July travel log

We've not really been keeping this blog up to date, you might have noticed. I am trying to find a way to write about my work in a way that doesn't identify the people I work with or tell stories that aren't necessarily mine to tell. More on that when I get my head around how to do it.

In the meantime, one thing that is fairly certain and non-controversial about my job is that I spend a lot of time travelling. Maybe a fun/interesting/useful thing to do is to start trying to log that. So here I go, see how this works and I'll try to do it each month.

July travel log:

Number of nights away from home: 17
Number of hotels: 4
Number of flights (including connector flights): 6
Places visited: Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart
Number of Australian languages worked on/with: 10

Future trips
This is a suggestion from fellow travellers and friends across the country who I might run into at an airport or in transit somewhere. Obviously I'm not going to advertise my movements too specifically but if you have trips planned and think we could cross paths, get in touch and maybe we can organise to be at the same place and the same time, somewhere…. :)

Late August - Geraldton via Perth

Mid September - Cape York & Cairns

Late October - Mt Gambier via Adelaide

November - Melbourne.

That looks pretty respectable really! So - shall we do  coffee at an airport somewhere? Let me know!

Because my house exploded #1

[Here's my first piece of writing about a thing that happened in 2007. I feel there's more to come, but here's this.]

Because my house exploded
I flew through the air
Burnt hands and face and feet
The smell of singed hair

I flew into the doorway
Front door slammed on my head
A child I heard screaming
Thinking we were dead

Because my neighbour held me
Cold water bathed my skin
Wet blankets embraced me
His arms I stayed within

Because my house exploded
I lost a lot of stuff
My piano, oldest,dearest friend,
Losing it was rough

My confidence, I think, not gone,
But fairly bruised and battered
Everything I thought was safe
Was burned or lost or shattered

Home is where the heart is
It holds us, safe and warm
But when my house exploded
My whole world was torn

That was 8 years ago now
Wounds are healed and old
But still the stories surface
Wanting to be told

Because my house exploded
And that won't go away
And so I must remember
What I went through that day