Australia Day

On Australia Day we went on a picnic to Coolart Wetlands and Homestead.  We were looking for somewhere not too busy where we could go for a walk and have a sleep on the picnic rug.  This is the perfect place.

We had a summer pasta salad

 And some Brownies that we had made the day before

Then we walked through the historic homestead

We saw photographs of others who had picnicked before us

Then we set off on our own walk

Our girl and her grandfather walked ahead 

We enjoyed our peaceful day.

Persephone Books

In my spare moments I've been lost in the Persephone Books catalogue.  I stumbled across their online bookstore recently and had to take a few deep breaths to contain my excitement.  That's how it is with booklovers.  Persephone Books reprints neglected classics by mostly women writers as their website will tell you.

The books are printed with dove grey covers and beautiful endpapers.  Here is an interior picture of their store.  It is in the UK.

I've been carefully making my choice.  All the books are numbered and the forum pages will have an essay on the book.  They are up to Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson which is Book 21.  Many of the books are set in Britain around the Second World War and mostly concern women's domestic lives.

I'm totally hooked.  I hope it passes.  I have too many books already.

Farmer's Market

On Sunday we went to the farmer's market at Mount Eliza.  It is on every month and has produce from all over the Peninsula.

Baby Boy wore this blue striped hat.

It was a hot day but there were still lots of people there.

 People were buying up the lovely products and chatting to the stall holders about the produce.

We bought some apples.

My husband made this for dinner and we ate it sitting around the pool.

We put lashings of Sue's Homemade Beetroot Relish on our burgers.  She gave it to us for Christmas inside a beautiful french basket of goodies that she and Peta had put together.  

Our girl is coming home today after two weeks of sun and swimming at Nanna's. We can't wait. Nanna informs us that she now makes her own bed every day.

At Nanna's House

Baby Boy is practising his squeal.  Hope you had a good weekend.

A Morning Stroll

Baby Boy has his appointment with the Maternity Health Nurse this morning so we had a stroll through Mount Eliza village.

We admired the red and white flowers outside the coffee shop

We walked past the Bling

Two young girls of about 9 or 10 had their own stall for the summer

They had a lot of customers.  See that queue near the umbrella?  That's for the Girl's Stall

We checked out some of the produce

 And contemplated getting a sewing lesson from here

We sourced some Orange Blossom Flower water.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Meals

In case you wondering how the meal planning was going then I'm here to tell you that we have been loosely sticking to the plan.

On Saturday night we had this Red Lentil Soup

My husband made this and it is super tasty.  The great thing about it is that there is always enough for another meal the next night and it usually tastes even better.  His recipe for Red Lentil Soup is:

Start with a Mirepoix (2 onions, 2 carrots, 2 sticks of celery).
Finely chop the Mirepoix ingredients and soften over a medium heat.
Add sliced garlic and cook for a minute or two.
Add 2-3 teaspoons of cumin, 1-2 teaspoons of ground coriander seeds, half a teaspoon of turmeric.
Cook the spices for about a minute
Add 2 400g cans of peeled tomatoes and a cup of red lentils.
Simmer and add water to keep to a thick soupy consistency.
Cook slowly for 45 minutes to an hour.
Serve with homemade raita (yoghurt, grated and drained cucumber and mint).

We have also been eating this

If you are looking for easy, healthy and tasty meals to cook then I recommend www.thestonesoup.com/blog. It's a lovely blog and if you sign up for email updates she sends you a free e-book of recipes.  The recipes are really easy and only have a few ingredients.

I also heard about this book.  It isn't released yet but I think it will be perfect for when Baby Boy is joining in at meal time.

Amazon.com

The Years of Rice and Salt

The childrearing years pass so quickly.  Memory is a trickster, a shiny shimmering show girl.  With each post I hope to remember these years of rice and salt and not rely on that fickle show girl.

The rice and salt years are the years spent focused on child bearing, rearing and household tasks. The years that leave precious little time for personal pursuits.  The term is from ancient China when the noble women would put away their literary interests and tend to the demands of their household, their writing relegated to stolen moments.

Yesterday there were no stolen moments.

In the evening we walked in the park.  The nice thing about daylight saving is it is light until late on hot summer nights.

We walked past the house with the lovely rustic gate

And under the pines

We didn't go here.

The Golden Globes were on yesterday.  When she was alive Sue Mengers called movie stars 'Sparklies' (Vanity Fair, December 2011).  I like to think of them as Sparklies enjoying their big night out.

Our Sunday

We passed through Balnarring village on our Sunday outing. We stopped at a coffee shop for a bite to eat. This is what we found at the coffee shop;

A wall of Marvel comics

Underneath this sat a father and his two sons. You could feel the excitement from where we sat. They avidly discussed how often they could return during their holidays. The father in his joy promising they could return everyday. Names of Marvel editions were being shouted out with glee. It was a nice reminder of passions and how they are different for everybody. The comic 1602 seemed to be a favourite.  It sounded good to me too.

Speaking of comic books here is a picture of Baby Boy's curl.  We think it looks like Tin Tin.

A lovely lady in a shop gave us some samples of Italian baby products from L'Erbolario.  

L'Erbolario

Baby Boy had his Italian bath in these luxurious, divinely scented products.  My hands are still soft and smelling beautiful.

The Princess and The Goblin

Madeleine L'Engle used a string to guide her to her secret place (Circle of Quiet).  Her husband used to joke all anyone needed to do to find her was follow the string.  She replied that sometimes secrets should be shared.

Sometimes we all need a string to guide us.  When we are tired, confused when the way seems unclear.  Great writing has that string.  It is not merely entertaining.  Suddenly the words become a chain and your slumbering soul feels a slight tugging as you connect from the outer world to the inner.

George MacDonald is full of wisdom and his writing wakens the slumbering soul within.  C.S. Lewis called him his Master.  Madeleine L'Engle was a fan as were many others.

In the Princess and the Goblin, Irene (the princess) speaks with the apparition of her grandmother. Her grandmother gives her a thread to guide her and says, 'But, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too'.

We are fans of George MacDonald

Do you remember to keep hold of the string and follow it to places that have only meaning for you? Do you engross yourself in your own private pursuits and believe that they will lead you somewhere?

My Girl

Menu Planning

Menu planning was a big issue for our family in This Year of Action.  The format that we came up with was:

Monday - Vegetarian
Tuesday - Chicken
Wednesday - Red Meat
Thursday - Chicken
Friday - Fish
Saturday - Surprise - which often turns into homemade Pizza
Sunday - Vegetarian

So far so good.  We've found that we can only plan two nights in advance but we are working on getting better.

Last night my husband made this:

Pan fried chicken breast with mango salsa and couscous

On Monday I made a quiche.  It was my first time and it was surprisingly easy.  I bought the shortcrust pastry.  After blind baking the pastry for 10 minutes I added chopped mushrooms, 2 spring onions and the egg mixture (which was 5 eggs beaten together with 1/4 cup of milk and a teaspoon of dijon mustard).  I then crumbled fetta into it and baked it for 50 minutes until the egg mixture had set (fan forced oven 160).  I served it with salad leaves, some mint leaves and chopped nuts sprinkled over the salad.  We also added our own splash of french dressing.

Our plan this year was to try and avoid trips to the Supermarket.  We don't enjoy this very much and I always add too many non food related items to the trolley even when I have a list and the best of intentions.  Something takes over when you enter a Supermarket.  You lower your defences because you are after all buying necessities aren't you?  Then before you know it your $30 list turns into $60 or even $110.

We are trying to work out how often we use the things that have to be bought from a Supermarket so we can buy in bulk maybe every 3 weeks.  Both of us enjoy trips to the green grocer and butcher.

This year I would like to add more fragrance to our diet.  This book entered our house at Christmas:

We hope to be enjoying many meals from its beautiful pages.  One thing I am added to my evening routine from the book is her recipe for Kahwa Beida or White Coffee.  She writes;

A hot drink of boiled scented water taken as an alternative to coffee at night is an old tradition in Syria and Lebanon.  Pour boiling water into a small coffee cup and add a few drops of orange-blossom water. Sweeten with sugar if you like.  It is very soothing.  When I was a child in Egypt, we used to take to bed a glass of cold water with a few drops of rose water to make us sleep.

To source some fragrant floral waters is on my to do list.  In my younger years I drank a tisane of rose buds before bed with my mother and sister on the advice of our Chinese Doctor.  This was for our health and complexion.  The fragrance was so relaxing.

Must go, Baby Boy calls.

Post Christmas Thoughts

We were late taking the tree down.  My mother's birthday falls on the 6th of January, twelve days after Christmas and we are always busy.  Yesterday however, I got stuck in and there is not a sign left of Christmas except some sticky candy canes that we placed in a jar.  We went with rainbow this year.

Christmas in Australia has its own form of madness.  Given that it is celebrated as a Winter festival it can seem a bit crazed singing songs about snow when it is sweltering outside in Australia.   A bit of tinsel baking in the sun is a sad sight.

Despite all this I don't join the humbugs because I believe in magic.  It is something the soul needs. Children find it naturally.  To get into the mood of Christmas I have my own triggers.  I try to slow down when the rest of Australia is rushing exhausted to the finishing line.  School comes to a stop for summer just before Christmas and many people take their family holiday at this time.  

In preparing for Christmas I rely on English magazines to set the mood

This year I started shopping early and bought a lot of present online.  I knew I was having a baby in September and that we were moving into our new home two weeks before Christmas.  Some people thought I was missing out by shopping online but I don't think so.  It was crazy out there, it was HOT and the car parks were full of frustrated shoppers.  I'm planning to do more online shopping this year.  

I found this poem by Grace Noll Crowell:

I shall attend to my little errands of love

Early this year, 

So that the brief days before Christmas may be

Unhampered and clear

Of the fever of hurry. The breathless rushing

That I have known in the past

Shall not possess me. I shall be calm in my soul

And ready at last....

I shall have leisure - I shall go out alone

From my roof and my door;

I shall not miss the silver silence of stars

As I have before;

And oh, perhaps - if I stand there very still

And very long.

I shall hear what the clamor of living has kept from me - 

The angel's song.

That is what I hope to achieve each year.  To be organised, to shop early, to take things slow.  To listen to the BBC radio over the internet and watch the many Christmas shows flooding the screen. To also know when to turn my back and to be still.

The Year of Action

My head is in the clouds dreaming of how life could be once I put into action the images that my mind feeds on.  No more sitting on a pile of washing, trying not to spill my cup of tea as I hold a glossy home magazine in my hand.

No more spending an hour flicking through the latest must have cookbook and then cooking spaghetti bolognese again.

This year I'm putting a plan into action and seeing how it works out.  I'm not crafty, the best at home organization or a fashionista.  If I made my own cheese I'd never want to eat it.

The world is calling and we are joining in.

Image via pinterest

We are keeping our manuals

Image via pinterest

And not leaving our comfort zone without our mentors

Image via pinterest

Of course we won't stop reading and enjoying the life of literature.  It will be busy.  What with our Baby Boy who is only 3 months old

And our Girl who is a whirlwind

Let's see how we go shall we.  Let's enjoy the ride.