An image from my Flickr site

This is a small version of an image in my Flickr site.
Now to have a quick shower, get dressed and out for a quick drive to the Southern Highlands with E and Pasky. Maybe I will be lucky and find Bruce Chatwin’s “In Patagonia” at Bongbong Bookshop or at Berkelouw’s.

I return to writing this blog in the late afternoon. We did not go to the Southern Highlands but had to content ourselves with a trip to the mall. The day was drizzly and overcast. We did not feel like venturing farther. E now finds it a trial to drive when it’s dark. Incipient cataracts? It is a wake up call for me to consider taking driving lessons.

First we had lunch: a beef pide for E and a spinach and fetta one for me.

I bought toiletries, mainly for skin care. Increasingly cold days and nights as we uncoil time from autumn to summer mean skin becoming dry and flaky, lips cracked unless well moisturised. Even with moisturisers, skin may still suffer in any season here in this part of Australia because of the low humidity. In my rare holidays back in the Philippines, from my day of arrival my skin and hair benefit from the high humidity. It may be very steamy and I may perspire copiously but skin and hair glory in the extra moisture and feel smooth and silky straight from a shower. It is the same in tropical Queensland. When I see rainforests, I know that my skin and hair will be fine.

E meanwhile had gone to his favourite “Baker’s Delight”. I did not look at the bag he had when he came to join me but he usually buys an apple scroll. Sometimes I ask him to buy small spinach and fetta scrolls or sweet chili scrolls for me too.

We browsed at a newsagency which is where they sell newspaper, calendars, stationery, office and school supplies, magazines, small gifts, birthday supplies like confetti and paper cups and plates, lottery tickets. This one also has the ubiquitous Western Union sign that they do this business. There were discounted paperbacks, three for twelve dollars or four dollars ninety nine each. I controlled the urge to buy three. I controlled the urge to buy even one. I saw E looking at a couple. I reminded myself that I probably have more books than I can read in this lifetime.

On the way home I asked E to stop near the mailbox in front of the chemist’s (a pharmacy or drugstore) so that I could mail a couple of letters. Tonight I should write one for Cateel. My father most likely thinks that I don’t write him often enough. He said that a cousin who lives in the States wrote him and this cousin told me in an e-mail that he wrote her. I used to write home more often but these days leave it for weeks at a time.

I have an idea. I would like to start a group in Flickr about books, bookshops and anything to do with them. Maybe I should do a search for such a group first next time I visit the site. If there are groups about those then I can just join one of them. Or maybe I should include a book section in this blog or take out another blog account here or somewhere and dedicate that to books and bookshops.

From Nick Joaquin’s Almanac for Manileños

April 28

The image of the Santo Niño given by Pigafetta to Humabon’s queen is found by Legazpi’s men amid the ruins of Cebu: 1565.
(April 28 was the original fiesta of the Santo Niño de Cebu, as decreed by Legazpi.)
Founding of the University of Santo Tomas: 1611.
Arrest of Bonifacio in Indang, on Aguinaldo’s orders: 1897.
Liberation of Baguio from the Japanese: 1945.

Another Friday

Today I woke up and it was strange to be up so early when I have been keeping late nights and getting up usually later than seven thirty. I was excited to be up so early and immediately peeped out the blinds into the patio. There seemed to be a reddish glow outside. I got out of bed and took out my camera from the locker, whipping it out of its case as I made for the door.

What a sight greeted my eyes! It could not have been a more brilliant sunrise than if I had been back in tropical Philippines. My simmering homesickness settled into a mellow nostalgia for the rest of the day.

From Nick Joaquin’s Almanac for Manileños

April 27

The Battle of Mactan in which Lapu-Lapu triumphs and Magellan is killed:1521.
Legazpi and Urdaneta arrive in Cebu: 1565.
St. Zita, housemaid, patroness of domestic servants.

My Flickr site

You may see my photographs at flickr