Review of Majboor on the phillum blog.
The lead up to Christmas here is often exhausting, especially if you feel disinclined to shop as happened to me this year. On Friday evening I watched Majboor and wrote up the review. Saturday was taken up with shopping for gifts because I couldn't put it off any longer. I bypassed the malls and went to the outdoor Rocks Market which was fairly pleasant given that we are still having rather cold and cloudy days well into the summer. Then the packaging of gifts, the making of cards, the weekly grocery shopping, the weekly cooking, a fine tune of the Majboor piece and the weekend had just slipped away.
One important gift still remains. My niece is of an age (4) when she has been sucked completely into the world of Disney (something that alarms me but that's a separate story) and Ariel is a particular favourite of hers. Anyway a few months back we got talking about Ursula the Sea Witch who features in the animated series (naturally as a fat blue woman) and then somehow we got to the meaning of the name Ursula with my niece - a somewhat opinionated child - refusing to believe that it meant "little bear" because "you are very wrong Anu Periamma, Ursula is a sea witch!" Then she had one of those moments where she suddenly got what I meant (and I love these moments, its like watching a light suddenly shining in her mind!). This carries its own dangers because she became immensely preoccupied with Ursula and the potential of another story that featured a bear. Rashly I promised her a story of Ursula and the Bear to be delivered by Christmas but I have yet to start on it. Hopefully inspiration strikes soon otherwise I will have a somewhat disappointed niece on my hands.
The shopping trip was slightly sobering too. The markets were deserted and a girl at a stall told me that this year they would be making little or no profit during the crucial holiday season. In my suburb, the Eastern European man who opened a small store of cheap bed n bath stuff has seen no customers and has grown progressively sadder and more dishevelled. Perhaps it's fears of another financial crisis. Or perhaps everyone is online.
Speaking of which the highlight of my weekend was a trip to my favourite bookstore, Abbeys. A wave of pure happiness engulfs me in nice bookstores so I remain loyal to dead tree books and can't contemplate an electronic one. Ever :-)
And here are pictures of an Australian summer that has seen more rain and cold than the fabled sun of tourist brochures.
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