Back from blogger leave!

The streets of Melbourne are back to pre-Christmas flows. All but students seem to be back at work. We have collectively survived the bushfires, for the moment. Holidays have been had - in my case a first visit to Tasmania. It was not the green and verdant land of my geography lessons and imagination. Drought there too - at least while we were there. I read Nicholas Shakespeare's 'In Tasmania' as preparation for my visit. It was an enjoyable read - I recommend it to anyone interested in good travel writing wrapped up in accessible social history. It turns out he was a neighbour of ours, or at least to those folk who owned the house we were renting over Christmas. He has a vivid description of Dolphin Sands (p. 380):

" my father flew to Tasmania with the express purpose of persuading us not to sink our savings into a beach house at the end of the world. On the morning after his arrival, I came across him standing barefoot on the strand. His eyes were nailed to the horizon and I could have sworn that there were tears in them. 'I. Have. Never. Been. Anywhere. More. Beautiful.'"