My favourite things - this week

1. You may remember meeting Rose Wintergreen right here on divacultura.  Rose crowd-funded her album and I was very happy, willing and privileged to be able to contribute.  My favourite moment of week was reading about the release of her single, Feet in the Sand. You can read more and listen over on her blog.  What do you think?  I LOVE it!  If you like it too, pass it on!

2. This morning I set aside time to write a first draft of a book chapter that I'm collaborating with several other people on.  I'd had a few false starts in actually putting words down, but the ideas had been whirling around in my head for a while. I knew it was just a case of having a block of time and no distractions.  I put Bach's cello suites played by Yo-Yo Ma on the stereo and pretty soon I had exceeded the word requirement. I know that it's a first draft and now the task of editing and blending with my collaborators has to occur, but it is always thrilling to see ideas come to life on the screen/page. There's the additional excitement of discovering new insights as fresh connections are made.

3. I managed to get tickets for Sunday's AFL final match between my team, Richmond, and Carlton. Technically my friend got the tickets and they came with the news that we would need to hire a sherpa, take oxygen and leave now to get to our seats at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in time to watch the match.  I don't care!  I'm so excited.  Richmond hasn't played in the finals since 2001 and I've never been to a finals match at the MCG.  I figure you just have to do it!  As a consequence of actually going to the footy, I have had to put a hold on my lack of love for the colour yellow.  Richmond's colours are yellow and black and I just can't go without sporting my team colours.  I managed to snag the last ball of yarn in the perfect shade of yellow and figure I can knit a yellow and black beanie in time for Sunday's match.

4. My physio's declaration that it is possible for my knee to fully recover was definitely a good moment..  This made me very happy after struggling to zip my boots this morning.  (The angles were all wrong.)  Apparently my PCL (posterior cruciate ligament) has been stretched so far that it hasn't sprung back.  It's like an elastic band that has stretched too far.  Despite this, my physio is confident that with exercise and treatment it will regain its elasticity.  (My physio contributed another favourite moment when we were discussing the soreness in my left arm which had probably resulted from the fall that injured my knee.  The muscle I've hurt is called the "supraspinatus".  I heard her tell me I'd hurt my "super bananas". I felt lucky.  Imagine if it was my ordinary bananas!)

5.Waiting on platform 9 at Flinders Street Station today, I watched people on platform 10 running for the train.  Human beings move in some mysterious way:. the squat woman, struggling with several bags, her body engaged in multi-directional undulation; the neat Asian man wearing a backpack shuffling, Cliff Young style - not very fast but certainly tidy;  the confidence of the long-legged lunge of a besuited, bespectacled, bebearded man;  the weirdly stiff-legged gait of the man in too-skinny jeans; the small pointless steps of the woman in stilettos running for her life to catch that train; the hopeful striving of the wannabe medalist, slowing and slumping as hope fades that he can make it before the doors shut.

What was your favourite thing this week?