Just Beautiful!

I'm not quite sure what to do with a blogger award;
smile graciously;
say thanks heaps;
pass it on to other folk.

I received the 'Beautiful Blogger Award' from two American bloggers who I happenchanced upon through various means. What strikes me about reading blogs from around the world is that, once you sort through the dross and the advertising, a good blog records the human condition and no matter where you are in the world, we are talking about the same thing.

American/Puerto Rican/British/Indonesian/Scottish bloggers all have fights with their spouses, are completely over going to work, are in love with their local land and lore, need to know the secret of how to be human, how to get laid or fall in love or else they are fantasising about belting their teenagers over the head with a decent sized, cast iron fry pan. (As a therapist said once, "Wanting to do it is normal, darling. Do it, and I have to call community services.")

Anyhoo ... Vencora from 'coffee with a hint of self delusion' sent me this award. She's possibly just out of college and working now, trying to navigate life matters and writing about all the strange and curly things that go alongside that navigation. Another writer sent me the same award; Friend. She's from Chicago. Friend is a human being and she writes with refreshing honesty about what it's like to be part of the species. Sorry Friend and Vencora, for how long it has taken me to acknowledge your gift!

I'm passing on the Beautiful Blogger Award to some West Australian blogging women, and one exception.
Michelle, whom I often tag Seashell in my posts, is a painter. She is writing her doctorate, surfing our south coast and has just built her dream beach house with her partner Robin. Go and have a look at what she has to say! She will make you think ...
Our Sunshine runs a coupla blogs and this one is all about urban landscape architecture in Australia and what it's like to be a student of the RMIT in Melbourne. It's design, design, design. But sideways. Our Sunshine hails from the deep, deep south of Western Australia, the windswept fishing and wheat town of Esperence.
Wadgella Yorga, meaning 'white woman' in our local Menang language, writes a gorgeous rendition of living inland of the sea, but not quite in the deserts: a strong earthy connection to our water and land and critters in words and images. (And I just found her - and she's an Aunty/Sister in our convoluted Toa family tree and I didn't even know she was blogging. How cool is that?)
Sontag of 'The Optimist', is the only non-West Australian here (Victorian actually, honorary Tasmanian) but she has embraced our odd little W.A clique with constant says and support. Plus she has a wonderful birdwatcher's gallery and photographs of albino kangaroos and her fiction is awesome. Jealous. She's a writer who makes me think, "Shit, I wish I wrote that ..."

And now, for a completely gratuitous image of my main muse after our first day back at the fish markets -