Frankly Feisty

All HALE the Little One

2012-01-20T14:55:00.007+11:00

I LOVE my little finger.

I do, I really do.

It is one helluva powerful and hard-working part of me.

Like many women, whose bodies have the battle scars and wear and tear of childbearing, I struggle to LOVE much about my saggy, baggy, stretch-marked bits and pieces.

I KNOW I earned them all.

I KNOW how lucky I am to have produced, via natural child-birth, three totally awesome and amazing and gorgeous humans.

I KNOW that my partner doesn't care what my body looks like.

I KNOW that it's totally functional and at this stage still hasn't cracked up, in any major ways.

BUT...as we all know and understand, it just ain't that easy, for a lifetimes worth of reasons, to be 100% happy in our own skins.

It just gets totally deflating trying to tone muscles that have been overworked and over-stretched and to completely honest I've given up the fight. Although I must fess up here and admit I never really fought that hard ; )

But my little fingers?

ASTOUNDING AND OUTSTANDING

They can and do regularly carry the most incredible weight, and never give in or up.

It's a skill that I developed through the nightmare that is grocery shopping. A hideous chore made even more horrific when you chuck kid-wrangling in to the mix.

Sure you can get it all to your car in a trolley, but when you get home, no such wonky luxury.

SO, it's all fingers on deck, to tackle the mind-numbingly revolting chore of unloading the car and taking it inside and as I like to get it over and done with QUICKLY the pressure is on each one of them to perform.

Today as I carried in about 25 kilos worth of items, I looked at my little finger and thought "Look at you with 3 and a half kilos of weight just hanging off you there like no biggie".

Congratulations, often neglected, piece of my anatomy and Thank you.

The One About the Problems of Being Myself

2012-01-16T19:29:00.004+11:00

WARNING:: somewhat fragmented, disjointed, totally self-obsessed thought unloading and navel gazing to follow.

For my entire life, (well as far back as I can remember) it feels like people often totally and bewilderingly (to me) misunderstand me.

You know how we are all supposed to accept and "love" ourselves and learn to love who we are?
And how we are supposed to strive to BE the real us, when and if we ever work out who that is?

Well, it appears I have a very big problem because, when I am just being me, most people just don't like me so much or just don't "get" me.

I accept all of the following things about me: I can be fiery, feisty, full-on, opinionated, passionate, grouchy, pissed off at bureaucrats and their bungling and definitely more of your glass-half-empty type.

However, I try hard not to be these things all the time.

They are a huge part of my personality, but I as I get older I am more and more aware of when to bring out those characteristics and when not to. On the inside, I am a huge softy and my sometimes turtle-shell like exterior is protecting one, fragile little kid.

If the opportunity arises, I adore to laugh, really laugh. The kind of laughing that has you crying and leaves you depressed afterwards. Sadly though, it's all too rare an occurrence.

AND, I love to dance and sing and talk and discover and listen and read and garden and cook and eat and drink and plot and plan. I am forever thankful and consider myself incredibly fortunate to have a loving husband, gorgeous grown children and a teeny number of true, close friends, all of whom are beautiful, accepting and understanding.

So, why can't I just accept my good fortune and deal with the fact that everyone just ain't gonna get me?

I can spend time with new acquaintances and believe I'm being jocular and jolly and friendly and chatty and a tad raconteurish. I ask lots of questions about them and their lives, because I really like to get to know people - Where they live, what they do with their time, what they like etc etc. And I get very excited when I stumble upon a like-minded soul, because people like me are kinda hard to find.

Then, after the fact, I mostly never hear from any of these people again. If I do run in to them again, I get a distinct sense of coolness, stand-offishness and wariness from them. Sometimes, a down-right rudeness and dismissiveness.

One thing that hurts and upsets the little me inside, EVERY single time, is being "shooshed" or told to "calm down" or "keep it down". I have worked out, after all these years, that's because what I hear is "Hey you, stop being you will ya?"

It's true, I do tend to be the one that shocks people or astounds people with my forthrightedness and up-frontery, but I'm always surprised when this happens and can't help but wonder if it's because I'm saying things that they think they can't or are not brave enough to say or if they just really would never go there.

Is it really just me?

Am I truly that unusual? Am I a rare breed of person whose brain speaks to mouth and mouth takes off before I have a chance to put it in to "don't-offend-people" gear?

Really, just like almost everyone else on the planet, (except a wondrous and enviable few) I want to be liked and appreciated. Not ignored, shooshed or even worse, TOLERATED.

I NEVER, EVER plan or intend to harm or hurt with my words, but will admit that anger, stress, feeling I'm under attack and that little kid inside sometimes make me defensive and I arm myself with words, sometimes hurty ones.

I'm just a person who expresses their thoughts, feelings and emotions...good and bad...is that really so wrong?

Often, inside me, that little, well actually not-so-little, voice gets quite loud and shouty and tells me I'm crap, fat, old/past it, and not-so-good/clever/bright/smart/gifted/talented and many other things.

That voice is quite good at it's job and more-than-likely the reason why I have attempted many things in my life and then chucked them in, because the voice told me I was kidding myself.

Can you identify with anything I am saying here?

Or am I really just one hell of a mangled-up, nut-bag once again saying stuff that really should never be actually said, out loud?

Here endeth the offload and grand reveal.

Hope I haven't lost you.

Myself

Glorious Garden Surprises

2011-11-04T17:19:00.011+11:00

Today is a pretty speccy day in my part of the world.
Sparkly and sunshiney and not too hot.

I watered for about an hour and a half with the hose and a watering can and it was calming and simple and meditative.

I made two discoveries.

First, yet another weeny wildflower that I have not come across before, growing through-out the grassy parts our block.

Snow white and starry with a delicate pink centre.

Second, in my vegie patch, which has still to be weeded and re-stocked for Summer, a whole pack of what looked to be poppies have been growing. They are SO incredibly tall and I have no idea how they got there!

Today, I noticed some of the gazzillion buds had opened to reveal the most spectacular, show-offey, deep pink, frilly, ballerina-tutu like poppies I have ever seen.

A gorgeous day in the bush and a pretty good day in my head

Up, Down, Good, Bad

2011-10-18T12:43:00.017+11:00

Warning :: Misery Me Musings to follow

This year has been one hell of a humongous challenge, in my head most of the time and actually for a fair bit of the time.

We have had a lot, LOT, not go our way.

Many of the situations we find ourselves dealing with are universal - family fragilities, paying the bills, finding work and many of them, when gazed upon from the positive side of the viewfinder, are decidely "1st" world problems - bad investments, expanding debt, extreme job dissatisfaction, commuting time and money costs, money-pit home ownership issues blah blah blah...

My headspace is not helping. I am viewing everything through charcoal-coloured glasses rather than the rosey ones I would prefer.

I so admire those members of the human race born with the happiness switch. Those who are able to work at being happy until it infuses their daily lives without even trying.

My happiness switch is faulty, dodgy to-the-core and badly wired. It allows the negative stuff in way too easily. I try hard to tackle the negative energy super-force field with everything I've got, but often I haven't got much to throw at it and 97 times out of 100 I lose.

Tomorrow is my birthday

I am trying to focus all my energies in to making this a GOOD thing

The ageing battle is a doozy

My body is feeling and showing it

My brain is fighting it every step of the way

I have a monster battle on my hands as Mr negative pants, party pooper, downward digging, don't-forget-the-bad-stuff, part of my psyche is doing it's darndest to be the ultimate killjoy

Here is the GOOD...

I am alive

Apart from normal, ageing issues, I am healthy

I can read and write

I can dance and sing (sort of)

I can laugh and cry

I have a car

I have access to fresh water, free energy, plentiful foodstuffs

I have healthy, independent, beautiful offspring

I have an amazing, calm, supportive, hard-working, caring and loving partner

I live in a spectacular location surrounded only by the beauty and sounds of natural bushlands

We live in our own home

I have made new friends here in Fryerstown

As I finish writing these good points down, I have come to the conclusion that I will NOT write down the BAD

If I start, I know I will be here for hours

I wish there was a vacuum cleaner for the headspace...

pop the tube in my ear and suck all that negativity right outa there

Leave it sparkling clean, shiny and ready to fill with peace, joy and acceptance

Reflecting with iPad, pj's, on a Saturday afternoon = GOOD

Older, blotchier, crinklier, decolletage = Not so GOOD

Fryerstown neighbour and his serene horse popped in for a coffee = GOOD

Floppy, saggy, tissue-paper, swinging chicken wings = Not so GOOD

A beautiful, surprise find amongst our blooming artichokes, Mr Froggy = GOOD

How are things with you? Up or Down, Good or Bad?

Fryerstown Folly & Garbage Gardening

2011-10-11T15:49:00.014+11:00

So, it is done.

The pergola of all pergolas.

I showed you it's early days a couple of posts back and here is the finished beast.

Originally, we were not going to go with the curvy, light fittings on top, but then thought "why the hell not?" It's bonkers already, so we just made it more so.

We don't, as yet, have light fittings, but they are wired up for the day (let's be honest here...most likely never) when we find the right ones.

I have planted four wisteria "alba" at the base of the poles and fingers crossed, they will be scrambling up the insane 10-metre high wire/pole contraptions in no time.

I have also been throwing things in to the garden.

When I say garden I mean cleared bits of central Victorian bush with rock hard clay soil.

I've also been scavenging stuff. Like old wire mattress inners, ancient corrugated iron water tanks, rusty fruit dipping baskets and banged-up washing machine drums. They are being born again as garden screens, a new vegie-garden bed and garden pots and containers.

The whole garden design/plan/sketch/drawing thing just doesn't work for me.

I really am an incalcitrant, against-the-rules, type of gal.

Actually, there is so much to be done, that I just cannot visualise it and quite frankly, we just don't have the cash.

So I just plant things.

I place pots, move them around, move them again and then eventually in they go.

I hunt out reduced-to-clear, pot-bound plants and trees and help myself to cuttings almost everywhere I go.

Mostly I ask. If there is no-one to ask, I just nip of a tip from a plant so you can barely tell : )

Here are some snaps of how it's all coming along.

Stormy Weather and Wanderings

2011-09-29T12:54:00.008+10:00

Just spent a weekend in Brisbane with a fabulous long-term friend for birthday celebrations.

Imbibed. Relaxed. Laughed. Pondered. Wandered.

A much needed break, freshen-up and change of scenery and pace.

I had been feeling very stuck and stale.

Not being a hot, humid-weather type, we were indeed blessed with wonderful weather, mild and only a wee bit of humidity with cooling evening breezes.

Home again.

Yesterday, we had a humongous storm.

Black skies at 3pm on a Spring afternoon - everything in navy blue, darkness.

Then came the crashing, cracking, rolling, grumbling, house shaking, deafening snaps of lightening and thunder.

And the fat, pounding rain.

What a spectacular show.

I loved every second of it.

Safe in my house with tin roof and walls rattling and shuddering.

Bob, our dog, however was terrified, shaking, panting and miserable and wanted to hide but just kept wandering around with anxious eyes pleading for it all to stop.

I could feel the power and the energy and the force all around me, so magnificent.

More wandering through the Central Goldfields bush, where Spring is putting on another glorious wildflower show. Plants that have lain dormant during years of dry, crunchy weather have all come to life after all the rains earlier this year. I feel so lucky to be able to wander in such a soul refreshing environment observing nature at it's cleverest.

Salmon with dill, watercress, goats cheese and capers a la Brisvegas

3pm stormy darkness from my bed with cats

Fryerstown wandering

Emblem

Gorgeous grevillea

Stuff of Faerie Tales

2011-09-06T18:11:00.023+10:00

Yesterday, my friend Gail and I took our dogs for a long walk through the bush.

It was incredibly peaceful and a joy to wander for hours without seeing another soul.

The Spring wildflower show is beginning and after all the rains of earlier this year it is truly spectacular.

Everything around this part of Central Victoria Is normally dry and crunchy, but this year it's all so lush and verdant and mesmerisingly beautiful.

It really enlivens me seeing all the gorgeous native plants springing to life and wandering through the bush accompanied by all sorts of flitting and fossicking birds and the orchestra of frogs.

Today we headed down a new track we came across, and after much up-hill and down-dale behaviour we came across a gate with a "private property" sign. This was no deterrent to me as there was no "keep out" sign! So, in we went.

I decided, if anyone was there, I would just introduce myself as their neighbour from down the track, "just passing, thought I'd drop in".

We walked down the driveway and then turned the corner to see a magical, higgledy piggledy two-storey, stone cottage with a tower and high curvy stone walls and rambling plants. All overlooking a large, frog-filled, deep, dam full of reflections.

No-one was there. We wandered around exploring for over an hour. It was bliss.

We were enchanted.

It really did feel like the stuff of faerie tales and Nursery Rhymes - the Gingerbread House or the Crooked Man and his Crooked House.

It was one of the most surprising and delightful things to have happened to me in a long time.

I felt a child-like awe and such a pure sense of joy at our magical discovery.

I half expect to go back there and find it has disappeared.

If I can't find it ever again, at least we took photos.
Here they are.

In the bottom of the tower through that red door is the shower!

Isn't it WONDERFUL?

Lovely Things for my Brain

2011-09-06T12:20:00.005+10:00

Today, I am posting a few of the things I have been looking at that help me linger longer on the shinier side of my mind.

The dark, dank, miserable side has been with me, a lot, lately.

While frittering away hours on the interweb can leave me guilt ridden for avoiding all the other things, practical things, boring things I need to do and am clearly avoiding, it does turn up some amazing stuff.

But, sometimes my head gets overwhelmed by how many talented writers, artists, crafts-people, journalists, educators, thinkers and incredibly gifted people there are on this planet. I can be left with feelings of worthlessness and overloaded with just way TOO MUCH INFORMATION.

Do you find that?

I wish I could be content with my life, a simple life. I wish I could stop the comparison game. Sadly, my crazily wired up brain just finds it almost impossible to work that way.

I love to look and find, even if sometimes it does. my. head. in.

Here are a few things of whimsy and bringing me some joy...

Diane Katsiaficas

Divine Christening Gown from Kelly Gardner

Wonderful Wire Frocks from Karen Searle

lilac weeping rosemary at our place

goldfields purple rosemary - grows everywhere up here, including our place

stunning mintbush in Spring-flower at our place

Whilst writing this, I have been listening to and loving Zola Jesus and her moody, broody vocals.

Even though Spring is the harbinger of Summer with it's stinky, hot, crisp-everything-up temperatures and threat of bushfire...I must pay her her dues.

Thank-you Spring for the unfurling of new life and possibilities.

PerGOALa or Per-golla?

2011-09-05T16:05:00.002+10:00

So we have a "project" happening at our bush hide-away and to us, it's a perGOALa. To others it's a per-golla. Either way, it's going to be a monster which-ever of those you prefer.

Part of our house faces West and even though this wall has no windows, it still heats up like a furnace in Summer.

Something drastic needs to be done to shade this wall and tree planting close to the house is not an option for fire risk reasons. Luckily for us, some of our lovely locals, Matt and his partner, Anna, have an amazing business building, extending and renovating using recycled everything. Pumphouse Design and Building.They have over an acre piled high with all sorts of reclaimed STUFF: windows, joists, beams, timbers, frames, bricks, all sorts of metal bits etc etc etc.

When I was taking Bobby for a walk, a few months back, I walked past his collection and saw a stack of galvanised iron street light poles and my mind went in to over-drive at the possibilities.

Contact was made, discussions were had and a plan was made.

We are popping three, 9-metre high, street lights in front of this (burnt orangey) wall, in an arc, and will be stringing cable between each of them.Then, I am going to plant glorious, pendulous, show-offey, white wisteria to ramble up them. Hopefully, they won't cark it and the blossoms will be a yearly spectacular.

This week, the concrete footings were poured in to massive holes and tomorrow the poles go up!

Work starting on the post holes

Digger digging

This hole is about One and a half metes deep!

Our street light poles - soon to be a pergola

Magnificent white wisteria. Fingers crossed ours will look this speccy.

Hope it will look as fab as it does in my head.

I'll keep you posted.

Techno-Machinery Issues and a Nutshell

2011-08-27T14:49:00.020+10:00

Our p.c. recently curled up its millions of cables and died.

Just. Stopped. Working. Black screen, nada, zip, zilch, niente.

I consider myself to be (as with motor vehicles), a pretty-dam-good driver of a computer. Also, against type, I have an excellent sense of direction and CAN read maps!

I have no understanding, on a cellular level, of HOW a car actually WORKS, but I know how to drive it. I have a manual car because I like to drive and I don't like cruise control because to me, that's all about NOT controlling your car or paying sufficient attention.

I know, that if I had been taught, shown or included in discussions and explanations about cars, as my synapses were connecting and forming in the mechanical-understanding section of my brain, I would totally "get" how all the bits under the bonnet and that form the vehicle itself, work. But, as I was born with a vagina, I was not privy to that form of upbringing.

Now, where were we? Oh Yeah, the computer situation...

I can whizz around the interwebby and within numerous software programs with considerate ease. If I come up against something I can't understand or can't make work, I Google it and teach myself.

When I was frustrated with the blog designs offered as standard on Blogger, I taught myself some basic HTML and redesigned my blog. I do not know HOW HTML works or what it means or stands for, (and I don't WANT to know) I just know that once you learn to use it you can make it change how things look on your blog.

I see and read lots of stuff online about making your blog more successful by playing around in the back-end (Ooo Vicar!) and checking all your dooverlacky and thing-a-me-jig registrations and hits and bots and dots. As well as tricks and tips for getting found and tagged and and and...

But, just thinking about any of it, makes. my. brain. ache.

See? All tekky I am. Yep.

So, when the p.c. up and "dieded", I did heed the advice of so many, who for SOOOOO long had said "get thee to a MAC and never ever look back"

As I have developed a clear and possibly, unhealthy addiction to my wondrous iPad, I knew I would be fine in Apple-land and last week I went out and bought us a schoochzshee and fabulous iMac.

Talk about your jumping from left brain to right brain and wondering WHY the fuck it took me so long.

I now have a cardboard box, with the old p.c., monitor, 973 cables, speakers/ speaker wires, camera, mouse and keyboard sitting forlornly inside, awaiting its fate (the tip shop? or the op. shop?)

May I just observe, that the iMac is one hell of a gorgeous, sleek, glamorama, self-contained, GENIE with just ONE PLUG?.

I. LOVE. HER.

I am NEVER going back.

And you know what?

The poor old p.c. seems so very Howardy Liberal and rear-view vision-ey whilst my iMac and iPad are so very Keating in a sparkly, sharp, snazzily-visionary kinda way.

As well as this wonderful world of Appleyness, I have had a pretty good week.

In a very large nutshell...

I found my favourite sunnies, that I have had for 15 years and NEVER lost before. I had looked for days, in, on, under everything and everywhere in my home, car, garden EVERYWHERE. It made no sense because the reason I have never lost them before is that I always, reapeat ALWAYS put them in their case OR in the bowl inside the front door if I am not actually wearing them. I had given up and felt a wee bit sad over the loss of these, my favourite of favouritest sunglasses. However, today, I popped on my trusty old jacket, which I have also had for a gazzillion yonks and there, IN THE POCKET, were my beautiful old faithfuls. I have no memory, at all, on ANY level of putting them there. It makes no sense. I have now resigned myself to the fact that I am simply losing my mind and that the AGEING nightmare is with me in earnest. Oh YAY and YIPPEE umm NOT.

I saw the magnificent Ms Clare Bowditch in her brilliant show in dedication to Ms Eva Cassidy, I may or may not have shed a happy tear or two over how wonderful it was.

I DID eat a perfect old-school lasagne in the kitchen at Pelligrini's.

I DID get my nails painted a glossy and cheery turquoise at the hilarious "Hello darling, pick a colour" Elwood Nails.

I DID pop along with my dear friend Dottore Lloyd to a taping of The Tuesday Night Book Club and Jennifer interviewed the thoughtful and engaging Christos Tsiolkas. Talk about your brain stimulation 1A right there!

Mr I and I did have a delectable dinner with and prepared by the gorgeous Gourmet Girlfriend. It was indeed a joy and a pleasure to be with her and her divine family.

I did reconnect with an adored and much loved, very special someone and a big, black cloud moved off my horizon.

Here's a pictorial grab-bag of some the highlights of my past week or so.

Castlemaine on a glorious late Winter's Day

Chocolate pavlova ingredients

The final result of my chocolate pavlova, using Nigella's recipe

Two gorgeous cushions from the lovely Peta Pledger

My old favourites, lost then found

Chocolate croissant, cup of tea and new reading pleasures on the terrace.

All-in-all, a very good week.

Almost 10 Years After I First Wrote This, Not Much Has Changed

2011-08-08T19:09:00.011+10:00

Written and sent to Howard and Ruddock almost ten years ago...

I am writing to register my family and myself as being completely opposed to our country's handling of the refugees/asylum seekers/*illegal immigrants/queue jumpers*, fellow HUMAN BEINGS!

I wish to convey my concern and disgust at our abhorrent, arrogant, small minded, gutless, pathetic, disgraceful, selfish, inhumane treatment of these fellow HUMAN BEINGS. I know I am not alone in my opinions, but am continually frustrated at not being heard.

We have watched (programs like 4 Corners and Sunday and those on SBS) and read for months, in basically a state of shock, our leaders embarrass and shame us and I cannot understand WHY we are treating fellow (desperate) HUMAN BEINGS in this barbaric and dismissive manner.

These fellow HUMAN BEINGS should be detained for the briefest of periods, only to be identified and health screened. They should then be released into the community to be monitored whilst they await assessment on their applications.

You should know that my family is willing to make our home available, as a refuge at the risk of a $10,000 fine or whatever pathetic, controlling threat you wish to throw at us.

You are WRONG Mr Ruddock. Your policies are WRONG and you need to admit it, accept responsibility and change them. I expect you and your Government will have to answer some serious questions and explain yourselves to the world in the near future. Are you prepared?

I believe my fellow Australians would be as outraged as I am, if our leaders provided them with the truth instead of politically motivated propaganda. You are playing on and manipulating the (unfounded) fears of many Australians. This is an abuse of power and clearly displays the incredible arrogance of this government.

I continue to become more and more upset and ashamed with the passing of every day. The Sunday program of 4th May 2002 left me feeling ANGRY, FRUSTRATED and FURIOUS with you, Minister Ruddock. I can barely maintain my rage. To describe these tortured and tormented fellow human beings as misbehaving, attention seekers, who can only be bad parents for allowing their children to witness others self harm, is INSANE.

What sort of future adults are we creating out of this nightmare? Who is going to take responsibility for their future care and treatment, in recovering from the lack of attention and meaningful education, the destruction of their families and the removal of all independence? To the point where children refer to fellow children as numbers?!

Please know that in most of the countries that these people are trying to flee, THERE IS NO QUEUE!!!

What do you think would happen to them if they approached their Government and said, “I want to leave?”

Would you not do whatever it takes to protect your family if your life/home/country was under threat from war, dictators, political unrest and uncertainty, violence, flood, famine etc, etc??

Why punish innocent people who have never been charged, nor found guilty of, ANY offence? In fact, under international law these fellow HUMAN BEINGS are legally entitled to seek asylum anywhere. They have broken no laws, yet are being treated and housed as criminals.

There is no logic in your decisions to separate families into different detention centres, or to allow some out and leave others in. How is that not harmful to the families and HUMAN BEINGS concerned?

Why are you not as obsessed with finding the tens of thousands of temporary visa holders who overstay, many never to be found?
Your racism is transparent, Mr Ruddock. Along with Prime Minister Howard’s.

Do we not have free press in this country? Why are they not allowed access to the detention centres to report back to the Australian public? What are you hiding? You are not protecting the people inside, you are denying them their human rights and eroding their identities.

It matters NOT ONE IOTA, what financial resources or social class these fellow HUMAN BEINGS have or belong to. After weighing up all their options they have made the incredibly difficult decision to flee, believing the risks to themselves and their families far out-way the risks of staying. They chose Australia because they believed what they had heard about Australia – that it is a free, democratic, prosperous country with open arms.

Even writing this now is making my insides boil.

Please do not bother to reply, if all you can offer is condescending, avoid the issue, buck passing, accept no responsibility, blame the victims rhetoric.

Yours in frustration and shame,

Michele Borghesi

post script 2011
They did send me back a standard, form letter. I burnt it in disgust.

Currently,
‎62% Aussies think boat arrivals are rising.
Reality?
2010 = 6879
2011 = 1675
Italy 2011 = 40000
What boat problem?

Crankiness, Crochet & Knitting

2011-08-01T16:48:00.016+10:00

Warning!

Those not wanting to know anything about growing older in a female body, read no further.

This ageing thing has burrs, prickles, slime and shit on it.
Only good thing, is not being dead, yet.
This morning, I woke up with someone else's face on.
Mine had given up the good fight sometime overnight.
No amount of L'Oreal spackfilla & shine could hide the crevices & black caverns under my eyes.
Yesterday, I was so fucking tired.
Bone weary, leaden bodied, porridge brainally t.i.r.e.d.
I am in the throws of that hideously named section of a woman's life and let me be blunt...WHAT A FUCKING NIGHTMARE.
The "Menopause" Ewwwwww. Have I lost you? Are you in denial? Do you just not want to know or face or deal with it until you absolutely HAVE to?
That was me, too.
But here I am. And I am disgusted about how little it is spoken about...Really. Truthfully. Honestly. Unashamedly. Factually.

Sure, there have been many before me who talk about it, but mostly in a jokey, that's-life, kind of way. Focusing on the humour and the funny, cranky, old-ladyness of it all. And, yes there is plenty of literature available re: the process. But not much about how it DOES YOUR HEAD IN.
I am trying to convince myself I am strolling through the central plains of my life, but all this bodily upheaval is challenging every fibre of my being.

My period disappeared for 4 blissful months! Thought that was it. After 30-ish years of clockwork behaviour it just disappeared. Yes! Hooray! It finally ends, packs up and leaves.
But, wait...Oh no sister, enough with the glee for you! Here in it's place, I give you your own personal, built-in, faulty furnace which shall come on at 1000 degrees centigrade all hours of the day and night. HILARIOUS.

I had decided long ago, after reading all I could about HRT, that it was not for me, so I took myself off to Chemist Warehouse to purchase the alternatives. 3 hours later I walked outa there with me some Menoeze FORTE, full of all the supposed alternative, "natural" weaponry.

I started taking these as well as Mega B, Mega C, Zinc, Evening Primrose, Fish Oil & Calcium with Vit D. I swear, I gagged every day, on attempting to swallow this lot and after I had, you could hear me rattling as I walked.

After 5 weeks of this daily regime, the furnace switched off! A minor happy-making miracle. So, I got to enjoy a blissful couple of months with no monthly pest and no hyper heating.

It was heaven. I was well and truly over the monthly disruption, I must say and was at the stage of greeting it with a full throttled "piss off will ya?! You served your purpose thanks very much, but now you're annoying, disruptive and no longer required"

Then, the bitch showed up again! 11 days ago and still hasn't left AND on a couple of days I thought I was losing small parts of my kidneys. Seriously, felt and looked like all my internal lady parts were trying to evacuate.

Gross, sorry, I know, but true.

Thank-you very much life and nature and your bullshit deal for us women.

Now, to things of accomplishment and pleasure inducing...
I have three crafty-type projects on the go at present. If I maintain the form of my entire life, they will probably never be completed, but, for now they are helping calm the crankiness and focus my wandering, worrying mind.
Here they are...

A floor mat

A twirly whirly scarf

a bobbly, ummm, something.

Right, breathe in, breathe out. As you were.
Nothing more to see here.

Quick and Naughty

2011-07-30T14:40:00.003+10:00

If I just can't be arsed making lunch, this is my sneaky and quick way around that dilemma

Today, the ring-pull thingy snapped off and I had to resort to the can opener.
We have one of those "of recent times" ones that takes off the entire top of the can.
Problem is, neither Mr I or I can drive the stupid bastardy thing.
We have had it for years and it always takes us about 5 minutes of farnarckling to make it work!
Do you have that problem too or is it just us?

Smoking Celebrity Style

2011-07-22T12:12:00.009+10:00

Shame it's so BAD, because they make it look so GOOD

Marlene

Mae

Dean, Sammy, Frank

Marilyn

Johnny

Steve

Frank

David and Elizabeth

Catherine

Audrey

Sophia

Paul

Brad

Bob

Salvador and Coco

Mikhail and Liza

David

Filling in the Gaps

2011-07-09T15:44:00.016+10:00

My brain has had a massive attack of the sludges over the past few months
Severe and chronic Procrastinits Bigtimus
I have thought about my blog daily and that time-wasting, old emotion, guilt has tortured me constantly
Yet the act of "doing" has truly been a monster effort
Why is it then, that I can dissolve hours and hours on the interwebby and comment away daily on other blogs, as well as fritter on Twitter and frolic on Facebook?
And it's not as if blog neglect is my only sin, consider the following list:
Dentist
Pap smear
Floor cleaning
Vacuuming
Dusting
Clean fridge
Shower/wash hair
Hanging all my art/prints/photos (we have been here for 9 mths)
Get the sewing machine fixed
Make the things I have bought materials for
Finish off at least ONE of the crocheting things I have started
Ring friends on the telephone and TALK to them old-school style
Plant the many things in pots waiting to be planted in my garden
Exercise or walk for at least 1 hour each day
Read one of the 60 or so books I have bought in the last few years that stare at me from the bookshelf
Sort out my wardrobe and cull
Put the tons of stuff that is ready to go on Ebay ON Ebay
and PAINT - the thing I have procrastinated about the longest (YEARS and YEARS)
and on and on and on and on
SIGH
I DID, finally start a painting a few days ago (YAY to me), spent most of one day on it...and there it sits GLARING at me, unfinished

Life has been going on regardless. Perhaps I should just show you a visual gallery of some of the things that have been happening and that I have found to fascinate and absorb me online

My Name is Michele Borghesi and I am a SLOTH

My little house in the forest

One of my favourite places in the world

The spectacular Hakea Laurina

Mistress Mabel trying to get me OFF that damned thing

Gustav Klimpt and cat

A small sample of my iconography addiction

Bag Lady Mabel

Harry Dean Stanton and cat

Baked Golden organic carrots with garlic, onions, EVOO, lemon and thyme

Baked eggplant and beans with EVOO and Italian herbs

Bobby, wintry sun-soaking

Miss Piggy and Kermit do Annie Hall

1972, The George Hotel St Kilda

Miss Chloe Grace (in blue) Styling the pants off the other Miss Burlesque S.A. contestants

Frank and Mabel spooning fireside

Autumnal glory Fryerstown style

The start of a rug

Castlemaine State Festival offering

Pondering at Buda Castlemaine

Clouds at Venus Bay

More Autumnal magnificence

Arranging Stuff

2011-04-27T12:37:00.010+10:00

Six months in to our new life here in the bush in Fryerstown, I have still got many, many things to find homes for.

Some of our artworks and prints are up and the others are waiting for the muse to hit me re: their just-right, new homes. The ones I have hung, have involved a fair bit of "no, that's not right" and have been moved to a completely different spot and some, more often than not, are moved very small distances, until they are in the perfect spot creating lots of unnecessary holes in the wall only centimetres apart! Ooooops.

All my other stuff, nick-nackery, collectables and let's face it, crap...I am playing musical chairs with. I arrange and re-arrange then leave, then walk by and change. Here are some shots of some current configurations...

Nothing on the orange wall yet...because I am trying to decide whether I should learn to live with the colour or not...orange and I, have never really been friends.

Quince-a-thon

2011-04-27T12:07:00.007+10:00

Well, the Quince paste-a-thon is over.
I made two large batches and being a novice it involved a bit of trial and error.

Maggie Beer and Stephanie Alexander, two doyennes of Australian cooking, don't share the same basic recipe, so that threw me.

The first batch I made with skins on, simmered, blended then cooked on a low heat, with a simmer-mat, in a large cast-iron pot. It took 5 hours for the colour to turn to a deepish orange.

I was happy with the result, although it was a little grainy.

The second batch, was skins off and I cooked this lot for almost 8 hours (!) using the same method as before and got the batch to a much richer, darker colour.

The first batch, early on...

1st batch after a couple of hours...

Final result of the first batch...

Final result of the 2nd batch

And...We are still collecting tomatoes! What a crazy old season it's been.

I am adoring the sublime Autumn weather we are having here in Central Victoria, cool chilly evenings - perfect for sleeping and lighting the fire and magnificent daytimes with the low-slung sun gorgeous and sparkly and perfect temperatures in the low 20's.

Quincing Around

2011-04-01T11:42:00.007+11:00

A couple of my lovely, Fryerstown neighbours have trees laden with quinces.

I had considered planting a couple of varieties, but really there is no need if I have access to theirs, is there?

They are such a quirky old fruit, gnarly and knobbly covered in a thin, furry skin. A still-life artist's delight really.

Margaret Olley

Jeffrey Smart

The thing with quinces is they are inedible until cooked (unless you like bitter, astringent and incredibly sour flavours!) and the magic happens when you DO cook them, because that is when their pale appley/peary type flesh changes to become an awesome, deep, burnished, coppery red.

I am going to attempt to make quince paste...yes I am.
I have poured over all my recipe books and online for a fail-safe recipe and I think I will fall back on both Maggie and Stephanie to get me through.

Fingers crossed.

Autumn and it's bounty...glorious

The Thrill of a Bargain or Twelve

2011-03-21T16:50:00.010+11:00

Today, I popped down to Daylesford for a bit of a wander and hit fossicking GOLD.

I have not had such a successful day finding my kind of stuff for a long, LONG time.
And ALL of it from only 2 stores! The Salvos oppy and the Daylesford Bazaar
I thought I would join in the fun and good natured, showing-off over at Flea Market Finds, for the first time in quite a while...and also play along over at Apron Thrift Girl for Thrift Share Monday.

My goodies consist of:

A tailored, black wool, silk-lined Fletcher Jones 3 button jacket which fits like a glove
Dark denim GAP straight leg boy cut jeans - fit perfectly
An old shell covered container with rose lid
An old rose tin that I do not have (and I already own 40 odd!)
A lovely silk Japanese embroidery
3 different size, old pudding bowls
A large green enamel-ware, baking dish
A 50's green pottery jug with filtered pouring spout
A fabulous old Airlite suitcase
A 40's gladioli print in original frame

AND all-up $110 exactly...

That should do me for quite some time, I feel as if I have had a massive, naughty hit!

What about you?

Flathead Fancying

2011-02-22T09:45:00.020+11:00

It's bizzarely chilly here at the moment. And for February in Australia that's a little bit wrong. It would normally be swelteringly, stinkingly HOT.

I am in no way complaining. I've had socks and docs and a cardie on! AND I lit the fire. Lovely.
It also inspired me to get in the kitchen and create something.

I am participating in a little game along with others over here at The Mum and The Chef to create something fab using a nominated core ingredient. This time it's "local fish".

Well, for me, that's a bit tricky as there's not much local fish up my way, in Central Victoria, so I chose fresh flathead from Port Phillip Bay.

I raided my garden for some things and bought a couple of things, but mostly thrown together from what was in my fridge and pantry.

I made up my recipes, except for the cucumber salad, which I borrowed from my "boyfriend" Jamie x ; )

Jamon and Sorrel rolled Flathead
Pumpkin, Whitebean and Coriander Mash
Shaved Cucumber Salad

Here are my ingredients...

Flathead fillets with skin and bone
pumpkin
cucumber
white beans/cannellini beans
preserved lemon
a lime
garlic
sorrel (so lovely, like lemon flavoured English spinach)
coriander
prosciutto or, as I used, jamon serrano
not in shot are the all-important salt, pepper, lime, evoo, ginger and chilli flakes.

First, pick out all the bones from the Flathead, doesn't matter if it gets a wee bit mangled it will be wrapped up soon!
Lay 3 pieces of prosciutto on a board and along the top edge spread some thinly shredded preserved lemon skin, then place the fish skin side UP, on top of the preserved lemon.

Now lay enough sorrel leaves on top of the skin of the fish to cover and then drizzle a bit of olive oil and sprinkle a little salt and pepper over the top of the leaves.

Now carefully roll the fish towards you and wrap it up nice and snugly, like below. Then pop it on a lightly oiled tray in an oven pre-heated to about 350F/180C. It should take about 15 minutes.

While that's happening, chop pumpkin in to chunks (as much as you want for how ever many you are cooking for) and pop into some boiling water with as many peeled and slightly squashed garlic cloves as you like, I used 4.

While this is cooking, you can make the cucumber salad.
Grate a small knob of ginger into a small bowl, add a glug of olive oil, the juice of half a juicy lime, a little bit of soy sauce and about half a teaspoon of sesame oil. Mix it up well and taste to see if it needs adjusting or any salt. Now, with one of those flexible vegie peelers, peel the cucumber on to a plate, in full-length ribbons, discarding the outer, all-skin, ones and stopping as you get to the seedy centre. Roughly chop some coriander leaves and put aside with the cucumber ribbons. Don't add the dressing until you are ready to serve.

When the pumpkin is almost soft, add roughly the same amount of cooked white (cannellini) beans and as soon as they have had a chance to warm through, turn off and drain. Return to the saucepan and let dry out on top of the stove for a couple of minutes. Then add some very finely chopped coriander, roots and all (see below), a splosh of olive oil and some salt and pepper and MASH away until it's to the consistency you like.

Right, now get your fish out of the oven and start assembling everything.

Add enough dressing to the cucumber to coat and toss it together with the chopped coriander, then pile and arrange it on your serving plate and sprinke with some chilli flakes or fresh thinly shredded red chilli.

Then place your mash on the plate and carefully lay the fish on top

And then...VOILA! Ta-Da! Hey Presto! It's done.

I am very pleased with how it turned out and the flavour mix was just right.
It was fun plotting and planning what to do with my choice of "local fish" and now I'm looking forward to the next challenge!

Have a look at what some of the others came up with...here are the links to their pages.

www.katrinahigham.com.au
www.mishdelish.com.au
www.tarisota.typepad.com
www.youwantsomemore.blogspot.com
www.gourmetgirl-friend.blogspot.com
www.papecancook.blogspot.com
www.allconsuming.com.au

Garlic Jewels, Spuds & Upside-down Cooking

2011-02-14T16:29:00.009+11:00

I thought I would show you a couple of things I have successfully (if I may say so, myself) whipped up in the kitchen lately.

Whilst checking out The Hungry Girls Cookbook website, I found this delicious recipe for an Apricot, Almond & Spice cake and as there is an abundance of affordable stone fruit around, I thought I'd give it a whirl.

I'm not normally a baker, but I do love the resurgence of pride in home baking. As it is a culinary art that very much depends on accuracy and recipe following, it just doesn't suit my "what-have-I-got?, let's-just throw-it-together-and-see" style of cooking. Also, I have very warm hands which means that dough and pastry handling are set for flop-dom around me, because they love a chilly environment for success.

I gave it my best shot, but as it is genetically impossible for me to FOLLOW A RECIPE to the tee, I foophed with it a teeny bit. I added some lemon zest and swapped one of the three tablespoons of golden syrup for one of agave syrup. I also used ground cardamon. Getting the kernels out of the husks was hysterical - I have a monster mortar and pestle, but every time I tried to smash one open it would fly out across the room.

When I laid my apricots in the tin, I popped them in the opposite way to the recipe, and was originally upset about this, but I was very happy with the end result.

We have been eating it with some very decadent Gipplsand pure double cream...Mmmmmmm

Amazing how mixing together bits of these ingredients (plus some lemon zest!):

gives you this:

Last week, I popped down to Daylesford Organics to buy some of their scrumptious, flavour-ridden garlic and scored a BOB-bonus.

As they like to let their garlic grow its flower heads, or bulbils, these come still attached to the garlic hands. Although the day I was there, they were starting to drop off, so we popped them all in a paper bag so they didn't end up all over the floor of the you-beaut-ute. The bulbils, in themselves, are teeny, little, purple bursts of intense garlic flavour. I renamed them "Garlic Jewels" because of their precious-ness and their glossy, purple colour. You can see some photos of what they look like still in flower-head form, here.

Here are the ones I brought home.

I bought some free-range chicken maryland pieces and when I got home, went out to the vegie garden and dug up some spuds. I have no idea what variety as they came up unexpectedly!

I scrubbed the potatoes and chopped them up so they were all roughly the same size and threw them in a heavy pot with a small handlful of the garlic jewels, about 15 peeled and squashed garlic cloves, 3 fresh bay leaves, zest of half a lemon, salt, pepper and about a cup of white wine and a cup of chicken stock.

Then I popped a half almond meal, half wholemeal flour mix with salt and pepper in to a plastic bag and chucked the chicken in to coat it. Then I fried off the chook pieces until golden and when they were done I rested them on top of the spuds, popped the lid on and put them in a medium (about 350 f/180 c) oven for about 40 minutes.

And THIS was the result.

It was scrum-diddly-umptious!

I Can Yokel It Up Like The Real Deal

2010-12-17T15:28:00.004+11:00

When it's called for, I can get quite country

Love the you-beaut-banged-up-ute and so does Bobby (our dog)
Love making dams and cut-outs in the rain, so the water will run off the road into the old creek bed
Love stomping around the bush in my gumboots with a big old piece of tree-branch as a walking stick, fossicking for wildflowers and fungi while Bob obsesses about finding rabbits
Love the vast, clear night sky full of a squillion stars
Love all the night noises of snuffling, scuffling animals in the bush
Love the early evening birdsong and the frog choirs
Love how Frank (our cat) prowls around the place like Lord Frank of Fryerstown
Love the native plants the previous owner popped in the garden that are flowering prolifically as a result of all the rain.

Not so happy about the spiders and the MASSIVE monstrous centipedes and humongous moths and the still hiding somewhere, very VERY poisonous, snickety-snakes.

Blog Slump Hump

2010-12-17T11:47:00.004+11:00

Of late, I think of my blog daily and things to post, but just can NOT seem to get off my flat bum and post.

Why is that I wonder? The muse just doesn't strike me and I get distracted with slothing or pottering on the terrace with my growing tins of cuttings for our garden.

I am still settling in to our new life, here in Fryerstown central Victoria, and so far, so fabulous.

We have great, cheery, helpful locals and neighbours not too far away and Castlemaine - a vibrant, diverse, everything-you-need, gorgeous township, is only 10 minutes drive away.

We have already attended The Fryerstown Christmas Frolic which was wonderful, an old-school event with everyone bringing a plate, bbcue thrown on, an old gent on the drums, a large lady on the piano and some other locals singing a tune or too and adding violin, ukulele, guitar and accordian. There were streamers and little vases of roses on all the tables and kids weaving in and out of the crowd. We met heaps of like-minded folk which really helped cement in the fact that we have chosen a great spot to live.

The weather has been AMAZING. A few stinkers but mostly either WETWETWET or sunny and light-breezily lovely. Our tanks and our dam are full and overflowing.

After much research I tracked down a 6-star reverse cycle air conditioner, so I can set up a room as my Summer bunker, because EVERYONE keeps telling us how stinking hot it gets up here! Even though we are off-the-grid solar here, the new "super-inverter" air con is wondrously effective and using the teeniest amount of power. BLISS on a stick.

The ONLY thing causing me any angst, if I let it, is the thought and threat of bushfires. It is a constant up here, in the backs of everyones minds and on the tip of everyones tongues. The great unspoken dread is palpable.

We are smack bang in the middle of true, dense, bush forest. The Castlemaine Heritage Gold Diggings on one side and the Castlemaine State Forest on the other. No neighbours for about 2 kilometres. It is simply, sublimely, STUNNING. All the rain has bought the bush to glorious, vibrant, teeming LIFE. There are so many divine weenie wildflowers and the understory is sprouting like mad. Lizards, birds and frogs are scurrying, chortling and croaking their little hearts out.

Our plan is to get the hell out of here if we are threatened by those hellish flames.
I truly hope it doesn't come to that.

Here are some shots from our new piece of paradise - HOME

Fryerstown Frolic

My potting-up table

Lemon tree on the terrace and a pretty snow-white ti tree.

The pond where the froggies love to sing and some more cuttings

and some stunarama wildflowers.

Pen and Paper

2010-11-01T13:51:00.014+11:00

I, like many others, have let my handwriting go to the dogs.
I even have trouble with my signature, so rare is the occasion that I am required to produce it. Almost 99.9% of my communication with family, friends, businesses, bureaucracy etc happens online via a keyboard or touch pad.

Even my old writers bump on the inside, left, top of my middle finger has almost disappeared.

I used to joke about one day opening up a shop called Ye Olde Pen and Paper Store so that people could ponder and marvel over the weird tools humans used to use to communicate...I think I'd better get cracking.

Thank (insert-higher-deity here), for Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire and their brilliant concept of gathering together some top-notch lovely women to write letters to a topic and to come together to read them out to who-ever was interested in popping along to listen.
Women of Letters event was born.

I attended two of these events over Winter 2010 in the beautiful, shabby, atmospheric Trades Hall in Melbourne, and marvelled at the relaxed, joyous, cheery atmosphere and the braveness of the women reading their correspondence to us, loosened up audience members, relaxed by the provision of alcohol! This letter writing caper had the women revealing themselves through open, frank, hilarious, raw, sad, emotional stuff and had the the audiences mesmerised.

At each "of Letters" event we are provided with aerograms to pen correspondence to whom-ever we choose and Marieke and Co. provide stamps AND a posting box. I have taken these opportunities to pen actual letters, glass of wine in hand, to recipients who shall remain nameless here. Somehow, pen and paper create an entirely different type of correspondence from me full of carefully crafted and chosen words (no delete button here) sincerity, and reflection. In signing off these letters a wave of emotion washed over me - why, I wonder?

What a brilliant way to waste a Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday October 31st I was fortunate to experience the inaugural Men of Letters and what a joy and a privilege it was. 10 top-shelf blokes reading us their correspondence to the topic "the woman who changed my life".

This time the event was held at the little-bit-swanky Thornbury Theatre and we sat at tables with candles, cupcakes and tablecloths! All very awards presentation night-ey.

I got to sit amongst strangers who all felt like friends and met someone I'd been very much looking forward to meeting - my new chum and cyber-sister from another-mother. Here's her blog Gourmet Girlfriend and her post on Men of Letters is there too! X

What we all witnessed was simply astounding and amazing and beautiful and emotional and raw and hilarious and soul-stirring and stand-up-applaudingly BRILLIANT.

It should have been filmed, there simply MUST be transcripts put up somewhere, so that those who missed it can get a minor grasp on why so many of us are FROTHING on about this momentous occasion.

The ones who reached inside and squeezed my gut were:

Bob Ellis - To his partner. I knew he would be erudite, ambivalent, verbose, pithy, witty and maudlin - and he was - as well as gut-wrenchingly poignant and raw and I wept as well as guffawed at his unexpected slights-of-humour.

Tim Rogers - admitted all his failings, scorned the buffoonery of his behaviour whilst inebriated and oozed his pain, sorrow and regret at having driven away the woman of his heart then showed us his musical genius by finishing with a song that rattled hearts and minds "Please Forgive Me"

Eddie Perfect - clever, pithy, funny observations to his partner and Mother of his young daughter. True observations on the often batty, nonsensical conversations between life partners and the acknowledgement that families, as they expand, just get weirder.

Ben Salter (The Gin Club) - a loving, entertaining, adoring, forthright and respectful letter of praise and comradery written in awe and admiration to his only sibling, his older sister who trailblazed 6-years ahead of him and rang so true for me (the eldest of 5). I teared up on this one too.

Paul Kelly *sigh* In my final year at high school we had, what I deemed to be, the misfortune of studying Shakespeare's Othello. Sooooooo boring....SO who cares...so "why didn't we get one of the funny ones or Romeo and Juliet?" I found out why, yesterday. Paul Kelly read his letter written as Othello. Writhing in pain and anguish, having murdered his Desdemona, lashing himself for having been consumed by jealousy and rage, after listening to and believing the poisonous and evil whisperings and mind games of the venomous Iago. So incredibly powerful - it was mind-blowing and to top it all off he broke into unaccompanied song full of the pain and anguish of Othello and his voice rang sharp and clear as a bell throughout the auditorium and over a hushed and astonished audience.

Thank-you Marieke and Michaela and all involved.

Yesterday took my breath away and I'm only just breathing out.

Now to lighten things up a little...

Fast and Furious

2010-10-16T14:19:00.008+11:00

I love and just purchased THESE online from the U.S.A

I ADORE and am drooling over THESE

I WON these! Thank-you Frankie

I'm having some serious rose-coloured glasses memories about these 3 fantastic human beings

Watch This Space...

2010-10-13T12:16:00.005+11:00

I am suffering from a big fat attack of Blog neglect GUILT.
I am still surrounded by boxes and SO much to do my head hurts.

Please be patient, my lovely little blog...I'll be back VERY soon...I promise X

Meanwhile check out Mr Monkey Bond - and DON'T be messing with him!

And remember...

New Beginnings - Part 972

2010-08-24T12:23:00.022+10:00

Right, SO I have been missing from the blogosphere for a while and once again it's because LIFE yanked me aside FIRMLY and gave me and Mr I a good old SHAKE-UP!

Another huge life change is upon us and just in time for Spring - "new beginnings" which hopefully is a fabulous and positive omen!

Within an incredibly short time - frame we sold our lovely property in Nth West Tasmania and bought a new home in Fryerstown, about 10 minutes or so South of Castlemaine in Victoria.

Talk about a whirlwind...SHHHEEEEEESH

We have set ourselves a big challenge because we are both lovers of ye-olde stuff and things and now we have gone and bought ourselves a modern, flash, fancy, 5 yr-old home. We have always favoured the gnarled, worn, interesting, creaky, well-loved, character-laiden home with a history and here we are moving in to a place that's shiny and new, ready for us to make our mark.

Me, I'm not so much a fan of CHANGE, it challenges every part of me, but this time I'm actually REALLY looking forward to it. Well, Hmmm MOST of it anyway.

I AM looking forward to being back in Victoria and only an easy drive or train journey away from my heart-town of Melbourne, my children, my family & my friends.

I AM looking forward to discovering a new local community, one that I know is full of diversity and culture.

I AM looking forward to making our new place OUR home with all our stuff some-how squished in to it!

I AM looking forward to living off the grid in a fully solar powered home.

I AM looking forward to tweaking things to make them just right for us.

I AM looking forward to planting and nurturing a new garden and managing 3 & a half acres rather than the demanding 42 acres we are leaving behind.

The things that are making me anxious about our new adventure are these...

I'm NOT looking forward to being alone a LOT of the time, as Mr I will be working and staying in Melbourne most of the working week : (

I'm NOT looking forward to the HEAT...I detest the HEAT...I WILT & MOAN & GROAN & can NOT function in the heat and leaving my ideal climate here in Tasmania will be an extreme challenge.

I'm NOT looking forward to leaving behind our chooky-chooks and our gorgeous goat, Stumps, but at least we have found them loving new homes. Here they are...

Meanwhile...TA DA! Here is our crazy (for us) and EXCITING new home! These photos are with all the previous owners stuff...

Projects - I'm a Start-Stopper

2010-07-16T16:00:00.016+10:00

Not a stop-starter...

I'm a shocker at starting things with gusto and then my interest wanes and the project fizzles and peters out

I have over 50 crocheted granny squares I made in 1978, YES 1978! I was a CHILD.
The colours were black/moss green/BROWN - say no more
They are still in the bag I put them in all those decades ago
I bought truck loads of gorgeous teeny, cotton print fabrics when my babies WERE babies, with the intention of making cute clothes for them, I never did & that fabric? No idea what happened to it all. I DID manage to knit them some HILARIOUS who-needs-a-pattern, basic, plain-stitch, boat-neck SHOCKERS though! There are photos...but they'll keep for future blackmail purposes.

At the moment I have four wooly projects going on, two of which I started over a year ago
This time I am D-E-T-E-R-M-I-N-E-D to finish ALL of them
I shall and I WILL

here they are...

Project #1 some lovely heart bunting (isn't BUNTING a jolly great word?)
I got the pattern for the hearts from the fabulous Miss Pip @ Meet Me at Mikes & I used them here

project #2 some moss stitch squares to go around the edge of a knitted
patchwork blanket I made a few years ago
(oooo there's another ALMOST finished project I forgot to mention)

project #3 new THIS-century granny squares for another rug

project #4 knitted chain-links which will eventually be a necklace!

So you see, I really am a hopeless start-stopper

What about you?

Looking & Music

2010-07-13T14:02:00.007+10:00

A musical discovery day today whilst looking at some gorgeous interior design...

I LOVE this entry and staircase...

http://www.designspongeonline.com/2010/06/sneak-peek-karen-barlow.html

and this stunningly vibrant room...

http://www.designspongeonline.com/2010/06/sneak-peek-karen-barlow.html

Two wonderful clips with some smashingly talented chikadees and no raunch in sight!

Looking at Loveliness

2010-07-04T12:51:00.010+10:00

http://www.airdeparis.com/inezanas.htm

Debonaire & brilliant Mr Bowie

So lovely (lost the link :( please advise if you find it)

patti shulze http://www.capturedrainbows.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephaniedhubert/4609191183/sizes/o/in/pool-944850@N22/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kawee/4756562111/in/pool-pan-pola

Truly and Simply Beautiful

2010-07-03T16:28:00.009+10:00

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present Photo by Marco Anelli. © 2010 Marina Abramović

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present Photo by Marco Anelli. © 2010 Marina Abramović

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present Photo by Marco Anelli. © 2010 Marina Abramović

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present Photo by Marco Anelli. © 2010 Marina Abramović

http://notcommonpeople.blogspot.com/

http://notcommonpeople.blogspot.com/

http://notcommonpeople.blogspot.com/

http://notcommonpeople.blogspot.com/

Labyrinthian Blogosphere Meanderings

2010-07-02T13:06:00.040+10:00

A collection of some of the mesmerising images I have come across in just one morning whilst fossicking & wandering around the interwebby...

So clever & so lovely...Fifi Lapin modelling the latest catwalk styles
http://fifi-lapin.blogspot.com/2008/11/decisions-decisions.html

Seriously, if someone in Australia sold these, I would do a deal with the devil to get my hands on one
http://dreamstoves.com/portfolio.html

I have no idea why but this hauntingly beautiful image by Tasmanian artist Chen Ping speaks to me...I covet it
http://www.chenping.com.au/

What a clever fella Mr Ben Heine is...this confounds me...how did he do it - draw it & get the cat in the exact same position? Or is there some new-fangled techno trickery going on?
ben heine cat drawing http://www.ciaocimba.com

Well just because it's glorious...is it not?
purple cabbage via http://www.ciaocimba.com

I love this idea - playing around with photos with a bit of etching & doodling...charming
hairdoodling via alexintrouble http://www.flickr.com/groups/photodoodling/

A stunningly-brooding, slightly menacing yet glorious shot
red angel via http://www.ciaocimba.com

How clever - a tea bag hidey-hole
http://casecose.blogspot.com/

Another nifty tea bag idea
http://casecose.blogspot.com/

I want it NOW with an Italian espresso! Lemon & pomegranate cake by stylist Kate Wesson
http://www.designspongeonline.com/

How GOOD is a macaroon? I reckon I could cheerfully stuff about 40 in before regretting it.
http://www.designspongeonline.com/

Wintry Wonders

2010-07-02T12:17:00.009+10:00

I adore Winter.
I function better in Winter I feel more alive and my brain even feels a bit springier!

I find so much is magical about Winter...

Crunchy, sparkly frost after snappingly-crisp, clear-skied nights
The crackling and settling of a glowing wood fire
Fingerless "fagan" gloves
Rosy cheeks
Steamy breath hitting the chilly air
Stylishly tossed scrarfery
FOG
Long, slow, low-heat cooking
Layer-upon-layer of fabulous frockery

AND...

Glorious golden Silver Birches in our driveway

My beautiful, snuggly, comfy FABULOUS bed

The magnificent, shimmering, life force of Liffey Falls Tasmania

Stunarama views from the cliff at Table Cape Tasmania

Our feline Frank making the most of the Winter sun & zestily vibrant limes from OUR lime tree! Who says you can't grow limes in Tassie?

My made-up apple & sultana & quince jam flan-ey thing

Winter energises me

What about you?

Paper Dolls Make me Happy

2010-07-01T18:22:00.007+10:00

As a small child I had a book of paper dolls. I distinctly remember that one of them was called Priscilla. They all wore silky undergarments and then you got to dress them up by carefully cutting out all sorts of fabulous frockery with tabs that you then you folded over the edges of the ladies.
I remember their frocks as being from the crinoline era.
I LOVED playing with them.
They truly fascinated me and absorbed me far more than silly old Barbie with her stupid stilettos, which kept getting lost, and her dumb knotty hair!
I have just come across this amazing Tasmanian arsitst named Joan Pitman who drew these beautiful paper dolls when she was 14-years-old!
I WANT them...I COVET them. Here is just one of the gorgeous creatures...

Her family has released her drawings to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and there are 3 books of paper dolls to purchase! Have a look HERE to see them. Go on! they are delightful.

I'm going to get them. I AM!

What about you?

Post It On

2010-06-14T14:58:00.006+10:00

I'm taking part in Marvellous Ms Pip's Envelope Project...check out what it's all about over here

I have gathered up a few bits and bobs and popped them in a home-made envelope. It's a bit heavier than I meant it to be, I got a tad carried away!

Here it is, ready to go!
What's inside?
Wouldn't you like to know!

Someone Else's Things Have a New Home

2010-05-20T13:35:00.016+10:00

Today I'm showing off my absolutely splendifourous purchases from the farm auction I mentioned in my last post. These are big-ticket items my friends and things I have dreamt of owning since I was a wee thing. I'm justifying, aren't I?

We knew the grandfather clock was going to be auctioned and I had a slush fund I'd been putting aside just for its purchase. That was all we really intended to buy...and buy it we did. Bidding was fast and furious, but the price ended up being considerably less than its value...so that's a good thing - isn't it? I am SO happy to be able to offer it a new place to tick and chime its big old heart away.

BUT...(oh there's always a but at an auction isn't there?) there was this amazing Art Deco lounge suite, in MY colours, with drink stands, in perfect, almost-new condition! I sat on it and could not believe the seats were firm and comfy. There was no sag and no wear-&-tear. We do not "NEED" a lounge suite, BUT this was was screaming out my name.
It had to be mine.
We were dumb-founded and blown away when no-one else felt the same way...we got it for $200! One guy actually turned to me and said "What'd ya but that for?"
They even threw in a lovingly handmade crocheted blanket and two fabby cushions!

So here they are, new additions to our home from somebody else's.

Welcome my friends, I think you'll be happy here.

A Little Movie Magic & Some Fabulous Finds

2010-05-16T10:10:00.016+10:00

We really are experiencing some magnificent late Autumn days here in Paradise, Nth West Tassie, at the moment. Cold, crisp nights deposit crunchy morning frosts and the days are sparklingly, blue-skied and spectacular. Here, have a look...that's the view from our terrace - really!

We went along to a farm auction yesterday and bought something I have wanted since I was a small child - a grandfather clock. I am so excited and can't wait to get it home. There's something so evocative about them, I love it when I walk in to a home and I can hear the regular heartbeat of an old clock ticking. Clearly, I have some potent childhood memories back there in the sludgy recesses of my mind! When we get it home and all set up, I can see myself curled up on the couch, reading with the fire blazing and that old timekeeping relic marking the seconds as they pass on by. It looks very much like this one:

I'm sharing my Fabby Finds with Sophie, over here.
On my lunch-break last Thursday, I popped in to the local oppy and was so happy to come across all these little treasures. A fantastic little leather bag, a couple of 70's Spanish cup & saucer sets, a cute little cherry bowl, a gorgeous glass, butter dish with lid and these superb hand crocheted doilies.

The movie magic came to me from my son, who put together this short film as a memory-triggering momento of our fantastic family adventure to Paris in October last year. I can not watch it without shedding a tear. It makes me burst with emotions - happy, sad, proud, full of joy and thankful for my beautiful family.

Seems I'm having a pretty good day today...what about you?

Bloggers Sans Make-up

2010-05-14T10:12:00.009+10:00

Today it's a brave day...
Playing along with Bloggers Without Make-up

I am not a big makeup wearer or purchaser. Never have been. As I get older, I do find I am tending to try and hide some of my blotchy patches and redness with a brush of mineral bronzer - love the stuff. You do have to be careful or else you end up looking like you have been in the fake-tan booth for a tad too long! A spot of mascara and a bit of kohl and on feeling fabby days, the RED lippy comes out!

My at-home days are spent without a skerrick of makeup, can't be bothered, but more and more I tend to face the world with a little bit of something slapped on.

I don't usually feel comfortable posting pics of myself here on my blog, I prefer to keep a teeny bit of myself to myself, but this chance to nude-up, bare-all, show the real me, seems to have hit a nerve. Taking a bare-faced photo and posting it for all the world to view feels brave and a bit scary but also strangely liberating!

As do many of us, I like to find the "best" photos of me and "tweak" them a bit before releasing for public scrutiny, but here, today no such fooling around. If I am going to bang on, as in my previous post about the dishonesty of botox users, then I need to stand up and show the real me not a cleverly edited and re-worked photo of me.

So many of us are jumping in, it's fantastic - No facade, no bullshit, no fakery, NO photo-shopping, just who we really are. Fresh-faced fabulousness all round!

U-hem...here I go!

Soft or Scary?

2010-05-07T12:50:00.009+10:00

Kylie Minogue recently admitted that she has "tried" botox in the past and Olivia Newton-John reckons it the "berries from the Amazon, diet and exercise" that have her looking so "young".

More examples of the now squillions of women who lose the ability to be honest once they start to inject. I'm not saying they do it intentionally or that they are necessarily treating us like idiots...I am really starting to think it's part of the effect of the drug itself.

As it goes with addiction, you start out with just a little and before you know it you are HOOKED.

These women inject and inject and inject until they bear little resemblance to their previous selves. Do they really not see how bizarre they look when it's all gone too far or is that part of the effect of the poisoning? Why is it that their eyebrows all end up in a severe up-side-down V and nothing like their original eyebrow line and they don't see it? Maybe botox dulls their perception and eyesight and rationale to the point that they really DON'T see it - they truly believe they just look "refreshed".

It's all sounding very much like any drug of addiction to me, where justification is the name of the game. When you are on the booze or the pills or powder of your choice you think you are totally fine and rational and able to speak and communicate and DRIVE safely. You think you are more animated, entertaining, relaxed, fun and fabulous whereas, in fact, you are a slurring, slobbering, un-coordinated, aggressive, embarrassing bore.

Is botox the new heroin? Are these women hopelessly addicted and now on the sad and pathetic justification road for the rest of their lives?

I find it all so terribly sad. Sad that society has driven them to this. Sad that they talk themselves in to it with the old "it made me feel good about myself" line.

Isn't it weird that there does not seem to have been any serious research in to the effects of Botox as a drug of addiction?

I find it TRAGIC that we are erasing life from our faces.

I find it bizarre that babies are being born to women who cannot show them the myraid of minute facial expressions and emotions necessary for babies to learn how to communicate effectively with other humans.

The first 6 women (Meryl Streep, Tina Fey, Helen Mirren, Claudia Karvan, Annette Bening & Vivienne Westwood) below, have LIFE in their faces. There are scars and wrinkles and blotches and lines and redness and yet, to me, a beautiful and alluring softness.

The last 6 (Nicole Kidman, Melanie Griffith, Sigrid Thornton, Kylie Minogue, Cher & Donatella Versace) are, to me, SCARY and sad and plastic and hard and totally unappealing.

Why do I care what these women do to themselves? It's their choice right?
You know what? The more I think about it, the less I believe that to be the case.

What about you?

Reasons to be Cheerful

2010-05-03T17:16:00.008+10:00

Another spot of 5 Faves, thanks to Pip at Meet Me at Mikes

#1
How I love a sing and a group-sing even more. I dare you not to come over all emo at the brilliant PS 22 and their joyful, let-it-all-go, powerful singing. It even has a soul-stirring handclap section towards the end. How lucky these kids are to have the brilliant Mr B (Gregg Breinberg) as their passionate and brilliant teacher. I could have picked any one of hundreds of amazing songs that they have learned, but this one shows how happy and "into it" the kids are, pretty perfectly.

#2
At this time of year the most incredulous lime green moss appears between our pavers. It makes me grin every time I look at it. And to think there are those who would be out there trying their darndest to get rid of it!

#3
I love how towards the end of Autumn the perennials in the garden have a last flush of bold and defiant colour before Winter sets in.

#4
My bed. Where would I be without it? So much of my life has happened there. Tears, happiness, despair, joy, sorrow, laughter, sadness, naughtiness, passion and creation. If I could, I would live there. Amongst my favourite things always, but especially this week as the weather has chilled, it beckons me to slip beneath the sheets and read whilst gazing out the window at the rain plopping on the leaves outside. Ahh Bliss.

#5
Me and Mr I down on the farm. As much as I miss Melbourne, my family, friends and a culturally diverse and stimulating life, I DO love us here on our little patch. We have spectacular views, fresh, clean air, sparkling skies full of trillions of night-time star show-offery and are surrounded by nature in all its wondrous glory along with a menagerie of animals who make us laugh on a daily basis. It's not too bad.

Fabby Finds

2010-05-03T11:18:00.005+10:00

Flea Market Finds time again thanks to Her Library Adventures

How is it in your neck of the woods? It's a glorious, but chilly day here in Tassie.
This week, I fossicked in a 2nd hand barn in Deloraine and came across some lovely sea-shell encrusted old milk bottles AND they were only $2 each!

I also hit some of my old haunts in Melbourne and added to my bambi/fawn family, and my rose print and tin collections! Yee ha!

And here is the happy little extended Bambi family...

My crapenalia addiction comes in waves, some weeks I can "just say no" and others I pounce and snaffle.

What about you?

Jumping on the B B Bandwagon

2010-04-25T09:31:00.011+10:00

Almost every blogger worth a sack of salt, who holds an any sort of interest with food, will be aware of the resurgence in popularity of Julia Child.

img via thefoodsection.com

Many will have, in recent times attempted, or promised themselves they will attempt, her Beef Bourguignon recipe. I too jumped on that particularly squishy bandwagon and last night was my night to take her on.

Yesterday was a moody, wet, heavy-clouded, light-the-fire type day here in Taswegia, perfect for attempting the B.B. I made my decision late in the day and being that we are extremely limited in our fresh produce choices at our nearest town, I headed in at 3.45 pm knowing I would be pushing my luck.

I arrived at the store at 4pm and they were just shutting up shop, but they let me in. A lot of head chef decision making 1A was called for. No gravy beef or stewing steak (is it just me or is the word "stew" one of the most unappealling in the cooking lexicon?) to be found, so I had to settle for a few not-so-thick pieces of rump steak. No pickling onions (that would have been some sort of miracle) so I fossicked for a handful of the smallest I could find. No slab of bacon or speck, so a standard pack of poor old bacon rashers would have to do. Luckily I had home-grown garlic, mushrooms, bay leaf and thyme.

Back home and I laid out all my ingredients and set to recalculating the measurements as I only had 2/3 the quantity of meat Julia's recipe called for. This was no easy feat with a mid-life challenged brain like mine.

Once all the chopping and preparation was out of the way, I read through the method for the cooking process. What a bucketload of old cods! I am a great lover and worshipper of the one pot cook yet, Julia seems to favour the more-pots-and-mess-the-merrier method. I made another executive chef decision and went for the all-in method. I did lovingly pat dry the meat and browned it to perfection. Then, I fried off the onions and mushrooms separately and threw them in with the rest just before it went in the oven for the long slow cook. Surely having everything in from the start has got to impart more flavour, right?

Julia's fusspot recipe tells us we must strain off all the cooking liquor once the meat is cooked, and then strain the fat from the top of the liquid and reduce it to an unctiously silky sauce consistency before returning it to the pot. Sounds extremely dangerous all that straining of boiling liquid from a heavy cast iron pot! I lifted out all the ingredients with a slotted spoon into my pasta strainer on top of the pasta pot and then poured the sauce over all of that so it fell through in to the bottom of the pot. Success!

My sauce was a little thin, so I added a little cornflour to help it thicken up.
Anywho...finally after much mess-making and clanging and sighing and swearing it was done.

It was indeed a taste sensation. It was a 31/2 hour process from beginning to end and a bit more farnarckling around than I like in my kitchen. And to think, I cut corners!

I poured myself my first glass of wine as it went in to the oven, 3 hrs later it was served. You may want to take this in to consideration when you have a go. Just saying.

Although, it was a gorgeous wine in a sensational bottle from a bunch of young winemakers at Some Young Punks (just click on the name to have a squizz at their fantastic website)

I am a little puffy-chested at having ticked this off my to-do cooking list.
Interestingly, as it has been with me my entire life, I will only go along with the rules as long as it suits me, if not I break them or find another way.

I reckon cooking really reflects what life's all about - finding ways to make it work for you.

What about you?

Magazine Madness

2010-04-24T13:45:00.009+10:00

My name is Michele and I am a magaholic.

If I had the finances and the space I would have many, many, many magazines from around the world. I love a home styling mag, a foodie mag, a not-too-wanky architecture mag, an indy/arty/style mag, a down-to-earth/greenie/hippy lifestyle mag, and an occasional monthly literary mag (well prior to a puffed-up-little ponce taking over, I did!)

I don't mind your trashy-mag (junk-food-for-the-brain) either, I just can't come at paying for something that will be devoured in 10 minutes and leave me feeling empty, guilty and a wee-bit brain dead. So I pop off to "the library" (read 'large newsagents') where I grab a quick glance or I help myself to a bit-of-a-read whilst in the queue at the stupid-market.

Not long after we moved down to Taswegia, I came across this incredible stash of original 1946 Australian Women's Weeklys. They cost me $3 each and are a joy to behold. The cover art/photography, that gorgeous 40's style and some hilarious articles and ads inside. Every now and again I sit and read them cover to cover and they reveal something new each time.

A side swing of silky hair and a knitted rug. Check out the slacks on these two in the snow, not to mention the scenario?!

These kids are apparently all "starlets" of 1946 and Ms yellow-shirt appears to be chanelling Katherine Hepburn whilst pondering her cactii.

Here's a darling ad from Ponds before they established their institute and one for some striking knitwear fashions modelled by a freak-of-nature, I mean WHAT is up with that waist-to-shoulder ratio!?

These Winter fashions seem a tad sparce and very Wild West but they do include a some fab wedge heels and some "post war glitter" or is that "clitter"? Straw-hat-lady seems to have been hypnotised by the sheer woolen fabric she is holding or has found a way of hiding the sun spots on the back of her hands.

My favourite old mag find has to be the stunning 1956 Italian food magazine La Cucina Italia snaffled up for $4 from a 2nd-hand bookstore in Fitzroy St. St Kilda a few years back.

Here it is...isn't she stunning?

I'm a sucker for a spot of nostalgia and the 30's and 40's has always felt like somewhere I'd like to pop back to and feel very comfortable slotting in to. Although, I'm sure I would DEFINITELY have a more matronly figure than most!

What about you?

Marvellous Memories

2010-04-20T17:31:00.012+10:00

My cousin sent me this amazing photo of my maternal grandmother, Molly (Granny), taken on her 50th birthday.

I think she looks absolutely gorgeous and so happy!
How's the FROCK and the gladys?
I have been told all my life how much like her I am...until I saw this photo I never really got it. It's bizzare!
It's one of life's great frustrations that we usually don't get the chance to sit with our grandparents as adults and really get to know them. You know, ask them questions about your Mum or Dad and to find out all about their young lives.
I know some things, but I want to know so much more!
Granny was a party girl, she managed the Paterson Lakes Country Club with a girlfriend a million years ago. It's gone now (of course). She was also a JC Williamson's showgirl and worked at Fletcher Jones.
She loved to entertain and show off her good-set-of-pins.
In her later years, all the shop keepers at her local shopping centre knew her and she went to visit elderly friends in aged care facilities to brighten up their days.
I miss her.
I have some of her things and this beautiful well-worn old platter is one of them.

Interestingly it features roses and if you have been through my posts you'll know that I have a bit of a thing for roses!

Last night's pavlova fest on Master Chef triggered sweet memories of my Mum teaching me how to make pavs using our Sunbeam mixmaster. The splash of vinegar, the vanilla extract and the corn flour all vital ingredients. I did not have my own mixmaster and have long lusted after one. A few months back I found one in a 2nd-hand store in Hobart for $35 I was VERY, VERY happy. Here it is along with some snazzy old plates (all found at different locations) with a pattern called "GAYTIME" you gotta love that, don't you?

Pleasing Publications

2010-04-20T14:47:00.012+10:00

Whilst fossicking in the oppy yesterday, I came across these lovelies...

An amazing Australian-published world atlas with beautiful photos and colourful maps, yet strangely, no year of publication but it looks 50's to me.

Some absolutely HILARIOUS old knitting patterns, honestly what were they thinking when they posed these people? Did they think that's how people look whilst hanging around in their knitwear? Seriously?

Check out the smouldering sexual tension between the gents!

Miss natural-pose here along with buttoned-up creepy-cult mother & daughter!

Very excited about the FAB 1965 edition of This is San Francisco and another lovely old Golden Book to add to my collection.

But THIS pattern is my absolute FAVOURITE! Look at her brilliant hairdo! Her coat design is stunarama, but I am so incredibly itchy just thinking about wearing it.

I love old magazines, books, catalogues, patterns and brochures because they offer such an amazing flashback or glimpse in to another time and a seemingly completely different way of life.

What about you?

Autumn Bounty

2010-04-15T12:21:00.005+10:00

I just harvested a bunch of beetroot and a green beans...
This arvo I will be replanting the vegie garden and putting toilet roll tubes around all the seedlings, 'cause some voracious munchers chewed up all my last planting! BASTARDS.

Then I'll need to come up with a plan for the beans, the beetroot I'm having for lunch, a little bit of mayo, low-fat yoghurt, parsley and seeded mustard Mmmmmm.

10 Things...

2010-04-14T09:30:00.010+10:00

Miss Pip over at Meet Me at Mikes suggested we join her in listing 10 things (about me)
So here I go...

1. I was once featured in a half-page story in the Drive section of The Age with my beautiful FB Holden. I loved her, had her for 8 years, then some low-life, scumbag STOLE her...I have never recovered.

2. Music makes me cry. It also makes me dance and sing and laugh and smile and gets right down deep inside and stirs up all my emotions. I am constantly on the hunt for new music and discovering new listening pleasures.

3. I was MEANT to be some brilliant artist's muse residing in a rambling, shambolic, gothic castle on a "wild and windy moor" with a secret garden and massive walk-in fireplaces, grand shadowy staircases and hallways, ancient and modern artwork all around and magnifient rugs strewn through-out. Oh and a grumpy cook and a wizzened-up, wise and lovely old gardener.
I GOT LOST.

4. I have lived in 13 different homes, 12 of them in Melbourne...sadly for me number 13 is proving its unlucky reputation to be correct.
Update: moved on, again! And number 14, in Fryerstown Central Vic is proving lovely...so far x

5. I had 3 children under 4 and no caesareans and I was tiny. I had no child care or day care or creche. We lived pay to pay. It was very, very hard, I nearly lost my mind. My kids and I survived.

6. I have Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria. This means I suffer from hives (I call them hot continents, 'cause the white welts form continent - like shapes and are VERY VERY hot and itchy) and the "idiopathic" (my favourite medical term) means they have NO idea why!

7. I was naughty at school. A loud-mouth. It was an all girls' school for my entire schooling. There were nuns. I liked it...those Nuns showed me how to be feisty and that you didn't NEED a man to run the show. Some of them were very mean and bitter and some were sweet and kind.

8. I had my tonsils out when I was 7. My parents were not allowed to stay with me. I got my own toiletry bag with special kids toothpaste and a Mr Potato Head!

9. I have 4 tattoos accumulated over the past 17 years, this is my favourite as it represents my family

10. I wish I had the confidence, the know-how and the talent to write a book, play an instrument, sing like an angel, paint a masterpiece or create something amazing - Oh wait, I DID that - my 3 spectacular and beautiful offspring! Yay to me!

What about you?

Cookbook & Recipe Pondering

2010-04-13T09:33:00.011+10:00

I love a cookbook or a foodie magazine

I love the possibilities within and believing I can and will make the mouth-watering delights I find between the covers

I love the way cookbooks have evolved in to slick and fabulous tomes of food porn

I love the old-fashioned cookbooks with their line drawing illustrations

I love old-school gaudy unappetising food styling

I love my well-worn and thumbed Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book which brings alive the memory of my kids fighting over whose turn it was to take it to bed to drool over.

I love that I managed to successfully make cakes from it!
I love slothing on the couch reading cookbooks cover to cover and then going to the kitchen and making up something of my own
I love my stuffed-full old green folder full of recipes torn from newspapers and magazines that I hardly ever look at!

I would love a flash, fancy, fabulous, entire wall bookshelf, chock-a-block full of cookbooks.
As it is I have an overstuffed op-shop wooden number that serves the purpose until I can fulfill my dream.

What about you?

5 again

2010-03-28T11:01:00.018+11:00

This week I'm playing along again with 5 Fav's over at Meet Me at Mikes

#1
I absolutely adore this Hall and Oates cover by the lovely The Bird and The Bee and the clip is happy-making BUT ends before the song does...sadly!

#2
Playing more dress-ups and stylista queen over at Looklet it is sooo much fun, I only wish I had the bod to carry these looks off, not to mention the money honey!

#3
Loving Autumn and the sun's new low-lying angle. Sparkly, Autumn days and crispy, snuggle-inducing nights and lots of humongously delicious field mushrooms!

#4
Sitting on the couch with lots of cookbooks (old and new) searching for things to make with the fabulous bounty of apples we have!

#5
Wandering around the blogosphere, reading, marvelling, envying, being-inspired-by and enjoying the myriad of talents of other magnificent human beings ! This one is one of my ALL-TIME favourites...so inspiring and something to aim for in my older age!

Autumn really is my favourite time of year.

What about you?

Day-Dreamin' & Fantasyland

2010-03-24T15:19:00.008+11:00

Thanks a lot to the crackin' Kerri Sackville for this game.

Things I fantasise or daydream about...

I posted it as a comment on her blog but thought I would pop it on my own as well...
Head over to her blog and add your fantasies and HEY! No slimy or creepy behaviour thanks, you can keep THOSE fantasies to yourself.

Fantasy #1
Win squillions and buy each of my kids a home and then leave 'em to it. They get not a cent more until the day I die. I might pay for them to come with me on amazing overseas adventures if they're exceptionally loving and adoring to me. The squillions would also mean I would NEVER EVER turn right on entering an aeroplane again. Oh what heavenly-happiness and bliss, this also ensures I could just pop over to wherever-the-fuck I feel like on a whim. Right now this is no longer possible as on my last adventure to Europe in jam-'em-in-and-ignore-them-class, everything went so wrong on the last leg of our holiday, that we ended up getting an upgrade to Qantas business class. That has ruined me for life...I can not and WILL not go back EVER...they called me by my first name and served me endless champage IN A GLASS for God's sake!!!

Fantasy #2
Be at least 5ft 8inches tall with firm, hourglass figure, long legs, a long, swan-like neck and flawless light olive skin rather than the stumpy, chunky, blotchy, stretch-marked, fair-skinned, double chinned midget that I am BUT keep my personality which I am actually quite happy with - well okay not ALL the time and not the depressive, evil, moody, psycho, negative bits obviously!

Fantasy #3
As the woman above, I would like to have met and smitten Mr Johnny Depp before he saw that bloody Vanessa Paradis' neck nape across a crowded bar.

This game is dangerous it's taking me to a bad and sad place.
I think the next game needs to take me to a thankful and positive place.

What about you?

5 Favourite Things...this week

2010-03-23T10:40:00.014+11:00

Playing along at Pip's 5 Fav's today...

1. Being in my marvellous Melbourne, playing & laughing with family and friends

2. Attending two of my offsprings' exhibition opening, here SO exciting. Curated by one and both showing their wares...paintings by daughter and short film by son as well as works by fellow artisty friends.

3. Eating Pho soup in Victoria St...heavenly, fixative hang-over cure

4. Watching this brilliant, emotional and all-round, makes-me-smile clip. Complete with beautiful, pale & pasty faced British kids...it's lovely.

5. Playing dress-ups on Looklet and kidding myself I could look like my dolls do in the outfits I put together for them...like this one

Those were my favs in the past week

What about you?

Sew 'Tis Done

2010-03-14T17:51:00.008+11:00

A few weeks ago, I posted about doing a spot of sewing for the first time in a gazillion years.
I FINALLY got around to it today and here is the result...

I am not what you would call a patient soul and things frustrate me very easily, so this was SOME sort of achievement on my part.
My old Singer was very dusty and no doubt needs a service and oil up...but I perservered. I struggled to remember how to wind on the bobbin and how to thread the cotton through all the right spots and I reckon I called the machine an F'ing C*#t about 27 times...but I DID it.
YAY to me!
I think it's a bit long and am contemplating taking it up by re-doing the waistband...sorry Singer but more swearing coming up!
I found the skirt in an oppy and I've had the Mary material stashed aside for a few years.
Here's what the bits looked like before I dyed the skirt black

I'm quite proud of myself and will be wearing it about Melbourne town next week!

Might even have a bash at a bit more sewing...

What about you?

Summer Surplus Salad

2010-02-20T20:35:00.018+11:00

We have an abundance of pears, nectarines, basil, cucumbers and snappy finger radishes at the moment, so I came up with this salad.
It's crunchy and juicy and full of Summer flavour

1 lemon squeezed for juice
1 large just-ripe pear thinly sliced length ways. Toss slices in a little bit of lemon juice to stop it going brown
1 small cucumber thinly sliced
2 just-ripe nectarines - mine are cling-stone, so I cut them in wedges off the stone
1 small red onion thinly sliced in to rings and then cut rings in half
4 finger or regular radishes thinly sliced
handful of almonds chopped
few sprigs of regular and purple-leafed basil rolled up and thinly shredded
Splosh of orange balsamic if you can get it or the best plain balsamic you can lay your hands on
Splosh of extra virgin olive oil
black pepper and salt

Mix it all together and serve ASAP

I think it's a winner and will definitely be whipping it up again

What about you?

Sew, Help Me!

2010-02-20T16:38:00.008+11:00

I am considering bringing the Singer out of retirement and having a go at a spot of sewing.
Now those that know me will have just snorted coffee or most likely wine out of their nostrils or choked!

For quite a few years now I have had two minor projects in mind, but will need advice from the less craftily challenged for them to ever be attempted.
Firstly, I have a simple red/white cotton check dress that I want to make V-necked but have NO idea on how to go about this task or if it is indeed possible.
I KNOW it looks like a sack, but it actually has darts in all the right places and fits well, so SHUT-UP
The dress has umm, a hidden yokey thing behind the round neck made of the fabric and some of that binding stuff. See I told you I was rusty!
Here's a photo of it as is:

I also have this skirt I found at an oppy years ago, now it's not my colour and I have no idea about what I would wear it with, but I DO have a plan. I have this great Guadalupe Virgin Mary fabric I came across at Spotlight yonks ago and some fabby spotted ribbon and I want to attach the panel to the skirt. It really is all about ME, this project, as those who have looked at my blog will know, I have a lot of Maryabilia and Rosenalia going on in my home!
Here are the components for the skirt:

The advice I need is this, should I die the skirt? Say black?
I wear a LOT of black. Then the spots on the ribbon, which I plan to sew as a border all around the Mary panel, would tie back to the black.
I would then have more black tops to wear with it.
Oh I just cant decide.
All the components have been sitting in a bag for about 4 years!

I need some advice, guidance and inspiration to get started on these projects.

What about you?

All I Want...

2010-02-18T14:45:00.010+11:00

Right now, at this very moment, is to be back in Venice at this tiny, perfect, red-leather-banquetted, little bar eating the most deliciously, beautiful, freshly baked lasagne I have ever tasted and drinking that amazing Pinot Grigio! The whole bottle TO, MY, SELF.
Afterwards, I would like to inhale one of these most DIVINELY decadent, superbly-spectacular, light-as-feather and rich-as-a-Sheik Parisian eclairs.

That's ALL I want right NOW!

Well, actually, a magic wand or a few millions bucks would be quite nice as well.

What about you?

Kitchey-Kitchey OZ

2010-02-18T12:08:00.009+11:00

Playing along at Flea Market Finds again...

Popped in to a nearby 2nd-hand store looking for a butter dish (my favourite old glass-lidded one broke recently) and came across these two lovely bits of Aussie collectability.
I still can't believe what good knick Mumma Kanga and her Joey are in, but the glowing red eyes are truly creepy...and those salt n' pepper shakers are not exactly what I would call practical.

My Mr I loves ye-olde-mechanical, functional stuff so this fabulous old portable grill had his name ALL over it. It works and is in amazing original knick!

Feeling all collecty-proud and happy with that little hit.
I really do love it when I stumble across something like these two, whilst looking for something else.

What about you?

Of Cattle, Beetroot & Blackberries

2010-02-16T14:32:00.013+11:00

I am home alone on the farm for a few days whilst Mr I is in Melbourne...so I'm on farmhand duty.
Oh alright...I have to make sure the cattle have water in their trough, throw some scraps to the goat and give him a pat, walk the dog, avoid the cat who "lerves" Mr I and not me (and the feeling is mutual) feed, let out and put back in the chooks and keep my eye on my vegie garden. Very strenuous.

Some little fuckers are eating all my zucchini flowers GRRRR...our vegie garden is securely fenced, but those bloody POSSUMS will get in anywhere.
At least my beetroot is looking gorgeous and will be ready to harvest soon.

I have created a scrumptious beetroot salad in anticipation.

Grab yourself the following:

4 medium to large fresh-as-you-can-get beetroots
1 tablespoon of your favourite or home-made mayonnaise
3 tablespoons of your favourite plain yoghurt
a good, heaped tablesoon of seeded mustard
Handleful of Italian parsley chopped.
Some garlic or regular chives chopped

Pop the beetroot in to a saucepan and cover with cold water.
Bring them to the boil, then turn down to a good simmer until they are cooked.
Once cooked, cool them down in cold water and rub off the skin and chop off the ends.
Chop up the beetroot chunky style and throw in to a lovely bowl.
Add the mayo, yoghurt, mustard, parsley and chives
If you want you can add a small tin of Royal Sirena tuna in oil (I love this stuff and I drain the oil out, but still get the yummy flavour)
Mix together.

And that's it!

Here are some gorgeous blackberries that Mr I kindly picked whilst I was at work yesterday.

I will attempt another session of jam making and THIS time I will stand right by that pot and make sure it does not catch!

Home alone time means being slothier than usual and that's pretty DAMN slothy/slothful.
I quite like it.

What about you?

My Place - My Stuff

2010-02-11T18:21:00.015+11:00

Righto, apart from showing you alot of the stuff that makes my home mine, I am also playing along at My Creative Space & Flea Market Finds.

Now, I am not really crash hot at crafting or arting, I dip in to projects now and then, a spot of basic knitting or crochet and I can sew straight lines, but making stuff has yet to grab me and get me to commit to it on any regular sort of basis.
I like to take a photo and I like to cook and I used to love to paint, but these days I just love spending my time wandering around blog land and seeing what the really talented and dedicated crafters and artists and photographers of this world are up to!
I guess my home, and the way I play with and display all the things I have found over the years, is my real creative space! I reckon 80% of my home is furnished and filled with op-shop, 2nd-hand store, ebay, nature-strip and handed-over stuff!
Now for some advice from you, lovely readers, our place is on the market.
It is a 42 acre certified-organic farm in Nth West Tasmania and my style as you can see is somewhat eclectic and a bit nuts. A good friend has suggested we de-US the house, that is, HIDE most of it and bland out the house to appeal to a wider market.
I don't agree and just can't be arsed.
Have a look and tell me what you think?

I think our place is very homey and in keeping with the organic-farm lifestyle and that anyone who is in to organics will not be put off by all my stuff!

What about you?

Funny Little Obsessions

2010-02-09T14:55:00.006+11:00

Playing along here today: Flea Market Finds

Cripety! I reckon about 80% of my home is furnished with op shop, flea market. 2nd-hand store, junk shop, tip shop, charity store stuff!
These are just a few of my favourite things (as Maria would sing)
I don't mind if things are shabby or chipped or well-loved as long as they fit with whatever my current obsession may be!
I am always on the look-out for the following things:
prints/tins/kitchenalia that is retro rosey, cutely 60's bambis or old pottery pieces & knick-knacks in the crimsony/red/pinky with-a-touch-of-green style

Apparently and almost unbelievably, there are those who think this collecting lark is just crap and dust collecting madness! : (

What about you?

I Have Piles

2010-02-09T09:31:00.020+11:00

I have posted previously about a condition I suffer with quite badly - Procrastinitis Bigtimus
Today I am fessing up about a particular symptom of P.B. and it's all about PILES.
This is a collection I am NOT proud of and wish I did not have, yet somehow it keeps growing and growing.
There are piles of paperwork and stuff ALL around our office/study and often they escape the office confines and pile themselves all over our kitchen table.
Seriously, Mr I and I are rendered useless when it comes to tackling our piles. They are created with such ease and with true intention of dealing with them yet, somehow coming back to them , facing them and removing them is something we avoid at all costs. It can takes YEARS.
The piles start out with a defined pile purpose - one for paid bills, one for paperwork to be filed, (HA HA HA HA HA Oh dear, excuse me while I re-compose myself, I don't think I have filed anything in our filing cabinet for about 4 years!) one for receipts, one for interesting clippings and notes and another for ? and on and on and on.
We get distracted by life and before long, we have forgotten which pile is for what and the wrong stuff gets plopped on top of the wrong pile and it is then all too hard. So the pile is gently lifted and moved somewhere else to be dealt with later...
BUT IT NEVER IS! All that happens is there is now space for the creation of a NEW pile!

I have PILES!

What about you?

Jam Making and Pot Scrubbing on a Saturday Arvo

2010-01-30T16:30:00.015+11:00

I picked all the fabulous deep, burgundy/black, shiny, elderberries from the bushes that are scattered around our place.

My first ever batch of elderberry jam was coming up, some online recipe research and I was ready to go...berries, lemons and their pips, sugar...easy as!
Spending a Saturday afternoon on our fab 42-acre organic farm in pristine Nth West Tassie, looking out the kitchen window at magnificent Mt Roland and making jam.
The simple life, all seems so idyllic and romantic.
HA!
I WANT to be a baking/jam making queen, but it seems it just ain't my glass slipper.

Everything was going swimmingly, bubbling away and looking AMAZING...all I did was pop outside for a sec to check on Mr I and his efforts with setting up the new sprinkler in the vegie garden and well, before I knew it...Eau-de-BURNT was coming from the house.
Black tar all over the bottom of my stainless steel pan, SERIOUSLY I could patent this stuff for sealing roads.
I ended up with NO jam for a LOT of mess and one very burnt pan.

More online research on how to remove end-of-the-world-radiation-proof type substance from pots, lead me to boiling up baking powder and water in the pan and scraping with stainless steel implements and finally success...well actually, a bit more scrubbing to come.

So much for stocking the cupboard with scrumptious jam and feeling proud of my providorian skills and making something for almost nothing straight from our garden...all I got was a wasted day and lots of scrubbing!

Think I'll throw some fresh layed eggs, just harvested potatoes, parsley and silver beet in a pan and call it a frittata...

What about you?

Mucking Around On A Sunday Morning

2010-01-17T12:46:00.005+11:00

This morning I had fun and revealed probably a bit too much about myself* on the thouroughly entertaining Kerri Sackville's fabulous blog...
LIFE AND OTHER CRISES: Kerri's 30 Second Questionnaire. Take It.
Maybe you might like to pop over there and have a play?

Here are her Q's and my answers:

1. Have you ever faced death, and if so, what did you think about? Last year my car skidded on ice and it became completely uncontrollable. I knew not to touch the brakes but did try to steer but it was impossible, the wheel wrenched from my hands and I hurtled towards and then crashed through a farm fence American-movie-countryside-police-chase style, eveything went in slow motion and all I could think was thank-Buddha this is not a brick wall or a tree! I was shaken, but fine - car not so good.
2.What was the weirdest thing that ever happened to you at school? In primary school another girl and I pretended we were in a trance,** a girl, I did not like very much, came and spat on my face to see if I was bullshitting and I didn't react! I got to spend the afternoon on the "sick" couch because clearly I was MENTAL! The couch was a lovely old Sanderson print one which was on the landing of a beautiful old staircase.
3.Have you ever been desperately envious of someone? Desperately envious of anyone who is not desperately envious of anyone
4.If you met yourself, do you think you would like You? Derrrr...I reckon I would love me. I already love meeting like-minded people and those who share similar characteristics and life experiences 'cause it really does make me feel like I am not a complete freak!
5.If you could only eat one food the rest of your life, what would it be? Salted Cashews
6.Have you ever stolen anything? I think a pot-o-gloss from the chemist at Kew junction when I was about 10? Then I really stepped it up with magazines & books & smokes from my 1st real workplace & and I MAY or may not have pretended to ring up items and pocketed the cash instead a few times! PLEASE don't tell anyone OK? Oh and SORRY old boss : (
7.Rate these in order from hardest to easiest to give up for a year: chocolate, sex, alcohol, mobile phone, TV, computer. Computer, TV, Alcohol, chocolate, sex, mobile phone.
8. If you weren't with your current partner, who would you be with? Are you on drugs?! JOHNNY DEPP

* Seriously why do we spill our guts so easily on this inter-webby thing? I've decided as I am living a fairly isolated life these days, it's my Cafe, or my group of parents standing around outside the school gates waiting to pick up their kids, or my Friday night at the pub.
**No REALLY what's that all about?

I'm happy with the lovely 21 degree sparkly day we've got here.

What about you?

Of Cold Meat & Salad & Catholicism...

2010-01-16T14:42:00.019+11:00

Remembering how when I was a kid I thought the best dinners my Mum prepared were the ones that were obviously all about her not wanting to KNOW about having to cook, AGAIN, for her 5 kids. My Dad is Italian and when he made lunch or dinner it was another type of food experience altogether! More on that another time.

I thought Mum's "can't be buggered" dinners, actually I think we called them teatimes, were amazing, special occasion, we-are-so-lucky! dinners and I have a memory of Mum spinning them that way.

My top 3 were:
3. Cold meat & Salad - Mum's name for thickly sliced ham and some iceberg lettuce and MAYBE some sliced tomatoes with Kraft French dressing

2. Rice Bubbles! Yep...Rice Bubbles. When Mum made the announcement that it was too late to cook, so we could have Rice Bubbles for dinner, it felt so decadent and radical and bohemian
my absolute favourite...
1. Pan fried ham and cheese sandwiches and packet chicken noodle soup! This one was always on a Sunday night AND we were allowed to eat in front of the TV watching Disneyland, which was hopefully a Fantasyland episode! Dad was in charge of the pan fried sangers.

I've also been spending some time searching online trying to find a certain Mary statue to add to my collection,

it's not about religion for me - way too many atrocities have occured in the name of religion.
Not really sure what it's about other than I just like iconography from all religions, but as catholicism is in my past, I guess it's what I am drawn to. Don't EVEN get me started on all that is wrong with the Catholic Church...I think the erudite Steven Fry expresses my feelings perfectly here:

Just defrosted something in the microwave and missed out on stopping the beeps!
I HATE that!
Do you know what I am talking about?
Our microwave when it reaches zero on its countdown, gives 4 loud beeps, once it hits zero, there is NO way of stopping this. Opening the door doesn't stop it and neither does pressing stop, the ONLY way to avoid them is to get back to the microwave before it gets to zero and open the door or press stop.
It really SHITS me!
Am I bonkers?

Having a lovely time listening to a spot of Laura Marling and the very lovely The Unthanks
Enjoying a very moody, muggy, heavy-navy-&-grey clouded Saturday

What about you?

Spuds & Kookaburras

2010-01-15T11:12:00.008+11:00

Happy with this morning's bounty.
I dug up some spuds from under one plant - there are about 10 more plants still in.
Here they are and I can tell you fresh picked potatoes are so far removed from their sad, supermarket cousins, it's TRAGIC. They are so naturally buttery it really is astounding.

Mesmerised by the family of kookaburras that have taken up residence at our place. Every morning and afternoon they wind up to their full-throated chuckling. I feel so privileged to have them around and they really do "sit in the old gum tree!"

Now I'd like a bit of rain, thanks

What about you?

Chasing Bunnies. Chooks & Floral Arrangements

2010-01-14T12:40:00.016+11:00

Feeling pretty good.
'Been thinking about food, so I went online hunting for some old cook books that I've wanted for ages and found them for bargain prices here
I went for a long walk around the orchard with beautiful Bobby who chased rabbits and is now happily flopped and panting at my feet!

Wondering what to do with all the googie eggs the Ladies are laying at the moment! Only so many fritattas you can eat in a week! I am not so good in the baking department and too many cakes just means someone has to EAT them!

I picked some fennel flowers from a monster plant that I'm letting go to seed and they really do look splendiferous popped in a vase and they smell AMAZING. I'm not a fan of aniseed flavour but the seed heads look stunning and they smell like lemon and liquorice.

I played in my vegie garden, feeding and watering and was delighted to see these perky little finger radishes have popped up, can't wait 'til they grow up. My vegie garden carked it whilst we were on our big o/s adventure and I've had to start from scratch but it's coming along gangbusters now

I marvelled at this perfect bird nest I found a while ago sitting amongst the branches of one of the rose bushes and I brought it inside to study the talents of the birdy who made it. I also freaked out when I noticed a monster HUNTSMAN sitting in it! Shudder...it is now back outside.

Tonight I think I will make one of my deeeelicious pizzas - I just can't come at the ones with 2 basil leaves, a smear of tomato passata and 3 slices of buffalo mozzarella - I go all out and use heaps of baby spinach leaves which disappear down to nothing, I also hide a layer of shaved hot salami on the bottom. This pic was taken before I added a crumbling of the DIVINE Meredith Goat Cheese Mmmmmmmm

I reckon I'm having a pretty good day so far

What about you?

Last night I...

2010-01-08T08:35:00.011+11:00

watched the superb Dusty Springfield on a great doco on the ABC. Lots of footage I've never seen. Her voice and her talent were so spine-tinglingly brilliant.
Then I watched episodes 5 & 6 of Tangle - crikey it really is slow burningly addictive. Ben Mendelsohn and Frank Gallagher's performances are amazing.
I drank a few too many vino biancos - but had fun doing it
I watched and listened to this stunning performance by Tunde Adebimpe from TV on the Radio
and I chuckled and chuckled at this hilarious image...

and today it is STILL making me smile

What about you?

Procrastinitis Bigtimus

2010-01-06T12:22:00.015+11:00

Suffering from chronic procrastinitis
I promised myself I would go for a long walk around the walnut orchard , hasn't happened yet
I promised myself I would get started on writing a piece and submitting it for publication in one of my favourite Mags - aiming high, I KNOW and exactly why I still haven't started.

Instead, I got pleasantly sidetracked with fossicking through some more old books
I stirred up some wonderful memories on rediscovering this joyous book that my children and I ADORED back in the 80's!

How I loved them all - the naughty, hilarious and all-about-entertaining-the-adults John Hamblin, the warm, natural and delightful Noni Hazlehurst, the gorgeous, charming, cheeky John Waters and the exuberant and playful Benita Collings.
Dress up days were and are the BEST

My memories were given a severe yank when I found this inside one of MY favourite childhood books "Now We Are Six" by A. A. Milne.
Drawn by me!

Then with glee I reread some of my favourites

I don't think losing myself in books is too bad a way to procrastinate...is it?

What about you?

Today I am...

2010-01-04T13:25:00.013+11:00

Catching up on what's happening over at Meet Me at Mikes
Listening to the joyous Mumford and Sons
Drinking some refreshing green blackberry tea

Enjoying the heady aroma of one of my favourite incenses

Reading this book by Kate Veitch

and while sorting through some old kids books found this fabulous lot!

Here is one of the lovely illustrations...

A great day so far

What about you?

Getting a bit Crafty

2010-01-02T16:58:00.004+11:00

This Christmas, I was on a majorly restricted budget and at a loss for gift ideas that cost little cash.
The fabulous Pip at the wonderful Meet Me at Mikes had been crocheting some gorgeous snowmen and hearts and I came over all inspired.
I hadn't picked up a crochet hook for many years - my Nonna taught me way back when.
I found myself obsessed with learning how to make these lovely little hearts and after some refresher courses on Youtube I was on my way!
I made up a few hearts as practice and then started on some bunting for decoration.
I woke up during the night about a week before Christmas with a brainwave...very rare I can tell you - I would find some brilliantly appropriate and relevant quotes, print them out and frame them along with one of my crocheted hearts. The gorgeous frames were a bargain - $15 at The Reject Shop.
I was very happy with the results and may I say I little bit impressed with myself.
The results of my handiwork...

I Can NOT Wait....

2010-01-01T21:23:00.000+11:00

La France & Italia with Love & Stress

2009-12-20T14:19:00.012+11:00

So...I have not written for a while, but I reckon I have a grand excuse - I have just been on the longest holiday I've ever had...6 weeks...lame to many, but Woo Hoo to me!

2 weeks in a spectacular, just-like-home apartment in Paris with our fabulous kids and then 4 weeks driving around France and Nthn Italy. Here's a little movie my son made for me of our joyous family time in Paris...Sadly, because it contains music from "Amelie" it has been blocked. : (

I updated friends and family on Facebook and thought I would pop those compact, off-the-cuff-traveloguey, crap grammar (I was on HOLIDAY!) bites on here...so here they are starting at the end of our 2 weeks in Paris.

Sick of being sick in Paris, (have the FLU!) can't wait to pick up shiny new car tomorrow and head off for 4 weeks with no itinerary with Mr Ian, but will MISS the chillies and our incredible Parisian dream home away from home ♥

Day 4 on the road...Loving the car...GPS is s NIGHTMARE...signs and maps the only way to go...Have wasted hours and hours following fucked directions from an electronic MORON. Anywho, so far -Lille/Fromelles/The Somme/Abberville/Amiens/Hornfluer/Trouville/Deauville/Bayeux & Rennes.

Found where Great Grandfather Patrick Rahilly died & his name on memorial :( Met amazing artist Lietitia and shared a fabulous evening with her in stunning old bar in Amiens Saw the biggest gothic cathedral in the WORLD & felt like an ant Saw John the baptist's petrified head Stayed in a nut-OTT-decorated Chateaux Adoring Autumn splendour in France Eating FAR too much butter, cheese, croissants and baguettes!

Craving Vietnamese food and crunchy salads...my insides have butter overload!

Medieval and Gothic Chateauxs, Villages and Churches everywhere we go...Spectacular Autumn splendour across the countryside that we drive through...this trip is AMAZING ♥

Do NOT want to return to the stinkin' hideous WRONG time of the year/this planet is rooted HEAT in Melbourne...after enjoying such a splendid and glorious Autumn in the Nthn hemisphere.

Blew the budget on expensive mega restaurant in Avignon...and got the snippy, quintessential, arrogant, bastard waiter to boot...SO wanted to slap his mincing, judgemental face!

Italia...here we come! Piedmonte 1st - the Slow Food region of the WORLD...and Autumn is peak food season...Oh Madonna...and my pants are already tight!

1st day in Italia makes me sad that I have never been before...drove Nth from the coast as soon as we crossed the border into spectacular Autumn coloured and STEEP rocky snow capped mountains with rivers of aqua coloured water (no wonder that's what they call it!) and after up and up hairpin-bend madness we were IN the deep fluffy aquamarine snow...A completely alien landscape, yet glorious.

We are staying in Cuneo in Piedmonte. Our hotel is proof that Italians really DO do it bigger and better ha ha 95 euros for beautiful, recently re-furbished room with mega King size bed, stunning black-marble bathroom, 50 inch flat- screen TV, free Wi fi and breakfast of organic, local produce.

It's ONLY the 1st day in Italy...but it's been PERFETTO so far...and now off to EAT!

France V Italy (warning, rash generalisations follow) France = quiet talkers, beautiful countryside, rich, complicated food & courteous drivers Italy = hilarious animated LOUD talkers(that's where I get it!) spectacular countryside, fast and furious fuck-the-rules drivers and the food - Oh Madonna...SOOOO full-on, spectacular and flavoursome and delicious and and and ...

Turin/Torino what a spectacular citta and hardly any tourists...SO glad we came...ringed with snow capped mountains, piazzas and churches and towers and old old old everywhere and modern art scattered surprisingly around every corner.

Hello?! Somebody stop me...my intestinal tract is in overload...how do we NOT eat in Italy? My real life: lunch = sandwich and dinner is rarely followed by dessert, but HERE to hell with that! Sadly, it doesn't appear that the 3-4 hours waddling a day is making any difference. Thanks La Stupenda Contessa

Verona - che una bella citta! Now in Venezia having our tiny minds blown...oh and the eating continues...I don't have a muffin top it's more like a giant souffle top! ♥

Oh and...can someone please organise one of those hydrolic lifters they use to get obese people out of their apartments, to be at the airport when we get back? Thanks

The Venice we are experiencing is EXACTLY like the one in "Don't Look Now!" Moody, misty, hauntingly beautiful with echoes and shadows around every corner and hardly any people...I am keeping my eyes out for tiny people in red capes. ♥

Getting lost in Venice - it appears that is part of the mystery of Venice...Nth/Sth/East & West all just disappear.

I'll tell ya something for nothing...Italians LOVE a tile!

Ciao Lucca and Bagni di Lucca e la Famiglia...here I come!

A perfect day in the town of my father's family, Bagni di Lucca...blue skies, Autumn glory, mountains and flowing river and I met the hilarious and very friendly cousins!

So my crime against Art & Culture is this..only a day in Florence, CLEARLY there is nowhere near enough time to appreciate the gazzillion galleries and churches and piazzas and palazzos and and and....SO I am watching Italian Big Brother...Oh Dio Mio...THE BEST!!! Huge hair, hysterics, hugging, hand-action talking with tears, tantrums & total over-the-topness from BOTH sexes! It's brilliant entertainment.

Here's the thing: "the end is drawing near" and just quietly I am just a wee bit OVER the monuments, art, sculptures, architecture, churches, palaces, bell towers, piazzas and the reasons why they are there and who designed, created or commissioned them. Is that wrong?

I am still amazed at the insane amount of ancient hill-top walled villages and loving the spectacular Autumn countryside and the FOOD and WINE.

SORRY?...CAN'T HEAR YOU, I'M IN ROME! A lot of ancient broken bits everywhere...gloriously sparkling sunny day. Got to love a city where the police fang around in Allfa Romeos! Booked a table for dinner and didn't have to spell my surname. Loving toughing it out nonchalantly stepping on to the road Wogarina style in front of 4000 cars, motorbikes and buses!

*%#!*%#!! !- the sound of my brain snapping at the whole Vatican/Sistine/hall of maps/museum experience - absolute over-the-top massiveness in every way. thanks Rome...we really liked you...we have eaten the best food in fab little places that we have stumbled upon...and NOT expensive at all...this arvo had farewell drinks in a brilliant little bar near the Campo di fiori...been amazing ♥

Firenze, San Giminiano, Sienna, Roma, Bangers then Melbourne and Taswegia! It all just FLEW by and is now a blur or mixed memories and thousands of photos!

There's NO place like HOME There's NO place like HOME!!! Hello Melbourne and GEE THANKS for nothing ROME...after we were SOOOOO happy with you, you ruined everything - flight cancellation NO assistance 48 hrs of torture to get home and we have NO bags WHERE are our bags???!!!

The Age "Melbourne" Magazine - all about why people love Melbourne, The 25th anniversary edition of Good Weekend, The Sunday Age "M" Melbourne inside out supplement...all read cover to cover...all making me feel so "HOME" and happy and totally, 100% in love with this city...and on the political front...Thank-you Liberal party for some of the FUNNIEST, most entertaining boys-behaving-badly EVER!

Shepherd's Pie My Style

2009-09-20T10:16:00.010+10:00

PIE BASE
About 4-500gs of left-over roast lamb finely chopped
1lge onion finely chopped
1 stick of celery chopped
half a chunky carrot finely chopped
6 sml-med sized mushrooms chopped
big handful of baby spinach leaves
1 red chilli finely chopped
1tbs Italian herb mix
3 lge cloves of garlic chopped
2 tbs tom paste in half a cup of water
half a cup of red wine
1 tbs w'shire sauce
salt and black pepper

Pop the onions, chilli & garlic in a largish fry-pan with a splosh of olive oil & fry until onions are clear then add lamb, mushrooms, celery and carrot and italian herbs. Cook until the lamb starts to colour up with golden crispiness. Then add the w'shire sauce, red wine, tomato paste and salt & pepper and let simmer for while...
Once most of the liquid has evaporated tip the lot into a lovely dish suitable for sticking in the oven...make sure you leave room for the topping!

TOPPING
2 med sized potatoes
half a large sweet potato
20gs butter
splosh of low fat milk

Boil up the potatoes and sweet potato until a knife goes in nice and easy, then mash them up with the butter and milk and some salt & pepper. Plop on top of your waiting pie mixture and gently spread over the top. Use the tynes of a fork to make a lovely pattern all over the top.

Pop the dish into a moderate oven 180C or 350F and cook until the top is golden and you can see the juices bubbling up the sides.

YUMMO!

Grass Daisies

2009-09-12T14:13:00.004+10:00

A simple thing guaranteed to lift me from a snippy or grey mood

Happy

2009-09-10T15:50:00.004+10:00

A couple of happy sun-basking skinks and some forget-me-nots
Oh now THAT makes me smile

Is It Hereditary?

2009-09-10T09:23:00.011+10:00

I was going through some old photos and I came across this one I took of my Nonna and Nonno's grave in the M.G.C. - the good old "dead centre of Melbourne" a few years ago.

I do LOVE the way wogs do graves - a photo or two, a nice bit of marble and a spot for the flowers.

Anywho, the thing that struck me when I looked at the photo, was the choice of roses on one side and Mary on the other. I have no idea who selected these...probably Nonna herself as the grave was originally Nonno's - it took Nonna 40 years to join him!
I must have noticed these things before, but had forgotten all about them.
It struck a chord because I have a thing for roses and Mary...and I've never really worked out why.

I collect old tins with roses and old plastic roses and old pictures and prints of roses, old crockery with roses, actually anything ye-olde with roses and it's mine...new stuff does nothing for me.
The Mary thing is also about old...I collect old prints and images of her and I have MANY...WHY? I do not know. I MUST admit she is someone I wouldn't mind sharing a wine or 20 with to get the low-down on what really went down, back in the day. I reckon she'd crack up over the whole "virgin birth" bit and poor old Joseph just getting tagged as the guy who lead the donkey!
I don't do religion (in my book too many wrongs are carried out in its name) yet interestingly, I DO find myself Hail Mary-ing my heart out when the plane I'm on is about to take off or land!
I cannot recall seeing things with roses in Nonna's home or more than a couple of your standard Mary images there either...but when I saw them on the gravestone...I realised there had to be something going on!

Spring-a-Ding-Ding

2009-09-05T12:40:00.018+10:00

Here in Paradise, yes, PARADISE - just outside Sheffield Nth West Tasmania,
Spring has well and truly sprung.
Our family of swallows has returned and are busily preparing a new spit & mud & stick abode for their new arrivals. The flying lessons are my FAVOURITE part of following this close-knit clan's daily life. The little ones crouch on the edge of the nest and Mumma and Dad show them just how it's done...whizzing around and around in a small area in front of the nest. One of the babies always tries to bully the others in to going first and one is always nervous-nellie-last-to-fly...too funny, teetering on the edge almost going and then piking over and over and over again. I don't know if birds can smile but I'm SURE I have seen it, actually more like grinning as soon as they have finished their 1st venture in to the world of flight...they take off again and again and again..."look at meeeeeee! Weeeeeeee!"
Being a lover of Autumn and it's fecundant glory and promise of Winter with its chilly, rugged, slatey greys and sparkling blue days...it always astounds me how Spring surprises me. New life and daffodils, freesias, jonquils and grape hyacinths everywhere. the chooks happy and fluffy-bummed and busy busy busy producing orange yolked eggs.

It's All About Red

2009-09-04T14:20:00.008+10:00

Since I was little, I have always been attracted to red.

Perhaps it was Granny and Mum's red lippy that triggered it.
If Granny ever saw me without my red lippy on she would ask what was wrong, because something surely HAD to be if you hadn't bothered to put your lippy on!
Red resonates for me and makes me feel warm, happy, excited, nostalgic and alive.
I have many, many, many things of or featuring red - clothes, shoes, lipsticks-a-plenty, scarves, bags, jewellery, artworks, kitchenalia, ornaments, knick-n-knacks-n-bric-n-bracs (as Darling, Sweetie Edina would say), rugs, furnishings and crockery.
Some of my red stuff...

Linen-yThings

2009-06-07T16:14:00.009+10:00

So, today I played with some of the things I collect. To me it's what makes collecting stuff fun...you get to regress, play and organise.
I'm not a very organised, methodical or logical collector. I am quite spasmodic about it. When the bug hits me I go on the hunt and other times I can come across things I collect and just let them go.
I do love my 100% cotton, stripey, rainbow or plain colour sheets from the 60's and early 70's - harder and harder to find and therefore more of a thrill when I do come across them! Old fashioned quilts & eiderdowns are also cherishable items.
Then there is the 100% wool check blanket fascination also from somewhere around the 70's...not quite sure why, but they are truly wonderful and so much warmer than all those hideous plastic, static-electricity-ridden nightmares around now.
One of my most recent collections is a Bambi/fawn theme...I just came across one one day and then I just found myself fancying them a little more each time I stumbled across another in an op, second-hand or junk shop. Now they are a happy little family on the desk.

Late Night Musing

2009-04-05T00:20:00.013+11:00

Watching Lawrence Leung programming Rage - he's ever so slightly annoying, BUT it's causing some bizzare flashbacks!

Pretty in Pink (hello Ducky) and Breakfast Club and then jumped to Recovery and the amazing "where-did-HE-come from" sizzling presence that is Dylan Lewis and my almost religious addiction to watching even though it was my kids who shoulda been and then that led my sozzled brainage (somehow) to Ye-olde-Prince of Wales (POW St Kilda)...I DON'T KNOW...just some booze induced sad old reminiscing I guess...I'm talking pre MINK...the fabulous BOYS bar...pool room out the back...Sailors!..Buzz Club...Oh St Kilda...changes through the ages with memories for ALL!

Zucchini Madness

2009-04-03T10:46:00.017+11:00

I, like many others I suspect, have had a hugely successful Zucchini growing season and am trying to come up with fabulous foodie options. There's only so many times I can eat 'em thinly sliced and grilled on the barbie with a squeeze of lemon or lime or chunky chopped and roasted up with garlic olive oil and some herbage.

So...I came up with this SIMPLE but YUMMO loafy type thing.

Here:
preheat oven to 350F or about 180C

3 medium size or 4 small zucchinis - grated & squeezed to remove excess liquid
1 bunch of spring onions - greens and ends off, chop up and use the rest
5 med free range eggs
3/4 cup wholemeal SR flour
1/2 cup grated parmesan
120mls extra virgin olive oil...YES 120!
handful Italian parsley - finely chopped
handful fresh oregano leaves - finely chopped
1 long green chilli - finely chopped
3 cloves garlic - finely chopped
salt flakes - good pinch
black pepper - as much as you like

Get yourself a loaf tin or any sort of bakeware with the same capacity and spray it with some olive oil spray or just pour a little olive oil in and wipe it all over with a paper towel.
Mix together all the above ingredients thoroughly and then pour into the tin.
Place in the oven for about 40 minutes.
It's ready when it's all golden and firmish to the touch in the centre.
Slice up and serve with freshly ground black pepper and your favourite salad.

It's delicious cold the next day too!

A Dedicated Fag Hag

2009-03-31T13:07:00.007+11:00

How I love an eloquent and, yeah OK, flamboyant male

The FANTABULOUS Ms Karen O

2009-03-30T18:49:00.010+11:00

A little bit Siouxie Sioux & Chrissie Hynde with a spot of Gary Numan and Simple Minds thrown in - wearing a Jacket to DIE for!

My Kind of People...

2009-03-30T15:10:00.007+11:00

People who do no harm. Honest people. People who care about this planet we all live in and ALL the people who live on it. People who understand that money is NOT the be all and end all. People who do not step over whom-ever they have to, to get where they're going. People who listen. People that give more than they take. Anyone who cares and all those who know how to put together an "outfit", dance and sing and enjoy a cocktail or 20.