Many people have read these books and have their own opinions about them, or just heard enough about them to make judgments. People have seen the movies and decided if the books are good or not from them. I have been told many different things about them:

"Every child should read these books"

"These books should be banned, they are evil"

"This is my favourite series ever, you need to read it"

"Oh, no you should not read the Harry potter books."

Having never read or watched anything Harry Potter (at least as far as I can be absolutely sure of doing) I did not like to voice an opinion. But one day, after yet another of these conversations, I decided I would read them so that I could have an informed conversation about them. As it turned out, I like them.

Here is a small fact to think on:

~ You are going to live forEVER ~

Or to put it another way

~ Your soul is IMMORTAL ~

After you leave your body

you will continue to live....

but where?

there are only two options

and this is not an either or fallacy

it is fact

now is the time to chose where you will spend eternity

I have no photos of this event so you shall have to imagine it from my words, and really when it is as dark as the other night, even I can not take a really good photo. 

Motes of hay drift up, hay that has the slightest dampness to it. We leave our places, by the warm fire crackling behind us. We leave the orange glow and settle down on the hay and lean back against another bale. All along the trailer people talk, I am too far away to hear most of what is said. Wordless voices rise high and fall. 

Rumbles of the tractor engine drown out some of the voices. It lurches forward throwing us all sideways and against one another. Red taillights flash, the head lights cut a bright swathe through the grass as we turn and bounce on. We leave the flickering flames behind. Not a trace of their warmth is left. Chords, strummed on strings. Upon one of the topmost bales a shadow sits strumming her guitar. I reach out and touch her as she plays. 

Music wafts through the star spangled night. Overhead the Milky Way stretches, stars glow brighter as we leave other lights behind. The two pointers shine bright, I follow their pointing with my eyes and find the Southern Cross. It shines right overhead in the middle of the misty streak across the heavens, the  Milky Way. I wonder at the vastness of he who names the stars. His Glory is plain if we only but look. 

We rattle past round bales, fences, a dam. Six wallabies start up in surprise as we rumble towards them, fixing them in the tractors headlights. They flee in all directions, we give chase. "Kangaroos" comes the shout, "Look, there!" Voices exclaim, hands point. Some of the wallabies hop along a fence, trying desperately to get away. They bound through the grass and melt into the darkness.

The tractor and its heavy load rattle away to into the darkness. Back to the fire, back to warmth. As we go voices are raised in song from the rear of the trailer. As those in the middle can't make out the words we begin our own. Song, laughter, hay, starry skies, a beautiful memory, a beautiful world, a great God.

Yes it is only Autumn, technically, but yesterday Winter pushed her away and arrived in a gale, weather (yes that is deliberate) to stay or not I don't know, I suspect Autumn will return for a while though, before winter truly takes hold. The day before we had a lot of rain but only yesterday did we get the winter air... I couldn't really get a photo of the wind or Winter so here is my best with words and some photos of the rain and hail the day before. 

This is not really a poem, but neither is it quite normal prose either.... but hopefully it will paint a picture with words for you anyway.

Winter Came Today

In a wall of rushing wind winter came in, no slow creeping cold, but with full force he charged in to claim victory. Autumn fled. Winter roared; sounding like the pounding of a great waterfall. He came howling through the leaves, thrashing at the world, beating it to pieces, like a waterfall beating at the rocks it falls upon, wearing them away. Trees tossed their heads branches flying, manes of battle chargers, standing against the onslaught. 

Grass bends, ripples, as though rank upon rank of light footed, invisible, soldiers pass over it. Winter tugs at the chargers manes, bits of hair tear loose, branches come crashing to the ground. Leaves and strips of bark fly through the air, shrapnel. 

Like plumes of smoke, or gas, clouds scud across the troposphere. Grey and green tinged they fly, obscuring the sun for a moment. Light flickers, a morse code, sun flashing out from the clouds and being hidden again. Bright, bringing a little warmth, off, on again, off longer this time, cold settles, clouds part, they come together. Long, long short, short long, dazzling light, then obscured by grey. 

Trees sway as Winter stretched out his long fingers, groping at the trunks until they bend, and bend. They straighten trying to stand, then bend towards the ground, hunching like old, crooked backs. Bark and leaves are stripped away leaving trees standing bare and naked to face the tempest. The cold of winter returns with the clouds.

The great tall ones reach out their arms as if to hold back Winter, but instead it rushes, past and through, an insubstantial, uncatchable thing. The cold sets in, biting wind. It rasps through trees, around houses, down throats, so cold it makes me catch at my breath, lest it take that too. I stumble as Winter hits.

The world spread out before us, horizon on every side. From this height the curve could be seen plainly. Slowly the hills and valleys drifted past. The world looked smoother from far away. Winding watercourses were marked in squiggles across the land by the dark green trees, water reflected the deep blue of the sky. The sky that I was part of. Lives drifted past us. People driving down the highway, busily going on with normal life, while we passed unnoticed, overhead. Vineyards and paddocks patchworked the country side. Everything a shade of rain watered green.

It has been a rather crazy few weeks for my family, but in between everything we got to go flying. I had never been in any air craft before, so the experience was like no other. I guess it is also very different to being in a passenger plane. A lot different.

My sisters and I went up in a little four seater plane. From the airport we flew, following the highway back to our house. Then we returned to the airport, it took about half an hour.

I was not scared of flying..... just the not flying.... trust issue I suppose. But I survived. Actually, I totally forgot about the fact that the plane might fall out of the sky at any moment, or we would get lost, or crash land, or sizzle up in the sun or fly out of the atmosphere.... or be abducted by aliens. Yes, well actually, I didn't even think about that until afterwards. I had purposely not thought about it beforehand. 

Amazing, awesomeness, wow, I think that for a time I was just staring with my mouth open.

Then we flew over our town. I hardly recognized it at first. Everything looked so strange from the air.

Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. ~Douglas Adams

We could also see the ugly grey cuts in the earth as we flew over. I could see them even more from the sky than from the ground. They seemed smaller though, but then everything did. Then the plane banked and turned. The take off was fine and the landing, the banking though, well it was not so nice, I suddenly got to thinking about; how do these things actually stay up? In the next photo I am trying to hold the camera straight (in comparison to the aeroplane) ...... the horizon, well you can see, it is not exactly flat.... well it is flat but it has a great tilt to it and when I am so far above the ground that has a slightly disturbing effect.

Then the plane flew level again, through the blue sky over green paddocks. Isn't our God amazing to create all this! How beautiful it looks, I do wonder what land that had not been touched by man would look like though. We went flying at the perfect time, early in the morning and after two months of massive rainfall. All shades of green spread out below us. Each paddock differing slightly from those bordering it. The ugly grey scars of the mines really stood out though. It is such a pity they are necessary for our countries economy.

Below us, life went on.

We even flew through a cloud, not a huge one but enough that for a moment we were shrouded in grey. 

It seemed strange to be able to look down on other peoples lives; to look at their houses and all their property from above; to watch cars drive along the road, cattle, horses and sheep wander in their paddocks. 

I would do it again if I had the chance.

Have you been flying before?

In a big or small plane or in something else?

Did you like it? would you do it again?

Sausages are terrifying things are they not? Yes well okay they are not... they are really quite tasty. But, they can be scary too... and can attack quite ferociously if upset. You think a sausage would not get upset? I think they do really have all rights to after being cooked for a while in the oven.... I'd sure be upset if someone cooked me.... actually I'd be dead, and wouldn't be able to be upset. 

Anyway the sausages we buy don't have any preservatives so a lot of the fat actually comes out of them when we cook them... and it has to get out somehow. Normally it chooses to explode out when I am taking the hot tray of them out of the oven so I can turn them over. Hot fat sprayed all over your arms is not nice. Then of course if they do start spraying sausage guts everywhere I try put the tray down quickly which has ended up in me tipping the fat in the bottom of the tray on myself.. not a smart move. Really not a smart move... 

Another terrifying thing could be trying to get them out of the freezer without freezing, or falling in. Well the freezer isn't quite that big (Though I could fit in it) but if one has to get something out of the very bottom it can be quite a challenge. More so if the bag of sausages has decided to stick to the bottom or to another lump of meat. 

By far the most scary thing about sausages though is having to go and pick them up from a meat place.... what are they called... oh some obvious name that is eluding me at the moment.  That is a thing I was meant to do yesterday. I had thought it would be a little scary but fairly straight forward. I was just to get there at four and ask for the 15kg of  Fail Safe sausages the Farrellys' had ordered and pay for them... Oh but it was not to be so easy. 

In the end we can home with 5kg of sausages that cost a few more dollars per kg than we had previously paid.... and a rather confused me... I was asked lots of questions about the sausages and how often we bought them and how often we ate them and other stuff and if we wanted some now and that we could get them in smaller lots now.... we had only been able to get a minimum of 15kg before... I think. Now apparently  we don't need to get them ordered and made special as they have started selling them to other people..... all so confusing I had no idea what he was talking about some of the time. 


Well we got some sausages anyway... And that is why sausages are terrifying.... they are... but the people who make them are more so. I think I'm feeling a little crazy at the moment....  

~When I realize this is my 200th blog post!

~When Mummy says I only have eight more weeks of school left! Meaning eight more weeks being registered ,then the Board of Studies doesn’t care what I do, so I am no longer technically a student. But I shall still keep doing mostly the same things. And it does not mean I get to stop maths….mores the pity...... (less than eight weeks now)

~When Jane (my little sister) says “I will be 18 when Ann starts school”. I thought gosh that would make me …..

~When a friend of mine sends a photo of her holding one of her friends new baby… that is really scary.  

~When my dad comes home from work saying one of his friends wants me to do a photo shoot for his family! Exciting too, but scary.

~When I realize I can get my Ps in May

~When I spend two hours on the phone with a friend talking about when we were little and before she moved away, and about different times she has spent the day with me while being back here for a short time.

And if you wanted to know some other things I’m actually scared of or that make me scared…. This could be dangerous…. or maybe I'll just keep those things secret....

Snakes, well I hate them and I have had a few close encounters with deadly snakes, I certainly don’t go running screaming though. I want to destroy snakes. but then maybe I'm too scared of them to do that.... I tried once....and missed.... well actually I'm not sure I didn't stay around long enough to find out.

Bees burrowing into my hair....truly not a nice feeling especially when I'm expecting at every moment for one of them to sting me.

Huge bugs that I can’t identify, that keep flying around and around my head.  I fixed that problem by running and since no one else was there, no pride loss…. Except for the fact that I just wrote it there…. Which is probably a silly thing to do, but I shall be able to laugh even when there is no one else to laugh at, because I shall always have me to laugh at!

Hitting the ground. Falling would be fine if you knew you would never hit anything, it would be like flying really fast….I think. though I don't like the sound of flying fast towards anything....so unless I was in space.... never mind.