Girl in the Yellow Wood

This is in Sunnmore, Norway, and it is one of the pretty-prettys I've been pinning over on Pinterest...

Once again I must make my true and sincere apologies to you for being so absent from this space.

As you know, there is some difficult stuff going on in my life right now. To quote John Lennon, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

Added to that, I have felt for a little while that things as they stood here in the Yellow Wood have been getting a little stale, so I have been wracking my tired little brain for ways to freshen things up a bit. For one thing I am now pinning all manner of bits and bobs that I like on Pinterest, so if you'd like to take a look, do come on over to...

 http://www.pinterest.com/inayellowood/

Until then, I hope all is well with you on your path through the Woods, and hopefully soon I'll be back with another little idea...

Feronia x

Reasons to be Cheerful

When good things don't come looking for you, I've found that sometimes you have to go looking for them. Lately, with life taking all manner of not-so-great twists and turns, I take a moment - even just one little moment - to find a reason to be cheerful (even if it's just for that moment). My two favourite sources right now won't come as a great surprise to you...

Music and Comedy

I have very recently stumbled across the wonderfully Mod Miles Kane and this song in particular is on heavy rotation -



And I've rediscovered the absurd, surreal and hilarious Mighty Boosh...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjlhakryKx8

(Again Blogger is being weird about posting clips)

How do you cheer yourself up a bit when times are tough?

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.

Good Baked Goods

Time flies, as they say. Sorry not to have been blogside for a little while. We took a mini-break to Byron Bay (more on that shortly) and then there were some illness and work dramas thrown into the mix.

With Melbourne's return to cool weather, I have been baking happy these last few days. I started out with Applesauce Snackin' Cake from http://thesouthernladycooks.com/2013/08/28/applesauce-snackin-cake/ which worked out a treat and yesterday I went for Good Plain Buns from the venerable Mrs Beeton (http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/beeton-baking-35.php). Very nice with jam and a cup of tea!

TO MAKE GOOD PLAIN BUNS. 1730. INGREDIENTS.—1 lb. of flour, 6 oz. of good butter, 1/4 lb. of sugar, 1 egg, nearly 1/4 pint of milk, 2 small teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, a few drops of essence of lemon. Mode.—Warm the butter, without oiling it; beat it with a wooden spoon; stir the flour in gradually with the sugar, and mix these ingredients well together. Make the milk lukewarm, beat up with it the yolk of the egg and the essence of lemon, and stir these to the flour, &c. Add the baking-powder, beat the dough well for about 10 minutes, divide it into 24 pieces, put them into buttered tins or cups, and bake in a brisk oven from 20 to 30 minutes. Time.—20 to 30 minutes. Average cost, 1s. Sufficient to make 12 buns. Seasonable at any time.

Read more at Celtnet: http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/beeton-baking-35.php
Copyright © celtnet

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!

Time

Going to New Zealand, even for just a week, gave me some time to reflect. Holidays always do that for me, which is one of the reasons I love them so much. Away from the everyday concerns and occupations, my mind has the opportunity to focus back in on what's really going on, what's at the core. There are changes afoot for me and not only changes on how I spend my time. I am changing how I look at that time and how I look at myself.

Time to stop marking time and wasting time - time to really get as much as I can out of life. And that doesn't necessarily mean taking up skydiving or bungee jumping, but rather just finding real, simple contentment in every moment and if that isn't there, then stopping to ask why and trying to do something about it.

I'll keep you posted.

Because, after all, we can't all be Timelords, able to travel back and forth through time at will! I am completely loving the re-runs of Dr Who on the telly at the moment, with Christopher Ecclestone as The Doctor. I didn't really warm to him first time around but I'm liking his no-nonsense style very much now. This episode, in which his sidekick Rose Tyler intervenes in her father's death and causes all sorts of time-y problems, played right into my long-standing love of all things time travel.

Hibernating

We are in the depths of winter here at the moment but I was delighted to see yesterday, when I had a little potter around the back garden, that everything is still there, hibernating, just waiting for spring. There were worms and beetles everywhere under pots, just resting in the moist earth, and these two little snails -  a mother and child I'm thinking - all snuggled up in a leaf. Everything is always still there, you just can't always see it.

Musings

I have been working hard on my novel this last week or so, while also starting an online course on feature writing for newspapers and magazines. Phew! I must admit that my brain is now a little fried. On this, I am finding that I am not getting through my reading very quickly if at all. I am loving Young Bess by Margaret Irwin, but I open it up to have a read at night and I am asleep within half a dozen pages. Not good for an aspiring writer, or even for someone who just wants to finish a book! When do you do your reading?

Of course, I would probably be a lot better off if we threw out the telly. We have recently had a number of digital channels added to our tv schedule here in Australia, but the quality has certainly not improved. It reminds me now of the worst excesses of tv that I saw in Europe and the USA. Is my life being benefited by watching repeats of shows 40 years old or by a seemingly endless supply of reality shows about the American law enforcement system? I think not. And yet I watch and my books remain unread and my craft projects undone. How do you escape the tv trap? Perhaps you don't? Perhaps you love a bit of trash tv?

Having said that, I am in love with the comedy Arrested Development, which is re-screening on the ABC at the moment. Is anyone else watching it? And Downton Abbey? Don't get me started...

We made a pilgrimage to that great site of Scandinavianess - Ikea - on the weekend and bought ourselves a lovely new armchair which is both very elegant and very comfortable. Yet again I wondered if I should throw out all of our inherited, second-hand and just plain odd furniture and install a big dose of Swedish sleekness. Then I reminded myself that my life would not become sleek along with it as a result - despite what Ikea's image makers might like me to think - and that I do love all of our old and weird bits and pieces anyway. We did however also stock up on some culinary deliciousness, like the Swedish cookie(s) pictured above. The last one went down the red lane (as my grandmother would have said) with my morning coffee this morning. Love Ikea's foodie bits. Do you?

I may have posted a clip from this band - Dead Can Dance - before but their so very unique music has been wonderful for me at my desk lately as I try to keep my wee brainbox ticking over.

Enjoy.

Wild and Precious

A lovely photo I took last year in Germany, while we were visiting with Bodecea.

Lately I have discovered the beautiful poetry of the American writer Mary Oliver. She writes so joyously and so compellingly about nature; its myriad, minutiae activity and its huge importance. I have Why I wake early from our local library. Have you read her poems?

This image is from http://davidsheffield.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/999/

Some wonderful thoughts from Mary, which give me so much to think about in just a handful of simple but beautiful words.

This print is from http://sarahlondon.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/what-is-it/

Some Days are Diamonds

I've had a bit of a funny week. While it started off very well with a great short course at Writers Victoria, the next couple of days were consumed by some considerable professional disappointment. But I am starting to feel better now and a little more 'on track'. This is due to a combination of -

1. When it first happened, swearing quite a lot for a couple of minutes to no-one in particular in the privacy of my own home
2. Calming down and talking things through with my sweet, sweet husband and dear mum
3. Sleeping on it
4. Cleaning up my study so I was not a) surrounded by clutter b) surrounded by stuff to remind me about what had just bombed out
5. Having a little bit of good old-fashioned sulking time while I was on my own (just a little bit, though)
6. Finding stuff to make me laugh
7. Getting stuck into a new work project
8. Making the best bread and butter pudding ever (so good I'm going to make it again for my parents tonight)

What do you do when you've been through one of life's knocks?

Easy Bread and Butter Pudding

6-8 slices bread, crusts removed
3 eggs
3 tablespoons caster sugar
300 ml cream
Apricot jam
Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Spread the bread with apricot jam and sprinkle with cinnamon
Cut into triangles and arrange in greased oven-proof dish
Whisk together eggs, sugar and cream
Pour over the bread and bake for 25 minutes

This recipe is from http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/ I used fruit bread instead of plain bread, I didn't cut the crusts off or cut the slices into triangles and apparently any jam is fine (doesn't have to be apricot).

As a character in one of the hilarious You Tube comedy clips I've been watching would say - "So good, right?"

Hope and other everday things

Two ring finds while thrifting this morning - the one above turns out to be silver and the one below is opal, an Australian semi-precious stone (I think this one will end up in my Etsy shop)


Listening to: Suede
Drinking: My old fave - milky coffee
Eating: Beans on toast for lunch - yum!
Wearing: Fewer layers - hello again Spring!
Hoping: Just hoping. It's a nice state to be in.

And what about you?

PS Thanks to Pip at Meet Me At Mikes (http://meetmeatmikes.com/) for this meme.

Right here, right now

Two of my favourite blogs, Soulemama (http://www.soulemama.com) and Another Beautiful Day (http://milk-and-berries.blogspot.com) have both recently listed what they are doing right now, what is occupying and fulfilling them in this present moment. I am trying to learn to live much more in the present moment, and so I give you what's up in the Yellow Wood right now -

Playing:: With beads, yarn and thread. Lots of stuff in the craft basket at the moment but nothing actually getting finished because I am flitting from one project to the next like a drunken bee.

Listening:: To atmospheric to the point of spooky music from Wardruna and delightfully silly and cheerful 80s pop by turn, depending on my mood.

Looking:: At the first delicious little flickers of spring in the garden. The lemons, although traditionally winter bloomers, are leading the charge.

Learning:: About making jewellery. I am considering taking a TAFE course in it. I want to get soldering - oh yeah!

Helping:: Or at least trying to help my poor hard-working and sleep-deprived husband and my dear mum who has just had her cataracts operated on.

Reading:: Spoilt for choice as I mentioned the other day. Lucky Jim is the next one off the shelf.

So what about you?

Little Miss Update

Apologies once again for the silence in the Yellow Wood. On top of the computer woes and the book editing conundrums, we are preparing for our big trip North (way North) and it has proved to be very, very time consuming indeed. Not that I can complain about being absorbed by the details of holiday-making! We are both looking forward to it and really in need of a break.

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It's Roger Hargreaves birthday today - yes, he of the Mr Men. Did you read them as a child? Messers Messy, Bump, Small and Tickle were my favourites. Who were yours?

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I have really been enjoying knitting of late, especially now that the winter is very firmly setting in (even though it is only mid-May). I think we are struggling up to about 13 degrees today. Our house in double-brick too, which makes things extra chilly. But it does make working with wool extra fun. I have AT LAST taught myself an easy way to cast-on as well as how to purl stitch, basket stitch and moss stitch (well, sort of, on that last one). Now I think I am even ready for a...project. Distel Fliege kindly suggested a shawl which looks lovely and which I will absolutely try but does any one else have any thoughts on a beginner's knitting project? My main problem at the moment is that I am not allowed to take knitting needles on the plane :(

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For on-the-plane-easily-distracting books, I am taking Ian Rankin (yay Rebus!) and Charlaine Harris (yay Sookie!). I am not a good flyer so anything that requires a lot of concentration is a waste of time. Any other suggestions?

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As you may know, I have a couple of shops over at Etsy but I am not exactly about to retire on my earnings from them. What do you think is a good way to sell vintage goods (clothes, knick-knacks etc.)? This has been consuming a fair bit of thought for me lately...

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And finally, I am tired of negativity! On Facebook recently (I know, I know, I've been sucked into it too), someone opined that they hated the royal family. I really try to avoid using the word 'hate'. It is such a strong expression of negative emotion, and often pointlessly so. I was amused to see someone replied that they "hated haters". I come from a long line of judgemental people, so I try to leave this sort of negativity out of the equation if I can. Ok, off soap-box now. What do you think?

On Being Human

Sorry for having been a little silent here in the Woods of late. I have been trying to get my thesis off to the publishers (still) by the requested deadline and we have also been in the throes of planning a fairly big holiday so there's been all manner of little detaily things to do! Added to all that, my computer died.

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Did you watch the Royal Wedding? There are of course plenty of naysayers out there but I for one enjoyed it, being a bit of lover of pomp and circumstance, but also simply being glad to see people happy! Goodness knows we see enough in the news about human misery - why not a bit of human joy now and then? Every time a royal event comes up, we argue about the republican issue here in Australia, but taking the wedding on face value, I saw it as a pretty warm and heartfelt affair really, and Kate and William do appear to be a bit more compatible than WIlliam's parents did at their wedding all those years ago. But who knows? We can't of course have any real idea of this - and, indeed, why should we, it's none of our business - and I do seem to recall everyone talking about "the stuff of fairytales" back in 1981. All we can say at this point is, I guess, best of luck!

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I have been so enjoying the third season of Being Human - I've loved it from the start - and so I was pleased to find this little snippet of the show's sweetly melancholy theme tune.

It's all a matter of perspective

I received a wonderful package from Beanie Mouse and Andrea last week. While travelling around together, Beanie and Andrea collect all sorts of bits and pieces - things that other people might discard - and then Beanie looks at them anew and turns them into really interesting and striking works of art - 'found art'. Check them out at - http://beaniemouse.blogspot.com/ and http://found-art.blogspot.com/ And thank you Beanie and Andrea!

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Helena's post over at http://sketchandcolour.blogspot.com/ has got me thinking. Do I look old? But more to the point, do I feel old? Having recently had a birthday, it is something that has been on my mind a bit. Especially when I see more and more grey hair every time I look in the mirror! In my mind, I still think of myself as being in my 20s - at the most. Especially since I feel I am still 'finding my way' with a lot of things in life. I always thought of people at the age I am now (ahem...note: actual age not disclosed) as being adults, people who have their lives together. But lately it has also occurred to me that life really is a process. You keep learning stuff. Re-adjusting your priorities. Looking at things differently. There is no one age where you stop and say 'Well, I'm done. I'm all sorted. I am complete.' For me at least I think that that process will go on and on until I am a little old lady still with some new enthusiasm or idea about something. And that, I suspect, is how you might be able to side-step 'growing old'. My mother has often said, 'You're only old if you feel old.' And I think she might be right. Providing I keep looking at life as freshly as I can muster, I might just stay young forever!

Waterworld

Photo from www.poolenvy.com

It is going to be 40 degrees here today. We have already got to 35, so 40 will probably come by mid-afternoon. Outdoors is somewhere best visited briefly as the sun tracks my every move and I scour the ground, wondering if a snake lurks amongst the grass. Up to about 32, the sunshine is encouraging, a cheerful ally. But most Australians acknowledge that 40 is a bit beyond the pale (literally) and best sheltered from.

It is, however, a beautiful time for a dip in the pool. We went to the local pool this morning as soon as it opened and already a queue had formed. But everyone fanned out into their own lanes and it was lovely to bob about in the cool and soothing world of the water. I have never been a strong swimmer - or indeed much of a swimmer at all - but in my new spirit of enjoying things as much as I can, I've found that there are some things in summer that are not so bad at all.

Grown-ups

What is a grown-up? I've never been entirely sure but I've known for awhile that, from what I've seen, I don't really want to be one. One the weekend I found these fantastic sheep-shaped erasers and I just had to buy one in every colour. "Why did you buy those?" My DH asked, perplexed. I wasn't quite sure how to reply but when I saw them in the shop, I was taken instantly back to being an eight-year-old who collected erasers, who loved taking them out of their box to touch them, sniff their sweet rubbery scent and pose them in different positions. Then I realised that that eight-year-old had never really gone away.

Bullying

There has been a lot of debate here in Australia of late about bullying in schools. Students seem to be beating other students up at regular intervals. Yesterday, I heard on the radio the story of a child routinely bitten and urinated on by another student...they were both five years of age. Where is this coming from? Is it worse than when I was at school? Than when my parents were at school? Than when my grandparents were at school? I don't know.

I finished school twenty years ago, so I started school thirty-two years ago. Certainly there was bullying. I should know - I was on the other end of it. I was a shy, delicate child by nature who had grown up without siblings. I found making friends difficult and, as a result, I didn't circulate amongst a wide circle of children. Add to this a lack of co-ordination, and I was a prime target in the boisterous, games-mad world of primary school. During physical education classes, I was always the last one picked to go on a team and only then with groans from the team's captain. At one stage, I couldn't cross the playground at lunchtime without having a ball aimed at my head. And it's a vicious circle - the more you're targetted, the more you retreat into your shell. At least, that was my response. At high school, I was in an all-female environment and while physical beatings were not common, certainly verbal ones were - and they could leave you just as bruised. I have heard many people say that school is a microcosm of real life, but I would beg to differ. There is something distinctly uncivilised, brutal and lord-of-the-flies like about school. Bullies neither seem to know nor care about social niceties and being mindful of the feelings of others. The object is to humiliate, to break down one's opponent, to win.

And this leads me to wonder if this is not why bullying seems to be getting worse. As I've opined on this blog before, so much now seems to be about winning, success and coming out on top. The rise of cyber-bullying, wherein victims can be humiliated on an international level, feeds into this. Not only will I beat you down in the schoolyard, I'll show the whole world me doing it.

The other thing is bullying doesn't end when the abuse stops. Personally I feel it has fed into - at least in part - my overall understanding of self...and even now, I flinch when I hear a ball being kicked.

What do you think? Were you bullied?

Promise

I have always been a keen diary keeper. Not pages of personal purple prose mind you, but jottings of appointments and lists. I can look back at a diary from ten years ago and be as much reminded of what I was doing then by '10 a.m. - tutorial' as by any more lengthy description of my day. So, I always approach the purchasing of 'the diary' with great consideration each year. It's got to be just right - the right amount of space for notes, the right sort of cover, the right colour. Imagine my surprise then, when I came across this little cutie in the supermarket this morning. All of $2.99, with a nice, bright retro-style cover (there's even felt centres on the flowers) and...the cruncher for me...cherry blossoms on each page. Simple and cheerful, just like I hope 2010 will be for me. Aaah, the promise of the blank page, the promise of a new diary...the promise of a new year!

What's for breakfast?

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully."It's the same thing," he said."

It truly is the little things that make up each day. Rarely are there genuinely momentous events - rather, I think, there is the rhythm of routine with the occassional nice surprise - like today's bunch of flowers! And it is amongst these many little things that I try to seek out happiness.