Whew! Yes, it’s another “whew!” mudlark. The last few months have been very busy and there’s little sign of things letting up.

I’d started this year wondering why I was trying to find work as a writer and looking at other jobs. I did manage some interesting work with UQ’s Architecture Department on raising urban creeks, and I’m still hoping this might lead to other things. But by May, more work started coming in and piling up. Ross has had no time to wonder about anything. He has been making, designing, entering, writing, and making like a whirlwind. We did take a few days out to deliver some commissions to Sydney, visit Jim, and see a small bit of the Sydney Writers’ Festival; we had to drive back via the inland route because of the floods along the coast.

And the floods hit here as well, with some damage: a few trees so laden with water that they snapped at the first wind; water damage to Ross’ stock of wood as the flood swept across his studio floor (and on down our steep hill); and our driveway is now almost impassable (about time to find some more money for another large concrete pour). But our friends in Kin Kin suffered the worst, inundated to roof level twice in as many weeks. Most of the hinterland was cut off at some point and the shops did erratically well as people came in to stock up when they could. There were a couple of deaths as cars were swept away and a lot of more general damage. But now we are in the midst of glorious winter sunshine, the sunshine that names this region, and the place is once again dry.

Judging Green Pens, organising Writing Floating Land, and writing articles was a challenge under the erratic power supply and the sidetracking of the flooding events and their aftermath. Ross, Anika, and I all worked for the two weeks of Floating Land, so we stayed down at Boreen Point beside the lovely lake Cootharaba, its shallow surface reflecting every emotion of its country. We got every type of weather and most types of emotional responses to the sometimes frustrating but mostly wonderful event. Ross helped artists build work, I facilitated a few writing sessions and a mini-exhibition of words, Anika helped make and display a lot of art. There are quite a few pictures and words about it all coming out in September’s Art Monthly and in September’s Queensland Writers’ Magazine, as well as possibly Ceramics Art and Perception later in the year. There’s also more on this and Floating Land’s site. I deserved the rest of the dead after that event, but only got the rest of the wicked. I moved straight on to another 10 day art and environment event in our local catchment and am currently writing up another piece to be published with images in the summer edition of Art Monthly (yes, I think I almost qualify as staff writer now!) and film, music, words, and work will be exhibited at USC’s Art Gallery in early December. Then there’s an article about Ross’ furniture and landscape memoir coming out in October’s Craft Arts and a joint paper by Ross and me to a Making Futures conference on craft and sustainability. As this is being held in Plymouth, Ross, Anika, and I are all going to spend the month of September visiting furniture makers and other friends, as well as the Eden Project, and maybe some Arthurian sites (for Anika), around the United Kingdom.

Ross’ work is getting more obsessed with this place and the idea of landscape memoir. The paper we are giving is based on the material’s lessons in the making of his Gnutheru chair, and he has just made a beautiful coffee table that shows the volcanic activity that lies beneath the mountains of this area, called Ripples in Country. And of course, his list of clients just keeps getting longer. (I think the GFC has resulted in people giving greater value to the sort of careful artisanship that Ross does, so that these soulful pieces memorialising craft and place take priority over more plastic aspirations. As I wrote in Revering the yokel and writing sustainably for the Writers’ Magazine, “But when creative process is imported from elsewhere, it becomes both lesser and more spectacular: powerful connective symbols become mere labels of consumerist generica.”) It is interesting to see the intersections between my work and Ross’ emerge and evolve – this joint paper will add another layer to how we both express love of place.

But before that, Anika turns 15 and Katerina 21 as well as another concert on the 23rd August with Leah Barclay and friends, playing world electro-acoustic premieres on our outdoor stage (details emerging as I write, with the exciting promise of a growing and ongoing collaboration in soundscapes). Our last concert – Winter Wine Women and Song with Ayla, Delaney, Garry, and Linsey - at the beginning of July was lovely; the day was perfect, the singing superb, the food and cakes yummy, and the conversations stimulating. About 70 people came over the afternoon, and many stayed on into the night around the fire. There are, of course, pictures on the Cooroora institute site (we are working on recording as well for future performances, but that takes us to a whole new level with possibilities of online streaming and other sustainable ways to make the local global).

Add to all this, the fact that Anika is now home schooling, and you begin to get a picture of the busyness and richness of our – oh so creative – days. If you are interested in Anika’s home education story and program (based around creativity rather than the more usual 3R indicators of success), I would be happy to email it to you. It received almost instant and full approval from the Home Education Unit of Queensland’s Education Department, so now the Cooroora Institute is officially extending its creative learning approaches to the school years.

Now for me to just squeeze in some visual art practice, and maybe a little gardening (although Scott and Donna have been more than pulling their weight in this direction, so that the garden is almost clear of its usual choking weeds). So, there hardly remains time to write poetic mudlarks – reduced to mere newsy fare. Still, any time you want to drop by, come inhabit our place, we welcome you. Part of my Floating Land responses to the Art Monthly editor’s interesting questions included: “The site specific is not just an historical awareness of the past layers of a place, but also a germinal seed for its future. Perhaps those that can encompass and encapsulate such complexity deserve (or are required) to be hospitable?” I hope our hospitality is an indicator of our own growing embeddedness in this complex and beautiful place.