A Week in Pictures

This was a big week for me. Here it is in pictures:

Moving on...........

Life will be very different from now on........so many plans cut short - the things we were going to do together - travelling, growing stuff, talking about things - just the everyday companionable things are now simply gone from my life.
But I need to move on, pick up what pieces I can and carry on doing the things that I love to do. In time, I hope I can delight in them again. Let me share with you a poem by Bob's favourite poet W.B. Yeats. He first read this to me when I was a starry-eyed sixteen-year-old and smitten with this enigmatic, beautiful man, who was all of eighteen.

                                He Wishes For the Cloths Of Heaven

                                Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
                                Enwrought with golden and silver light,
                                The blue and the dim and the dark cloths 
                                Of night and light and the half-light,
                                I would spread the cloths under your feet:
                                But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
                                I have spread my dreams under your feet;
                               Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I'm starting to spend a little time in my studio as I feel able and as dealing with the practicalities of winding up an estate allow - it is good to be able to start creating again. 

This little one is finished now and I'm working on a larger piece for an exhibition in June.....will post a wip pictures when I have something to show. It is a piece of sculpture, not a doll.

Bob

This is the most difficult thing I will ever write on this blog, but I feel a very strong need to do it.

Last week, my best friend, my soul-mate, my constant companion for 44 years, my husband Bob died suddenly and unexpectedly in his sleep. We first met when I was sixteen and he was eighteen in 1969. I had just started study at the Tasmanian School of Art and he was that quixotic, passionate, articulate second year student who had me immediately transfixed. Someone said of him a day or two ago that "the air around him was electric". So true. People were drawn to him. We were married in 1971; still kids really. We went on to have two children and now five grand-children, to whom he was beloved "Papa". Being married to Bob was a mad, wonderful, glorious wild ride......never a dull moment!

He taught me so many things - without him I would be nothing like the person I am today. He gave me a deep and abiding love for literature, art, wine and people, but most of all he shared with me his love of wild, unspoiled places. He was always supportive of all the things I did - my art and music and I know he was proud of me.

With Lyle Closs at Big Gun Pass, 1976

Bob  was a writer, a photographer, an artist, an avid reader and lover of ideas. His intellect was incisive and he could argue under wet concrete (much to the chagrin of a few of the politicians etc that he clashed horns with in later years). As a rock-climber he seems to have achieved the status of "legend".

Below the cliffs on Ben Lomond

He was a Art teacher, much beloved by so many of his former students, quite a few of whom went on to become successful. It is a measure of this man that some of the very many people, he touched in some way are coming from, England, from Shanghai, from all parts of Australia to farewell him on Friday. Among them are climbers, ex-students, artists, politicians and some very dear friends.

2006 saw him reluctantly drawn into a political bunfight over a proposal to build a pulp mill in our beautiful valley. Bob was so struck by the injustice of allowing such a chemical monster to blight our valley without properly assessing the consequences, that he fought doggedly to make sure it didn't happen. Because he was so articulate, he became the media "go-to" person. When the phone would ring at 6 am for an early interview, he would open his eyes and start to make sense before he was even properly awake, such was his grasp on the issues. Sometimes the phone would still be ringing at 10 pm. And when others around him were dithering and vacillating and turning wishy-washy, he remained steadfast and unwavering. He was a true inspiration. To date, there is no pulp mill and the possibility of there ever being one in our valley seems remote.

Bob loved good food, excellent wine and  intelligent conversation with dear friends around the dinner table. He was immensely proud of the fact that we could provide an excellent meal most of which came straight out of our garden.

In the summer, I will be scattering Bob's ashes from the top of the cliffs he loved so much, so he can blow around there for eternity and be at one with his mountain.

So, my best friend, my love.......go well. Your mountains are calling you home.

S-L-O-W Bob!

I'm happy to say that after about a year of neglect, my husband has finally started to seriously update the blog that I helped him with............at last!
I added some gallery links to the top of his blog - don't know what he thought of my titles - all I got was a wry look when I told him that I called one "Sunset Swoons" - and then he told me that some were sunrises! I notice that he hasn't changed it, though.

http://bob-mytasmania.blogspot.com for more.

A Blast From The Past

You can see what I found attractive...........to me he looked not unlike Pete Townsend of The Who. Or Cat Stevens. This picture is a still from a climbing film made at Freycinet ca, 1974/5 by the Launceston Walking Club. The film-maker might have been Norton Harvey. This was sent to me by a young acquintance who happened upon it while going through the LWC film archives. Well, after more than 40 years of marriage (yes, I was a Child Bride!) he doesn't look like this any more, but like a good wine or an old violin, I think he is improving with maturity!

My little Thursday's Child is coming along - the doll itself is pretty much finished and now I need to work on the accoutrements - a little bag, a book, maybe.........The box she is sitting on will become a steamer trunk with a bit of work. To me she looks like a lonely little Irish immigrant.

Our Tasmania

I'd like to introduce you to my husband, Bob, adventurer, photographer and raconteur extraordinaire. (On the right in this picture)

He has just begun a blog (with a bit of a push and some help from yours truly) to showcase his wonderful photographs of the magical place we live in.......our Tasmania, and to update you on some of his exploits in Tasmania's wilder and less inhabited places.
Here's a taster:

These images are all from a walk he is doing around the entire coastline of Tasmania (for a book). If you want to see and read more, go to his blog http://bob-mytasmania.blogspot.com

 He will be adding many more photographs once we work out the arcane and esoteric method needed to reduce photo files on a Mac computer.

So far, Bob has only one follower (guess who?) but I know he would love some more.........so if you want to keep updated on his exploits, please become a follower of his blog. You won't regret it!