Faulky

Recently (today) finished, after MANY stops and starts, the draft of my second attempt at a novel manuscript. I've opened a blog, my first true blog in a long time. you can find it here mindfaulk.blogspot.com/

There I'll be keeping updates on the work's progress, as well as a whole mix of other things: journals, observations, reviews, impressions, whatever else comes to mind. I'll largely be dividing my online time between that and twitter ( twitter.com/Faulky_ ). The facebook page I opened in April has unfortunately been closed due to a lack of interest, not least of all on the part of the creator.

No new poetry lately I'm afraid, though travelling overseas next month so I should muster some ideas up. Hoping, as always, to get back to this. Not sure when I will.

Lastly, hope you all had a good Christmas, and of course for tomorrow, to all a happy new year

best wishes

Those deviants also in the land of Facebook, I welcome you to follow me on my new page.

www.facebook.com/pages/Faulky/…

My own creative work will be kept mostly here on dA still. on Facebook the focus is more on sharing thoughts/discussions on literature, so it's a perfect page for anyone who also loves to open a good book, get a whiff of the musty odour, dog-ear the pages and sometimes even read a few of the words

yours
Faulky

I've hit my first holiday period, after a gruelling 5-week first term (the horror!), and may be in a mood to inflict some of my repressed poetry on the helpless population of deviantart. I've written a couple that have a seasonal quality, so I'm thinking of making a quartet oriented around the seasons. just for laughs. and fleshing out some short stories I haven't had much time for of late.

happy easter to all as well.
this easter weekend, I am in the rare position of fending for myself. I am also sadly without chocolate, though I have been considering plotting a heist on Haigh's. any interested recruits apply within


yours

Faulky

I was genuinely spooked by my Lady Gaga profile image and entered a mild two-minute panic that my account was hacked. turns out it's an April Fool's day prank (which thanks to an internet that accommodates all time zones, can strike over a period of more than one day). well played, deviantart.

Moved into the new place. It's a sort of bungalow in a tangled garden... full of nooks, ideal for stealing a few moments to myself. I almost expect some robin to lead me to a secret gate. my aunt, who lives in the main house, even tells me that come late March, we'll all be gloves-on, in the dirt, weeding and pruning away, in time for showers in April. which should be enjoyable. I have already volunteered to cut back the limbs of the hundred-year-old oak tree that groan against my roof.

my aunt, who i hadn't seen in five years, was taken aback on seeing me get out the car. she held me at arms length and just inspected me, total incredulity in her face. "It can't be you!" she cries. pure Englishness. A good couple of feet taller, a good deal hairier, I sensed she had reasons to doubt it. we went in. the house is charmingly open to everything - slats open to the air, skylight open, eclectic decor, some startlingly old, some young, cracked, chipped or perfect. there is an orderly, sensible chaos, a house of the elements. three hearths, dripping taps and pipes, a rustic depth. a house of fire, earth, water. built in 1846, on a vertiginous slope, overlooking a homely museum that is open "on the 3rd sunday of each month, from 2pm to 4pm." they have local artefacts and 19th century curios. some time, i'll have to make the most of that small window of opportunity and go inside.

my aunt cooks away over the kitchen stove. she is a chef by trade, and by nature. haphazardly adding, mixing, tasting. Indonesian chicken, a beefy stew, silken rice, spinach and ricotta, rocket and avocado, something spicy with chick-peas, laid out for me and the young cousins, two boys slender as brooms but as ravenous as lions over a shared gazelle. in the kitchen, my aunt remains, smoking with her fiance. an Hungarian knife-sharpener who asked her out 20 years ago, but was turned down because my aunt was about to marry another man, and now, after my aunt has split from the other man, he has returned to pick up where they left off, almost Florentino Ariza-style, and they are just like young lovers. "At 50," she says, with an adolescent sparkle, "our lives are just beginning." she has been beset by bad marriages, but to a more objective eye this new, yet old dalliance feels right. it's heartwarming. I look forward to getting to know them both better, and settling into this new life here. something tells me though that the irresistible food put on each night - and the fact that in Adelaide you can't turn a corner without meeting a new aroma, something fresh, warm and alluring - I will end up leaving fatter than I arrived.

this afternoon I took a few photos and put them up, and I'll try and take more as the colours change around the place. the rich fires of autumn should come out nicely. there is the white cross between the house and the flat (I daren't ask, for the sake of my sleep, if it is there for a reason), the curious cage which sits right under my balcony, the statue under the big oak, and the novel old plaque on the door warning about the once fearsome dog of Sir John Bumblelow. there is only a cat now, and quite a languid cat at that.