Doldrums

Everybody knows Tasmania is supposed to be cold, wet and miserable. And for a few weeks every year -- let's be honest -- yes, you get that.

They're not weeks-on-end sort of weeks. They're more like two days here, three days there, a day or two of brightness in between, then another three days. That kind of thing.

But when they happen around now, in the darkest part of the year when the sun doesn't even show his bastard face until 0730 or so... yep. Doldrums.

Cold, wet, grey and miserable yesterday. Elder Son and I extended his studies of poetry and poetic technique by going over Edgar Poe's "The Raven", which fit the mood of the day nicely. Changed my opinion of the poem, too -- I always thought it was an extraordinary work in terms of rhyme, rhythm and structure, but going over it closely has made me recognize the alliteration, imagery and symbolism in the piece as well. It's very, very clever writing -- still too mannered to make me feel the grief and depression it is intended to embody -- but such a carefully structured, minutely thought-out piece of work is remarkable and admirable in its own right.

Couple of visitors in the evening -- a fine young medical student that the Mau-Mau instantly adopted as her Flirt Target for the evening (it's scary to watch a three-year-old do that. How instinctive is this stuff?) and Dr C. We killed the odd bottle of wine, ate a hearty tomato and veg soup with pasta and spiced meatballs, finished off with home-made profiteroles (chocolate and coffee liqueur sauce), played a few games...

... but it was still wet, cold, grey and miserable when it was time to get out of bed this morning. And I've got a long afternoon and evening of martial arts to come.

Only one thing for it: order another twenty litres of bulk port from Grant Burge Wineries!

(Hint: the trick is to order twenty litres for about a hundred bucks, then put it into your own oak cask with maybe a half-litre of brandy as a what-the-hell addition. Six months later, it's brilliant. Three years later, if your port consumption isn't too brutal, it's absolutely astonishing.)