this is my favourite print for the year ...  isn't it pretty  ... like a secret language

when will i learn ....!!

We have been boxing up the prints for the Garma Festival this week  - a ex-yirrkala local Aimee has came up from Byron Bay to run the Gapan Gallery out in the bush as she did last year and the year before, and the year before that - you get the drift .. it is so GOOD to have an experienced capable helpful hardworking person on board and she is nice to boot , thats been fun.

HOWEVER  .. yirrkala being yirrkala and nhulunbuy being nhulunbuy and remote being remote , well that just spells trouble - after having lost all my gear in melbourne and waited on paper to arrive for a month and emails and faxes that for some reason don't get through you might think that i would have learned to double and triple check everything ... i mean - i DO double check everything but did i check the boxes ...?

NO ...

I ordered way back in april 30 boxes of tubes - these are used to roll up the edition and take to the gallery site in the bush and give to the punters -  the 30 boxes i ordered arrived in may and were paid for and collected by Wanapa and DJ and put in the big shed at housing where they have been sitting quietly until needed ... alas - after aimee and i paxked 15 boxes of tubes we could not find any more boxes of tubes ... 15 boxes missing ...
phone calls made-  

please note that i did not panic - i hardly felt alarmed - i have developed a huge talent for dealing with situations like this now ...

so the long and the short of it is that the 30 boxes ordered turned out to be only 16 and no-one at the PO counted them and I in my naivety did not either   (one assumes ....) and the next time possibly another 15 boxes could be delivered is 2 weeks ...

so we have had to unpack 15 boxes from previous years and re-package the prints from this year and it is all O K    but still ... another lesson learned   the hard way ... again

i must remember -
never A S S U M E
makes an A S S out of  U and M E

ha!

not much of huge interest has been happening other than getting ready for Garma festival - 2 weeks and counting -  and the end of school holidays - and one month to BALI  whoopeee!  can't wait for a week of massage, food and markets ....  so good to have a change of scene, melbourne feels like forever ago and if i have to go to the beach one more time ....  in anycase ... here the best bogan shots ever of kade and his barramundi  .. these are possibly the worst photos ever but c'est la vie ...eat ya heart out corey !

 ( no not really corey ... )

Kade spent the weekend at Gangan - a homeland about three hours drive away where alot of our best artists live and work ... they took him to a crocodile infested river which looks simply amazing and there they caught barramundi and cooked it over the fire hangi style ...

eagle

barra 

bark collecting

dusty boy

we went to RainbowCliff for a look and flew a kite ...  Iggy was hilarious ...  We took some video - you can view it here - you just have to turn your head ninety degrees hah

rainbow cliff has a cliff but i couldn't see the rainbow.... thou this photo captured some unearthly glow 

Its pretty, and you can camp there, and its only 15 minutes drive from yirrkala

you should go there

my parents came to visit  .. we had a great time!  Did some beach things, some art centre things, some town things, some sneaky liquor permit things but mostly just hanging out things  ...  Since they left i have been super slack with blogging and keeping up to date which has a bit to do with work, some to do with school holidays, some tiredness and some beautiful weather that keeps me outside rather than in at the computer ...

i am trying to rectify the situation this weekend as Kade has gone to visit a homeland three hours away and so we are car-less and unable to get out ... but somehow yesterday went coz i got reading a book and today has gone coz i got distracted with skype, kids, washing .. the usual .....  but here i am at last and here, at last,  are some photos of their visit  ..

day at middle beach near town

dinner at the walkabout

grandparent duties

Dhapanbal and me at the press

bark painting anyone ....?

afternoon at middle beach near yirrkala

crocodiles

dinner

little bondi

surfs up

damper and tea

macassan's beach - view from the rocks

                            

freshwater swimming hole (kade jumped)

box kite .... made by Gramps .... drowned by Kade

that should just about do it ...  now off for a joint b'day party of a couple 5 year olds .. the fun just never stops