Morning Walks Back in Full Swing

 The last time I went to my gp for a general check up- she tut tut tutted me for not getting out and walking more. I had been walking 5-6 times a week until the end of February and then it dwindled to twice a week and then once a week. I know it is good for my health and I also know it is good for my mental well being. I just had this little voice in my head going, just go another day and then go another day, it's too cold, it's too wet... all the excuses in the world, and I was letting the little voice win to the point that I could not get myself out the door. I don't meditate ( there is a whole lot of us in the world who can't meditate despite best intentions) but walking is a kind of meditation. I get lost in seeing and finding things and for a little while the world disappears and you just walk, dawdle, squat to examine and just get lost in the wonder of it all. So after seeing the gp I went home and decided this is just crazy, you are letting that stupid little voice in your head win. So I have started walking again, and I can't tell you how much I am enjoying it. It is still a daily fight with the little voice but the walking voice is winning and the weather gods have been obliging in holding off rain whilst I get out. The rain has been never ending as has the cold grey weather, but  in the little bushland reserve where I walk nature surges ahead and all kinds of fascinating fungi and little orchids are popping up.

The second last photo is of a corybas orchid helmeted orchid)- it's tiny, about the size of my pinky fingernail and is said to be rare hereabouts. The flower seems to grow straight out of a single flat leaf- I keep finding more. Nature is indeed weird and wonderful. I also love the flowering little sundews at the moment- they look so sweet and harmless  yet they are carnivorous.

I am back working on the nardoo piece- deadlines are looming and some words need to be written . I have been reading The Dig Tree by Sarah Murgatroyd.  The blurb says astonishing tragedy but I feel     like it was a foolish folly akin to sending out a football team ( but with less cohesion) to march for roughly 3000 kms and expect them to return in one piece. For a start Burke was the very worst type of leader to guide anyone through the unknown, he got rid of the scientists/artist as taking up too much time, and he had no sense of direction nor of the incredible force of nature that the Australian outback is. He saw nothing, he had no sense of seeing anything , he was just there to win the race to reach Australia's northern shores- a foolish man at best or an utterly dangerous idiot. The exploration committee in Melbourne were almost as bad, with factions and interests and fools. This is not to say the book is not well written or a good read- it is- but it's main character has a lot to answer for and none of it is good. And of course there is the whole sorry interaction with indigenous Australians- people who had lived int his country for millenia. I will follow up The Dig Tree with "The Aboriginal Story of Burke and Wills", Forgotten Narratives, a series of essays from a different perspective and edited by Ian D. Clark and Fred Cahir.  I have also been trying to find if there are indigenous stories surrounding nardoo- of course if there are I may not be privy to them but on the other hand there is information of other flora and fauna important to indigenous peoples out there but I can find very little on nardoo. 

 There is still a lot of stitching to do and whilst it is tempting to make it smaller, I feel it needs the whole length of cloth I dyed to give the feel of the murky waters of Australian outback creeks- which are often very dark from the tannins of the foliage and often littered with dropped branches.

I have also been doing some mono/nature printing on paper with found foliage from the little bushland reserve. Different papers give different results to fabrics and I am still playing around with getting it vaguely right. I am also using textile printing inks ( water based ) which is perhaps not ideal, but on the other hand it is just interesting enough to continue with the playing.

I love the way the kangaroo grass prints.

And my 12 tifaifai quilts are still missing. Thanks Australia Post for losing a year of my life.