01. We have beach. We have picnics.
02. …and buys #ALLTHESTRAWS
03. Melbourne Writers Festival was hardly what I had hoped for but I very much enjoyed online events with Rachel Cusk and Sigrid Nunez. Particularly liked when Nunez discussed her writing process, saying that she never knows how her books will end until she gets there – “It’s part of the risk.” (What a contrast to John Irving who writes the last sentence first.)
04. Surprised by a-ha The Movie (on ABC in Australia) – the dynamic between the three of them was not what I expected, and the doco highlighted the changing role of the media. I was obsessed with a-ha in the eighties and my only real source of information about them was Smash Hits magazine – I never knew my heartthrob stayed with his high school girlfriend, married her, and that she toured with him. That level of privacy is unheard of now.
05. Can’t wait for: Love Life S2; and trying to work out how I can see this drama, Help, in Australia…
06. Negroni Week! We’ve done our due diligence and the winner this year is… Adelaide Hills Estate Negroni.
07. And it was only appropriate that we had Negroni Rigatoni for dinner last night (spicy and delicious).
08. German Literature Month has been announced – I have a copy of Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky on the way, and checking my TBR list for other possibilities (there’s some Schlink, Erpenbeck, Zweig, Fricke and Würger there).
09. Two people in my house are fully vaxxed, and four have had their first dose. I’m a little less stressed now…
10. New phone case (incredibly, I still have my ‘sticker book’ from primary school days and the Scratch’n’Sniff stickers still have a scent – god, they must be toxic!)
