conversations with dolphins

It was sunny this morning so Haico and I decided to head over to Bronte to look at the beach, get some horizon with our scrambled eggs.

The surf was pretty winter rough with big rips. Wandering around the headland and staring out to sea, we saw three dolphins swimming out beyond the surfers. They where in a playful mood, leaping out of the water every now and then. At one point they surfed the waves along side the riders and all three made a spectacular syncronised high leap - wonderful!

Unfortunately these photos are not mine and are from Deb and NSW Ocean Baths on flickr .

Bronte Beach from above

What I have been up to #2

The Metal plates: the chase was only just big enough to reach the length of the paper and print on all four faces of the folded Chapzine, so there was a bit of unconventional clamping going on.

Making the adjustments to the fine furniture. It was absolutely freezing this day- A typical snow day in Canberra- starts at the 'warm' 9 degrees then rapidly decends by 11am to -1 with large heavy grey clouds hanging low. The talk goes round the school where the snow is falling and the next morning the Brinabella's are dusted white.

The prints the stacking up in the holder tray.

Just the second side to do now..and I am running out of time TOTALLY- I leave for Japan in 3 weeks.. EEK!

Pied Currawong and Magpie song

It's been a pretty full on today in Australian politics - after 48 hours of whispers Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stood aside for Julia Gillard- Australia's first female Prime Minister. It's been a pretty dramatic day but I hope this means that Labor is stronger against Abbott and that we don't see a return to a Liberal government.

The last 24 hours I have been hooked to ABC news TV there where so many crosses live to Canberra for on the spot interviews as the vote on the spill was happening and then the last and first address of the PMs- all of these interviews and comments where accompanied by the beautiful song of the Pied Currawong and Australian magpie, echoing off the concrete walls of the Parliament house- the back ground white noise of Canberra. It rang pretty clear and loud in all the interviews- their calls suddenly changing my sonic landscape and making me feel like I was in a drier cooler place. I loved that their song was oblivious to the momentous occasion- life goes on, as does the ring and warble of territorial calls.

Thanks PM Rudd, for the apology to the Stolen Generations, for signing the Kyoto Protocols, for appointing the first female Governer General: Quentin Bryce and for being the first Prime Minister to speak a second language publicly- especially the difficult tonal Mandarin, for basically not being your usual Aussie bully boy.

And..

Fingers crossed for PM Gillard, first woman PM sworn in by the first female Governor General incredible!

What I have been up to #1

photos top to bottom: Caren doing some fine tuning of the furniture so it fix printing shadows on the irregular type; wooden type of first plate; dancing with the Graphix cylinder proofing press.

I’ve been pretty busy in the last couple of weeks, finishing the editing of a new part to walking through clear fells, and printing quiet a bit in the Book Studio at ANU. I have set plates in the past but had out sourced the printing. The exciting thing over the last couple of weeks is that I have started driving the beast of the press. Caren uses the driving metaphor quiet a bit but I found for me it was a bit more like dancing- once I had worked out which foot was going to step on the release that grabs the paper and which hand would hold the paper to the drum and press the print button, it all started to flow.

Shots above are from the first layer of translucent fluro orange.

Posting this now and will post second plate and more images and explanation next post- which will hopefully be tomorrow but as Lateline Business is on the TV it means it’s time to go to bed.

Out the window this morning

I was staring out the kitchen window while waiting for the kettle to boil for my first cup of tea and caught sight of this wonderful surprise. It was moving too fast to see that was on the silver star in the middle of the cluster.

As you see can it's still grey in Sydney.