23rd May 2010 Coles Bay

This photo of Chai reminds me of seals, the way they lie along the top of the water with their heads out.

I paddled out to Seal Rocks once, and was swamped with seals. One young one actually landed on the front deck of my kayak. The little ones would check me out in front, where I could see them. The big, adult ones, would stay behind me; I could hear them snort when they broke the surface.

13th March 2005 Seal Rocks

The fear of sharks keeps most kayakers away from this area

The camera I used for this was a five megapixel point and shoot in a clip lock plastic bag I remember shooting blind, not being able to see anything on the screen because of the glare. And not hearing anything from the camera because of the wind and the water smashing on the nearby rocks.

I also had to keep a hand on the paddle (not to lose it) and watch for any reasonable waves which came in frequently and meant I had to secure the camera and get both hands on the paddle ready for a brace or roll. I kept getting closer to the rocks too, and would have to back paddle every now and then. This didn’t leave much time to consider sharks

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4th November 2004, my garden in Sale, Victoria.

Joh has met this guy, Durwood, and has known him for three weeks. I’m talking on the phone to her right now. she’s doing a lot of swearing.

At me.

Already, she has changed all her plans for Durwood. But, she is really happy. And Tom and all his friends like Durwood too, which is pretty impressive.

Joh’s family and Joh’s best friends like him.

Everybody likes him, and they all think Joh has never been happier.

Joh and Durwood have been spending all their spare time together – they live one or two minutes apart.  They can’t get enough of each other’s company.

I’m laughing. I was kind of making fun of her while we were on the phone, but I am really happy for her

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Christmas Eve 2004

This is on the outskirts of Sale.

There were often huge, long trains travelling through, keeping all the traffic stopped for ages.

The longest, and slowest of these, were the log trains. They were a terrible sight. Carriage after carriage, seeming to pass by for ever at not much more than walking speed, with huge, old, mountain ash logs on their backs.

During the Summer, when the nights were warm and it was just great to be out, I toyed with the idea of jumping on one. Riding it for a couple of hours, perhaps into the city, if it went that far. Then catching a passenger train back.

I should have done it. It isn’t good to have regrets like that, and now I don’t have the opportunity.

If I get back to visit Joh though….

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15th January 2005

We used to take a back road home between Woodside and somewhere not far out of Longford. It is a beautiful little single lane road that meanders through lots of corners, dips and rises.

Sometimes we’d leave the car on the side of the road and head off through the bush for few kilometres to the beach. We always had it to ourselves. No people, no houses, no people footprints. Just us, the wallabies, pacific gulls, and occasionally a solitary seal tired and resting.

We used to give the seals lots of space so that they could relax -Ella was considerate like that.

Often a pacific gull, especially the juvenile grey ones, would hover along with us, just a one or two metres away. I think they, like dolphins, enjoyed the company

We could walk for hours. It was usually windy and cold.

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4th and 5th November 2004.

For a while in Sale, I used to work in town. During this time Ella stayed at home, or with a friend (thankyou June). In earlier times, her friend Saffy used to stay over.

If she’d been home alone, and it was winter (short days), we’d walk around the streets, or go for a run, or take the scooter out for a quick spin (the cause of many injuries), or walk into the supermarket and do shopping. These pictures are from one of those walks.

I can see the similarity to my grass shadows photo taken not so long ago. I seem to work on styles, or types of pictures, and this has been one of them.

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24th February 2005, and 12th January 2005.

I see these pictures of Ella, and I know her.
I remember her.
Not the memories of what she did, but of who she was; her presence.
Of what it was like to have her around.

As though she is here, now.

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