Retraining Teachers and Odd Jobs

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retraining teachers in south australia

One in three Australian students failed to meet the minimum level of achievement in NAPLAN testing this year. (National Assessment Program- Literacy and Numeracy.) The score and specific information regarding the areas the child did not meet expectations is then sent to the school and the classroom teacher to reteach. Sounds great, but what if the teacher doesn’t know how to teach that skill?

The University of Adelaide has launched a new microcredential course focussing on explicit teaching. The Federal Minister for Education, Jason Clare is reported saying, “The reading wars are over. We know evidence based teaching methods work and this free short course will help teachers in the classroom” It’s all about teaching teachers how children actually learn to read, write and do maths. In recent times teachers have not been taught these teaching skills as part of their training.

The free course is offered online and can be completed at the teacher’s own pace. It will teach explicit instruction techniques, that is, a teacher explains a new concept to the students, directs the children to practice or repeat what they learnt, tests for success and reteaches where necessary. It is very specific teaching, directed by the teacher. Universities in South Australia will be required to include explicit teaching instruction in their teaching qualifications.

The first course, already available, teaches how to teach phonics, the sounding out of letters and words. I taught junior primary for most of my 40 years teaching and cannot believe phonics is not the basis of all reading skills taught. My friends, still in teaching, talk about children in their second and third year of education who cannot sound out or spell words phonetically.

Image Pixabay

A course already offered online teaches teachers how to keep classrooms calm and under control. These skills are no longer assumed to be learnt at home. Children are taught to line up quietly, sit and to listen. Already 1280 teachers have completed the microcredential in classroom management.

Source : The Weekend Australian, November 23-24, 2024, by Natasha Bita, Education Editor.

odd jobs

Do you save buttons from old shirts? My Mother snipped the buttons off worn out shirts before they became cleaning cloths. The buttons were stored in old coffee jars, the white buttons separated into small for shirts and the bigger ones went into another jar. Every other colour was a mix of sizes. When I was working I also kept a jar of small white buttons in the laundry plus a needle threaded with white cotton. This meant I could replace a button within minutes and still get to work on time. Over the years I must have washed and ironed thousands of business shirts and school shirts and frequently needed to replaced buttons.

Luckily, I inherited my Mother’s button collection! An unusual but very useful inheritance. Just recently, I bought a pink linen shirt but really didn’t like the wintery, dark button at the front. Snip, and it was gone to be replaced by a large pink button from one of Mum’s button jars. The jars are stored in a cupboard where I can easily retrieve them, as they continue to be useful.

Snip, stitch, done.

The same day I had to repair three necklaces. Earlier in the year I’d restrung two of the necklaces, using a variety of pretty beads. I wore both regularly. I’d used clasps I bought in a local shop and within five or six times of wearing them, the clasps broke. Annoying. ( I used a large safety pin to connect each end of the necklaces for a few weeks. Not exactly ideal, but it worked!) So I went to a craft supplier and bought good quality clasps, took apart the two necklaces and a third which needed restringing and got to work. Really pleased with the quality of the fittings, now, and considering updating the catch on another necklace.

Repaired, back in service.

Then I decided to use up half a dozen large, super fresh golden yolked eggs a friend of my husband’s gave us. I made an egg and tomato pie, using up things I already had such as onions, tomatoes, spring onions and some yoghurt, plus the eggs and then some chives on top. Baked in the oven.

While the pie was cooking I peeled and quartered some apples. We really like fresh apples but this year they all seem to be a bit doughy. You know I hate wasting food, so I caramelised some caster sugar, swirled in some butter, then arranged the peeled, cored and quartered apples in the caramel. I’d cut the pastry to the size of the pan I’d used for making the caramel and had then stored it in the fridge. Quickly arranged it in the top of the apples, poked the sides down with a spoon and put it in the still hot oven. Smelt wonderful, tasted really good, too.

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Solar Fountain and Reading

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birds, bees and the solar fountain

Hoping to attract more bees to the garden I set up a solar fountain in a terracotta bowl a few years ago. The fountain floats on top of the water and I thought the bees could stand on it and drink safely. More often, though, it’s used by birds.

During the process of stripping, sanding and sealing.

I originally sealed the terracotta bowl and painted it. The paint started to flake off after about 18 months, so I patched the bare parts. Then the paint started coming off all over! Annoying. So, I stripped, sanded and sealed the bowl, then painted it. Was pleased to find the solar fountain still worked. I have used three coats of a different sealer this time and hope it lasts a lot longer than previous times.

Fresh, functioning fountain.

The solar fountain is attracting bees and birds at the moment. We have so many birds in the neighbourhood this spring. Suburbs nearby have had old houses on big blocks with trees and gardens bulldozed and replaced by towers of units with little or no garden and rarely any remaining trees. It seems the birds have migrated to our suburb.

reading

Our local library is shut as it’s being relocated to another building. Although there is another library close by, I bought a few books to ensure I always have something to read. I prefer to borrow books from the library and only buy them if they’re remarkable and I know I will read them again at some stage.

The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl is the first book I bought. Reichl is a well known American food critic, former editor of Gourmet and best selling writer of restaurant reviews. I have read Garlic and Sapphires, Comfort Me With Apples and Tender On The Bone, all about the history of food and also restaurant reviews. Reichl has written or edited many other books about food.

The Paris Novel is (surprise!) a novel. Stella arrives in Paris after the death of her mother, cautious and careful and lacking confidence. Her mother’s message to her was ‘ Go to Paris’. All sorts of unexpected events result in her becoming very well informed about designer clothing, French food and it’s history and art, all supported by discoveries not just in Paris, but further afield. Packed with information, The Paris Novel is actually a mystery surrounded by lashings of French culture. I’m enjoying the journey.

The second book I bought is Richard Osman’s We Solve Murders. Already well known for his bestselling series The Thursday Murder Club, which became a multi million copy record breaking seller around the World. The four books in that series were quirky, recognised the skills of older people, especially women and were a fun read.

Osman has embarked on another series, also about solving murders. We Solve Murders is the first book in the new series. The characters are well developed, the plot is well presented and fast moving and I’m sure this series will be popular. It has very good reviews but I’m taking a while to find it as wonderful as the previous series.

Did you read Anne Glenconnor’s first book Lady In Waiting, about her years as Princess Margaret’s Lady in Waiting from 1971 until the Princess’s death in 2002? It was a best seller. She followed up with two novels. I have just read her fourth book, Whatever Next? A courageous, honest and strong woman, she writes frankly about her turbulent marriage and how she survived it, the loss of her two older sons and nursing a third son back from a coma, the joy of her twin daughters and their families and her many friends.

Lady Glenconnor’s husband purchased and developed Mustique, where she holidayed frequently with him and the children and Princess Margaret and her friends and their families. He loved a great party, but also suffered from terrible mood swings and was violent. Lady Glenconnor developed skills to avoid some attacks and remained open to adventures and valued her many friendships. Now in her nineties, she is still inspirational.

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Olive Oil, Mother’s Day and Recycling Beads

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extra virgin olive oil

Having trouble sourcing your favourite extra virgin olive oil? Australian olive oil is in short supply due to the poor fruit harvest in 2023. Outside the Mediterranean, Australia is the greatest consumer of olive oil in the World. Each Australian consumes 2.1 litres of olive oil every year.

Image Pixabay

This doesn’t surprise me as I slosh, drip and drizzle EVOO on things I cook every day. I buy 3 litre ( 101.4 oz) tins and decant them into a one litre dark glass bottle kept within easy reach of the hotplates and food preparation area. The bottle has a pop up pourer, so no mess. Buying in bulk and decanting is more economical than buying small bottles. Storing in a dark glass bottle protects its purity.

Apparently, in Europe, the price of olive oil in January 2024 was 50% higher than January 2023. This jump in price is due to olive oil producing nations experiencing longer and hotter summers resulting in poor harvests. Some sources also mention the increased interest in the Mediterranean diet which promotes olive oil, adding greater demand in an already diminished supply chain.

mother’s day

I hope all the Mother’s had a lovely day with their families celebrating Mother’s Day. Or doing something else if that’s what they wanted! We didn’t celebrate Mother’s Day this year because I’m too sad. My Mother died in March. In memory of her I bought bunches of flowers in her favourite colours, so lilac, purple, cream, white with a dash of red. I also put a little arrangement of lilac and white lissianthus next to her photo. I miss her!

Mother’s Day Sunday was also the day we celebrated our 40th Wedding Anniversary. Forty years! On the Friday before we went to a restaurant on the beach and ate fish tacos, a crayfish taco and Fremantle octopus tentacles, plus roasted butternut and chips. Beautifully presented and delicious. Rain and stormy conditions were forecast but in reality there was a clear blue sky and a bright blue ocean and we were hot. A lovely way to celebrate.

Dessert of burnt honey cream brûlée with pear sorbet plus an extra scoop of pear sorbet because my husband knew I’d want to taste the sorbet even though I declined dessert. Soon it’s pear season so I’ll try making pear sorbet. It was very good.

jewellery

Last week I did a jewellery recycling workshop. Our instructor had bundles of old bits and pieces to be remade into something we’d use. I made a necklace with a ring in it to hang my reading glasses from so I knew where they were. Great idea but it was so long and so heavy it knocked things over or off the bench. Put it away to consider at a later date as the beads are very pretty.

Meanwhile, I gathered all my necklaces secured not by jewellery catches, but with safety pins. When the catches broke, as they always did, I’d secure both ends together with a small pin. As a junior primary teacher, I always had safety pins, bandaids and tissues in my bag. Today I mended every broken necklace catch. Really pleased with my fully fixed collection. Plus I’ve used some very bright beads from old necklaces to made new, less bold necklaces, more suited to my current lifestyle.

Sorting and fixing my necklaces made me realise I have a lot of jewellery I don’t use anymore. I don’t have pierced ears but had a lot of clip on earrings but I don’t wear them now. I have some pretty bracelets, too, along with a pile of necklaces. Some of the sweetest bracelets were made by children I’ve taught. I’m keeping them! Happy memories. The rest are in a bag, ready to go to the Salvation Army along with three other bags of things I’ve sorted. I quite like going into the city to drop things at their depot as I then go across the road to an Asian supermarket, buy the best fish balls and speak appalling Mandarin/Putonghua to the checkout girl. She is so polite about my accent!

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Clothing and Natural Fibres plus Decorating Trends

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natural fibres and clothing

According to the calendar, the Southern Hemisphere has entered Autumn. With persistent high temperatures it is hard to get really interested in the pages and pages of winter clothing appearing everywhere now. A walk through the shopping centre shows clothing brands are preparing for cooler weather. A closer look reveals many of these pieces are made from manmade fibres which will not break down once they’re in landfill. Similarly, most donated clothing is not recycled and not suitable for reuse, so it becomes landfill or is sent overseas where it eventually becomes landfill also.

Image Pixabay

According to Choice (here), Australia’s leading consumer advocacy group, each Australian buys 27kg of new clothes every year and disposes of 23kg of clothing at the same time. Australians generated 780,000 tonnes of textile waste of which only 7% was recycled, the rest became landfill.

The best outcome is to buy less, buy lasting quality and maintain existing clothes. Look for natural fibres. Channel Yves Saint Laurent who said ‘Fashion fades, style is eternal.’ He wanted his clients to discover their own style and stick with it.

Finding clothing made entirely from natural fibres is difficult and often more expensive. You’ll have to consider the cost against the number of times you’ll wear it. Learn how to launder the fabrics to keep the colour and shape. A quick search online shows many suggestions, plus a lot of information about mending.

Image Pixabay

Before you baulk at the cost, consider the longevity of the fabric. For instance, linen has been found dating back 34 000 years in a cave in the Caucasus. Linen is made from flax which takes 100 days to transform from seed to harvesting. It requires less water than cotton, is smooth and lint free, has anti-bacterial properties and is thermo-regulating. The best linens come from France, Belgium and The Netherlands. China and Canada grow flax, but true aficionados only seek out linen from Flanders. The quality is reflected in the price. Linen is popular and easy to find at the moment. Buy the best quality you can and enjoy it forever. Think of French bedlinen, highly sort after in French markets; some sheets are over a hundred years old.

Other sustainable fibres are wool including cashmere, angora, pashmina and mohair, cotton, silk, hemp and jute and the most recent addition, bamboo. Bamboo fabric is created by crushing and submerging the cut bamboo in a solution of sodium hydroxide which dissolves the cellulose. Next carbon disulfide (a highly flammable carcinogen) is added to create a fibre which is then bleached white. The production of the bamboo fabric is probably more chemically intensive than other fabrics. Despite the advertising, bamboo is not a green fabric.

Image Pixabay

So buy wisely, maintain your clothes and limit how many pieces you need. There are many online guides to building a capsule wardrobe, based on about 10 main pieces. Easy enough as you’ll probably already have a few base pieces like jeans, trousers or a blazer to build on.

decorating trends

So now you’ve got your wardrobe sorted, lets look at the decorating trends. Unfortunately, I discarded my full length, floral Laura Ashley dresses many years ago. It’s a shame, because looking at the decor trends in Europe I’m pretty sure Laura Ashley-like floral dresses will be the summer fashion here.

I base this on the interior designs in international decorating magazines. In one, it’s all about wallpaper and the wallpaper is Toile de Jouy. Once an Irish decorating favourite from 1760, Toile de Jouy soon swept through France and then everywhere. It was also a favourite during the Laura Ashley era. So a blast from the late 70’s through to the early 90’s. Some of wallpapers included in this article are traditional Toiles, featuring scenic vignettes, such as sprigs of flowers, horses, styles, herds of cows under trees, they’re all there. Some are more modern. Pictorial story telling in one colour on a white or cream background is everywhere. The articles suggests wallpapering one wall, or within painted panels or above the dado in bathrooms or sitting rooms. Exactly as I did in one of our houses, in 1991. Even the same colours.

So, when I turned to the page to the next article,’Heaven Above’ I was almost prepared for the next new thing. It’s wallpapering your ceiling. Not necessarily matching the wallpaper on the walls, although that is recommended but maybe a smaller pattern or even a bigger pattern in similar colours to blend with the wallpaper on the walls. These images remind me of hotels we stayed in the UK during the 80’s and 90’s, sloping wallpapered ceilings and Toile wallpaper, Toile curtains and bed skirts and even a matching Toile skirt on a kidney shaped dressing table. All those swags and ruffles.

All of which did actually prepare me for the next article called ‘Border Control’, suggesting we need definition in our decorating schemes. To do this we need clever borders created with wallpaper, paint, tiles or fabric trim. Another decorating hint in the same magazine was to brighten things up by tacking a pleated fabric skirt to your chairs. I’m experiencing deja vu. Worse still, I remember the dust in all the ruffled pelmets, curtains, Roman blinds and frilled cushions. Never again.

Trends referred to are based on articles and photographs from THE ENGLISH HOME, April 2024, Issue 230, UK Edition.

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Treats and Home Maintenance

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treats

It was our son’s birthday on Friday and he’d flown in Thursday night to spend a long weekend with us. We spent Friday in Bunbury, where my Mother lives. Although we managed to squeeze in lunch at our favourite Italian restaurant, the rest of the day was spent on Mother Business. She has moved into care and is slowly settling. It was never her plan to leave her house and garden but she has become frail. She’ll be 93 this year.

Knowing we’d be home on Saturday we arranged birthday treats to be delivered. Delicious bags and boxes arrived quite early. The box contained six authentic croissants, the long paper bag contained a baguette and the wonderfully presented cylinder was packed with macarons. Luckily, he shared, so a special start to the day. We settled to the weekend papers, online news and treats. Later (much later) we went out for sushi.

What’s in the box?

Macarons!

Our son lives in Kalgoorlie and he misses some favourite food places so his visits usually feature trips to our favourite yum cha restaurant, but not this time as it is Chinese New Year and the yum cha restaurant will be packed! Sushi is popular from two different places, and Vietnamese cuisine, too, except our favourite cafe is closed for renovations. When he lived in Adelaide he shared a unit and worked with boys from India, so curries feature, too. He also makes good curries.

home maintenance

During the two years of Covid lockdowns, closed borders and limited social contact, we took over cleaning the house as the cleaner was prevented from visiting. It took two of us almost all day once a week to do the whole house. This was because we tidied things away, did repairs, put things in better places and sorted things that could be discarded. Coffee breaks featured, too.

Now we are doing the cleaning ourselves again. We’ve removed the fabric cover from a sofa and all the cushions, plus two antimacassars and washed them. It looks so fresh and crisp again. We also got two leather cushions on another sofa refilled and I have used leather dye to repair worn areas on one of the arms. As soon as I have the time I will treat both leather sofas with saddle dressing.

I sanded and repainted all the chips in the door frames (so many!) and removed four pictures from a wall so had to repair the plaster, sand, plaster again, sand again and then paint. I like less on the wall, highlighting a Margaret Preston print already hanging there. Also treated a metal door frame outside which was rusted. Annoying as I’ve treated it twice before but this time I sanded, treated, primed twice then painted. Everything dried quickly in the 40ºC heat but the primer required 16 hours drying and curing time before the next coat. Finished off with white paint. Finger crossed. Later I repaired a few chips in the floor tiles using a two part resin mix. A friend then told me she scrubbed all the grout throughout her house with a toothbrush and then she sealed it. I know when to stop!

There’s some tricky bits to clean, such as the corners where skirting boards meet, the shutter frames and an intricate sculpture. Found an effective and easy to use solution! A long handled artists’ paint brush with firm bristles. Works so well on picture and mirror frames, too.

The advantage of doing these jobs ourselves is we have made decisions about decluttering, repairing and rearranging. I have also repaired paintwork and brick paving outside but there’s so much more to do. Too hot to garden but some other jobs can be tackled in the evening. We have a ‘handyman’ list and hope we’ve found the person to do those jobs. I think this frenzy of activity indicates how often we were in Bunbury, staying with my Mother and things became quite neglected. Now we need to catch up.

Meanwhile, I’m back reading all those posts online about keeping your house clean in 30 minutes a day, how to develop a routine for the immaculate house and even studying the spreadsheets of the immensely organised. Doesn’t seem to work for us.

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Christmas Countdown and Prawn Stock

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christmas countdown

The cakes are cooked, the cards are sent, most of the gift shopping and wrapping is done but despite my determination to be super organised this year, I still have a TO DO list. We’ll be having two Christmas Dinners, the first when our son arrives late Christmas Day and the second when we go and spend a day with my Mother. Tidied up the fridge and freezer to accommodate the Christmas food and drinks.

The whole TO DO list thing is a bit controversial. Some people feel writing down their tasks to be done is really efficient. They tick off the jobs as they are completed and focus on the next one. Other people say they don’t remember to look at the lists, struggle to make lists to cover everything that needs to be done or the length of the lists makes them anxious. I lived by lists when I was working, running the house, walking the dog, establishing the garden, doing the shopping and cooking and trying to maintain friendships. Then life relaxed a bit and so did the list. Lots of things slipped by so I went back to making lists, especially for shopping. Works for me.

In the middle of the Christmas preparations and fuss, I discovered one of the downsides of having very good eyesight again. I noticed most of the door frames have chips in them! I pondered on this for a while and finally realised, looking at the height of the chips, most of them are probably from mopping and vacuuming.

It’s a very hot day and I knew I’d need to do two coats to restore the frames. I started by sanding them back, then wiping the dust off and working out which paint ( I have lots of tins of white paint) matched the best. The best match turned out to be a spray paint, so I used a piece of cardboard to protect the walls and got spraying. Two coats did a good job. Then I washed and wiped all the doors. I noticed a chip in the plaster near the front door but that will be a job for after Christmas!

A sheet of cardboard to protect the walls, a can of spray paint and some sand paper, too, and the job was done. Really pleased with the outcome.

prawn risotto

We get wonderful prawns from along the coast of Western Australia. Many people associate prawns with summer eating and particularly at Christmas time. I had a pile of them to peel to make a stock for a Prawn Risotto. My traditional way of peeling prawns seemed to be taking so long! I usually cut the body from the head, slit down the underside and peel off the shells with the legs, then a small cut along the back to remove the digestive tract. This method was taking so long!

Wondered how restaurants dealt with shelling prawns. They’d need a faster system than mine. So I looked up Gordon Ramsay’s method but it almost what I was already doing and after looking at a few more entries, finally accepted I’d be shelling prawns for quite a while, get on with it. Then all the shells went into a pot to make stock with water, tomato paste, sweated onions and garlic. ( Someone told me later that many restaurants buy prawns which have already been mechanically peeled.)

Asked my husband to help but that wasn’t a success. He doesn’t really eat prawns or crabs. When we talked about it he said he never ate them as a child. I grew up at the head of an estuary and ate a lot of crabs as a child and still eat then whenever possible. Some years ago, when I returned from Milan with a broken wrist, we were at a crab party and he was preparing crabs and handing them to me. I’d eaten quite a few and suddenly realised he wasn’t eating any. ( Lucky me)

Made the prawn risotto. Forgot to photograph it. I’m not a big fan of rice (which was awkward living in China for a few years and visiting frequently for many years) but the packet of Arborio Risotto Rice was in a gift pack and I don’t like wasting food.

Back to Christmas preparations, about to check Spotify for some old fashioned carols to add a bit singing and dancing to the kitchen routine as there’s many jobs on the TO DO list!

WISHING YOU A MERRY

CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY

NEW YEAR!

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Cherries and Other Christmas Things

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TECHNOLOGY and ME

I have no idea what kept going wrong with last week’s blog, nor why it published itself (obviously not, but I’m accepting no responsibility). I eventually just gave up! Pondered giving up entirely, but decided to try once more. Fingers crossed this week’s blog is a success.

CHERRIES

The countdown to Christmas no longer features Advent Calendars in our house, although I’ve seen some very lush adult calendars online. Instead, it starts with cherries. As soon as I know cherries are available, I want some! Just before my first eye surgery I bought an art and craft materials Advent Calendar and every so often open a window and enjoy using the paint, clay, pencils and pens and other little treats. So not a countdown to Christmas calendar, more a move towards being able to do the things I used to do before my eyesight deteriorated.

This bowl of cherries didn’t last long!

The fountain in the portico is decorated.

So is the front door. Since added more baubles to jazz the laurel up a bit!

This dear little Christmas cake, a gift, arrived in a clear bauble and was delicious!

RUMBALLS

For years I’ve used the same recipe to make rumballs. They can be made a week before Christmas and are very popular. Our son was here on the weekend and wanted me to wait until he was back before I made this year’s rumballs ‘ because you don’t add enough rum.’ Well, some of the consumers of our rumballs then have drive home, so I think I’ll be sticking to the usual amount of rum in this year’s mix!

Every year at Christmas time I cook multiple trays of shortbread biscuits and give them as gifts. No fancy homemade boxes this year but I have decorated each gift with a heart and added a bauble, too.

Shortbread biscuits in cellophane bags with air dried hearts and baubles decorated using paper napkins/serviettes. (here)

TOMATOES

These tomatoes all germinated from two tiny cherry tomatoes from my Mother’s plant. I squeezed the seeds from the tomatoes onto a paper towel, spread them out and let them dry. Cut the towel into six squares and planted each square in a small pot. I planted them about six weeks ago. About 50 plants germinated.

I planted them out at different times to have a good supply of tomatoes throughout summer.

I have given away about fifteen plants as we’ll have enough for the two of us and these are delicious little tomatoes.

This lot are in a raised bed, sharing with the chive forest.

The last lot to be planted out. I’ll transfer them to bigger pots in a week or so.

MENDING

These light woven baskets with a drawstring lining are ideal for so many jobs. I have several.

When the handle stitching came undone I repaired it using linen thread and a big blunt needle.

I share all this with you because it is SO exciting to be able to thread the needle myself! I have also threaded and used the sewing machine. So exciting, so satisfying. Up there with being able to drive again and read easily.

SQUEEZING LEMONS

My husband, the preferred citrus squeezer in this household, saw Jamie Oliver using one of these citrus squeezers on a cooking program and wanted one. Two days later we saw one in an Italian food shop and we bought it.

He is very pleased with it.

BEFORE, the old way.

NOW, the new way!

I hope all your plans for the holiday season are going well.

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Rice, Mending and Winter Food

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RICE

Image Pixabay

Do you eat rice? Rice forms the basis of many diets. It is a tropical crop which can be grown twice a year, in the wet season and in the dry season. It is mostly grown in China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Japan and Pakistan also grow rice. South America, Europe and Australia grow some rice, too.

So, how healthy is rice? Brown rice, which still has the husk on it, is far more nutritious than white rice. But the question really is SHOULD YOU WASH RICE? Traditionally we were advised to wash rice to make it less sticky. According to Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director for Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of South Australia, washing rice before you cook it makes no difference to stickiness.

Images Pixabay

Washing is recommended in some countries to remove dust, insects, little stones and husks left from hulling.

There are good reasons to wash rice anyway. The heavy use of plastics in food production means microplastics are being found in all foods including rice. Washing the rice before cooking it can rove about 20% of plastics regardless of the material used in packaging. Rinsing pre-cooked rice can remove 40% of the microplastics.

Washing rice has no impact on bacteria, although cooking it at high temperatures will kill bacteria. Also avoid cooked rice which has been left at room temperature for long periods as it may develop bacteria producing toxins.

More information www.miragenews.com

MENDING

Bought this merino wool cardigan at the end of winter last year. Seem to remember wearing it twice. Got it out on Saturday and as I put it on I realised the shoulder seam had a hole! This was an expensive cardigan so I imagined it lasting a long time.

Inspected the hole. The trimmer had cut too close to the stitching. Investigated all the other seams. They were fine. I can’t remember where I bought it and obviously have no receipt. So, I mended it, using cotton thread. The hardest part of mending was finding a colour close to the colour of the cardigan. Done and wearing it again. Still cross.

WINTER COOKING

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. Western Australia is in the middle of winter. This has been the coldest and wettest June for twelve years. This winter feels like the winters of long ago when I was a child. Raincoats, flannelette sheets, hot water bottle and roaring fires were common then.

All this cold weather means lots of hot meals. The green grocer was bursting with lush, fresh winter vegetables. We filled our baskets with celery, potatoes, zucchini, onions, cucumber and butternut pumpkin, plus pears, mandarins and apples. We also got a salami and some cheese.

So when we got home and unpacked our shopping I began to chop vegetables. The first thing I made was Ratatouille. Such a satisfying cold weather lunch. I used onions, zucchini, diced tomatoes and par- cooked butternut pumpkin. I know, eggplant/aubergine is the traditional vegetable but we don’t eat it. Sometimes I add sweet potato and sometimes pumpkin because I like the pop of colour and the flavour. Tastes great when it’s cooked but wonderful the next day when the flavours have matured. Delicious.

While I was chopping the vegetables I diced onions and carrots. I also chopped the top off the celery stalks where the line is on the stalk. The thinner stalks and even some of the crisp lime green leaves, finely diced, taste good in soup. I added stock, this time made from bouillon as I forgot to thaw some stock from the freezer. There’s no way it would have thawed in a few hours in this weather .

I added some curry paste and left it all to bubble for about 25 minutes. Used the stab blender until it was smooth, then added some broken spaghetti. Actually, rice would probably have been a more likely addition, but I’m not a big fan of rice despite living and still frequently visiting Asian countries where rice is served every meal.

This was served over two days and was very good.

We like toast with soup. Actually, the soup was so thick and filling it was all we had for dinner one night, plus some toast. These two loaves look very rustic! I’ve begun adding more rye to the mix. I also sprinkled poppy seeds on one loaf and caraway on the other. I’ll add caraway seeds to the mix next time. They taste so good!

Winter also means citrus fruit. I love all forms of citrus! I made this lemon cake with lots of lemon juice and then used more juice and zest in the icing.

My ‘go to’ winter citrus cake is a Lemon Drizzle Cake but I didn’t have any mild Greek yoghurt, only sheeps’ yoghurt, so I made this loaf cake.

No risk of scurvy in this house!

We’ve picked many lemons and limes so they will be featuring in our cooking for some time, yet.

Keep warm if you’re in W.A.!

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Domestic Organisation.

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domestic occupations

Laughed out loud when I read the Queen of Decluttering, Marie Kondo, has relaxed her standards after the arrival of her third child. She now believes clutter is part of family life. Changing your approach to all sorts of things is part of the human condition! I think the amount of clutter you can comfortably live with is a very personal thing. Almost every decluttering article I’ve ever read has shared three or four or more really useful techniques for tidying up and instigating more effective ways of organising your home. Most are now part of our everyday routines.

Our house is comfortable, easy to clean, fairly easy to locate paperwork kept for future reference and reflects our passions and interest. There are a few cupboards best never opened by the unprepared, but we’re comfortable with that and may sort them one day. Besides, I used to wonder if Marie Kondo’s garlic press, tissue boxes and laundry pegs ‘ sparked joy?’ Her mantra was ‘only have things that spark joy.’ Nevertheless, it is important to surround yourself with things that make you comfortable.

I do have a few habits to make everything easier; I like a calm, functional, comfortable home. I try to avoid waste. A tidy, productive garden with some plants grown from shared plants is satisfying, too. I believe in maintaining, repairing if necessary and enjoying our house and its contents.

So a few things I’ve done recently in line with my philosophy.

I wandered into a home decoration shop recently, looking for sheets for my son. It was one of those shops filled with beautiful china, bed linen, gifts and some furniture. Didn’t find the sheets he wanted, but I did find other things! Initially, I picked up some William Morris print serviettes/napkins (so pretty) then a big butter dish which would hold the 500gm blocks of butter we buy. It has rounded corners and sits nicely next to our retro looking toaster.

Then I spotted a box of four blue and white patterned mugs with fine, thin rims, which I prefer to chunky rims so I added them to the pile. Two new mugs were actually on my shopping list, anyway, so now we have four new ones.

The dilemma was evident when I got to the checkout. I’d parked some distance away, two of these purchases were in big boxes and I didn’t have a shopping bag! The lovely assistant offered me a faux oilskin bag for $1.00. It is very pretty and will be added to my collection of shopping bags. Like all these cheap bags, the side seams are not well finished and often start unraveling and separating from the top edge after being used a few times.

The side binding is not finished well and will come apart easily. I could have overlocked the end of the seams but the fabric is not very sturdy and I wondered if the needle holes made stitching them would actually weaken it. I didn’t want the bag tearing. So I glued the end of each seam and when I tested the next morning each corner was strong and firm. This bag should last a long time.

While we were in Kalgoorlie I needed masses of chopped herbs for a sandwich spread I was making. I’m a big fan of chopping herbs with scissors as all the flavour becomes part of the recipe and not a green stain on the chopping board. I used herb cutting scissors, with multiple blades in this case, but usually I just use kitchen scissors. No green stain on your chopping board and all the goodness goes into the food.

Always trying to increase the variety of fruit and vegetables we eat, so I make several different salads regularly. One of my favourites has tomatoes, celery, potato and half a red onion in it. Red onion tastes very good but has a particularly strong aroma. So when I store it in the fridge I seal it in a wide mouthed recycled jar. If the scent lingers on the lid after it’s been washed I put it out in the sun and all the smell is gone in no time.

I usually avoid round storage containers as they waste space whereas rectangular and square containers can be placed with no wasted space.The round, wide mouthed jar works well for a round onion!

My very old, tired sourdough starter. A bit sad!

We were away for ten days and in that time my sourdough mother/starter ran out of enthusiasm. It smelt strongly of yeast but didn’t react when I fed it. So I had to dispose of it after more than four years. I am on day six of growing a new one, using only flour and cooled boiled water. It is very hot during the day in Perth at the moment so the new starter is doing well. Looking forward to fresh rye sourdough!

The other thing I’ve been doing is saving all the vegetable off cuts in the freezer and adding new bits each day until I have a bag full. Then I boil them up and let them simmer on low heat for about twenty minutes. Next I strain the liquid into a jar and freeze it. Beautiful vegetable stock! Leftover bits go to the worms.

I have lots of plans for using the stock and I’m sure I’ll share them with you! Do you make stock?

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Two Garden Renovations

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coalport stool

Did you have garden furniture made by Coalport? Generally two or four ornate chairs with a table, these settings were Brunswick green or white. I’ve had this stool for a long time, so long I don’t remember anything about its origins. I’ve kept it because it is the perfect height for weeding! I sit with a bucket for the weeds and reach all around me, pulling them out and dropping in the bucket, then moving on and repeating. I frequently make weed tea out of the weeds as it is ready to pour back on plants in about ten days and gives them a boost.

Gathered my supplies and set to work.

This stool has lived a long and hard life and looked it, too. So I decided to renovate it. I especially wanted to treat the rust before it affected the integrity of the metal. The first job was giving it a good scrub and hosing it down. That got rid of dust, dirt and a spider.

Next was a coating of paint remover. Originally Brunswick green I intended to paint it black. The paint stripper was a gel which make the old paint loosen but also gel-like and the only way I could remove it was with a wire brush. This was hard work and took longer than I’d anticipated. Then I used a liquid rust retardant and converter all over the stool. About five days later it got rained on which cleared off the residual evidence of treated rust. Time to tighten the leg screws and let it dry out properly.

As this stool is sometimes left out in the garden I used another rust retarding product to paint it. This was a Rust Guard Epoxy Enamel. It resulted in good coverage but it had a matte finish and I wanted a gloss finish, so I completed the job with a spray paint. These pieces were built to last. Referred to as retro or vintage online, there’s a surprising number of chairs, tables and stools by Coalport for sale. This one is light enough to move fairly easily from place to place despite being manufactured from cast iron.

decorative fence panel

This panel will be attached to the fence. It started life as a screen but my son cut the legs off for me.

The second renovation was a panel for the garden fence. Originally a screen, I knew where I wanted to attach it to the garden wall as soon as I found it. The first job was getting my son to cut off the rusty old legs. Then I gave it a good scrub before checking the strength of the welded joins. It’s old but in reasonable shape.

I coated the screen in paint remover and left it to work before using a scraper to remove the gel like dissolved paint. Messy. After I’d done one side, which took almost five hours, I flipped it over only to discover the old, cracked paint came off quite easily scraping at it. Still took ages but the gel was very messy and sticky, scraped off paint is easy to sweep up.

A coat of liquid rust remover, then a few days later I filled the cut off leg edges with builders filler. The screen will be attached to a wall where the lower part of it will be sprayed occasionally by the reticulation. Left the filler to harden for a few more days then sanded it to a smooth finish.

Sanded the builders filler used to seal the ends where we’d cut off the legs. I don’t have a workbench so improvise using the garden table covered by an old plastic tablecloth and sometimes the garden chairs, too.

Next was a coat of Rust Guard Epoxy Enamel, then finally I finished it with gloss spray paint.

Finished but resting in position on two bricks until I get the brackets to attach it to the wall. The timber slat screwed onto the wall to the left will stop the creeping fig from growing near the panel. I trim along another slat and the top of the fence to keep it under control.

These projects were very time consuming and hard work. I would probably investigate ways of having similar pieces sand blasted or stripped professionally if I had another project like these two. Once sand blasted they could be powder coated. Cleaning, stripping, treating the rust, sealing and repainting took many days. Although I am really pleased with the outcome, I wouldn’t want to remove paint from intricately patterned and pierced pieces again. I almost wore out the wire brush and myself!

Unfortunately, I have quite a long list of repairs or renovations to carry out in the garden, including resurfacing a chipped Chinese stool and restoring a small table. Might think about these jobs for a while!

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