The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

In the People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks tells the possible story behind the "Sarajevo Haggadah" http://www.haggadah.ba/?x=1, a an illuminated manuscript containing the traditional text of the Passover Haggadah. It is the oldest Sephardic Haggadah in the world, originating in Spain around 1350. It is now owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. Pages from the Sarajevo Haggedah can be seen at: http://www.talmud.de/sarajevo/einstieg.htm

The people of the book include Dr. Hanna Heath, an Australian conservator who goes to Sarajevo in 1996 to assist the UN to restore the book for the museum. In the course of her work on the book she finds the wing of a month, a hair, wine stains, salt crystals. Each item becomes part of the story of the people from the book's past: Lola, Sarajevo, 1944; Dr Hirschfeldt, Vienna, 1894; Rabbi Judah Aryeh and Father Giovanni Vestorini, Venice, 1609; Ruth Ben Shousahn, Tarragona, 1492; Zahra bint Ibrahim al-Tarek, Seville, 1480. As we go back in history the full story of the book is unveiled.

The book is symbolic of the racial harmony that used to exist, firstly in mediaeval Spain where the book was created during the Convivencia and later in Bosnia where, before the Nazi invasion, Jews, Muslims and Christians lived and worshipped side by side.

An historic day - The Sorry speech

It was an important day today with the new PM, Kevin Rudd, finally saying Sorry for wrongs that have been perpetrated on the Aboriginal people of Australia by successive governments over the last 100 years, particularly to the "Stolen Generations"; Aboriginal children who were taken away from their families, often suddenly and violently, and taken to be brought up in non-indigenous settings.

The speech in Parliament began shortly after I got to work this morning (9am) and a few of us went across the road to the neighbourhood centre to watch it on their TV. It was very moving. Here is a video of it : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1jeWeDpc68 and this is where you can read it in its entirety :
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/02/12/1202760291188.html

I was asked if I had dressed in the Aboriginal colours (red, black and yellow) to honour the day. I had a red tank top over black trousers and shirt. I replied, no and that I wasn't wearing the whole get up - the yellow was missing. Later, however, I found that I was wearing yellow - my undies - but Gillian made me promise not to wear them outside my trousers so I could only assure the others that I was, accidentally, in full Aboriginal garb today. (The outfit was roundly criticised by Ishbel this morning who told me in no uncertain terms that the red and black "didn't work."

Ooops!

Here is the real Test Tube Alien.

Rory's Test Tube Alien

We got a Test Tube Alien for Rory's Christmas and were pleased to hear he has been looking after it carefully and it has grown well. He even sent us a photo of the alien (see picture on left).

The girl's like spaghetti : why, you can't manage without apostrophes! by Lynne Truss & illustrated by Bonnie Timmons

You know how there's always some little nugget of grammar that eludes you? Well for me, it was the proper use of apostrophes. I can do the apostrophes that denote missed letters as in "It's a nice day," but apostrophes used to denote ownership gave me the heeby jeebies. I am vaguely aware that putting the apostrophe in one place meant the thing had one owner and putting it in another spot could denote a thing had several owners but was never clear on which was which.

Well last night, now in the middle of my 40s, I read this gorgeous little book and it's all crystal clear.

Grammar perfectionist Lynne Truss demonstrates the correct use of apostrophes. Clearly, and aided by the lovely humourous illustrations by Bonnie Timmons, she shows how much difference the placement of an apostrophe can make to the meaning of a sentence, eg. "We're here to help you" compared with "Were here to help you".

Also by this author for children : Eat, shoots and leaves : Why, commas really do make a difference. And for adults, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation and Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door.

Look down the side for slide shows

I was going to go to bed early tonight but I've been fiddling with our photo collections and if you scroll down the side of the blog you'll see I've added some slide shows.
I'm in the middle of labelling Jamie's Japan trip photos, but it's hard to get him to help when he's doing something else. When we've done I'll add them as a slide show too.

Busy weekend

Another busy weekend half way through.
Today, apart from the usual housework and grocery shopping, we have signed up the kids for their winter sport. Despite her less than enthusiastic end to last season, Ishbel has decided she wants to play soccer again this year so she was signed up to that today. Robbie wants to play Rugby Union this year. That coincides with Ben's wish for this year so Ian and Karen took the boys down to register for that this morning. Jamie says he wants to do a martial art. I think there's a guy does something in the hall at Faulconbridge so I'll have to be proactive in making sure Jamie gets along to that.
Tomorrow RFS training is on so I at least will go to that. Rob has made arrangements to go to see Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter) with some mates. I'll see if I can get Jamie up early.
For lunch we are going to Kim and Graham's. Their eldest son, Alex, was killed this time last year in a motorcycle accident and the lunch is a little family/friends get together and memorial for him.
At 5:45pm I've arranged to go and see Death at a Funeral with some girlfriends. Karen, Dan and Ben saw it and said it was hilarious. Could be the antidote to a potentially glum afternoon that I need.
Next week promises to be busy too. With the schools back, the Scouts also start so Ian will be out running the Joeys on Monday. Ishbel is going to be moving up to the Cubs sometime soon with her little friend Joanna but I think they go to Joeys still/also for a little while doing a 'link' or some such.
Tuesday night is RFS meeting night for me.
On Wednesday Ian is off to Adelaide for a couple of nights to train staff in new software that was installed over the Christmas break. He was devastated to learn that there was nothing in the way of budget hotels left and he's had to book in to an expensive one!
Thursday night I should be going to belly dancing but, unless I can persuade Ishbel to come with me, I won't be able to go this week. I'm not making much headway in the persuasion department so far even though there was another 7 year old girl there this Thursday past. I had been thinking about going for a while then Jenny at work said she and some others had been talking about it while I was on leave and so 4 of us from work rolled up. When we got there, apart from the ladies I knew from before, there was Francoise from RFS and Diana who is one of Cathy's friends.
My work promises to be frantic. The library is undergoing ISO (international standards) accreditation this year, starting on 18th February with the first, gap analysis, audit. I am in charge of the procedure manual (have I said this all before, I think so). To cut a long ramble short, it'll be a lot of work, not made easier by our supervisor, who has been on 6 weeks leave over the school holidays already, ringing to request another month off. She is also the only staff member in the library with ISO training. Vicki didn't think it would be a good idea to force her to come back if she wanted to be elsewhere so granted Robyn the extra time.
On Monday I also have to go in and fight with the enveloping machine again. Friday was a beggar of a day all up with all the technologies fighting me - I was fiddling with the library catalogue settings and had to do the same thing several times before it would work, the enveloper kept saying the envelope tray was empty when it clearly wasn't and kept jamming and messing up my mailout, I set the printer to double side print my mailout letters and must've taken a page out too early and ended up with the address to services on one side but the details of another service on the other and had to start all over again. When I tried to shred the stuffed up mailout pages, the shredder wouldn't work, with the bin full light on when the bin wasn't on. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArgh!

The ballad of Desmond Kale by Roger McDonald

This is an historical novel set in the early years of white settlement in NSW. Matthew Stanton, who seems to have elements of the Rev. Samuel Marsden in his character, is an Anglican minister, magistrate and sheep farmer. His aim is to grow the finest wool in NSW. In this his rival is the convict Desmond Kale, formerly assigned to Stanton but now on the run. Kale was daringly sprung from captivity and is rumoured to be doing his own sheep farming in the bush, beyond the area known and mapped by the white men. Kale becomes an hero and the subject of a ballad amongst the Irish convicts.

This book won the Miles Franklin Award (http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/milesfranklin/) and was chosen by someone else in my book group. I approached it with some trepidation as I usually find award winning goes hand in hand with being impenetrable where literature is concerned. Added to that, it is a big book, 636 pages long. So it was with delight that I found myself being sucked in to the story and wanting to get back to it. Roger McDonald started out writing poetry and it shows, the writing is not always easy, sometimes obscure but is beautiful and uses some of the expressions the first settlers may have used - duck mole for platypus for example.

All back to normal - or at least what passes for it round here

The boys went back to school at last today. They are starting Year 10. At the end of the year they will (hopefully) get the School Certificate.
Jamie says he has the coolest History teacher in the history of History teaching - because she knows when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (!?).
Robbie has two new boys in his group and has been buddied up with a boy called Mark who has come from Germany. His mother is Australian and decided after 25 years away she wanted to come back apparently.
Ishbel went back to school yesterday. Over the weekend and the few days in the run up to going back she had begun to speculate about who her teacher might be. She was hoping for a Mrs Dalkeith who is Scottish and hoping not to get Miss T. Initially the children go back to the classes they were in at the end of the previous year. Sometimes it can take a day or two for the school to arrange the classes, depending on last minute enrolments, leavers, etc. This time they sorted them out very quickly and Ishbel came back saying she was in Miss T's class and she was very nice.
Emails have been going round my group of Faulco mums, checking who is in which class. None of us are terribly au fait with who is who on staff and the question was posed, "what does Miss T look like?". One answer was that she was "the spinsterish looking one with the bad hair".
"Nah, that didn't help, need more info, that only eliminated (the glamourous) Anthea Lundqvist-Hayes."
Anyway, it's nice to be back in to some sort of routine and the children, while they are grumbling about having to go to school, have a good time with their mates and with something to keep them busy.
I'm looking forward to the silence in the house when I come home for lunch.

Australia Day Public Holiday

I got fuller today than I did on Christmas Day! All went as anticipated, we were 17 at lunch eating haggis, tatties in several guises, sauerkraut, haloumi, chocolate mouse, several tonnes of icecream and ricotta tart.
Just one more day till school resumes. Hip hip hooray!