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Showing posts from April, 2010

shifting timetables

I liked this post from Simple Green & Frugal , and I particularly liked the quote at the end, from someone called James W Frick, whom I have never heard of: “Don't tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I'll tell you what they are.” So at this point I could mention, rather honourably and even smugly, my enthusiasm for local Gaalburn goat cheese , or ... I could mention the visit to the KFC drive thru yesterday. Granted, I have avoided KFC for months until yesterday. But my hangover from drinking red wine at a locally owned cafe the night before tipped me over and global-corporate-chemical-excuse-for-food it was. Buoyed up by the grease and some very happy children who normally despair of their failure to get me to buy KFC or McDonalds, I went home and baked some sourdough bread, some chocolate and cranberry muffins, put some chickpeas on to soak, drained and topped up my kefir and made delicious salad with montasio cheese , organic avoca

cupboard

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One shelf. Indeed it is not easy to find anything. Should this worry me now? We-eelll I have ordered 24 kilos of dry goods to turn up this week and next, so a little order amongst the existing provisions seemed a good idea. My 'helper' with the contents of the other two shelves beside her. The pot plants are basil and the rose in the beer bottle was to raise funds for Red Cross this morning. Wetville being small and possessed of many confident women, I knew the seller well and not purchasing wasn't an option I took seriously. The lino lining for this cupboard must have once also been on the floor. I think I like it better than the current lino. Below is the current lino. I think it looks better in the photo than on the floor. For ease of viewing the actual pattern, I took a photo of it without chocolate hail, mustard and cocoa on it. Further on the delicate, floaty topic of cocoa and mustard powder... Tomorrow, I am going into work for two hours. To be truthful,

Holiday in paradise

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Perfect blue, lush green. On holiday at the end of our street. Yes I do know I am lucky. Duckie has shared many adventures with our family recently. That little bit of blue and foam at the end of the driveway is the Tasman Sea. In this area between road and sea, the native bush does seem to have beaten the gorse over time and created a beautiful green belt. I love the look of the cabbage trees in profile against the sky. Most of the gorse is on the edge of the stream where there are no competing trees. The highlight of the walk for the short people. The tall(ish) people wanted to fly kites, but it was too calm. That was last week and it was glorious.

Dryville

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Halfway there, it was obviously still raining sometimes and I liked the look of this old tractor resting in the corner of a paddock. Great trip east, to where it rarely rains at the moment. No lush rainforest here. Came back with Grandma's knitting bag, which arthritis now prevents her from using. I also came back refreshed from the change and our childless night. Plus I stocked up on veges and a little meat from the Oxford Farmer's market, organic apple cider vinegar from the orchard near where we stayed and pumpkins, apples, pears, plums, blueberries and tayberries from various roadside stalls. I came back with some ric-rac and a small piece of gorgeous fabric from the quilt shop in Hanmer and with the sheet music and books for the piano. How good is that? Terrific and lucky and special in my world. I never expected to get the family piano and although I wanted one, the reality is that we would not have had one for a long time without Mum and Dad's generosity. T

These are my seasons

All that thinking about seasonal celebrations and I think I'm getting somewhere, possibly right back where I started. I've thought for ages about how out of sync our religious holidays are with our weather. Christmas in England did make a whole lot more sense than having it in the middle of the summer holidays. Then I was thinkinhg about pagan festivals and enjoying looking at my southern hemisphere wheel of the year and eyeing up what is coming up. Only Lughnasadh was just after school started back and Samhain, which I do intend on us celebrating as it has the courtesy to fall on a Friday, is also soon after school starts back for Term Two. So I'm hanging out the washing today, and it occurs to me that I do have a seasonal life and a distinct rhythm and what it revolves around is term time and school holidays and I may as well just love it because anything else is mostly layering more stuff on top of what really makes us tick here in the messiest house in Wetville (though

Annie: for my brother & sister

Who will tell your family story? Will it be the fishing-stories uncle, the one who lives on sausages and budget beer, opening the fridge for more several times before lunchtime? Will he tell your family story, with his accent of bitterness and remembered insults? It was always the old people who let him down, until his sons grew old enough to join the stories, the litanies of complaint. Should it be him? Do you prefer something more respectable? Ask Grandma. Some names and dates, a few pale stories if you push. It is not a family of storytelling. Lots of men; few women. The men will tell you some stories of grass and cows. A few beers and the usual jokes about the priests. The priests left these boys alone and as the stories come out of the woodwork, the altars and surplices, more and more, the men profess their amazement that they escaped. There are more stories of the men in cow country. The same stories of the same mad drunk buggers every year. There are few stories for the women to

Housework

Last week when I was grilling the spare ribs, the ceiling of the oven caught on fire. Not good, really. It was getting seriously unavoidable: the need to clean the oven. For the most part, I'm a rather hopeless greenie these days. I've returned part time to Persil washing powder because I got sick of dingy looking clothes and fancied a bit of that naughty optical brightener. Part time because eczema boy still needs his clothes washed in home made powder and not everything needs optically brightening. I've got Brighid in disposable night nappies. I was a Nappy Lady advisor in an earlier life for goodness sake! Once upon a time I would walk over hot coals to avoid using disposable anything on my darling child's bottom. But that was before child 2 decided to take such an age to stop using nappies. I use our car rather frequently to run errands and we use the fire long before it is below zero outside. But I'm still a selfish greenie and I don't like nasty c

Communists head back to Blackball

Front page headline in our local rag. Jose Garcia, Cuban ambassador to New Zealand, has accepted our invitation to attend May Day celebrations in our very own, very special, West Coast town, Blackball. This May Day we will be celebrating not just the workers of the world and our fight for better conditions, but also the opening of the Blackball Museum of Working Class History. It promises to be a special day and I am looking forward to it. For more information, see here .