Winter Shake Up-

It is now very much the dead of winter in Tasmania and we have been having shocking storms. We received 10 - 20 cm of rain across the state in the last three days and there is still more to come.
Our front yard has so much water in it that all three dogs are confined to the house which is making for interesting little tasks related to the kitchen floor.

Seeing the dogs running about the yard trying to dodge raindrops that come down at the speed of sound is quite entertaining.  Towels await by the back door. Mop and bucket are nearby and thanks for old lino on the kitchen floor.

I am in a reading slump well and truly.  I tried to do too much, I tried to keep up with reading challenges, other people's blog ideas, web page links to bookish things and now I have decided that all I really want to do with the next half of the year is to be true to the Penguin who travels Tasmania in search of vintage Penguin books.

My Penguin book collection continues to thrive with a couple of good friends finding them for me on their trips to op shops. I will share some of the newer finds here in future.  I am not doing anymore challenges. I am not going to read from any lists. I am going to read as the mood strikes me. I am going back to my true nature.

I think book bloggers try to do too much.  I have now done about 240 posts to date so I feel I know what the book blogging world is about.  I am going to only read the books that grab me, like I used to do. They might be classics or they might be crime novels. They could be literary fiction, non-fiction or utter trash. I might just read short stories for awhile or magazines.

I am also going back to the format of the "Travellin' Penguin" in that we "travel".  Tasmania is a beautiful state and I am going to show it off more here with my scootering to Op shops and bakeries and mountains with the motorbike sect. It is a big part of my life and I am going to put those photos up. Sometimes there will be a book in the post, sometimes there won't.

I plan on turning my blog into more of a journal. A journal of seeing the world, reading the books I love, talking about the films I see and the plays I read in my play reading class.  Whatever strikes my fancy will be put on this page.

I have planned a trip to go to Melbourne because in the dead of winter one needs something to look forward to. I have rented a little studio apartment in the city centre for 6 nights and I plan on doing bookish and bikish (such a word?) things.    I am also going to see David Suchet (the man who plays Poirot in the BBC series) in the play The Last Confession. More on that later.

This blog will be with me on that trip and there will be photos.  I'm simplifying the blog, I'm simplifying my winter life here and for now I'm going back to the mop and bucket and the towels to finish drying off my very wet friends who share this house with me. Stay tuned, I will be back.