We went on a Saturday morning around noon for a 2pm check in.
Aiming to arrive at circular quay around 12 noon, to meet up with (my cousins) for lunch and early island arrival so we could have more time on the island.

When we arrived there was somewhere for us to leave our things near the visitors center.
There is also a BBQ area, picnic spot and toilet all within 50m of the ferry terminal and visitors center making it very easy to not have to carry your things too far.

We brought a lot of things. It was 2 adults and 2 kids (myself and Nonnie + the kids)
And I had hired an "extra mat" for $15 because I thought the tent came with 2 mats and 2 chairs. Turns out that was a 4th mat so I gave the mat for Nonnie to have a double mat.

It was a foam mat, and I was told they're insulating on a cold floor and its totally true - I was very toasty warm all night.

Wendy and May 2 were small enough to sleep end to end both in the same sleeping bag and like feet to feet, as the bag had 2 zips so I could unzip the bottom. Wendy used her sleeping bag (I had brought 1 very large bag per kid : it can last until they are 14ish) as a pillow in the end.
And I placed Wendy by the zipper door telling her "She's the big sister and can make sure we all stay in for the night and she was happy with that explaination.

You can't bring a camp stove to cook, but there is a BBQ site with utensils connected to the actual BBQ for the campers. There is a large fridge which fills quickly because everyone leaves their food in their cooler bag and just shoves it into the fridge. The site wasn't full so this could be a problem if it was.

There's also lots of large picnic tables, under a cover with trees that have fairy lights on them for ambiance, a hot water urn that seems to be on 24/7 and 2 microwaves and a large 6 slice but 3 button toaster.


There's also hot showers that are quite spacious - but my only complaint is that out of the 6 stalls only 2 had toilet with the shower in it. There's multiple other sets of toilets on the island, one of which is near the visitor center that is about 150m away

They lit a shared campfire aruond 6pm
and played a movie in a mini theater around 7pm (kid friendly)
and a more adult movie around 9pm.

There were party boats going around the island playing very loud music, lots of kids staying up late riding their bicycle and etc.

And it seemed like a lot of helicopters going overhead. At midnight! And they fly so low - it woke Wendy up and she wanted to go pee despite having a night nappy on.

May2 slept well. She initially fell asleep on the train ride over so her day nap was all of 20 mins
and then no more sleeping at all so at about 730pm in the movie cinema she fell asleep.

So the plan was:
5PM: dinner and Pete took home a large backpack full of extra food I'd brought or my cousins brought and we wouldn't need for breakfast) at
6pm we did the marshmellows on the fire. Hot tip, bring ur own sticks from home its very hard to find sticks on the island. I brought skewers but they were rather short for the kids so I did it. Would have been better with longer sticks.

6:30ish pM brush teeth and "shower" (which in hindsight was a little cruel because it was a little cold. But it is hot water... then you get that clean feeling. I ended up not having time to actually try the hot shower because we ran out of time somehow. So I ended up just showering at home when we got back..
19:00 Movie.

Someone had brought popcorn to the cinema and while I had prepared a bag of microwave popcorn, we'd just brushed their teeth so I left it. Wendy loves popcorn. In the end though May2 looked dehydratedish so I made the hot chocolate i had planned to make for them and Wendy drank a huge cup of it. By the time I brought it, May2 was asleep already so that didn't work and no we didnt rebrush Wendys teeth.

Movie finished around 830pm and I carried May2 back in my arms down this large hill all the way to the tent and managed to put her in a sleeping bag. She stirred a little but went right back to sleep.

In the morning they had cerial because that's what they wanted. I also had bread cause hello! Toaster. I could see and smell people cooking a lot of bacon and eggs on the BBQ. Some even had egg rings and were totally toasting the bread on the bbq also. Maybe next time.

Eventually we packed up, went one more trip around the island via the tunnel I missed out on the day before and then took the ferry back. What I had expected to be a relaxing arvo putting the house back together turned out to be a rush to Indo school as due to ANZAC weekend next weekend, they're not doing class next week, - but instead are doing it this week.

Ibu Andy made nasi kuning and ayam goreng and they even gave me takeaway which became May2 dinner and my lunch for tomorrow. She remembered I said I like emping and she had made some of that also. Luckily I came to school!

Nonnie wanted to know what I would have packed differently - nothing but I would have preferred to have had a trolley instead of the shopping bag, but I dont know how one would go transfering from train platforms with large gaps and if any have breaks for use on hills.
Because that was a bit difficult to manage- the hiking pack and the kids backpacks and a dinner trolley. And no pram and may2 had fallen asleep on the train so at one point I was carrying, the pack, the kid and a nice lady helped take the trolley off the train for me.

Title: Learning the Steps
Author: Beatrice_Otter
Fandom: The Goblin Emperor
Pairing: Csethiro/Maia
Written for: dontstophernow in fffx 2025
Rating: Teen
Length: 10k
Summary: As the wedding day approaches, Csethiro and Maia get to know each other better

At AO3. On Squidgeworld. On Dreamwidth. On tumblr. On Pillowfort.

AN: The Tale of the Loathly Lady is a real story which crops up in Arthuriana and other places. It's the Wife of Bath's tale in the Canterbury Tales, and it was told on its own as Gawain and Lady Ragnell.

***

The original proposal—Csethiro did not know who had made it, whether her father or the Emperor or some nameless secretary—was for the wedding to take place on Nan'desazh, the spring lambing festival. This was the most auspicious date for a wedding in the whole year; unfortunately, it was also a mere three months after the contracts had been signed, and there was simply no way to arrange things in time. Csethiro was not often grateful to her stepmother, but she was in this; the Marquise Ceredaran had flatly refused to contemplate so early a date.

The spring equinox had been suggested instead; it was almost as propitious as Nan'desazh, and would give them an extra month to plan. Besides, there was a certain symmetry in it; Edrehasivar had been crowned just before the fall equinox, and his birthday was the winter solstice, and so to marry him on the spring equinox seemed to Csethiro (and many others at court) to be a harbinger of good fortune.

It was still ruinously short. The preparations for Csoru's wedding had taken a full year.

( Read more... )

A major new history from the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Founding Brothers and the National Book Award winner American Sphinx, on how America’s founders—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams—regarded the issue of slavery as they drafted the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. In this daring and important work, our most trusted voice on the founding era reckons with the realities and regrets of our founding and the tragedy of its two great the failure to end slavery and the failure to avoid Indian removal.

“How does it appear in the sight-of-heaven,” wrote Samuel Hopkins of Newport, “that these States, who have been fighting for liberty, cannot agree in any political constitution unless it indulge and authorize them to enslave their fellow men.”

On the eve of the American Revolution, half a million enslaved African Americans, many in place for several generations, were permanently embedded in the North American population. The slave trade was flourishing, even as the thirteen colonies armed themselves to defend against the idea of being governed without consent. This paradox gave birth to what one of our most trusted and admired historians, Joseph J. Ellis, calls the “American Dilemma.” How could a government that had been fought for and founded on the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence institutionalize slavery? How could it permit a tidal wave of western migration by settlers who understood the phrase “pursuit of happiness” to mean claiming Indian land?

In The Great Contradiction, Ellis, with narrative grace and a flair for irony and paradox, addresses the questions that lie at America’s twisted roots—questions that turned even the sharpest minds of the revolutionary generation into mental contortionists. He discusses the first debates around slavery and the treatment of Native Americans, from the Constitutional Convention to the Treaty of New York, revealing the thinking and rationalizations behind Jay, Hamilton, and Madison’s revisions of the Articles of Confederation, and highlights the key role of figures like Quaker abolitionist Anthony Benezet and Creek chief Alexander McGillivray.

Ellis writes with candor and deftness, his clarion voice rising above presentist historians and partisans, who are eager to make the founders into trophies in the ongoing culture wars. Instead, Ellis tells a story that is rooted in the coexistence of grandeur and failure, brilliance and blindness, grace and sin.

For such a short book, it delves into two of the most intriguing questions of the Revolution: why was slavery permitted to continue, and why the indigenous population’s removal allowed. They would be the two greatest failures of the revolutionary generation.

Though more of the book focuses on the subject of slavery, both issues are given thorough examination, being the “great contradiction” of the American founding and early history. The founders would declare that all men are created equal, while preserving slavery. They would declare their freedom from a tyranny that they would then use to allow the genocide of the indigenous population.

One can argue that the Union could never have been created if the southern colonies had not been allowed to keep their slaves. That the new government didn’t have the martial strength to hold back the tide of rapacious settlers as they swarmed over native land. Both are true. But not only would nothing be done about the issues, but laws would be passed that would make both issues worse.

The main characters on both sides of each issue are examined. Their motives would be concisely analyzed to the best of the author’s knowledge. It would seem that the contradiction was both political and personal.

The book is a truly compelling read.




Mount TBR 2026 Book Links


Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky
2. Four Past Midnight by Stephen King
3. The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas
4. The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon/a>
5. Moon Flower by James P. Hogan
6. The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace by H.W. Brands
7. Fires of Eden by Dan Simmons
8. Clytemnestra's Bind (House of Atreus 1) by Susan C Wilson
9. Glory and the Lightning. by Taylor Caldwell
10. Into the Ice: The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery by Mark Synnott
11. Regeneration (Regeneration 1) by Pat Barker
12. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
13. A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher
14. Thinner by Richard Bachman
15. The Voyage Home (Women of Troy #3) by Pat Barker
16. The Girl in the Green Glass Mirror by Elizabeth McGregor
17. Helen's Judgement (House of Atreus 2) by Susan C. Wilson
18. The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding by Joseph J. Ellis

I have had recs from several recent exchanges, but haven't actually posted them. So! Here we go.

Five Figure Fanwork Exchange is the most recent! I received two fics, both of them lovely:

a star or two beside (5070 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Maia Drazhar, Chenelo Drazharan, Shaleän Sevraseched, Shaleän Sevraseched's Wife, Ursu Perenched, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Chenelo Lives, Alternate Universe - Maia Has a Good Childhood, POV Multiple, sailing ships, References to Illness
Summary:

It is something out of a wonder-tale when a stranger arrives at Isvaroë and whisks Maia and his mother away.

Before, After, Always, Already (9151 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kira Nerys/Keiko O'Brien/Miles O'Brien
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Post-Canon Bajor (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
Summary:

Keiko was over Miles's shoulder in the video message. "Hi, Nerys!" she said. She looked the same, too, although her hair was up, and she was in uniform. "We're moving to Bajor!"

Other faves from FFFX include:
( Five Figure Fanwork Recs )

 

( AU5k Rec )

( Fic In A Box Recs )

Title: DVD Commentary: I Was Out Here Listening All The Time.
Author: lannamichaels
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Series: Part 12 of Are You Out There, Can You Hear This?
Rating: G
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: The chronicles of the Komarran forum fic.


( Author commentary! )

The online memorial for minoanmiss (Ny/Rubynye) will take place tomorrow - Sunday, April 12, 1:00PM EDT (GMT -4).

Zoom link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83615091699?pwd=Goa5p0EbNbbl2Msd2GAQscu5uyWttd.1
Meeting ID: 836 1509 1699
Passcode: MinoanNy

You can sign up at the link below to indicate if you'll be attending:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0448A8A62BA6FBC34-63233152-nys/195490464#/

Helen’s Judgement tells the epic story of Greek mythology’s most scapegoated Helen of Troy.

Haunted by her decision to leave her child behind when she fled her unhappy marriage, Helen seeks to build a new life in Troy with her lover, Paris. She yearns to recreate the childhood family she lost when she married Menelaus, but her outraged husband vows to regain her by force, at the head of a vast army.

Facing hostility from all sides, Helen must decide where her loyalty—and her safety—lies.

At first thought, a reader might think that a book about Helen would be more interesting than a book about her sister, Clytemnestra. After all, the entire Trojan War centers on Helen and the decisions she made. But that didn’t turn out to be the case.

While Clytemnestra’s life was filled with tragedy, Helen, until her affair with Paris, lives a rather sedate life. Even with the author adding to Helen’s life (there’s really very little actually written about the woman,) she’s remains something of a cypher. Her reasons for leaving with Paris, who comes off even more shallow than Helen, aren’t very good ones. I was completely surprised by the change from what actually has been written about her.

The parts of the book that switch to Achilles’ POV are only slightly better, as he’s only a slightly better person. Rather petulant, he brings about his own tragedies. Usually I’m more moved by the death of Patroclus, but here it was given rather short shrift.

The books are advertised as a trilogy, so I’m hoping that the rest of Clytemnestra’s story will be told. Unless that, too, is radically changed, Agamemnon is in for a surprise.




Mount TBR 2026 Book Links


Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky
2. Four Past Midnight by Stephen King
3. The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas
4. The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon/a>
5. Moon Flower by James P. Hogan
6. The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace by H.W. Brands
7. Fires of Eden by Dan Simmons
8. Clytemnestra's Bind (House of Atreus 1) by Susan C Wilson
9. Glory and the Lightning. by Taylor Caldwell
10. Into the Ice: The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery by Mark Synnott
11. Regeneration (Regeneration 1) by Pat Barker
12. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
13. A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher
14. Thinner by Richard Bachman
15. The Voyage Home (Women of Troy #3) by Pat Barker
16. The Girl in the Green Glass Mirror by Elizabeth McGregor
17. Helen's Judgement (House of Atreus 2) by Susan C. Wilson

Catherine Sergeant is adept at going through the motions. After losing her parents at an early age, she buried her grief in the study of antiquities. Now, deserted by her husband without warning or explanation, she reports to work at Pearson’s auction house, exchanging pleasantries with colleagues, never revealing her pain. Cocooned in loneliness, she couldn’t be more surprised to find herself opening up to a total stranger—a new client, no less.

In widowed architect John Brigham, Catherine finds a kindred spirit. The two share a fascination with Richard Dadd, an early Victorian painter who lived most of his life incarcerated in an insane asylum. There he produced his most stunning works—works that have deeply moved Catherine and now draw her inexorably to John. Soon the two are falling in love.

The reawakening of passion in a woman like Catherine is more than John ever hoped for. But when she discovers his possession of an unknown Dadd, it is just the first in a series of revelations that leave her wondering if she knows this man who has shown her life’s true beauty. For John, it may be a last chance to free himself from the priceless secrets he has been harboring too long. Secrets about a soul laid bare on canvas, and a legacy that could shatter all he holds dear in the space of a heartbeat…

I decided to read this book because I loved The Ice Child so much. This book has the same lyrical writing and intriguing characters that made the first book so wonderful. There is Catherine and John, of course, but even Robert, Eilzabeth’s husband, and Helen, John’s sister, bring much to the story. All four have their flaws, some deep and disturbing, yet they are integral to the story.

There is much researched involved here, as Richard Dadd actual existed. He really did spend most of his life in an insane asylum. He really did create most of his work there. It adds much to the book, the way the past and present work off each other. Just how deeply is Dadd’s legacy intwined into John’s life? Will its secrets destroy John’s chances with Catherine?

Dadd’s work is really rather creepy and not at all to my taste, so I couldn’t totally understand Catherine and John’s fascination with his work. And because so much does stay hidden through most of the book, I have the feeling that this book won’t be for everyone. It is more thoughts than actions as it comes to its inevitable ending.




Mount TBR 2026 Book Links


Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky
2. Four Past Midnight by Stephen King
3. The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas
4. The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon/a>
5. Moon Flower by James P. Hogan
6. The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace by H.W. Brands
7. Fires of Eden by Dan Simmons
8. Clytemnestra's Bind (House of Atreus 1) by Susan C Wilson
9. Glory and the Lightning. by Taylor Caldwell
10. Into the Ice: The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery by Mark Synnott
11. Regeneration (Regeneration 1) by Pat Barker
12. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
13. A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher
14. Thinner by Richard Bachman
15. The Voyage Home (Women of Troy #3) by Pat Barker
16. The Girl in the Green Glass Mirror by Elizabeth McGregor




A Color In the Title






APRIL - Mirror, Mist, Party, Stray, Light, People, Everlasting, Spell




APRIL- Alliteration Appreciation - Read a book with repeating sounds or letters in the title.

I use the same name everywhere so I am beatrice_otter on AO3. Treats are awesome.

I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am not inspired that way." This letter is long with lots of suggestions and preferences if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for a long time and am usually very happy with my gifts.

The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.

I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.

( General Likes and Dislikes )

( Crossovers )

( Rivers of London )

( SWOT )

( DS9 )

( Moon Knight )

( Enterprise )

( TNG )

( TOS )

( Voyager )

2011; 2012; 2013; 2014; 2015; 2016; 2017; 2018; 2019; 2020; 2021; 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

Once again I used flamebyrd's bookmarklet to download all pages of the works list and then shoved them together using the command prompt, with the wonderful (?) experience this year of ao3 putting me in Bot Time Out around page 45ish of just opening them in tabs a few at a time, downloading, opening a few more...

Oh well. ( Read more... )