Thoughts and Everyday Things

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In the past, I used to really enjoy linking to a blog which has gone in a different direction now. Reading that blog and the similar blogs which all linked up was really fun and interesting.

The headings I have used today in this blog are copied from Fiona’s blog “Stay Home Instead” but with some modifications so they are more closely matched to what’s happening in my life! I hope you enjoy these little snippets.

Looking Around the House

We’ve been down to my Mother’s in Australind, so returned with lovely things. These roses are from her garden. They are bravely holding up in this dreadful humidity and heat, but only just!

Also from her garden the sweetest, prettiest grapes. My husband had to climb up on the tank stand and them onto a retaining wall to snip these off the vine, but what a luscious bounty. We shared them amongst three people and my Mother had enough to do the same.

Also remnant fabrics. I have a friend who makes quilts for a charity so my family and friends often get me to pass on fabrics for her to make quilts.

On the Breakfast Plate

This delicious loaf of bread came home swathed in layers of white tissue paper. As a child our bread come home wrapped the same way. I usually eat fruit and yoghurt for breakfast but couldn’t resist the crust off this loaf. Added butter and Vegemite…wonderful.

red and white ceramic mug

An important part of breakfast every day is a double espresso.

On My Mind

Like everyone else, I am concerned about the coronavirus. We’re taking precautions but there seems to be so much we don’t know about the transmission, treatment and limiting the spread of it, so it’s on my mind. I am so glad our government has declared it a pandemic and is taking appropriate steps to limit the impact on all Australians.

On My Reading Pile

brown mushrooms

I really like mushrooms but I’m the only one in the family who eats them. I tried growing them last year using a boxed kit I bought. Not very impressive yield, so the kit became soil for a new, potted rose. (It is thriving)

I’d like to try again so have been reading Milkwood, Real skills for down-to-earth living, by Kirsten Bradley and Nick Ritar, as a guide. There’s five sections in the book; how to grow tomatoes and mushrooms, beekeeping, collecting and using seaweed and wild food. The mushroom section is easy to follow and very motivational. I’ve just been told this morning about a local farmers’ market where there’s a mushroom grower who sells inoculated substrate, so we’ll go hunting Saturday morning.

On My TV

This heading is a bit difficult as we aren’t watching much television at all. We watch The Repair Shop (ABCtv), the news and weather and The Little Drummer Girl on SBStv, but not much else. We have so many channels but we’re not really interested in most of the programs at the moment.

The Repair Shop is a fascinating program where artisans repair antique or special artifacts which are damaged. These very talented restorers repair everything from clocks, paintings, ceramics, textiles and furniture. Owners take their specials pieces to the Repair Shop and the craftmen and women show us the process of repairing and restoring their treasures. Intriguing stories and wonderful artifacts.

On The Menu This Week

I love reading about people who plan their menu for every week and shop based on those plans. I’ve tried to do it, I’ve printed off beautifully coloured planning sheets and I’ve shopped according to those plans. Something always happens and I’ve realized it just doesn’t work for me.

Salmon with Mediterranean Spices, cauliflower, broccoli and green beans plus a squeeze of lime and a grind of black pepper.

I hate wasting food and somehow everything gets eaten. I’d like to say I make double every time and freeze half, but I rarely do that, either. We tend to eat seasonal food and what is available dictates what we eat. The green grocer we go to has amazing fruit and vegetables and the rest just seems to happen.

So, the photo above shows our dinner last night!

A Chore I’m Not Looking Forward To This Week

After I’d photographed and written about removing or at least taming this bougainvillea the enormity of the task hit me and I’ve rung a gardener to do it, instead! It was carefully kept under control until some birds ate the middle section out of it and the top just shot away. It needs to go before it engulfs our house and the neighbour.

Sir John Tenniel, the principal political cartoonist for Punch magazine for over fifty years, died on February 25th, 1914. He was most famously known for illustrating both Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass.

Tenniel drew the 92 illustrations for the book, which were then engraved in wood and these woodblocks were then used as masters for the electrotype copies printed in the books.

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On Becoming Empty Nesters, Cooking, Summer Garden and Reading

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ON BECOMING EMPTY NESTERS

Like the Obamas, we have just become “empty nesters”. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, (Oprah’s 2020 Vision: Your life In Focus) Michelle Obama, as a new empty nester, talks about the energy she can now direct to her other interests and how she can focus on her husband.” It’s just him and me and Bo and Sunny. ( the dogs) They don’t talk…the dogs.”

silhouette photo of grass field

Your life changes when the children have gone. Some friends have expressed sadness and a loss of purpose, but more often women talk about having time and fewer distractions so able to follow their own interests, re-newing interests with their husbands or developing new interests.

This is an exciting time for many women who have juggled motherhood, home duties, working and being a wife. Many find it relaxing and invigorating. Some friends commented on how the house stays tidy and there’s always milk in the fridge. Others enjoyed the more adult relationship they were having with their newly independent child.

assorted flowers in macro shot photography during daytime

The biggest, unexpected change for me is that I sleep better. Our son would wake at 5am on workdays, then come downstairs at about 6am and have breakfast then leave for work. He was always very quiet but I was aware of movement in the house. Now I sleep in and I’m loving it!

COOKING

Summer means crayfish (lobster), crabs, prawns, mussels and squid in Western Australia. It has been very hot today and I wanted to make something really easy for dinner. Enter Squid in Tomato Sauce!

Need a delicious and easy summer dinner? Gather 350gm of squid, an onion, a jar of herb and red wine pasta sauce, some dried and fresh basil and ground pepper.

Cook the diced onion in olive oil until soft. Meanwhile cut the squid tubes into rings. When the onion is soft, push it to one side of the pan and cook the squid for five minutes. Combine the onion and squid.

Pour the pasta sauce into the pan. Boil a kettle and swish out the jar with about a cup of hot water and add to the pan. ( Then use the rest of the hot water to scrub the cutting board.) Leave to simmer for about 20 minutes stirring regularly.

Serve with fresh basil on pasta or rice. A generous meal for two or for three with rice, pasta or steamed vegetables. Add another large squid tube and you have dinner for four.

Preparing the prawns for lunch tomorrow. Fabulous seafood in Western Australia.

ORANGE IN THE SUMMER GARDEN

The predominant colour in the summer garden is orange. These orange bulbs are haemanthus coccineus, usually called hemanthus. When the bulbs stop blooming, strappy green leaves appear. Apart from the bright orange flower they have a spotted stem.

The bulb lies dormant in the garden until mid February, then the top becomes green with a white rim and then this becomes orange and the flower appears.. A bulb about to flower is just to the left of the two flowers.

Gorgeous, cheerful day lilies. They don’t last long but more come all the time.

This chili plant has purple, mauve, red, orange and yellow fruit.

These cannas seem to bloom all year round.

READING

As usual, I’m mostly reading library books.

If you enjoyed Elizabeth Strout’s “Olive Ketteridge” and “Olive Again” I’m sure you’ll enjoy one of her older books, published in 2017, “Anything Is Possible”. Set in rural Illinois this is a story about growing up in a small country town and the relationships within families and the wider community. A good read.

Also reading at the moment “Cover to Cover” because I’d really like to learn about book binding and this is a very motivational book. I am looking for a tutor to show me how to stitch the signatures, bundles of pages, together then add the cover. I know what to do but like to see someone else demonstrate the process. Once I’ve seen it done, I can do it.

Enjoying Sophie Pester and Catherine Bruns, “Supercraft Christmas” because I saw it reviewed and knew I’d love the crafts featured. I plan to sew fabric gift bags much earlier this year to reduce the Christmas pressure. I will use their Advent Calendar bags as a pattern for printing the bags.

You know how they talk about Nigella’s television shows and cookbooks as “food porn”, well, I really like decorator porn! I’m currently reading “Be Your Own Decorator” by Susanna Salk. Not because I want to re-decorate (well, I probably do) but because I just like to look!

Pages and pages of beautiful rooms and not a sign of decluttering in any of them! These are the favourite rooms of 75 renown designers and most of them are gorgeous. Full of collections unique to each owner and all supported by the author’s advice and design tips plus lots of information about using colour. So interesting.

I have just read that wooden toothpicks were first patented on the 21st February 1928. Toothpicks are common in all cultures. Skulls of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens clearly show signs of teeth being picked clean.

Although picks made from wood remain most common, during the 17th century toothpicks were luxury items made of precious metals and decorated with precious gems. Plastic toothpicks have been available recently but wooden picks, often made of birch are still popular. Dentists recommend the plastic picks but prefer the little brushes. I would avoid single use plastic picks.

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How to Clean A Chop/Stamp, Painting, Birthdays and Growing Ivy

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CHOP CLEANING

This has got nothing to do with meaty chops! Chops, in this case, are a Chinese stamp or signature. I have three. They are a remnant of living in China and now I use one of them to stamp my paintings and prints. The chop is pressed into the pot of ink and then stamped on paper.

The ink is also known as seal paste and is long lasting. It is usually handmade from natural materials; Artemisia Argyu, known as silvery woodworm plus castor oil and white clay. The vivid red colour is most common and often called “cinnabar” red as it is red with a tint of orange, like cinnabar. The paste or ink is best kept in a ceramic pot.

Over time the carved out characters on my stamps have become embedded with the red ink. I couldn’t find any online instructions on how to remove the sticky, thick red ink, so I experimented. I was hoping I’d regain the crisp clarity of a new stamp.

I began by wiping off what I could on paper towel. Then I scrubbed the area with diluted pure soap and hot water. Partial success, but not enough. Then I tried spraying on a little Isopropyl Alcohol and scrubbing again with a clean toothbrush. Success! Rinse, dry and ready to use.

PAINTING

My water colour class started on Monday and runs for eight weeks. I have been using this palette for nine years and was reluctant to clean it as I relied on the same colours time and time again. I bought some new tubes of paint and decided to start again, not with a clean slate, but with a clean palette! Here is the palette soaking in the trough in the laundry.

Three hours later, a lot of scrubbing and then a lot of cleaning in and around the trough and I have a clean palette. My painting bag is packed, ready to go.

BIRTHDAY

It is our son’s birthday this week. He is 33. He was 55cm long at birth and now he’s 194cm. I cannot believe how fast 33 years have gone! Usually we celebrate birthdays with yum cha, but considering the risk of corona virus, we decided to celebrate at home.

Our son wanted fettucine with a meat sauce. He made the dough but we all helped with the rest of the process.

We’re not sure how nonna would have done this by herself but it is worth the effort as this pasta is luscious!

While the fettucine was drying I made an Apple Ginger Birthday cake which is cooling next to the drying rack of fettucine. It is busy in the kitchen!

Dry and ready to cook.

Meanwhile I have made a rich meat sauce to serve with the fettucine. This sauce starts with onions and garlic then the mince and finally passata and tomatoes and chopped up vegetables. During the cooking process I add dried basil, a little sprinkle of cumin, some thyme and salt and pepper. I remove the two bay leaves before serving.

The Apple Ginger Birthday cake. When it was cool I iced it and decorated it with diagonally cut Ginger Thins finished off with a little circle of finely chopped crystallized ginger in the centre of the cake. It was very good.

GROWING IVY

I was a bit surprised to see pots of ivy for sale at the shopping centre. I have never considered buying ivy as I thought you just broke a piece off a plant you already had or asked someone else with a plant for a piece and got it growing. Apparently not.

The verge out the front is currently a bit of a mess but that’s because we have a verge collection next week, or a “bring our your dead”. This involves putting anything non vegetative that you no longer want on the verge and then the council truck picks it up. In the meantime, people cruise around looking at your discarded things and take what they want. Great recycling but why do they make such a mess? Carefully stacked and safely arranged things are in total disarray within hours.

Anyway, when the rejected goods have gone it will be time to replace some dead patches in the ivy under our street tree. The tree is obviously an attractive place to park in the heat of summer but the ivy doesn’t do so well being parked on, so it is time to replant.

To grow ivy cut off a tip piece (top of image above), strip the lower two or three leaves (second part of image above), place it in water (below).

Refresh the water once a week until you see little white roots shooting from the bottom of the stem, plant out and keep moist for a few days, then water every two days until the weather cools down. Voila! Free plants.

February 14th is Valentines Day, but unless you avoid shopping centres, don’t watch television or read the brochures in the letterbox, you already knew that! We don’t really celebrate the day although I’ve made a card and will make a cake in a heart shaped tin, because I always do and we’ll go out to dinner with friends because we arranged it a while ago.

Some water colour paper, folded, a cut up pink envelope to make the banner, a neoprene heart and some letters written using a Sharpie. Plus glue.

Plus a recycled envelope.

Completed with a gold sticker.

How do you celebrate Valentines Day?

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Bushfires, Reading and Summer Fruit

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Bush Fires in Australia

Raging, out of control bush fires have been incinerating parts of Australia for some weeks now. The consequence is loss of lives, loss of animals both wild and domesticated, loss of food crops and loss of homes and businesses.

According to Bjorn Lomborg, in The Weekend Australian, February 1-2, 2020 p1 “Australia is the world’s most fire prone continent. In 1900, 11 percent of its surface burned annually. These days, 5 percent of the country burns every year.” We need to review our fire management strategies.

Little comfort for those whose lives are in upheaval due to bush fires. Many charitable institutions immediately began collecting money to assist those effected. I am always a bit wary of these big charities as those at the top earn enormous incomes in this country, but was able to donate in a direct and immediate way, elsewhere.

Local farmers from Harvey, near where I grew up, were driving eleven truck loads of donated hay, plus clothes, blankets and nappies thousands of kilometres across the Nullabor to feed surviving stock. The co-ordinator, Ms Belinda Hall, speaking on ABC WA Country Hour 18/02/2020, said , “Some of the most generous donations came from farmers and communities devastated by the 2016 Waroona-Yarloop bush fires (in Western Australia) that destroyed 160 homes and killed two people.”

This was a long journey across Australia. The cost for diesel to fill up these trucks at every service station stop was $10 000. I was able to donate to a crowd funding site to help pay for the diesel and every cent went to this cause.

For an historical overview of fires in Australia, the impact on Australia and other countries and other information, visit this informative site https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50951043

READING

As usual, I have been enjoying some library books. Unable to do many jobs in the garden due to the heat, I’ve focussed on garden design and gardens as seen by other people. I’ve already ordered this year’s tulip bulbs to remind me the weather will come and it will get cooler, ………….eventually.

The first of these books is “Gardens of Awe and Folly” by Viviane Swift, a whimsical and gorgeous record of gardens she knows well on several continents. She visits nine of her favourite gardens around the world and walks us through each, sharing the history, intention, management and individual charms of each. Her watercolour paintings highlighting the unique aspects of each garden created the most wonderful travel journal. Her depth of knowledge and passion for these gardens worldwide, was very inspiring. Loved this book!

The second book I’ve dipped into for ideas while I’m thinking about rejuvenating the garden was Adam Frost’s “How To Create Your Garden”. Suitable for smaller suburban gardens, his ideas and plans are easy to follow and to incorporate in your own space. There are three sections in the book, focusing firstly on designing, then building and finally enjoying the finished garden. Although this book is written by an English author, much of the information, especially in the design and build sections, could apply to gardens almost anywhere.

Also re-reading Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American” our bookclub book this month. First published in 1955 this novel is about the breakdown of French colonialism and the American involvement in the Vietnam War. This espionage thriller has all the elements of a ripping yarn; love and war, honesty and deception, betrayal and loyalty. I am really enjoying it and I enjoyed the film, featuring Michael Caine, too. We both like visiting Vietnam and a few years ago we stayed at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi where some of the scenes where filmed.

I had trouble photographing this book as the cover is totally unremarkable. I always consider the covers of books when I select them but this cover has nothing to recommend it!

My husband belongs to an all male bookclub. When the convener of this bookclub was interviewed on the ABC radio yesterday, the female presenter made much of the “men only” aspect of the bookclub. This made me think about the four bookclubs I have belonged to in the past 35 years which have been “all female” but this aspect was never an issue. I don’t think it was ever mentioned . Although we often met in houses, husbands were never present. The focus on “men only” felt like a double standard on the “oh so politically correct” ABC but I think the announcer was trying to be controversial.

The Children Act By Ian McEwan

Last year our bookclub read “The Children Act” and last night we watched the film. Released in 2018 and staring Emma Thompson, we watched it on Netflix and thought it was a good representation of the book. Confronting moral and humanist issues played out around the lives of the judge making these decisions and her husband. Great book and film.

SUMMER FRUIT

Plums, beautiful summer stone fruit, delicious fresh and plain. To easily pop out the seed, pierce at the top, where the stem was, with a sharp knife, slice around the circumference, twist each half in opposite directions and the stone is revealed and easy to remove. Works for other stone fruit, too.

Thinking about food, did you know 9th February is Pizza Day? Traditionally an Italian dish, immigration and the returning servicemen after WW2 saw an explosion in popularity America and to a lesser degree, worldwide. It’s a very easy day to celebrate!

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