Interesting times

Some challenging times are afoot at the moment, with serious illness in my family. I am literally taking each day at a time, and working hard to stay calm and positive.

I have all sorts of things to tempt me in the evenings - I am really enjoying reading Persuasion, I am cross-stitching a very sweet little folk design, long-stitching a pretty alpine scene and I have finally found my cure-all knitting book The Knitting Problem-Solver (by Tish Lilie) because I want to have a proper stab at moss stitch.
Having watched a great documentary on the Amish last week, my sweet husband has been suggesting we switch off the telly in the evenings. It would be the perfect chance to get some of these things done. But I find by nightfall I am tired and have only the energy to watch tv and silly tv at that (Snog, Marry, Avoid anyone?) It gives me a welcome opportunity to put my brain in neutral and be distracted by the passing parade for awhile.

Ah, well. I think it's important to follow what you feel you should do, what feels right for you. Sometimes even in the smallest of ways, we need to nurture ourselves just a little and take some time out.

Lately I have also rediscovered my love of Blur, who I haven't given much thought (or an ear) to since I got into the whole Britpop thing in the mid-90s. I adore this song ("The Universal"), and its sentiment. It seems about right, right now.

Blogger doesn't seem to want to embed it, so here's a link -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrbxWOMpwfs

Wishing you happy days, friends.

Melancholia

I have to show you this lovely old battered stem of an artificial flower that I found in an old cigar box of bits and bobs. I believe it belonged to my grand-aunt. I like to imagine that perhaps it was part of her wedding outfit.

And did anyone watch the Lars von Trier film Melancholia, which screened on tv here on Saturday night? Oh my, what a film. I was ready to dismiss it after its very arthouse opening but I am a fan of Kirsten Dunst, so I sat with it. What a depiction of mental illness, dysfunctional families and, truly, melancholia. And the ending...I'm not a fan of hyperbolic movie reviews, but it is genuinely haunting.

I would love your thoughts if you've seen Melancholia.

Flower Fleur Blume

Spring has now well and truly arrived. The weather has been grey and indifferent for so long, I had forgotten how warm warmth can be! The front yard, as I mentioned in my last post, is literally bursting with all of the flowers that began their lives under my grandma's careful nurturing many years ago and which now appear every year as a beautiful testament to her and her deep love of plants and gardening.

It's funny but these photos I took remind me so much of the playing cards that she bought for me when I was a child. They were flash cards of a sort and each one showed a flower and gave its name in several languages. Although she loved the Sturt's Desert Pea and also the flower of her home state, the Waratah, European plants and flowers were her first love. And so I often spent my visits to her house identifying alpine flowers from far distant lands. 

More music today...pretty, meandering and a little strange. Just the way I like it!

To talk again

I have been missing my grandmother lately. I'm not quite sure exactly why. We live in what was my grandparents' house, so I guess they are never far from my thoughts and also they were the only grandparents I really knew - my mother's parents spent a lot of time ill and passed away when I was very small (my maternal grandfather died before I even arrived).

But I have been thinking lately that perhaps it's because I have changed just a little bit in my interests since Grandma died in 2008. As you know, I am now completely into knitting, sewing and baking - things that she would have loved me to have shown an interest in. She was very accomplished in all of these pursuits and I would love now to talk to her about how she does things - this stitch or that cup of flour. That's not to say that she would have been a patient, sweet-natured teacher! I can still recall being told in no mollycoddling or uncertain terms how to knit when I asked at age ten. But it would just be nice to ask and to talk again.

And so I made this very tasty currant cake yesterday from one of my great-aunt's cookbooks, The Kookaburra Cookery Book. I'm thinking it's 1920s at the latest. With lots of nutmeg, it even tastes old-fashioned, reminding me so much for the flapjacks my grandma made every week, without fail, so that there was always something on hand for visitors who came to tea.

Currant Cake

1 cup butter
Half-cup milk
2 cups caster sugar
4 eggs
3 cups self-raising flour
2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
Half-pound currants

Combine. Bake for 45 minutes - 1 hour (keep an eye on it) at 180 degrees celsius.

Soup for the body and soul

I have been really unwell this week, having had a bad reaction to some medication I'm on right now (or was on). It's been totally unexpected and, frankly, pretty bloody horrible. I am very gradually feeling better and it's really only yesterday and today that I've felt I could eat with anything approaching enjoyment (or with a view to keeping it down). But what to eat? It's always a big decision as to what you should start putting back into your body after it's had a lot taken out of it.

Nice, wholesome bready carbs have appealed, as have fresh fruit and vegetables. But bread, fruit and veg just as I imagine them in my mind's (tummy's) eye! Just as I want it. That's when my father's soup swam into my mind. Dad has been making soup for as long as I can remember and it is just so warm and thick and vegetably and good. I put in an order over the phone for some yesterday afternoon (ahem!) and this morning, lo and behold, Dad arrived with a jar of the good stuff, half of which I polished off with joy this lunchtime just passed.

So good.

A bite of home.

Out of a jam (sorry!)

Before Christmas I bought a lovely jar of rich plummy-pruney jam. It was lovely but just too much for first thing in the morning, you know? So, rather than throw it out, I remembered something my grandmother used to do. I mixed the jam together with some dried fruit, popped the lot into a pastry case and baked it at about 180 degrees celsius for roughly half an hour. Delish!

And I have been in love with this piece of music this week...



Enjoy x

Stitchin'

My grandmother was a great stitcher. As with many women of her generation (she was born in 1908), she was very skilled with a needle and thread. Throughout my childhood, I had handmade shirts, trousers, skirts and art smocks. This was utilitarian sewing. Then there was 'fancy work' - embroidery. Her house (and ours) was filled with embroidered doilies and cloths of every description.

When I started high school in 1985, we studied 'needlecraft' (it was a girls' school - that's what girls studied in those days - in second form we learned cooking and in third, typing...on a typewriter). I was absolutely hopeless. I took so long with my embroidery stitch sampler that the teacher assigned another girl to watch me work (oh, the shame) and my patchwork cushion and nightshirt were pulled apart with the teacher's stitch-ripper more times than I care to recall.

But now, weirdly, I love it. I have just started the piece of embroidery above, and to my surprise, it's very relaxing. Sort of like colouring-in with thread! It's really quite lovely to watch the picture come to life before your eyes. My mother, who dislikes crafting of all kinds, said "It's all come from your  grandmother".

Would Grandma be pleased? I hope so.

In the grip of the grape

Mr Yellow Wood had a significant birthday yesterday which he was not at all happy about, so I treated him to lunch at De Bortoli's Winery restaurant  (http://debortoliyarra.com.au/restaurant.html) in our beautiful Yarra Valley region (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarra_Valley). We had a huge and sumptuous lunch (I am still getting little shivers of joy about the salt-encrusted olive bread) and then we walked around part of the vineyard and through the lovely garden. There were harlequin beetles everywhere (including the little fellow above, perched on some purple stasis), as well as gorgeous roses, trailing nasturtiums and, of course, lots of beautiful grapevines.

As is sometimes the case with what is right under your nose, I had forgotten how lovely the Yarra Valley is. We both agreed we should take a drive up there more often. Especially if there is food involved...

Winter Musings

Even if the novel I'm in the process of writing is never published, I have to say it is a most excellent journey to be on. I have so much on my reading list at the moment that I really don't know where to start and I have all sorts of ideas coursing through my mind! Which is just as well because this winter is super dreary with rain, grey skies and low temperatures almost every day.

As well as or in conjunction with my writing, I have been getting creative in my Etsy shop, being inspired still by all things Victorian and Edwardian. I think I may have posted some Ernst Haeckel images before, but I couldn't resist these, so typical of the Victorian habit of documenting nature with extraordinary detail.

These images are from http://shewalkssoftly.com/2011/05/19/ernst-haeckel/

So, here are just a couple of images of bits and bobs I have made for the shop, with a photograph of some of my ancestors in the middle. I love his moustache in particular and so I am now using this as my Etsy logo.

This necklace is available at http://www.etsy.com/listing/103953678/edwardian-downton-abbey-style-necklace?ref=pr_shop

This necklace is available at http://www.etsy.com/listing/103953879/downton-abbey-style-necklace?ref=v1_other_1

As well as continuing on with A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book, I am also getting stuck into Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness novel Mrs Dalloway. Have you read it? I've just found a lovely clip from the film version with the always wonderful Vanessa Redgrave as Clarissa Dalloway.

Woolley Goodness

It was Mother's Day here yesterday and for once I achieved one of my constant aims on present-giving occasions - I made the gift! This is the simple scarf I knitted for my mother (as modelled by her!). She doesn't like long scarves so this is short neck-warmer-upper. I used a kilt pin and a silver spiral I made myself  (from 12-gauge wire, if you're interested) as a clasp. Well-timed, I think - our weather has taken a decidedly wintry turn. The skies are grey during the day and in the evenings, woodsmoke is heavy in the air!

Hope you had a nice mother's day if it was celebrated in your neck of the woods yesterday - whether you were a giver or a givee!

Ginger tree, very pretty, and the ginger flower is sweet...

My mother dropped by for lunch today and she brought with her a piece of ginger plant for me. At least, we think it's ginger plant. We don't really know! It looks so tropical and more than a little triffidy. And its aroma! I don't know if I like it exactly but it's very distinctive. Sort of like the scent of a lily. No shrinking violet, this one. This flower makes a statement!

Backwards and in heels

My sweet fella and I don't dance. So don't ask us (ha-ha). That was until...last night. We went to our first swing dancing class! My lack of coordination has been a well known fact since I was at primary school and my husband has two (self-professed) left feet but we have been thinking of swing classes for a while. We enjoy the music and it just looks like fun. We went to a Swing music night a couple of years ago, though, and it scared us to death. Everyone was moving so fast and they all seemed to know about a million different steps. So we retreated from that idea. But, new year and all, we thought we'd give it another try when we noticed that there were classes on offer not five minutes from where we live. So, we are baby, baby, baby swing dancers. One of the teachers very kindly and patiently walked (danced?) us through some very basic steps while the rest of the class leapt expertly around but it was fun. And we're going back next week.

Any new activities for you this year?

At this very moment

Right at this very moment, I am loving...

Coming up with some unusual (and hopefully loved) gifts for the family at Etsy and managing to break away from the dreary commercial offerings that are being rammed down our collective throats at the moment. I'll also be making up some hampers comprising the homemade goodies we talked about last week.



Listening to the peaceful, optimistic music of my mother's youth on my IPod, along with a few added bits and bobs of my own.



Having too much to read! At the moment I am thoroughly enjoying My Father's Country by Wibke Bruhns, as well as Christopher Stevens' Born Brilliant: The Life of Kenneth Williams. News from Nowhere by William Morris and Sally Beddell Smith's Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House are waiting on the bedside table, along with all the other books I am still dipping in and out of!



What about you?

Blogtober Days 14-15 - A Breath of Fresh Air

Sorry to miss Friday's Blogtober post, but I knew that there was a photo opportunity coming up on Sunday! We went to help my parents out at Blackwood. They have a small holiday cottage up there and every year before the summer hits, a property clean-up is in need. Our family has long had a connection with the town - my grandfather was born there in 1905. It was a goldfields town in the nineteenth century and very different to what it is now, back then it even had its own skating rink! Now, it is a very peaceful place with lots of lovely walking tracks surrounding it. I took the time to snap a bit of the pretty native foilage yesterday - the gumnuts above, for example.

As well as taking a walk to the local cemetery where there are lots of beautifully ornate Victorian gravestones and memorials.

This is called broome, I think. So pretty - I brought a bunch home.

A lovely ivy grove which has developed quite spontaneously under a huge gum tree. I am quite sure the fairies live here. I was always told not to knock over toadstools (of which there are many at Blackwood in winter) when I was child because fairies lived under them.

Another native...not sure of the name (sorry!). This plant lived on our balcony when we were still renting and died a sad death - my mother has resurrected it.

Such a nice day! Hope you had one too.

Blogtober Day 10 - Hassle Free

My parents celebrated 42 years of marriage on Saturday so we had dinner with them and I provided some sweet goodness. I know some very sloppy icing skills are on display here but sometimes I just can't resist letting the icing go 'sploosh!' and being the very antithesis of 'cake decorated' cakes with their undoubtedly very skilled but rather artificial little roses and so on. The recipe I went with was really lovely and moist and it was -

1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar

Mix together 1 cup sugar and butter.
Add eggs and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice; mix well.
Add salt, flour, and baking powder to mixture.
Add milk.
Bake at 170°C in a well greased loaf pan for 1 hour, or until golden brown.

[from http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090401215813AAHiS6k]

Yesterday my sweet husband and I went to one of our favoured bushwalking spots - favoured because there are also some very nice lunch options and a great second-hand bookstore not too far away!

I enjoyed watching the bug life going about its business...

And was really struck by the muted greens, yellows, browns and greys of the Australian bush that seem to be about at the moment.





At the bookstore I found The Illustrated Hassle-Free Make Your Own Clothes Book by Sharon Rosenberg and Joan Wiener. It was printed in 1971 so the front cover is suitably hippie and there is a definite sprinkling of 'I really dig that'-style comments throughout but I am super keen to start sewing some simple clothes for myself and this book seems to set everything out really simply and clearly. We'll see if it lives up to its claim of being hassle free! Has anyone else read and/or sewed with this book?

What did you while away your hours with this weekend?

PS I couldn't resist posting this very brief clip from the wonderful British comedy Miranda as she notes ways in which she is turning into her mother - one of which is by commenting on a cake's moistness (this is prompted by my own comments above).

Blogtober Day 7-8 - Johnny Cash and Chocolate Cake

Oops! Only seven days into Blogtober and I missed a day. Work got a little bit crazy yesterday and then I remembered that I had volunteered to make the cake for my mother's birthday dinner last night...!! I went with this one - http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/18086/super+easy+chocolate+cake - which was delicious and a big hit.

I loved the movie "Walk the Line" about the American singer Johnny Cash. I've been a fan of Joaquin Phoenix since I saw him in "Gladiator" and, having seen the film, I also became a big fan of Cash's music. It seems to me that his songs (and the covers he chose to sing) remarkably spanned the spectrum from tremendous toe-tapping optimism to real melancholic despair. Here's two great examples of both ends of that span.

Blogtober Day 6 - Gently does it

I have a number of doilies - inherited from my grandma and found on my thrifting travels - and I was delighted with how this gentle, fragile little one worked out when I framed it in an embroidery hoop.

The book cover image is from the Tower Books website and the one below it is from Lark.

I was very happy to find Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Knitting in the library this morning. I have followed Jane's blog Yarnstorm (http://yarnstorm.blogs.com/) for some years and I was quick to acquire The Gentle Art of Domesticity when it came out. And look! A number of very nice projects seem to be using garter stitch...hooray!

Image from http://makingooduse.typepad.co.uk

And with Paul McCartney in the news this week - I have never been a great fan of the Beatles but I do love this song, "Across the Universe" - so gentle, so whimsical.

Blogtober Day 5 - At Home

The fairies are definitely about at the moment. I know this because they have planted a little ring of daisies in our garden!

I have decided to make use of my grandmother's cutlery set. She only used it when my parents and I came for Sunday lunch and every Sunday, after lunch, I was placed in charge of polishing each piece and returning it to the homemade calico pouches they lived in. We certainly won't use it every day but it now has its own drawer in the kitchen as opposed to being bundled up in a bag as it was when I just wasn't quite sure whether I should use it or not. Brings a nice little touch to things, I think, and reminds me of those lovely Sunday lunches. Do you have anything special like that?
I can feel a bake-a-thon coming on...there are so many goodies in the Women's Weekly cookbook that I mentioned yesterday...cinnamon teacake, swiss roll, caramel cornflake chews, melting moments, chester squares... I'll let you know what I chose to make on Monday.

Enjoy your weekend.

Blogtober Day Four - Good Things

The beautiful Pigface plant that I have in a pot out the front is just looking so lovely at the moment.

I had a very fruitful visit to the local op-shop this morning. Two gorgeous vintage tablecloths ~

And a lovely idea for something different to do with garter stitch. I am still very much a novice knitter, so garter stitch is really what I feel most comfortable with at the moment. It can, however, sometimes get a little...dull! So I rather like the idea of this little blanket-stitched heart. It is described as "Shaker-style" too which also got me in - I will never be minimalist enough (or even close) to follow the Shaker style but I love it.

I often have rather a dodgy tum, and strangely enough sweet treats appeal to me during said dodginess (don't worry, I know too much sugar is not such a great idea). So, The Australian Women's Weekly Sweet Old-Time Favourites jumped right out at me at the library this morning.

Ah, Swiss Roll! My grandma made one every single week. This delicious looking example is from http://goodtoknow.co.uk

Blogtober Day 2 - Like a ripened piece of fruit

I got a few little jobs done in the garden on the weekend, which I was really pleased about. As I may have mentioned before, my grandmother kept our garden in beautiful, abundant condition (we live in what was my grandparents' house) and I often feel I could do rather a lot more with the garden than I am currently doing. What I am thinking about especially at the moment is a dedicated herb garden (rather than the odd plant in a pot here and there). I have found a lovely book - Practical Herb Garden by Jessica Houdret - but I am wondering how much success I will have here in Australia finding some of the very Eurocentric flowers and herbs. Does anyone know of a nursery who specialises in English and European cottage plants? I know that I can replace many of them with Australasian options, but some Northern Hemisphere plants would be nice too.

What is this plant? Do you know? I haven't a clue - but I like it!

You know that I am an absolute sucker for a period drama and I am still kicking myself that I didn't pay closer attention to Downton Abbey when it was on TV. You Tubing it just now, I couldn't resist the Sylvanian Families version of it (by the way, this clip may look cute but is not for littlies)...




But on a more serious, sweeping, dramatic note (pun intended), here is the actual Downton Abbey's lovely theme -