June 2025 – in review

A month of books, TV, movies, performances, happenings on the farm.

Read – Some Day is Today by Matthew Dicks

Have you noticed I’ve hardly blogged over the past few years? Well, this post is my second in two weeks (not six months). I’m on a roll.

Reading Some Day is Today is the kick up the pants I needed to get writing and put it out there.

If you have a desire to create, there’s no excuse.

Author Matthew Dicks is known as an epic storyteller. He’s nerdy and eccentric, but successful in following his passion. He’s both relatable and inspirational.

Some Day is Today is full of interesting anecdotes about how Matthew overcame challenges. He organised every aspect of his life to achieve his creative and life goals. There’s advice on career choice, decision-making, relationships, and time management right down to minutes taken to unpacking your dishwasher.

Narrated by the author, it’s an easy and engaging listen on Audible or Spotify.

Watched – Murderbot (Apple TV)

A TV adaptation of the science fiction series by Martha Wells (comedy/action/sci-fi).

I’d never read a science fiction book. I asked hubby for a recommendation, as he only ever reads this genre. He suggested Martha Wells’ The Murder Bot Diaries. Immediately engrossed, I marathon-read the entire series. So, I was excited to get into Murderbot when it came out on Apple TV.)

The protagonist, who calls ‘itself’ MurderBot, is a rogue, but benevolent, ‘self-governing’ security unit. A ‘synthetic’. It’s assigned to guard a team of human researchers somewhat naive to the realities of a universe of exploitable resources. Observing its charges, MurderBot grapples to understand human nature with all its messiness, duplicity, desire and emotion. Trouble usually ensues when MurderBot indulges its addiction of sneakily binge-watching its favourite human soapie TV series, Sanctuary Moon. This provides MurderBot with more questionable insight into the nature of humanity.

Light-hearted in bite-sized episodes.

Cinema – The Salt Path

Based on a true story by author Raynor Winn, this movie stars Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.

The couple are beset with challenge and heartache. They’ve lost their home and livelihood, and the husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness. So they set off on a yearlong hike around the wilds of coastal south-west England. Why wouldn’t you?

Bleak and desperate are two words I’d use to describe the first half of this movie. There were a few lighter moments and the cinematography is glorious.

The Salt Path is about bravery, overcoming challenges, and most importantly identifying your life’s priorities. In this case – relationships and a connection with nature.

The movie was ultimately life-affirming and reignited my bucket list desire for a long hiking holiday. An unexpected theme about sustainable living also came through, which of course I completely related to.

Live show – Tales from the Climate Era

When I lived in Sydney, going to the Belvoir Street Theatre was a treat, so when this theatre company visited my new country hometown, I had to go.

The traveling production Tales of the Climate Era was a series of skits about climate change. How companies, governments, communities and individuals are grappling to understand. Asking questions – is it real? Should we do something? If it is real, when would it be over?

It could be described as confronting, however, I found it no darker than my already swirling thoughts.

I realised how confused I am about the whole issue, so I’ve enrolled in a short university course to hear directly from experts in the field. Hopefully I’ll come away with more answers than questions.

June farm happenings

We harvested a huge crop of purple sweet potatoes. (Well hubby did. It involves rooting around in the soil with your hands, and there’s earthworms the size of boa-constrictors in that garden bed. They creep me out.)

Please, urgently send your best recipes for these purple beauties. I’m learning to make purple pie crusts and gnocchi.

Our region suffered a devastating flood, where people died and thousands of animals were killed. This has been a terrible event. I’ll write about it when I’ve come to terms with it.

We celebrated the Winter Solstice, a turning point for life on the land.

We’re nurturing our first batch of koala habitat trees. Part of our long-term aim to give back to Mother Nature. More koala news to follow.

More from the journal next month.