Autumn is here! A few days have been cool enough for long pants and even a scarf this morning which is a lovely change. By the end of summer I am tired of my summer clothes. Also planted snow peas as a winter crop.
A crisp, yellow autumn morning, so breakfast at the beach followed by a walk. Great view, great food and a great walk!
I seem to abandon herbal teas when it gets cooler and drink way too many espressos. Lots of socializing means lots of espressos but I love catching up with friends. And I love good coffee.
In gardening news, I am pleased with these cream clivia seedlings. I collected seeds from a mature plant. I planted fourteen and they all germinated and most are thriving.
Started the new year doing a small painting every day, but life got in the way. Lately I’ve been doing quick watercolour pencil paintings using anything around me on or near the table as subject matter. As I’ve become more familiar with the pencils I’ve realized how versatile they are and will keep working with them on small pieces.
This Sunday is Mother’s Day. We are really looking forward to spending the day with my mother, chatting, eating, just spending time together. Mother’s Day is special!
This eye catching display of huge paper flowers is hanging from the very high ceiling of our local shopping centre (mall) to celebrate Mother’s Day.
We have a holiday soon and part of the planning is collecting books as we both find it really relaxing to lie around reading. Some we will both read, some we wont, but we leave them at the resort as we finish them for anyone who wants them.
Did you know May is Get Caught Reading month? So much to enjoy, fiction, non-fiction, perhaps some poetry, but don’t just restrict yourself to reading in May, read every day!
MAKING Made pesto using just harvested basil and other simple ingredients. I picked and rinsed the leaves then blitzed them with extra virgin olive oil, lightly roasted pine nuts, pecorino (a strong sheep) cheese and garlic. Smells wonderful, tastes delicious. This pesto doesn’t keep for very long, but we’ll use it on pizzas tonight and on pasta tomorrow. It never lasts for long because it tastes so good.
I was a bit surprised to read that bought pesto has vegetable oil, pine nuts, garlic and pecorino cheese plus milk, salt, potato flakes, sugar and acidity regulator(575). Try making your own. So easy, so tasty, so fresh.
COOKING This yeasty pizza dough rose nicely as it was a warm day. Later, we rolled out the dough and made a variety of pizzas with several different toppings, including some of the pesto I made earlier. Delicious, quick to cook and a treat for us plus some leftovers for tomorrow.
READING “Common Table” written by Janice Marriott and Virginia Pawsey, two New Zealanders who were at school together and met again later in life and began corresponding by letter, which make up this book. The co-authors write about their shared interest in food and their diverse lives and different challenges, as one lives on an isolated farm and the other in the city. Warm, often very funny, scattered with recipes and astute observations about the people around them, this is a book about two old friends adjusting to their changing lives and expectations.
I enjoyed this book so much I have hunted down and ordered their previous book, Common Ground, based on their shared passion for gardening.
Today is Meditate in a Garden Day, which sounds like a lovely thing to do, so make time to settle, relax and meditate in a garden.
So happy Sarah is back with the Here and Now link-up. I really enjoy her blog but I’ve just discovered I have left publication too late for this month, so I’ll watch out for next months link-up!
LOVING The gentle change in weather as we move into Autumn. The mornings and evenings are cooler. Very motivated to work in the garden after an afternoon listening to Sophie Thompson, horticulturist, author, ABCTV garden presenter and TEDx speaker.
EATING Easter themed cake and gingerbread rabbits.
DRINKING Forest Fruits with a twist of Apple tea. Warming, tastes good and smells lovely.
FEELING Pleased the roses are still blooming. This red one is Father’s Love and lasts for ages as a cut flower.
MAKING Little muslin pectin bags for jam making. Last year I used a knotted Chux, a kitchen wipe! Very ugly, very efficient, but now I have some little bags which I can wash and re-use. Soon there will be citrus, so I’ll be making marmalade. The pectin, from pips and peel, makes the jam set.
THINKING Time to replant a garden bed which gets good sun but is currently planted with cannas. I’m struggling to get rid of them and have been researching non-chemical ways to deal with them. Digging them out seems to spur any remnant rhizomes to greater vigor. Any ideas?
DREAMING We’re planning trips, first to Bali and then a train trip. These are the things we dreamed about when we were working and had limited time to travel. So many possibilities now!
Tomorrow marks the beginning of EASTER, the Christian festival celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus. Many families will go to Church, eat chocolate eggs and hot cross buns and spend relaxing time together.
It’s not too late to make some Easter decorations. Easter has come about so quickly, but these projects are family friendly and mostly require materials you already have or can easily get. The projects I’ve featured here were very quick, very inexpensive and took little preparation. Each activity, except the shrink wrapped eggs, could be done by a school aged child under supervision.
The first easy project is MARBLED EGGS. Begin by boiling your eggs. While they are cooling cover your work area with plastic ( I re-used an old shopping bag). Half fill a bowl with water so you can submerge the eggs, gather some nail polish ( I used orange and grey) and put on rubber gloves.
Drizzle a small amount of both colours on the water and swirl with a toothpick, drop an egg into the water and gentle roll to cover with the marble.Repeat. The almost totally grey egg shows what happens if you pour in too much nail polish!
Leave them on the plastic to dry.
Pretty MARBLED EGGS. I used free range eggs which have very orange coloured shells, colours will look different on whiter eggs.
The second egg project is SPECKLED EGGS. After your boiled eggs are cool, pour some water into a bowl and add a good squirt of blue food dye and about a quarter of a cup of white vinegar. Dip the eggs into the dye and leave five minutes, stirring occasionally to create an even blue coverage.
I used an old shopping bag to cover my work surface and also wore rubber gloves. Remove the eggs and leave them to dry, then “speckled” by flicking brown paint (I used Winsor and Newton Burnt Sienna and Raw Sienna diluted water colour paint and a number 4 paintbrush) onto the blue surface, tilting slightly to speckle the sides.
Again, I used free range eggs which have an orange shell, white egg shells would look bluer.
The last very easy egg project is SHRINK WRAPPED EGGS which involves covering boiled eggs with bought shrink wrappers. (I bought these on EBay)
Separate the wrappers, then slip them over boiled eggs, then, using a dessert spoon, immerse the eggs one at a time, in a pot of boiling water. Hold for 3 – 4 seconds and then leave to cool, while you start the next one. So easy, so pretty.
* I use Martha Stewart’s method for boiling eggs. Heat immersed eggs in one layer in a pot of water until boiling, let boil one minute then turn off the heat and leave in the hot water for 13 minutes before straining and leaving to cool. Perfect boiled eggs!
Quick, free and gorgeous, PAINT COLOUR EGG BUNTING. The day before you make the bunting, collect two of each colour paint sample card you’re going to use, glue them back to back and leave under something heavy (I used a big book) Cut out an oval, egg shaped template and trace two eggs onto each of your colour samples.
Punch holes with a leather punch or similar and knot them onto string or ribbon. I knotted these close together so I could hang them around a cake serving plate.
Today is Licorice Day. Isn’t that wonderful? Licorice is a plant extract used in confectionery, medicines and alcohol. Love licorice.
So many Valentines Day advertisements feature roses, jewellery and perfume and almost always, chocolates. Perhaps you enjoy a dinner in a special restaurant, or new lingerie, or maybe you have your own rituals, or don’t do anything at all! But I’m sure Valentines Day, 14th February hasn’t passed you by, unnoticed.
We don’t do many special things for Valentines Day but I always make a family cake and some appropriate craft project because any excuse to puddle about in paper, glue and paint is a good one!
I began with a few Valentines Day themed cards. I made papier-mâché using scrap paper from the shredder soaked in water then pulped using a stab blender. The pulp was strained and then squeezed as dry as possible before being pressed into chocolate molds and left to dry.
I’d used scrap paper so it retained some print colours. I painted the shapes white. Then I glued the shapes onto stiff card to create Valentine Day cards for the family.
Another Valentines Day treat was a heart shaped apple strudel cake. I knew that any leftovers could be eaten as pudding/dessert with ice cream or cream. I planned to make a chocolate cake, a flavour popular with my family, but wanted to use up some apples in the fruit bowl, so made a strudel batter with cinnamon, stirred through some brown sugar and then added the stewed apple. Finally, the frosting topped with fruit gels in berry flavours. Delicious.
Our final Valentine’s Day treat was Gingerbread Hearts. Delicious, spicy and popular with everyone, they were eaten very quickly. Thanks for sharing this lovely recipe Don.
We all know yesterday was Valentines Day but did you know today is Hippo Day? Hippo loosely translates as River Horse in Ancient Greek. Hippos are the third largest land mammal on Earth. Celebrate by enjoying a mud bath…..or not!
Amenity bags aren’t what they used to be! Once they’d hold socks, toothpaste and brush, comb and small brush, earplugs and eye mask, lip balm, maybe an emery board and razor with cream and other little treats. These all came in a variety of lovely, re-usable zippered or drawstring bags which I have frequently repurposed. The most recent bags held a pair of socks and a toothbrush and tiny tube of toothpaste.
The amenity bag I have repurposed this time is made by DuPont from Tyvek, and claims to be a lightweight and durable material providing the best properties of paper, film and fabric. They say it is eco-friendly, re-usable, water and tear resistant.
I was attracted by it’s claimed sturdiness but also the size is just right for my makeup! I don’t use very much and this size was perfect for my carry-on bag and easy to balance on a hotel window ledge or narrow hotel bathroom shelf. I just had to decorate it to suit me!
I don’t wear a lot of makeup. I use concealer under my eyes, two part long lasting lipstick, foundation on my nose and smeared eyebrow pencil under my eyes. To finish, if it’s not too hot, pressed powder. For over thirty years I wore hard contact lenses to correct keratoconus and couldn’t risk flakes of mascara getting under the lenses. ( Keratoconus refers to irregular shaped corneas and the GP contact lenses create a smooth, uniform surface on the cornea resulting in improved vision) When gas permeable lenses became available to treat this and I could wear mascara it was too late; I was very aware of the black on my lashes and didn’t like it! I didn’t wear eye shadow for years for the same reason and now find that a bit of a pain, too, so minimal makeup.
After wash applied. Before wash applied.
The first step in decorating the bags was to give the front a light wash using fabric dye. I placed a slightly smaller piece of card in the bag and then brushed a thin wash of pink on one bag and purple on the other. The card holds the thin, pliable material flat and prevents any dye seeping through to the back of the bag. My intention was not to totally cover the original design but to create a more suitable background for printing.
I used black fabric dye, a very old stippling brush and a stencil I bought on eBay to apply the design. When it was dry I decided to add some balance and printed more of the stencil to one side.
I set the fabric dye using a moderate iron and a twice folded pillowcase as I have no idea how the Tyvek would respond to heat. Time will tell how well the image has set, but it looks good at this stage, although the fibre did not “grab” the ink well as I expected so it is smudged.
Everything fits well in the little, light zippered bag.
I have continued to do a pencil water colour painting every day. I enjoy the process and like to reflect later on the success, or otherwise, of the colours I have chosen and the techniques I have used in each one.
Yesterday was Belly Laugh Day. Why should you have a good laugh? Apparently laughing makes the tissues lining our blood vessels expand, increasing blood flow, which makes us feel happier and boosts our immune system. Laughing releases chemicals which promote relaxation. So, have a good laugh today!
To Bunbury last Sunday to stay with my mother who lives nearby and to attend two Summer School sessions at the Stirling Street Art Centre. This was a nostalgic moment for me as the building was originally the Bunbury Infants School and I attended there in Grades 1 and 2. We were too far out of town for me to go to Kindergarten and I was the second youngest in the class, so I think it took me a while to settle into the business of education! Luckily, one of my brothers was also at the school. An hour and a half bus ride every morning and every afternoon probably didn’t help. After being dropped off at the front gate, we walked for about fifteen minutes to reach the farmhouse until my older brother was old enough to drive the farm “bomb” to and from the main road.
The first session I attended, in the room where I was in Grade 1 so many years ago, was Colour Connections with Dr Paul Green -Armytage where we looked at colours and considered how they were related. We talked about Primary Colours and he introduced us to the Swedish concept of Elementary Colours, which also have red, blue and yellow, plus black and white.
Then we each added a coloured shape to a 3D model using the Natural Colour System, with the hues graduating from white to black. We did another activity to show how colour can create an illusion.
This was a fascinating and thought provoking session and I’m still talking about ideas we discussed and looking closely at colours.
On the second day we went to Busselton, another town on the coast south of Perth, and really enjoyed it. There is a vibrant arts community, Art Geo, down near the foreshore and we wandered around, looking at paintings, sculpture, glass blowing and listening to a ukulele band rehearse.
A few years ago,to celebrate their 175th anniversary of European settlement, the Shire of Busselton commissioned a Fremantle sculptor, Greg James, to create four life-sized sculptures to represent early settlers.
Above is the Whaler’s Wife. In the 1860s the American Whalers would head out to sea leaving their wives in Busselton, where they would often teach the local children in exchange for food and accommodation.
This is a Spanish Settler. The Spanish settlers, the first immigrants to the area, arrived in the early 1900s and were known as hard workers. They introduced wine and olive oil, which are still major industries in the region.
John Garret-Bussell. Recognised as the founding father of the settlement, Bussell represents the four original families. The main town in the region is called Busselton.
The Timber Worker, still wearing his Christmas tinsel! Timber milling was one of the earliest industries in the region. The timber worker is portrayed using a broad axe to hew jarrah railway sleepers to be sent to London.
The next morning I visited the South West Migrant Memorial in Queens Park. The structure is shaped like a tree, the trunk representing the early settlers, the branches are what grew from that trunk and the leaves represent new growth and prosperity.
The “tree” features over 500 family names of non-English speaking settlers who arrived in the south-west of Western Australia. It is a remarkable memorial to all the early settlers in a beautiful setting.
Next was the second session I’d enrolled in, Go Green: House with Nirala Hunt. Although my main focus continues to be replacing plastics, I found every activity really engaging and liked the basic ingredients used to make them. Typically, for these sort of activities, it’s not only the presenter but often other participants who share great information. Nirala wasn’t at all extreme but had solutions for so many household products which contain harmful chemicals and come in plastic. Most of the products are also fragrance free, although you can add essential oils if you choose. The mixture in the bowl above is liquid hand wash, a blend of two ingredients.
I am already using this hand wash as it replaces the soap at our hand basins which I was finding messy and the bars crack. I have diluted the mixture a little as it was too thick to pump out. It is very mild and effective, I will re-use the same, refilled, pump bottles and I can make it in bulk.
This is a fermented Lemon Power cleaner, a clever way to use up surplus lemons and have a versatile and effective cleaner, either poured on a cloth or using an old spray bottle. It smelt really good, too, being made of water and fermented lemons.
Waxed covers, bees wax wraps, are intended to replace plastic wrap. We grated wax from a block, added a small amount of coconut oil, put it on the fabric then ironed it, sandwiched between baking paper. We also used a sandwich press for a larger cover.
The wax covers are reusable and can be wiped clean. They last about twelve months and can then be composted. I’ve tried mine on two containers, ceramic and glass and they don’t seal well and were knocked off easily in the fridge. My son suggested securing them with a rubber band but I am now investigating silicone, re-usable wraps to replace plastic wrap.
Try YouTube for more information on how to make bees wax covers.
From the left, Easy Liquid Soap, Lemon Power, Washing Powder and Grease and Grime Fighter. We were also given the recipes for so many other everyday products, such as Bug Repellent Cream and Hair Conditioner plus a list of local resources.
Please feel free to leave a request in the comments box if you would like the contact details for either Dr Paul Green-Armytage or Nirala Hunt, both of whom run a range of learning activities from time to time.
Christmas seemed to come about so quickly this year. Although the celebrations take a lot of planning and preparation, Christmas time is special and I look forward to seeing the family and catching up on all the news. There’s gifts and luscious food and Christmas carols, followed by my favourite time, the days after Christmas when we eat easy to serve leftovers and sit and enjoy the books we receive. We are a family of readers. No pressure, just relaxing times. Perfect!
This delicious dessert, a cassata including raspberries, strawberries and blueberries, was made by our son. He varies the flavours every year and it is very good.
The Christmas Wreath dessert, made by the dessert maestro, my niece. It tasted as wonderful as it looked!
Two days after the Boxing Day feast and we’re still eating ham and turkey, but serving it with very plain salads. Festive food is such a treat but eventually, only simple food appeals.
Any more ham? Turkey? Chicken will do….Louis has loved all the festive food and assumed all the visitors came to see him.
The Christmas desserts have given way to apricots, nectarines, cherries plus a few dangerous rum balls.
Hot days, cooler nights and very pretty sunsets.
No, it’s not abstract art, it’s a piece of our clothesline. It was here when we moved in, in 1996 and was the only thing left of the previous house when we demolished and rebuilt a few years later. It is on a slightly raised brick area next to a blueberry bush. Little birds love the blueberry bush and we like to watch them from indoors, darting around and seeming to peck at something on the line. When my husband pegged a heavy rug on the line a few days ago, it snapped! The plastic coating was brittle and cracked and nylon rope inside it was teased out and pulled through the cracks. The birds had been using the nylon for nesting. Now we need to replace the clothesline!
Yesterday was Visit The Zoo Day, so that’s easy enough to do, isn’t it? Sounds like fun and something we intend to do as soon as it is cooler.
MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR to Sarah and her many blog friends! It has been so much fun being part of this link up and I look forward to being involved again next year.
LOVING// Bringing in the Christmas cards, ripping the envelopes open and then catching up on the news. I know electronic cards are very popular, but I still love to sit and read the messages from everyone.
EATING// Prawns! The season for fat, fresh, fantastic prawns is here and I love them!
DRINKING// Lots of espressos and lots of water with lemon. I mean to drink more herbal teas but often forget.
FEELING// Pleased I have finally got the Christmas decorations done. Had intended to sort them but maybe I’ll have time when I put them away. Is that wishful thinking…..
MAKING// More shortbread using a very old recipe which is perfect every time.
THINKING// How lucky we are that lots of our family will be gathered here for lunch on Boxing Day. I hope I remember to take a photo this year.
DREAMING// About the lazy days after Christmas, enjoying books, looking at photos and eating leftovers. The pile of gifts suggests lots of books. Relaxing.
Also dreaming about my new laptop, ordered tonight as mine crashed on Monday. Bit of a trauma, but luckily other family members came to the rescue for now.
The thirteenth of December is world ICE CREAM DAY. Proclaimed by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 I think this day is self explanatory, so eat up and enjoy!
MAKING These little muslin jam making bags hold the peel and pips of oranges, lemons, grapefruit and kumquats for jam making. Citrus fruit is low in pectin and the pips and skin are high, so including the bag of pips and some skin while the fruit cooks disperses the pectin, which is the setting agent.
These little bags are so easy to make. I cut a rectangle of washed and ironed muslin and sewed a hem along one of the longer edges.
Then I stitched the two open sides together, using zigzag stitch as the weave of the muslin is very loose.
Turned the bag inside out and sewed the two edges again in normal straight stitch. Then stitched cotton ties on the top seam and it’s done. A perfect pectin bag!
COOKING Soaked over a kilo of mixed fruit in sherry and brandy for about six weeks in preparation for the Christmas Cakes.
The first part of making the cakes is to line the cake tins with brown paper and then baking parchment paper. I hold it all together with pegs.
Next all the ingredients are mixed in a big bowl.
Each family member stirred the mixture and made a wish, then I poured it into the tins and decorated the top with almonds and cherries. I used to ice the cakes but not anymore. They cooked for nearly five hours and smelt wonderful the whole time.
GROWING I picked this pretty pink geranium from a friend’s garden to paint. I liked the colour so much I broke a piece off and planted it.
It’s growing well!
READING “Frieda, The Original Lady Chatterley”, Annabel Abb’s carefully researched but partly fictional account of D.H.Lawrence’s muse and wife was a fascinating snapshot of women’s rights and opportunities during the first half of the 20th century. Frieda, a German baroness by birth, marries an English professor of linguistics and moves to Nottingham, an industrial city with strict behavioural expectations which stifled her. She adores her children but feels suffocated by her marriage and lack of intellectual and sexual stimulation and sets out to achieve more.
( The book has a different cover overseas.) Frieda pays a dreadful price for her freedom. She loses contact with her three children until they are adults and lives within a toxic and erratic marriage with Lawrence. Frieda was a woman who refused to conform and was determined to be wholly her own person. A great read.
Also read Arundhati Roy’s “Ministry of Utmost Happiness”. I bought it because I’d really enjoyed her previous book, “The God of Small Things” but I found her new book so long and so distressing I struggled to stay engaged. Her wide ranging collection of characters and locales plus the constant and graphically described violence, all based on historical events, was finally too much for me. No utmost happiness for me!
The 7th of December is Pearl Harbour Remembrance Day. On the 7th of December the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, the Headquarters of the United States Pacific Fleet in the Hawaiian Island. This attack caused America to enter WW2.
The Japanese also attacked Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore the Dutch East Indies, the Philipines and the International Settlement in Shanghai at the same time, although the date on the other side of the international dateline was December the eighth.
