Sunday 4^th December: Dubai Airport

I am writing this in Dubai Airport at 6:15am local time after an exhausting but great trip so far.

In the days leading up to our departure we were extremely busy, first packing up and cleaning my mother in law’s unit and shade house. A friend helped me with the dismantling of the shade house and moving the plants out to our place.

Over the last few days we made last minute preparations for our big adventure overseas. This included checking the plant dripper systems, cleaning the yard, mulching the roses and other plants and gathering all we needed for the trip, including last minute purchases like extra camera memory cards, medicines and so forth.  We packed our bags and everything was ready to depart. A major last minute problem mid morning was Corinne misplacing her reading glasses which quite distressed her. She took her computer glasses instead.

Our friends arrived at 2pm to drive us to Adelaide Airport. We had a pleasant trip with lots of chatter, mainly from me as Corinne was quite subdued. We were both very tired and she was perhaps nervous about her journey. I know I was and this is quite normal.

Our flight was at 5:35pm so we had time to check in and then have a drink, a muffin and a slice of carrot cake. Our flight was delayed by 25 minutes but we made good time to Melbourne. It was odd going in the wrong direction, but Emirates do not fly out of Adelaide.

Our friends from Gisborne near Melbourne were waiting for us when we arrived and after getting our boarding passes we had a cuppa with them. It was great seeing them and chatting for an hour. We then went through security and customs before lining up to board. Our flight to Dubai was uneventful, generally smooth but very long. Favourable winds meant just over 13 hours of flight (instead of 14 hours) and we arrived at about 5am local time. Corinne managed a few hours’ sleep but I think I only had a few short naps. We bought a drink at Starbucks and sat there writing in our journals, waiting for our flight to Addis Ababa.

Further reading:

• Trevor’s Birding – about the birds I saw on my trip
• Trevor’s Travels – photos of places we went during our journey.

Adelaide Airport - waiting to leave on our overseas trip

I had a very busy day with only one special happening. Well, two actually.

I spent most of the morning at the doctors’ surgery. Nothing to get alarmed about – just a routine check-up and all is in order. I needed new scripts for some regular medications I take. I also renewed my driver’s licence last week because the 10 years on the old one were up. To get my licence I had to declare that I had diabetes (which I was diagnosed with since my last renewal). This required a doctor’s consultation and a 4 page questionnaire for her to fill in after she had run me through quite a few tests, most relating to my eyesight. No problems there.

In the afternoon I helped my wife packing up my mother in law’s unit. Last Monday she was admitted to a local aged care home with advancing dementia. It is sad to see her deteriorating on a daily basis, but she is now receiving the professional care we tried to provide but it was beyond our skills. I admire people who dedicate their working lives to helping people in need like this.

A highlight for my birthday was that I bought myself some new binoculars. My old pair has been good, but I bought some lightweight, compact binoculars which are much better. Can’t wait to get out in the field and try them out doing some birding.

In the evening I took my wife to one of the local hotels for a birthday dinner. We had a lovely time, good food and a great view over the River Murray. It was definitely the highlight of the day. Later we each had separate meetings to attend. Mine proved to long and, at times, difficult and challenging, having to deal with a serious issue.

Now back to writing.

Over the last few years the group is also venturing out into country areas. Two years ago I attended the inaugural meeting here in my home town of Murray Bridge. I particularly appreciated having only a 5 minute drive to the venue on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. Normally I can’t attend the meetings in Adelaide due to other commitments on the regular nights on which they are held.

On that occasion I wasn’t brave enough to take along any of my poems for reading, and last year I had another commitment. Two weeks ago, however, I managed to attend – and read two of my poems. It felt good – and I enjoyed the rest of the poetry read during the afternoon. The poems ranged from the hilarious to the deeply serious through to the cheekily risqué. Reading one’s poems during the open mike sessions usually allows one to contribute the poems read for consideration in the annual anthology.

Links:

• Friendly Street Poets – click to view their website which has details of meeting times and venues as well as membership, publications and plenty of other information.

Cover of "Taj and the great camel trek"

Book review:

Rosanne Hawke: Taj and the great camel trek.

Published in 2011 by University of Queensland Press.

Two weeks ago I was privileged to attend the Adelaide launch of Rosanne Hawke’s latest novel. I am becoming addicted to launches of her books; this is the fourth one I’ve attended in three years. As anticipated it was a joyous time of celebration because I know how hard she has struggled with this story over the last 4 years.

The main character, twelve year old Taj, lived in Beltana in outback South Australia in the 1870s. His father is a cameleer and Taj has his own camel Mustara, a character in its own right. In fact, Taj and Mustara have featured in another Hawke book, the picture book Mustara.

Cover of "Mustara"

Taj and Mustara are invited to join explorer Ernest Giles on his second expedition  across Australia from Beltana to Port Augusta and then on to Perth in Western Australia. It is not a journey to be undertaken lightly because much of the territory they planned to cover is desert, for most part uninhabited even by local Aboriginal people. The team accompanying Giles struggle with coming to terms with the isolation, their own feelings of fear,  the harsh environmental conditions and the almost total lack of water. At times, they traversed many hundreds of miles without finding a drop of water. The whole journey has them on the very edge of disaster throughout, giving the reader a sense of the extreme hardships they endured.

While this is a novel, written as fiction and from Taj’s point of view, many of the incidents and characters are based on real events and real people taken from Giles’ own journal and the records in newspapers of the day. Taj himself is a fictitious character which points to the real strength of this book. Rosanne revealed at the launch that this book was originally conceived as non-fiction, but early on in her research and early drafts discovered that fiction was a far more powerful vehicle to tell the story. In this way the author has brought history to life for the reader, a delicate balancing act at the best of times. She has handled the transition with great skill. We see and feel the anxiety of the party through the eyes and emotions of Taj.

Highly recommended reading.

Links:

• Rosanne Hawke’s web site
• Taj and the great camel trek special page - including photos from the launch and teachers’ notes.
• Merchandise – buy T-shirts, mugs, ties, fridge magnets and many other items featuring the cover art work from the book. I am the proud owner of a Taj coffee mug which I use every day.
• Marrying Ameera - my review of Rosanne’s previous best selling novel, listed recently as a Notable Book.

Disclosure: Rosanne was my supervising lecturer when I completed my Master of Arts (Creative Writing) course recently. Apart from being a great friend and an amazing mentor, I gain nothing from promoting her books and the merchandise associated with it. Reviewing her books is just my way of saying ‘thank you, Rosanne.’

Rosanne Hawke and a friend

I now have completed my Master of Arts (Creative Writing) degree.

It has been an interesting journey of discovery. I’ve always regretted not having a higher degree to go with my basic teaching qualifications. I had resigned myself to the fact that such a lofty degree was beyond me. I limited my thinking, putting myself down in the process.

On reflection, I probably thought the same about my writing. I’d never be good enough to get published. I’d never make it as a writer. No one would want to read what I wrote.

Through sheer determination – and the encouragement of family and friends – I’ve proved myself wrong on all counts.

• I have passed my degree – and with a distinction too.
• I have a large and growing readership of my three blogs.
• I have been published in recent years in a range of magazines, journals and anthologies.

The best is still to come.

Good writing.

Trevor Hampel, Master of Arts (Creative Writing) April 2011

Over the last week I have been watching the television coverage of some of the events in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India. These games, like the Olympics, are held every four years in a country belonging to the Commonwealth of Nations. The countries involved include Australia, England, Wales, Scotland, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and many of the other countries that once made up the British Empire. The Commonwealth Games are often referred to as The Friendly Games with a much more relaxed approach to the event. Competition in the field and pool are still fiercely competitive despite this friendliness, and many records, including world records, are broken.

It is pleasing to me that a country like Australia with a relatively small population base does so well in these and other games. During the last Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 Australian athletes won more gold medals than the next four best countries combined. The trend this time is going the same way again though host nation India is having a big impact on the results.

During any games events there are many outstanding athletic achievements. Several competitors have already gained three or four gold medals with still five days of competition to go. One effort, however, stands out for me. Australian swimmer Ben Austin is not a household name even here in Australia. A few days ago he won a gold medal in the 100 meter freestyle event. His time would have won every gold medal in this event up to the 1974 Commonwealth Games.

So what, you ask?

Ben happens to have only one arm.

Ben swims in the EAD events. EAD stands for Elite Athletes with a Disability. His classification is S8 (above elbow amputee).  His times are not all that far behind swimmers with two arms. What an achievement. And how inspirational is that achievement?

What has this got to do with writing? Too often writers - me included – grumble when things go wrong, a story is not developing as we’d like it, we have a headache, a poem gets rejected by a publisher or some other minor inconvenience and we feel like giving up. It is times like this we need to remember the Bens of this world. He has achieved great things despite having only one arm.  And what about the swimmer in the last Paralympics who won the hearts of so many because he swam the length of the pool with NO arms?

Don’t give up – Good writing.

Last Sunday my wife and I attended the second launch of Rosanne Hawke’s latest novel Marrying Ameera. This time the launch was in Rosanne’s home town of Kapunda in the lower north of South Australia. I wrote a review of this wonderful book here.

The launch was held in one of the local art galleries and the highlight of the afternoon for the crowd of over 200 family and friends was a 45 minute performance by Bollywood style dancer Reshman and four belly dancers. Another personal highlight was when one of the belly dancers invited me to join her! I’ve never done that before!

After the launch Rosanne was kept busy signing copies of her novel for admiring family and friends.

Author website:

• Rosanne Hawke: read more about Rosanne and her books on her web site.

Bollywood dancer at launch of Marrying Ameera

Belly dancers at launch of Marrying Ameera

Rosanne Hawke signing copies of "Marrying Ameera"

Rosanne Hawke talking to fans at the launch of "Marrying Ameera"

For the full list of both the winning books and the honour books click here.

Permit me a few moments of dreaming: I hope one day my name will be listed in these awards.

Okay – dream over – back to editing my novel so that someday I can be in the running.

Good writing.

The Word Writers Fair

I should have promoted this sooner.

Never mind – there’s still time for South Australian writers to attend the first Word Writers Fair in Adelaide tomorrow, 21st August 2010. (Just make sure you vote in the federal elections first!)

This special event is free. All you have to do is rock up at Tabor Adelaide, 181 Goodwood Road, Millswood. There’s plenty of free parking on-site too.

Tabor is where I am doing my Master of Arts in Creative Writing so I know some of the speakers and can highly recommend them. Registration is from 8:30am and the programme kicks off at 9am and goes until 5pm.

It should be a great day with plenty of useful input from the speakers. There will be a bookshop too, selling books written by some of the speakers. You can get them signed on the spot.

For more information, including a programme guide click here.

Good writing – and see you there.

Simpson and Day Field Guide to the Birds of Australia 8th edition

Many of my readers here possibly do not know that I am a passionate birder. In fact, I write a very popular birding blog called Trevor’s Birding (click here). It is one of the most popular of its type with many hundreds of daily visitors. Heaps of photos too.

One of the essential tools of every birder (bird watcher) is a reliable field guide. These books illustrate each of the bird species found in a particular country or region. I have about 10 such books covering Australia, south east Asia, the Indian sub-continent and Europe.

In Australia we are blessed with a number of great field guides. With over 500,000 copies sold since the first edition in 1984, the Simpson and Day Field Guide to the Birds of Australia has proved to be one of the successful guides. Today sees the publication of a new, fully revised and updated 8th edition.

I’ve written an extensive review of this guide on my birding blog here.

The guide has been published by Penguin Books Australia.