Another of those short, late night, meeting my obligations and little else posts, I'm afraid. I've made a bit of a habit of it this week, I know, but in my defense, we've been absolutely booked solid. Today we were out of e house at 8.30 this morning, and only got back about half an hour ago (it's currently 11.17pm). This is a big day by any standards, it's a particularly big day for a toddler, but Toby has been a complete champion about it. Today's highlight was watching him and his two cousins in the bath together at my parent's house. There was splashing, and squealing in abundance. And I got soaked, even though I was standing a solid three feet away from the edge of the tub.

I should also take this opportunity to apologise for the largish number of typos In the last few blogs. Ive been blogging from the iPad which, while I still love it to pieces, isn't the most accurate keyboard in the universe.

Last night we had the Perth launch for Skyfall at the Fremantle Childrens Literature centre. I want to do a proper post about this sometime in the next few days, so I wont say anything more here apart from the fact that it was a lovely evening. With a very big surprise for me included.

Anyway, that's my token effort for tonight. Off to bed now, another big day tomorrow.

Cheers all,

Happiness is a Warm Gun

Lennon was being ironic, of course, and not without good reason.

I've never been a gun person. Never really got the whole fascination with firearms thing like a lot of other people, especially guys. When the other boys my age were drawing guns, I was generally drawing airplanes. As an adult, I think its reasonably safe to say that I'm anti-guns. Min and I are agreed on the fact that we won't be buying toy guns for Toby, or even really anything resembling a gun. During our visit to the USA last year, one of the most confronting things for me was watching a little girl getting measured up for her first handgun, in an outdoor store in Texas. She can't have been older than ten or eleven, and the idea of inculcating somebody into 'gun culture' at so young an age is a difficult one for me to come to terms with.

So no, not into guns.

But, I'm also a writer, and currently working on a book I which my protagonist is intimately familiar with weapons of all sorts, including guns.

Which, naturally, poses some problems.

The main one being that, while I'm writing the book in such a way as not to glorify gun use, I still feel very strongly that its the responsibility of a writer to get the details correct - my character uses a handgun, on more than one occasion. I've already written one of the scenes in which this happens, and like always, I did some homework before writing it: a lot of reading up on various types of guns, calibre of ammunition, weights, recoils, type and shape of grip, number of bullets in the magazine, that sort of thing. But, when push came to shove, the scene just didn't rIng true. All the reading in the world wasn't enough to tell me what it feels like to fire a handgun, especially a weapon designed for one purpose only - to kill or injure another human being.

So, this morning, I took myself to a shooting range here in Perth, hired a Ruger 9mm automatic pistol - the same model that I'd chosen for my character, was taught the basics of handgun handling and operation, and then left alone to blast away at some targets.

And, despite my misgivings, I'm glad I did it. For a number of reasons.

Firstly, the physical sensation was nothing like I'd expected. The feel of the gun in my hand, the leap of the recoil, the concussion of the noise, the smell of the gunpowder, the smell of gun oil, the satisfying 'ka-ching' of the spent cartridge ejecting from the firing chamber, the pleasure of seeing a hole punched in your target downrange.

Yes, I'll admit it: I actually enjoyed the experience.

Firing a handgun is a tactile experience, and a powerful one. There's implicit menace and danger in that lump of metal, and when you pick it up off the bench, slot home the magazine and release the safety, there's an odd feeling of implicit power, even in the controlled environment of a shooting range.

I'm also glad I went because of what I learned, and that the whole point of doing research, when all is said and done. By the time I'd shot off my 30 rounds, and then had a good chat to both the range technician and the range manager, I realized that I'd given my character the wrong gun, for the wrong purpose, and based on wrong interpretation of what I'd read. I'm going to be reworking those scenes in my book when get home next week.

I'm also glad I went because it gave me an unexpected respect for the people who handle and use weapons as part of their day to day lives: the police, the military. I never really understood, at a visceral level, how much those sort of jobs include the power of life and death. I know for certain now that I could never point a weapon like that at someone and pull the trigger, or probably even cope with the possibility that I might have to.

So, all in all, a valuable and interesting experience.

Am I still anti gun? Yes. Perhaps even more so. Especially small, concealable, automatic weapons like the one I fired today.

Am I still anti gun-people? Not so much. I won't be rushing back to the firing range, or taking up Olympic shooting, but at least now I can understand, to a degree, some of the appeal.

Kids, Family, Holidays and Sliding

We just got back from three hours in "Kidz Paradise" with Toby, his two cousins, one of my sister's Perth friends and her three kids, all under the age of 5. Aside from the fact that the proprietors can't spell 'Kids', it was a lot of fun.

Three hours of climbing, bouncing, sliding, ball pits, more climbing, running, climbing, sliding and bouncing.

And the kids were quite active, too.

There's that old biblical saying - you know the one; 'When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.' (1 Corinthians, 13:11)

Now, far be it from me to contradict the bible* but I don't think that the people responsible for Corinthians factored in 'Kidz Paradise', because I have to tell you, I suspect that I had more fun than Toby. In fact, it's fair to say that as soon as we were through the gate, my childish ways came storming back with avengence.

Of course, someone had to keep a close eye on Toby. And help him through the ball room. And up the climbing net. And down the ceiling-height tube slide. Even if he didn't think he wanted to go.

And, after all, what are fathers for?

You know the best bit? Adults were free! It cost us $7.00 for Toby, not a cent for me.

So I'm thinking of going back tomorrow, without the kids...

Actually, jokes aside, it has to be said that I wasn't the only person above 5 years of age crawling around in that playground maze. There were an awful lot of fathers, and mothers, and various other adult role models in there too. And they all seemed to be having just as much fun as I was. And watching us all, I realised that it was so much fun not just because it gave us an excuse to revisit our childhood, but it was an excuse to revisit our childhood with our own kids - and to share in theirs.

And so while, for the most part, I have put aside my childish ways, I'm also kinda pleased to discover that having a Toby in my life gives me an excuse to revisit them, every now and then.

I'm still thinking of going back tomorrow without him, though ;)

*actually, this is something of an overstatement. I've been known to contradict the bible on a couple of occasions. I haven't been smited for it, either. Yet. I'm told it's just a matter of time...

They say you can never go home again...

So we're back in Perth, where we (well, Min and I) grew up and, as always, it's lovely to be back again.

Thinking about it this afternoon, it occurred to me that it's been about 18 months since I was last here. This is the longest time I've been away from Perth since I was 10 years old. And it's rather odd, coming back after so long. It's still home, of course, it's still a place I know more intimately than anywhere else in this big, wide world, still a place I love, still one of the most stunning spots you could ever hope to end up. This morning we had our breakfast at Cottesloe beach, which was glowing in the morning sunlight, the Indian ocean its usual, unique deep blue. Twenty kilometers across the channel, Rottnest island crouched on the horizon. We've got a cottage booked there in December for a week - a WA traditional holiday.

As I say, stunning.

But, strangely, this Perth - the one we flew into last night isn't the city where I grew up, and today I realized that for the first time.

Seeing Perth today was like looking at something terribly familiar, but just slightly skewed - the elements of the place, the fundamentals and the essentials are all still there, but somehow now it just feels ... Different. It's still home, but not completely. Or not In the same way, perhaps.

Not sure exactly why this is, or if it'll fade as this week goes on, but it's interesting.

Anyway, it's now 11.30 at night ( see, told you I'd post every day, if possible. How's that for dedication?) it's been a long day and I'm pretty certain this post is one of the least coherent I've ever done, , so I'm going to turn the light out and hit the sack.

Night everyone, wherever you are.

If We Could Have a Holiday...

Actually, we can!

As of 5.00pm this afternoon, I'm on holidays! For a whole week.

Tomorrow night, Imogen, Toby and I fly out for Perth, where we'll spend the week with our respective families.

The reason for this little jaunt is that my sister, Sue, who lives in Texas with her family, is out visiting for a few weeks with her two little girls, so it's a great opportunity to get all the kids in the family together in the one place with some of their grandparents. They arrived in Perth yesterday, after a marathon 28ish hours on planes, all the way from Houstin to Perth, via L.A and Sydney. It makes tomorrow night's flight for us look like a doddle. (Especially when you consider that Sue did the trip solo, travelling with a 3 year old and a 1 year old and no sedatives.)

It's one of the difficult things about this modern world, actually - my poor parents have three grandkids at present - two who live in the USA and one in Canberra. Actually, in part this is the nature of life in Perth - it's one of the most lovely places in the whole world, but also one of the most isolated, and as a result, young people tend to move away from it, especially when they're building careers and /or families which can often take them to far-flung corners of the world. Or Canberra. And as much as I love our life here in the nation's capital, especially during election season, I do regularly regret the fact that my folks don't get regular 'Toby time'. If nothing else, we could use the free babysitting.

Luckily, though, there's always skype, and so Toby does at least get to see and talk to Grandma Margie and Poppa Dave (they picked the names, not me) regularly. And my mother has become an absolute master of the "Skype Toddler Game" - the things she can come up with to play across a computer link have to be seen to be believed.

So it'll be a lovely week. We've got my youngest niece's Christening, the booklaunch for Daywards, a trip to the zoo, and just a lot of general hanging out and being a family to look forward to.

And, of course, blogging. (Now that Trish has put the pressure on for me to see this thing through properly.... ;)

I'm also going to fire a handgun. But more about that next week.

In any case, we're just about ready to go. This afternoon I downloaded an entire series of 'The Wiggles' onto my iPad, which I'm hoping will help all of us get through the flight. (We generally enforce a 'no screens' rule with Toby, so this should be a real treat. Or at least enough to stop him trying to climb onto the other passengers. Fingers crossed.)

So wish us luck. I won't be blogging tomorrow - screen free and intracontinental saturday and all that - but I'll shoot a few posts in from Perth.

Cheers, everyone.

India Dark

It's always an incredible honour when someone asks you to launch their book for them. Especially so when that someone is a writer who you've admired for years.

Which is why I'm really thrilled to have been invited to launch India Dark, by the incredible Kirsty Murray.

I first met Kirsty almost exactly a decade ago, at the Western Australian Premier's Literary Awards in 2000, when her book Zarconi's Magic Flying Fish and my first novel The Darkness were both on the shorlists. It was a good night, and we both came away winners, which always adds to the evening.

We've kept in touch ever since, and a month or so back, I was delighted to accept her invitation to launch her latest novel India Dark, here in Canberra in August.

Kirsty is a beautiful writer, and I've got my spanky new copy of India Dark sitting here on the desk beside me. I haven't started it yet, but am taking it away on holidays with me next week, and will read it then. It looks fantastic, and I cannot wait to get into it.

In the meantime, if you're in or near Canberra on the evening of Friday the 20th August, then please come along and help us send this book out into the big wide world. The details are:

Venue: Asia Bookroom, Unit 2, 1-3 Lawry Place, Macquarie, ACT
Time: 6.00 - 8.00pm
RSVP: email books@Asiabookroom.com or phone (02) 6251 5191 before Wed 18th August.

It'll be a great evening.

In Training

This one is primarily for Darcy, who made the very salient observation in response to this post last week that 'Trains are Always Cool.'

Indeed they are.

Especially if you're 19 months old, it would appear.

In response to our son's current obsessive affair with all things locomotive, and in an effort to utterly wear him out on a rainy saturday afternoon, last weekend we took him to visit Cockington Green Gardens. You may now snigger at the name, if you wish.*

Now, Cockington Green isn't for everyone. Imogen has fond memories of being regularly taken there as a child by her Grandmother, every time they visited Canberra. When we visited, the general crowd fitted into three categories:

1. Grandparents with their grandkiddies.

2. Parents with their kiddies.

3. Perplexed Indian Tourists.

It's a bit difficult to describe Cockington Green, except to say that it is, perhaps, one of the oddest places I've ever visited. There are lots of lovely, beautifully tended, English cottage-style gardens, all filled with miniature buildings. Miniature windmills. Miniature houses. Miniature villiage greens, soccer matches, canal locks complete with barges, a miniature hedge maze, miniature stonehenge, even a *bizarre* miniature tableau of what appeared to be four policemen burying someone alive while watched by a Franciscan Monk.**

And, of course, miniature railways.

Running between the tiny towns and buildings are tiny railways, of various scales and types, ranging from little steam trains to a funicular railway up an embankment, to a high-speed British intercity train, right up to the granddady of them all; a ride-on, gas-fired steam engine, which putters around the gardens at a suitably sedentary pace.

As you can imagine, Toby loved it:

The Miniature Steam Train. You can see Toby and Imogen at the back of the first carriage. They wouldn't let me drive it. Yet...

He especially loved the ride along train which, being steam-powered, made all the right hissing, chuffing and whistling noises. His father was rather impressed with this, too.

I should confess my longer term fascination with model railways here: My grandfather, on dad's side, had the most awesome miniature railway set, mounted on an enormous table which winched away into the roof of his garage. It was a proper miniature gauge railway, with stations and points, and tunnels, and sidings and a dozen small engines and rolling stock. There was even a train with a mail car that automatically snatched miniature mailbags from the a tiny gantry hanging at the end of one of the tiny station. When Grandad Percy fired up the train set - that was hours of entertainment, right there.

After he died, the trainset got pulled apart and passed around a little bit until it ended up with my dad, but we didn't have room to set it up, so it's currently in its component parts - most of the rolling stock still in their original boxes, because that's the sort of bloke my Grandfather was - in the attic at mum and dad's house. One day, when I have a house with enough rooms, I've got every intention of bringing that train set back to life.

In the meantime, there's Cockington Green...

The upshot of all this is that, at the end of our visit, we bought season passes. That's right. Unlimited entry. To the tiny village place with the semi-obscene name, the bizarre miniature cops-burying-people-alive scenario and the little trains. We only have to visit one more time to make it pay for itself. And besides, I'm hoping that if I take him there often enough, they'll let me drive the steam train, thus not only making the passes super-worthwhile, but also enabling me to live out one of the archetypal childhood fantasies.

So, if anyone's coming to Canberra and fancies a ride on a little steam train, shoot me an email...

* I know I sure did.

** It occurs to me now that I should have got a photo of that one. Perhaps next time...