6 SEPT 2023 – Lighthouse Arts, Nobbys Lighthouse, Nobbys-Whibayganba Headland, Newcastle
I’m back at the lighthouse. It’s been 17 months since my last residency here, and I arrive to clear Spring sky and fresh nor ’easterly. All is right with the world.
Some things have changed. A roster for desks; a new view each week. I go in search of the half-filled rainwater bathtubs under the giant pine tree, where I caught a reflective selfie last year. Both the tree and the bath-tubs are gone; new water tanks populate the northerly view, practical but unflattering. The bath-tubs are still there, discarded and disconsolate, haphazardly strewn next to the golf-buggy garage. But water tanks mean indoor toilets and no more sauna-like portaloos on a hot sunny day. I take the win.
There’s such wide, open sky up here. A revelation as you travel up the rise and into the gathering clouds. The Signal Station still whirs, the wind still whistles through the kitchen window, the sunlight still dazzles. Ronnie the Magpie is a newly-named addition, a cheeky bugger whose singing makes me smile.
I think this new residency will suit me just fine.
