Rain

It was so lovely to hear the rain this morning. It has rained quite heavily in Melbourne today and everything - people, birds, grass, trees, plants, soil - have lapped it up. Now everything seems quiet and peaceful - sustained and refreshed a little after the heatwave we've been through.

Somehow, it put me in mind of this gentle song.

Safe to bake

Yesterday we finally had a day that was under 30 degrees, so I decided it was safe to turn on the stove and heat the kitchen up a little. I found this truly delicious low-fat fruit tea loaf at the good to know website (http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes). The recipe in full is here -  http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/137822/Fat-free-fruit-tea-loaf - and here are the essentials of it:

Ingredients ~

• 1 Darjeeling tea bag
• 300g (11oz) soft dried fruit such as apricots, prunes or apples
• 175g (6oz) soft brown sugar
• 2 medium eggs, beaten
• 225g (8oz) wholemeal flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp mixed spice

Method ~

1. Grease and base line a 1kg (2¼ lb) loaf tin. Soak the tea bag in 300ml (½ pt) boiling water for 5 mins. Roughly chop the fruit and add to the tea, discarding the tea bag and soak for 2-3 hours.
2. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F, gas mark 4). Mix in the sugar and eggs.
3. Mix together the flour, baking powder and mixed spice and fold into the fruit mixture.
4. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 1½ hours or until firm to touch and a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool slightly before slicing.

I am really pleased with how it turned out (above). Seriously yummy.

I danced my legs down to the knees

Summer is well and truly upon us here. It's 35 degrees here today and I have drawn all of the curtains and blinds to try and keep out that baking sun. Despite this, Mr Yellow Wood and I ventured out last night to shake a tail-feather or two to The Smiths - or at least an excellent local cover band, Plagarism begins at home. It was so hot at the venue - no air-conditioning and lots of people crammed into a small room - but damn, it was fun! Good to see that even in my decrepitude (forty next year), I can still move a step or two!

This is all in the lead-up to Morrissey himself visiting our remote shores next week. I only hope that after twenty-six years of admiration I won't be disappointed and discover that the hero has feet of clay (as they say). Twenty six years! Oh my...that's older than most of the people who were there last night!

I hope it cools down soon so I can bake up a few little treats I have planned as Christmas gifts. I've also got a few other little crafty goodies on the to-do list for the weekend. I'll show you next week.

What are you doing in the lead-up to the holiday season?

It's not easy being green

On Sefarina's (http://windleben.blogspot.com/) advice, I bought some little houseplants to sit on the windowsills to absorb some of the summer heat bursting through the glass. Unfortunately, after yesterday's 38 degrees, the poor plants themselves have got a little scorched and I have had to move them temporarily off the windowsills to recuperate! They are still giving a lovely display of cool, soothing green though, as you can see.

I had a good week in Sydney last week. Free of the distractions which come with a home office, I got some good work done on what I hope will become a novel and I also got to visit my favourite bookstore of all time...Kinokuniya. I loaded up on craft books, so hopefully over the next couple of weeks I will have some finished projects from them to show off to you.

We always say that Sydney is warmer than Melbourne; Sydney is closer to the equator, more humid, more tropical and so on. But these last couple of days have turned all that on its head. We had some very welcome rain this morning (and more on the way, judging from the skies) but it is so humid here in Melbourne. I would quite like to be back in Sydney in my air-conditioned room, with the hotel swimming pool just down the hall...Ah well, it's only summer here until Thursday!

Colours of Summer

The tomatoes and smaller capsicums are from our garden, as are the lemons. We can't claim those luscious apricots as our own, or the huge peppers. But what a gorgeous array of colour is exploding in the various bowls I have dotted around the kitchen this week! It's the sort of vibrancy that an Australian summer does so well.

Feeling hot, hot, hot

Summer is in progress in earnest here in Australia. We are expecting 34 degrees today and tomorrow. High 20s and low-mid 30s for the rest of the week. Bleh! 25 degrees is about my limit. After that, if there's heat for any length of time, the house just heats up and up and won't cool down. We don't have air-con but we do have overhead fans and I try to seal the heat out wherever I can. But, as you can see, it still sneaks its way in... everywhere in the house is bathed in a glowing orangey light this morning.

Colour my world

Image from www.jakesdirect.com

I am fixated on the colour green at the moment. I don't mean that loud, glaring apple green that seems to be so popular right now but soft greens, sea greens, heath greens, the muted palette of green taken from nature. I've seen it in tweed material, and in wool (the likes of which is also often described as 'tweed' in colour) and also in that very beautiful, gentle thing that is sea glass.

Image from blog.ounodesign.com

Image from http://knitting-loop.yarnshopping.com/

Image from www.sourisbythesea.com

Image from www.seaglassjewelry.com

I would love to do some beachcombing and find some more of my own seaglass but it is hot here in Australia right now, so every beach is packed to the gills. Not ideal for peaceful beachcombing or for getting to the prettiest bits of seaglass first! If you're in southern Australia, do you have a favourite beach?

What's your favourite colour? Where are you finding inspiration right now?

Dreaming of Snow

Illustration by Ivan Bilibin

Summer is upon us here in Australia, and so I am dreaming of snow! As you may know, I am not a fan of summer. I find the heat confining and too restrictive on one's activities, especially when it gets to that point of really being too hot to leave the house. It is very warm today but the real warmth, when everything seems to be coated in an eerie simmering calm, will not (hopefully) be here until the new year.

So I am sifting through the Net for photos of Russia and Norway's snowy landscapes, that peculiar, almost iridescent blue-grey Northern light and a glorious clip from the film "Eugene Onegin" which captures just that light, the gorgeous interiors that reflect nature's winter colours and of course the chill of Ralph Fiennes' Onegin!

Russia from The Guardian

Image from nordiclandscapes.com

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.

In the Summertime

The lemons are slowly going yellow...

The very old hydrangea battles on...

No one can remember what this is but it's pretty and smells nice...

Lettuce in my husband's veggie patch doing well...

But only with the help of improvised possum barriers (an old birdcage)...

Our very own cornfield...

And finally, a praying mantis who has taken a real liking to the green beaded curtain hanging at the top of the back steps...

Nature

There is a strange atmosphere in Australia at the moment. As you may have heard there have been devastating floods in Queensland, a state thousands of kilometres north from us. Nevertheless, it has really introduced a strange, anxious quiet even this far away. That's exacerbated I think by the oppressively humid whether we're having down here as well as heavy rain ourselves (it is pouring outside at the moment). As a famous poem here says, it really is a land of "drought and flooding rains". A land of extremes, in which the precarious nature of human life in the face of nature is never far from the surface.

It's a Bug's Life 2

{This clip doesn't seem to want to load, so check out - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAzO5qUY35g}

It is this sort of organisation that makes me realise two things - (1) I am very wise to be scared of ants and (2) It is pointless to be scared of ants, because they are obviously smarter and more organised than me anyway :)

Summer at last seems to be on its way - 26 degrees today, 29 tomorrow and 32 on Friday. We turned the overhead fan on in the living room for the first time this year last night. I always have mixed emotions about this time of year - for every delightful 25 degree day, there is a 45 degree one waiting for me in February. But for now, it's November and it's pleasantly warm.

It's a Bug's Life

A Daddy Long Legs as pictured at www.findaspider.org.au

I have to admit that I have a long and bloody history stretching behind me of killing bugs. I have always HATED creepy-crawlies. But lately I have tried to be a little more mellow, a little more philosophical if you will about the whole bug situation. They are living beings too, and who am I to rain down death and destruction upon them? This time of year tests my newly tolerant approach, however, with everything it seems hatching from its egg and making a b-line for our house.

I am feeling especially kindly disposed towards Daddy Long Legs. There are a number of them who have taken up residence inside and I've found that I actually quite enjoy watching them tread carefully along, meditatively testing out their next step with one leg, deciding it is too wet/dry/dusty to fully stand on and so reversing their steps and trying out another spot. And then, when it gets too difficult to put the best of one of their eight legs forward, spindling down to their desired location on a delicate strand of web.

My benevolence still stops short of ants and really nasty looking spiders though. There is a medium sized deep black variety of spider which regularly makes its way into the house in the warmer months. I killed one last night just as it was hovering over my shoulder while I read on the couch and then I found another poised on the doorstep! And ants....well. It's the sheer numbers that get to me there. Neither makes my skin creep quite like being walked on by ants!

The Perfect Storm

We had the most tremendous storm yesterday afternoon. The air had been heavy with humidity for a number of days but yesterday morning I watched as birds took to the skies to find a safe haven and ants scuttled across the ground, moving their goods to higher spots. Something was brewing. And sure enough, it broke spectacularly with a good half hour of pouring rain, brilliant flashes of lightning and fearsomely wonderful thunderclaps which shook our windows. From the safe confines of the house, I was able to watch this awe-inspiring display of nature and then, as things slowed down, thank it for filling our water tanks and nourishing the plants with a much needed drink.

We're having a heatwave

Hot, hot, hot here at the moment. Or, should I say, mostly humid. February is often the hottest month so I shouldn't be surprised having lived through 36 of them. It's just that, as I've mentioned before, I'm not what you'd call a summer person. Each day of late has been much the same - throw open the windows and doors in the morning in the hope of some air swishing through the house and then close everything up again at about lunchtime as the scales tip in favour of the sun and the house starts to heat up once again. Our house does stay quite cool for at least the first few days of a heatwave it must be said, being made of double brick. It is only when the bricks themselves heat up that things start to get truly sticky. What I've noticed with this sort of weather - and perhaps this is just me - is that you wake up each morning feeling sort of chewed over, for want of a more eloquent phrase. It could be more because of my ongoing back issues but that, with the heat as well, means I am not really sleeping, so morning comes, and I don't really feel that there's been any significant break from the previous day at all. Oh well! On a more positive note, summer (like the extremes of winter, I guess) reminds us of our relative position in the universe. We really are still very much dependent upon the weather, the seasons and nature as a whole. And that's a good thing to keep in mind.

I thought of taking some photos for this blog - clear blue skies, blanched white sunlight - but then I realised that what I really needed to do was to record the sounds of summer - the buzzing mosquitos, chirping parrots, trilling crickets and gathering winds of an approaching storm. And I don't know how to do that. So, I say let the Muppets speak for me instead. We're having a heatwave!

Play misty for me

It has been really humid here this last week or so. Not blazing heat - sure, I'll acknowledge that - but humid, wherein a damp slick of perspiration is perpetually on your skin. So it's been lovely to have a little temperature drop overnight, a constant mist falling gently from the skies today and the plants getting a much needed drink. Poor babies. Although something is having a very nice meal in - or should I say of - my front yard: a bit of lemon balm for the mains and then a nibble of rose petal for dessert. Hmmm...Now that I look closely at the photo of the lemon balm, I see a telltale snail trail...

To Summer

To pause a little

and feel the sun

To look up
into the endless blue

To listen to
the hum of insects

To watch the baby birds
try out uncertain feet

To smell
the ripening plums

To summer

Warm summer days

I hope the new year has started well for you. Here in Australia, we are moving into our hottest months - January and February. The weather lately has been delightful - warm, but with a nice breeze. The dear sun is starting to flex its summer strength, though. Right now there is just a touch of that relentless, consistent heat that is still to come in full. But, this enables the garden to burst forth with tomatoes and strawberries, and there is really nothing nicer than pottering into the yard at night to retrieve some of your own produce to eat for dinner. Looking up into the impossibly blue summer sky is kind of intoxicating too. Then, after noticing the contrast of your own dark shadow cast on the bleached, sun-baked ground, it's time to spend the rest of the "warm summer day indoors" (with thanks to Morrissey on that last bit).

PS How bad are shadows for putting on the extra kilos...no, really, I'm not that chubby...really...

Out of the midday sun

Image courtesy of http://holidaysiq.com

We are in the middle of an early hot spell at the moment. Since late last week it has been 30 degrees plus and it doesn't look like abating until Sunday at the earliest. Now, I'm going to be honest with you - I hate hot weather. For someone who has lived in Australia from birth, I am no beach-bronzed sun-lover. No. I burn in the sun. I get heat rashes. My hair frizzes. In short, as you can tell, during summer I look and feel an absolute treat. But having just read Jane's entry about winter at http://www.yarnstorm.blogs.com/, I have similarly decided to take a different view of summer. Slip into a bit of a 'colonial' mode, if you will - and I mean this strictly in an aesthetic sense and without the ugly racism, of course. Close the curtains and lower the blinds during the day, thereby subduing the house into darkness. Sit outside in the cool of the evening and read a book. Try to move slowly in the heat. We have just had ceiling fans installed so this should enhance the mood! In other words, I am going to try to work with the season instead of fighting it. Think of me tonight reading A Passage to India in the backyard as the ice cubes clink in my glass!

To get a sense of what I mean, just have a look at the cooling and calming Indian verandah above and also this lovely link: http://decortoadore.blogspot.com/2008/07/british-colonial-design.html

Coming up like a flower

Summer is on its way...our first truly warm day today and the signs of summer are starting to appear. I must admit I brace myself a little. An Australian summer can be a challenging thing! But I am also trying to remind myself that there is still more of spring to come, and that summer has its own rewards...nature's buzz of expectation and activity on a summer's morning...long, cool nights eating dinner in the backyard...