It is Christmas Eve and the Berliners are either in the shopping center purchasing Herring or snug inside their homes drinking grog and breaking Rye bread. I’m here, in Berlin, with my lovely cousins and my partner, whose luggage has got lost in transit. We share the front room with two fat and constantly fighting cats, Abigail and Renincki; they live on a carpet castle in the front room, where we sleep.
My German phrases include: ‘ich verstehe nicht’ and ‘bis dan’. I am also using words stolen by the English to spice up my conversational skills (or lack) – such as ‘wanderlust’ , ‘poltergeist’ and ‘Dummkopf’.
The Red Room is worlds away from the snow and this state of extreme calm that is created by cold weather and no mobile phone. I have left the work in the capable hands of our Patron, Bonny and Tamryn. The last week in The Room was heavy with sadness at our wonderful Ms Cassidy moving on to full time teaching work and then learning.
The marvellous news is that NSW Arts have provided us with funds towards a range of our projects for 2010. With this income we will be able to kick start the year at The Sydney Writers’ Festival and tour our ‘Sea Things’ exhibition. There was a moment of terror when we learnt the Australia Council’s Literature Board had rejected our application for funding and instead put all their eggs in one basket that wasn’t ours.
But,
right now, the lima beans are boiling and we’re about to begin the first of a series of baking cakes and gingerbread. The sounds here are of aluminium being scrubbed and soft socks on wooden floors and the occasional snap and pop of fireworks.
