuminated by many, many fine reading adventures….