I am currently living in Hornsby again with Jane, John and Hannah. They are very kindly offering me hospitality in between moving out of Glebe and before I go to Alice Springs. It is lovely to be here, I love how bushy it is here especially after so long in the inner city. And I am mostly ignoring the boxes in the corner that make me feel like I am in the middle of a move. Thankfully we do not have much stuff at all.

The move last weekend went pretty well. It was moving and moving is stressful but I mostly held it together and it was certainly a much less traumatic move than when we left Enmore and moved to Glebe. I guess our limited possessions helped that. It was a bit sad though. We spent the last night there on Saturday. The only thing left was our bed which we were giving to someone from GAPP. Anyway we went to church and by the time I came back after interviewing a minister the guy had come and got the bed and the people moving in after us were already there with all their stuff. I walked in yelling out “hello” and all of a sudden realised “oh my gosh this isn’t my home anymore”. Thankfully I knew the people moving in but it was still embarrassing and so abrupt. As I took off in the car to go to Hornsby I felt very sad that Glebe would no longer be home. But not too sad. Again not as sad as when I left Enmore. I think leaving Enmore was terrible as the thing I had loved most, living with Jem, Ryan, Jo, Tom, Jon and Matt in community would no longer be. Whereas the thing that I have loved most about living in Glebe was making a home with Martin and we will be able to do that in Alice as well.

Martin is not here at the moment though. He left on Wednesday morning. I miss him already. I really do.

In the bathrooms at a central station. Two women doing their hair chatting. One an older women, perhaps in late sixties brushing back her neat grey hair. The other a young punk with dreadlocks, fishnets and long boots (different colours). The younger woman asks if she looks okay, the older one says yes.

On Saturday night Martin and I went to see Baghdad Wedding. Matt’s room mate who works for Belvoir got us free tickets and we loved it. Martin very nearly didn’t come, he told me he didn’t like plays, but when we were speaking to his mum she asked what we were doing for Valentine’s Day (that hadn’t registered at that point). I told her that her son was refusing to come to a play with him so she had words with him on my behalf. I don’t know what she said but it worked.

He was glad he came in the end. The play was good. It looked at the war in Iraq and Islam in a way I hadn’t seen before and it challnged some of my ideas. It didn’t buy into any of the usual cliches and wasn’t black and white. It was also funny and sad and well written and acted and the music was good.

The experience was made even richer for us as we had, had the pleasure of sharing a meal before hand with an elderly Jewish couple. We had arrived early so bought dinner and then sat down with this couple as there were no other seats. We got to chatting with them and they shared a bit of their story. He was a Polish Holocaust survivor, she was Australian. It was a play about a wedding so they told us about Jewish weddings. They had been married for 35 years and loved the theatre. It was a rare moment. We a young Christian couple of Australian and Peruvian descent chatting with an elderly Jewish couple of Australian and Polish descent before a play about Muslim Iraqi’s. I felt strongly that I, that the world needs more interactions such as these. I felt that God, the God of these three religions was there.

Martin bought me the Juno soundtrack which I love. i dedicate the first song to him:

“If I was a flower growing wild and free
All I’d want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I was a tree growing tall and green
All I’d want is you to shade me and be my leaves

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea”

*replace the word bride for husband

Who remembers the game Mastermind? Not me until a couple of days again when I began packing up and came across it. Martin and I decided to have a round and now three days we have played a lot of Mastermind. We’re having such a good time. I started off much better but now Martin is kicking my butt. I think it is time for a come back.

I want to keep a record on my blog this year of all the books that I read. I often start off with desores such as these and don’t follow through but here is hoping.

My first book was Atonement. Keith lent it to me on the holiday of fun. I was needing a well written novel but not one that took me on too much of an emotional rollercoaster. It fit the bill really but I didn’t love it. Too much seemed a bit far fetched and very unclear endings don’t really do it for me. It was better than the movie though which I rented the other night. Even though I find Keira incredibly annoying I was curious to see what they had done with it. Not much is all I can say.