Despite always believing that I needed noise in order to write (the television was my number one companion in this endeavour), I am discovering another effective tactic: quiet.

I am just outside Lithgow in the Blue Mountains, where it is cold and clear and the only noises are ... well, actually they're the sound of the highway & some kinda low thrumming that is likely farming equipment. Or a lawn mower. Who can say? There are no lawn mowers where I live. There is, after all, no lawn.

I am in a hotel with broadband (??!!) & late check-out, so while my travelling buddy goes fishing, I can sit here and write. I only *just* managed to work out how to use the broadband, so consequently I've had a lot of time to write & listen to low thrumming and highway noise and now some kind of creepy-sounding bird.

Now and then I go outside because the sunlight is so tempting and I stand on the lawn and feel the sun on my hands. When the wind picks up I come back inside and write some more.

Fishing, I have discovered, is an intricate pursuit, requiring all sort of knowledge about winds and light and oceans and 'basins' and dams and water in general. It's a wonder we ever learned how tasty fish is, given how difficult their pursuit appears to be. I've learned that apparently the world tipped once upon a time, and the water reversed in a large, nearby river so that it flows to the ocean in the opposite direction to what it once did. And if you get close enough to the rocky walls along this river, you can see the marks of the old water flow. Like a ghost, I imagine it, a crease where a ghostly finger was dragged along the wall. I picture this ghost as massive and spindly, with two long arms that reached out either side as it rushes with supernatural intent all along the riverbeds.

Apart from imaginings, there is thankfully not a lot to do where I am. Only this and dipping into the sunlight now and then before seconding to a position under the real source of heat: the heater mounted high on the wall above me. The only way to improve on this weekend, I imagine, would be to have warmth AND air all at the same time.