01. Two Now or Never Festival events this week:

• Yedabila Habitat Pod Workshop – we wove tangled lignum (Duma florulenta) into protective habitat pods – new homes for Eastern Long-Knecked Turtle hatchlings that live in Westgate Park lake. I had such a good time weaving (pic above).
• Derrick Gee’s Radio Hour – outstanding. Went along with no expectations and thoroughly enjoyed a night of interesting conversations, lots of laughs, and a stunning performance from Julia Jacklin, who did a beautiful tribute to Dolly (that’s Derrick and Julia below, listening to tracks Julia picked).

02. Saw MTC’s The Jungle and the Sea – not my favourite production this year but an engaging account of recent Sri Lankan history, and the live music throughout the play was great.

03. A perfect day bathing at Alba.

04. The Edinburgh International Book Festival officially ends today (but I still have time to watch my recorded online events). So far, I have watched:

• Evelyn Clarke: The Ending Writes Itself – so interesting to hear about the process of collaborative writing (incredibly, the authors didn’t split the characters because they wanted Evelyn to have a cohesive voice). They plotted together, then one would do the ‘…bare bones of a chapter’ and then the other would ‘…put the flesh on the bones’. The story takes a poke at the world of publishing and the authors revealed that ‘…there’s no real fiction in any of the publishing bits.’
  They also spoke about genre and avoiding both writers and readers getting shoe-horned into specific genres – “I want genre to be additive, not restrictive.”
• Sarah Perry: Death of an Ordinary Man – hearing Perry speak didn’t really add anything to what I had discovered in the book, however, her views on death becoming ‘undomesticated’ and ‘removed from the home’ were very interesting.

05. Finished the #20BooksofSummer challenge (more reviews to come next week).

06. Watching: Love is Blind UK (this is a judgement-free zone…)

07. Other nice things: a ‘Black Forest’ lamington at my local cafe; an Eras-themed spin class; general joy at how much I love my new(ish) book group; all the spring sunshine (even though it’s not quite spring); and the moon rising over the MCG (very happy with the result as well).