I received an email from Michelle Worthington of Authors Online who wrote “Tabitha Page has been working hard on a new venture which I am excited to share with you. Tabitha, children’s author and disability advocate, is currently setting up an online database under the name Forevability, where she is compiling as many books as she can for children through to young adults which have the following themes:
Disability Illness Medical conditions Medical Procedures Anxiety Sensory Bullying Diverse Own voice Inclusion Grief/Death/Loss
“Tabitha is also looking for books by authors and illustrators who have a disability or illness themselves, and she plans to have a showcase page of their work.”
“In addition to these resources and showcases, Tabitha will also be compiling a database of podcasts/videos/blogs/articles related to the same categories as noted above” and aims to make Forevability an easy place to find books, podcasts and more.”
“The goal of this project is to create an online space where people can find resources when they face challenges…”
Tabitha Page says “We hope to inspire, empower, teach and support”.
If you have a book, or books, which would make a good match for Forevability database, or you are an author or illustrator who has a disability or illness, check to see if your book fits one of the categories in the guidelines on the website and make a submission.
Hey, you can find out more about the dynamic book fairy Michelle Worthington here.
Brooding rain clouds hang over the Stanthorpe Historical Museum gate.
Out the back is the blacksmith’s workshop mentioned in Part One. A guided tour of Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery was an eye-opener (costumes next) and the Stanthorpe Post Office 1901 was the first in Queensland. Its style is informal with Edwardian Baroque Revival elements and Royal coat-of-arms, but inside it’s 21st century business as usual.
Napoleon, Ferdinand and The Alchemist.
Both Ferdinand and The Alchemist have elaborate tail coats trailing behind their heavily detailed jackets. Dr Denise Rall used a variety of mediums but my photos don’t capture the sumptuousness of the bling-covered fabric. There were two prints of the Rooster and I almost took the cheeky fellow home! The Gallery has an array of art techniques including landscapes by local artists and thought-provoking ceramics.
Took a stroll through town.
This must be the biggest stone thermometer in Australia. A detour between buildings lead to a sculpture with an ibis taking flight (used in my ‘Exercise Makes You More Attractive’ post). During lunch I read the local newspaper Stanthorpe Today and discovered the old white 1960s Valiant sedan I had photographed cruising the streets was taking part in a Classic Car Rally. Just love those teatowels!
A pyramid in a paddock.
This one is made of local stone and called The Ballandean Pyramid. It was originally built for the Henty Vineyards former owner, Stuart Moreland.
Storm King Dam on a suitably overcast day.
Although not as cold as I was lead to believe. The lake has bungalows to cater for fishing enthusiasts. The view from Top of the Town Tourist Park down to the centre of town with a blue picnic table for contrast. Daisies amongst granite rocks, and more granite rocks and boulders at Donnelly’s Castle, almost impossible to photograph their size—but not teetering like giant hard-boiled eggs in some parts of the region. Captain Thunderbolt, an expert horseman and highway robber, used to hide in these geological wonders.
The U3A Conference 2021 in Stanthorpe.
A packed 2-day Program of informative U3A events with eloquent guest speakers, living up to the title of ‘Coolest’ Conference. A highlight for me was Copyright with Irene Sachs, a straight-forward look at Australian copyright laws. Everyone got a goodies bag and the Daisy mosaic tile was hand-made specially, a different one in each bag. There’s my grey Alpaca cardigan from Pure Inca. Fresh-picked fruit abounded, Stanthorpe apples were prominent—I love them! Local food take-home’s included Jamworks Rosella Jam, Sutton’s Apple Jelly, Stanthorpe Honey, Jersey Girls cheese, minus bakery delights consumed on route.
The evenings were misty and quiet…
… except for a heifer escaping after dark and running around mooing at midnight! The daytime sky changed colour often but mostly May sunlight shone on country Stanthorpe and the whispering eucalypt leaves. A return visit is inevitable.
Here’s to life-long learning!
♥Gretchen Bernet-Ward
At an altitude of 811 metres (2,661 ft), Stanthorpe holds the record for the lowest temperature recorded in Queensland at −10.6 °C (12.9 °F) on 23 June 1961. My blog post compiled on Queensland Day 6 June 2021.
The views change dramatically driving along the highway from Brisbane to Stanthorpe.
Through farmland, over Cunninghams Gap and the Great Dividing Range (Eastern Highlands) Australia’s most substantial mountain range and the third longest land-based range in the world. Through ‘Rose and Rodeo Capital’ Warwick then into the Granite Belt region renowned for fruit-growing and wine-making. The air becomes cooler, the May autumn leaves turn russet and the landscape is littered with huge granite boulders.
Stanthorpe is a pretty little town with a lot of history as I found out when I attended my first U3A conference.
Actually the 2021 conference was a good reason to visit this fabulous part of Queensland! On arrival, after traversing the town, the next stop was Top Of The Town Tourist Park’s well-appointed accommodation in The Cottage. A modern cottage, small and cute and separate from the other cabins and campers. That didn’t stop me talking to the locals for a good chinwag. The historical museum is nextdoor and that warranted a visit on the last day, so much to see inside! Anyway, it was a quick drive into town and a visit to the supermarket, and a Peruvian Alpaca wool shop just in case there was a cold snap. I did buy a handwoven cardigan which is very warm and snuggly. My photo shows the walk down to Quart Pot Creek. The sky was a clear blue and the water reflections sparkled.
Looking across Quart Pot Creek on the path to the Tourist Information Centre.
A huge stone thermometer read 15 degrees Celsius (59 Fahrenheit) and a tourist bus had just arrived so there were a lot of people milling about inside looking a handmade souvenirs and ordering morning tea. I picked up several leaflets and information on local sites of interest plus must-do events, like wineries, Girraween National Park, Wallangarra Railway Station Museum & Cafe (sadly not managed this trip) Truffle tour with Truffle dog hunts, Jersey Girls Cheese factory (what an experience!) and Donnelly’s Castle which are a jumble of prehistoric granite boulders at the end of a winding gravel road. After climbing these huge mystical boulders, the view was fantastic. Then it was time to head back for a delicious lunch at Lily’s Cafe in the High Street.
My next post will feature another side of Stanthorpe. The diversity surprised me.
A visitor to Stanthorpe would need a couple of weeks to visit all the internationally renowned wineries and local attractions, both natural and man-made like The Pyramid out in a paddock! And I loved the individuality of farm produce and accommodation. Top Of The Town had a trail up the hillside where you can stand on a granite rock and look out over the town in the company of native birds and pretty wildflowers. Brisbane doesn’t get much in the way of autumn leaves (although the weather does cool down) so this blog post features red, yellow, golden leaves.
In Part Two, I will post more photographs and write briefly about the U3A Conference. The conference ran over two days and the first guest speaker was Mike Hayes, Director of Viticulture and Chief Winemaker from Sirromet Wines, Ballandean, located in the Southern Downs near the Queensland/New South Wales border.
These two ducks were not very happy that I was walking past their pond.
The Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery pond had rainwater in it from a storm the night before but otherwise water is very precious in southern Queensland. I doubt the centre fountain is ever full although it does add to the feel of the season. The U3A Conference organised a guided tour of the Art Gallery and in my second post I will show two of the local artists creations. I was particularly taken by the work of costumier Denise N Rall; landscapes beautifully rendered in different mediums; an illuminated-style book of art.
Grape vine leaves, not in a vineyard but the Stanthorpe Historical Museum.
These leaves caught my eye outside the blacksmith’s workshop. Inside was a blackened fireplace, anvil and countless tongs, pliers, buckets and metal utensils, hung around the slab bark hut. I don’t remember seeing the leather bellows to fan the flames but there must have been. The blacksmithy had a physically demanding yet highly necessary job in every town in days gone by. I found it difficult to even lift the hammer which would have been used to shape the red hot iron. And I have no doubt countless horseshoes and metal implements were forged in sheds like this with its corrugated iron roof, dirt floor and rough log seating.
Bye from sweet, sunny Stanthorpe until my next post Part Two also compiled on Queensland Day 6 June 2021.
To view stunning photographs of breathtaking scenery and villages around Wales which inspired Welsh authors, poets and artists to create their world-famous works, I can highly recommend Visit Wales “The word trail: 8 journeys through Welsh literary landscapes” website—
Creatives, some well-known, some not so, feature on the list including my favourite Dylan Thomas, who spent his final years in Laugharne, where he lived in a boathouse down on the estuary.
Read about contemporary poet Gillian Clarke (I have already downloaded her “Collected Poems”) and Medieval European poet Dafydd ap Gwilym (14th century) who was born into a noble family in the parish of Llanbadarn.
There’s even a giant peach commemorating Roald Dahl’s eponymous children’s story.
Kate Roberts, hailed as “Brenhines ein Llên” (Queen of Our Literature) chronicled the lives of slate workers. The South Wales coalfields attracted thousands of migrant workers, but the North Wales slate mines were almost exclusively worked by Welsh-speaking local men, which had a major influence on cultural life. Yet it was a woman – Kate Roberts (Caernarfonshire 1891-1985) – who was the greatest chronicler of the lives of men, women and children in the slate-producing north.
The Great Book Swap is a fantastic way to celebrate reading, and raise much-needed funds for remote communities. Schools, workplaces, libraries, universities, book clubs, individuals and all kinds of organisations can host one. The idea is to swap a favourite book in exchange for a gold coin donation.
Here’s a letter from Executive Director Karen Williams—-
“The Great Book Swap is back and registrations for 2021 are now open. Register your school, library or organisation to hold a Great Book Swap anytime throughout the year. Last year the pandemic stopped many individuals, schools and organisations from hosting a Great Book Swap, but we’re hoping 2021 will be our biggest year yet.
“We are aiming to raise $350,000 to gift 35,000 culturally relevant books to children in remote Australia and we need your help! Visit our new-look website, and access some great features and resources to help make fundraising easier, fun and more successful than ever.
“Why not check to see if a Great Book Swap aligns to your organisation’s Reconciliation Action Plan, or you can ask your employer to match donations? It is also a great conversation starter to get teams talking and sharing their reading interests and passions.
“Get ready to celebrate reading, hold your business or organisation to their social responsibilities, and raise funds for an excellent cause.”
Holding the Great Book Swap brought us together as a team, we had a chance to share our love of reading and raise money for an excellent cause.”—-Alice Dickins, Heide Museum of Modern Art.
It’s March and that means Wales Readathon time! Book Jotter has launched this exciting yearly event with an eye-opening post featuring a Royal Welsh Fusiliers regimental mascot, a Great Orme goat named Fusilier Shenkin IV. You can read his life story and details on #dewithon21 in the following post… oh, and perhaps join us as we Read Wales…
Dewithon is an opportunity for book bloggers around the world to discover Welsh writers and their works (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays, in fact anything written in English or Welsh with links to the nation of Wales).
We will begin our 31 days of celebration on Monday 1st March 2021 (St. David’s Day), with an official page appearing thereafter to display all your Dewithon-related posts. There are plenty of useful links and reading suggestions at DHQ (Dewithon Headquarters) and in our Wales Readathon Library, but please do not hesitate to ask for help if you are struggling to get started. You are free to read and write on any literary subject relating to Wales, so please dechrau darllen (start reading)!
Dewithon With a Difference
It became apparent quite recently that some members of our global book blogging community were having difficulties obtaining certain UK…
Why does Google dismay me? Make me groan, make me feel deflated? And what’s Star Wars got to do with it?
Give me five minutes and I will tell you why…
Google images can show me anything and anyone from anywhere in the world. Every famous person I ever knew when I was growing up in the 20th century. Every one of the legendary, beautiful, talented, celebrated people who shared my life (vicariously) now have their lives electronically, digitally, chronologically recorded for all time—and not unexpectedly they have all grown old.
But it is unexpected to me.
They were my idols, my inspiration and now they are looking like my grandfather or my grandmother. Eek! Am I shallow?
Okay I’m older too, but (discreet cough) less so…
Every single person born on this planet has the prospect of growing old. Sadly, millions don’t make it due to many varied and tragic reasons; one of which the world is currently experiencing.
Ageing is a normal occurrence in life, and while celebrities may try to subvert nature’s course (I am not a fan of surgical enhancement and 82 year-old Jane Fonda is finally quitting) ageing is a dreadful fact we all have to acknowledge.
That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
It doesn’t mean I should stop using Google.
Hang on, there are distinguished vocations which seem to be exempt, the more august their features, the better their kudos. Even authors seem to be allowed a few saggy features. But I digress.
I should not (cannot) ignore it.
What old age means to me is that I will never ever get used to seeing a vibrant, happy, slim, trim, gorgeous male, female, androgynous (term used back then) human being with a fabulous personality, body, voice, career, sink slowly into their old age, creeping ever closer to the eternal departure lounge.
I am callously referring to celebrities of stage and screen, actors, singers, bands, artists, e.g. the upper stratosphere of very public stardom.
With or without their cosmetic surgery I am trying to maintain the love and respect. But those dreaded Before and After shots. Gosh, these days I wouldn’t even recognise most of them in the supermarket.
“Hold on,” you shout in an agitated fashion, “don’t be so cruel and superficial! They still have their brains (hopefully) and their photo albums, family, friends and big mansion. Stop making out they are turning into something akin to Frankenstein’s monster.”
Relax, dude. All I am saying is that when I see a wrinkly (another 20th century word) I am looking at the face of my own mortality. That’s what I will look like eventually. So will you. Is it fair? Of course not. Ageing can be slowed but will only cease when we do.
The best we ordinary citizens can hope for is an active life, good health care and a reasonably good digestive tract. After all, I can hide away, I can grow old without someone shoving a camera in my face and asking me about a 1980s indiscretion I can’t even remember.
Hmm… I vaguely recall that night when…
Captain’s Log, Star Date—oops, wrong ship.
In a city far, far away, a young couple finished their late night coffee. They strolled past the refurbished Regent Theatre cinema complex where earlier they had been unlucky not to get tickets to see the star-studded Australian premiere opening of the latest greatest movie, that box office smash, the record breaking 1980 “Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back” still in-session behind closed doors.
A cool August night in Brisbane City and the main street, Queen Street, was quiet. Back then it was a through road not a pedestrian mall, no trees in planters, no CCTV, no security patrols, no shops open, just dull street lighting and carparks which closed before midnight.
Apart from her shoulder pads slipping, the young woman had to adjust her big fluffy hairdo every time she was pitched forward when her high heels jammed in the brickwork pavement. As the couple reminisced on some of the amazing sci-fi special effects they had seen in the first Star Wars movie, a doorman (possibly the manager) said “Good night, gentlemen.”
This young couple turned and saw a short man and a tall man (both in tuxedos) walk through a side door of the closed cinema and step onto the pavement in front of them. These two gentlemen looked left and right, assessed the situation and while not exactly puzzled, they obviously expected to see a limousine waiting.
Dazed, the young couple stopped and smiled at them. The taller of the two men, who looked remarkably like Billy Dee Williams, aka Lando Calrissian, smiled back and said “Is it always this quiet around here?”
She wanted to say “As soon as the pubs and cinemas close here’s nothing for it but go home.”
The young man said “There are usually some after-parties. You could try Lennons.”
The shorter man, Mark Hamill, aka Luke Skywalker, laughed. “Maybe that’s where we’re headed.” Seconds later a small dark blue car zoomed down the street and pulled in beside the group.
“That’s our ride,” said Mark, “nice to meet you.” He opened the back door of the car and hopped inside. He gave the couple a cheery wave and turned to speak to the driver.
The Lando Calrissian look-alike (possibly bodyguard) shook the young man’s hand and said “Great little town you got here” and he opened the car door and sat in the front seat. Before he shut the door, he added “Have a good night.”
The couple responded by returning the remark, feeling silly and star-struck. They stood like statues until the vehicle and its celebrity cargo disappeared into the night. At that point, they turned to each other and shouted “Yippee!” and proceeded to make happy noises like “Wow” and “Can you believe it?” and “That was Luke Skywalker!”
There was not another living soul, or car or bus, on Queen Street with them. It didn’t even matter that they had no pen or paper for autographs, it didn’t even matter why that famous young star was leaving the venue early, and it certainly didn’t matter that mobile phones and instant video were many years away.
Star Wars Encounter 1980
This couple had met and spoken to Mark Hamill, and a man who looked curiously like rogue Lando Calrissian. What a bonus, right outside the movie theatre where they had yet to see the Brisbane screening of “The Empire Strikes Back”, a George Lucas film franchise destined to spawn an empire of its own.
The young couple, er, mainly the woman, squealed “Wait till the others hear about this!”
This second instalment of the original Star Wars trilogy features Luke, a Tatooine farmboy who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the greatest Jedi the galaxy has ever known, and Lando who is introduced as an old friend of Han Solo.Newspaper archives report the Brisbane premiere was Saturday 2nd August 1980 and other States followed.
My point being?
In September 2021 Mark Hamill will be 70, and in April 2021 Billy Dee Williams will be 84—and that is “Senior” class.
Where did the time go?
I will have to find the phone number for Dr Who’s call box.
ABC News and Lucasfilm are both part of parent company Disney.
Radio personality Laurel of Radio 4KQ had a similar encounter that night. As a teen, Laurel was inside the Regent Theatre with autograph book at the ready. Her experience was more tangible than mine but nevertheless both memorable moments.
Spreaker Podcast of Laurel meeting Mark Hamill back in 1980.
Thoughts Become Words 