The blessing of parkland

I am blessed in having a nearby off-lead park in which to walk my dog.  I live quite close to the city, but I believe at some stage this land was planned to become a freeway. Luckily it never eventuated, so now we have a lovely half-wild park.

One side of the creek is fairly natural and "bushlike", except they mow the grass, and the other contains ovals and a bike path and a big area of wild-ish parkland. 

Since the planting of gum trees and other native vegetation, the native birdlife has been returning and now we regularly see ducks, kookaburras, currawongs, magpies, rainbow lorikeets, and many others— well a lot of them we don't so much see as hear— so it  can feel more as though you're in the bush, rather than a fairly short distance from the city.

If you want to hear the sounds they make, here are links: kookaburras, currawongs, magpies, rainbow lorikeets.  I'm assuming you know ducks. 

And this is my dog surveying her domain. She jumps on this old chunk of concrete every single night.

Gorilla Love

A dog is a heat seeking device.  There is sun this morning, after days of grey and rain and cold — it's winter downunder — and Milly has found herself a small spot of it, and is sunning herself and her orange rubber gorilla.

Usually they lie at (or on) my feet in front of the small strip heater under my desk, she and her gorilla.

She's had that gorilla for nearly six months, since her first week here. It was a welcome gift from a friend. She was terrified of it at first — it had a wonderful two-tone squeak and had a tendency to bounce or roll when patted with a paw. 

It took Milly ages to brave it, and I had a lot of laughs at her tentative pat-squeak-leapback routine, but eventually she lost her fear and totally fell in love with him. His squeak is gone, and he's a bit grubby, but otherwise he's whole and undamaged, which is amazing for such a flimsy rubber toy that gets such constant dog-love. 

Tennis balls, on the other hand have been peeled, stripped and thoroughly destroyed, bones reduced to mere knobs and she'll even chew on a bit of wood in the garden. But not the orange rubber gorilla. She loves him. 

I suspect he might need a name. Any suggestions?

Puppy Love

On New Year's Eve I came home with a puppy — not a tiny puppy, maybe 5 or 6 months old. I'd seen this picture on Pet Rescue and I was a goner.

I drove down before Christmas to meet her and make the arrangements—she had to be spayed, innoculated and microchipped before they'd release her — and collected her on New Year's Eve. She was named Amelia then, but I changed it to Milly.

Since then we've had a LOT of fun. She's a sweet-natured, affectionate little soul, very playful and active, but also quite happy (after a good game) to play by herself in the garden, or snooze on her bed beside my desk while I work.

Of course, sometimes she's not snoozing, but yumphing happily on a rawhide donut.

When I first got her, I bought Milly one of those "tug-of-war" ropes, with a tennis ball at one end and a rope handle for a human on the other.

The tennis ball was first de-fluffed, then thoroughly killed (and a post-mortem conducted — disappointingly hollow and untasty — and the remains scattered) but the rope, one end all shreddy, damp  and delicious, the other end still a neat handle for a human, remains and we have fun playing tug-of-war and learning (one of us anyway) to "give."

So she was playing with the rope thingy all by herself in the lounge-room this morning, tossing it up and pouncing and catching it and giving it a good vicious shaking and all excellent fun.

Then her back foot got caught in the handle, and hah! the rope is fighting back! So naturally she's not going to be defeated by a shreddy old rope, no matter how delicious. So she gives a biiiig tug and plonk! Down goes a surprised puppy. Looks around. Who pulled my foot from under me?

But there's nobody there, and this rope needs to be taught a lesson, so up she gets and wrestle-tug-shake-growl...

And then plonk — floored puppy again — what? Pull my foot out from under me — again? Baaad rope. So growl harder, pull harder. . .  fall harder! Damn rope!

Over and over for about 3 or 4  minutes.

Heartless here did nothing to help, just laughed and laughed.

Growing tea

A few weeks ago, a friend was given a pile of peppermint tea branches and she was drying them to make tea from the leaves.  I wondered whether it might take from a cutting, so I begged a sprig from her. I wasn't sure it would work -- they'd been picked a couple of days earlier and the leaves were well wilted.

But I broke the twiggy bit in half and shoved the pieces in a pot, and nipped the growing tip out and because it was too small to make tea from, I popped it in a tiny glass. And lo! they're all growing. In the photo above, all those bright green leaves are new. You can just see a couple of the darker ones underneath.

The pot ones are doing so well, and even the little growing tip in a tiny glass has sprouted roots -- - you can just see them in the pic below. I'm so pleased. This isn't like the ordinary soft mint plant I've grown before, and it's delicious as a tea.

I always get a kick out of growing things I can use. Do you like mint or herbal tea? Or grow things to eat?

Wedding Dresses

I'm blogging at the word wenches about a wedding dress exhibition I attended, with pictures.

But I couldn't fit in all of the pictures I wanted to, so I'm putting some more up here. Unfortunately the signs that explained the dresses in detail were hard to read -- in small white print on a dark red background, and far enough from the viewing are that I couldn't read them, especially since the light in many of the rooms was quite dim — I presume to protect the dresses. And although I bought the guide book, the dresses are simply listed at the back, with no cross-referencing, so I can't match them to my photos. So I'm very sorry but I cannot even provide dates for some of them.

This outfit was made in England for a sixteen-year-old bride, married in 1827, who emigrated with her husband to Australia.

Below is a silk satin dress worn by a Melbourne bride in 1915.

This gorgeous dress was worn for a wedding in 1957

This is the same dress from a different angle.

A view of back lacing on a jacket.

The graceful fall of a Victorian era dress.

The inside detail of the boning in a jacket. The picture below shows it in slightly more detail.

A boned bodice being formed on a dressmaker's dummy.

A corset with suspenders for stockings attached.

This dress was worn by Kate Winslett when she portrayed Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility

A dress in formation on the dressmaker's dummy.

The foundation of a dress in preparation on a dressmaker's dummy

Beading and fine detail work on a dummy.

Close up of some amazing embroidery

Gwyneth Paltrow wore this dress in the production of Emma.

This is a detail of the lace train on the dress Gwyneth Paltrow in the production of Emma

The back view of a Victorian-era dress.

A stunning Edwardian-era outfit (at a guess). There's another view below.

This is the top half of the dress Natassja Kinski wore in the production of Tess of the d'Urvervilles, by Thomas Hardy. There is more below.

The whole outfit

 Detail of the skirt.

Victorian era? Not sure, sorry.

I loved the medieval flavor of this outfit. The sleeves are hooked to the wrists by a ribbon.

The pictures below are of a "dress" that was made by pinning old tissue paper patterns to a dressmaker's dummy. It's gorgeous and very detailed.

Look at those rosettes. Click for better detail.

This stunning, rather OTT dress, is made of silk crepe, velvet, chiffon and tulle and is encrusted with pearls and embroidery. It was made in 1889 in Paris by Maugas, whose clients included royalty and the nobility of Europe. The bride's father was a successful—clearly a very successful—local Melbourne butcher. It must have weighed a ton to wear.

A gorgeous dress. no details, sorry.

Detail of some pearl beading and embroidery

Such pretty undies. Sorry, no details.

Mt Macedon

Next Saturday I'm going to be speaking at The Gallery in beautiful Mount Macedon -- a lovely gem of a town a little over half an hour's drive from Melbourne. It's historic, and is best known for scenery and gorgeous gardens, and as spring has sprung in my neck of the woods, I'm looking forward to seeing the spring gardens. 

So, art, spring gardens, book talk and a delicious afternoon tea included in the price — what could be better? To book email: info (at) thegallerymtmacedon (dot) com (dot) au  (no spaces)
or phone: 5426 3322   Hope to see you there.

Making yoghurt

When I was a kid, my friend Fay lived with her grandmother during the school week. Grandma was Macedonian and spoke little English, and our conversations revolved mainly around cooking and eating. She was a brilliant cook and showed me some recipes and methods that I still use to this day. One of the things she made was yoghurt. She nearly always had a large glass jug of it in the fridge, home-made and different from the commercial variety we used to get in the shops. And yummy.

The very first time I tried to make yoghurt was with Fay and some school friends when we were staying in a caravan on holiday. We were about fifteen or sixteen, and of course Fay knew what to do. We heated milk until it just started to bubble around the edges, then took it off the heat until it cooled to "blood temperature" — we stuck a finger in and guessed. Then we stirred in half a cup of commercial yoghurt, put the lid on the big glass jar we were using, wrapped it in a sleeping bag and put it in the cupboard. To our delight, the next morning it was yoghurt, almost as good as Grandma made —yoghurt like this.

Recently I had a yen for some of the yoghurt that Grandma used to make. I haven't had it for years — these days you can get good plain yoghurt in the supermarket, and it's delicious. But I enjoy making things from scratch sometimes, and so I decided to make my own.

To cut a long story short, and as you can see from the picture above, it worked beautifully. And then, of course I had to play with it, didn't I? First I decided to turn some of it into "Greek" yoghurt -- a process that basically involves draining some of the whey from the ordinary yogurt.  You can see the difference it makes here.

I used a brand new chux superwipe, which I sterilized by pouring boiling water over it, then lined a wire drainer, tipped in the yoghurt. and left it for a few hours.  (I developed this technique when I made cottage cheese with the same method, only using rennet from junket tablets instead of yoghurt. I believe in using what I have to hand, rather than getting in special equipment.)

Then I decided to make some lebne --a thick kind of cheesy substance (Lebanese, I think) that's basically yoghurt left to drain even further. The same process again. And here's the result -- left to drain an afternoon and overnight -- you can see how much firmer it is from the imprint of the cloth on it.

So that's it, my little trip down memory lane. I'd forgotten how easy it was, and how delicious the result is. I'll be making yoghurt and lebne much more often, now I've reminded myself. Fay's away with her husband, gadding about Queensland on holiday, but when she comes back, I might have to take her some of "Grandma's yoghurt," which is what it will always be to me, even if it's not in a tall glass jug covered with a cloth.

Revisiting the past

I spent yesterday afternoon at a high school I used to work at many years ago. It's closing down after 85 years fine service to the community, which is a very sad thing. I don't know if the lovely old brick building will be knocked down or turned into flats, but either way it's a shame.

 It was a good place to work — the kids were fantastic, and there was such warmth and goodwill between most of the kids and teachers. Even the ratbags had their fair share of charm and spirit. It was also fantastically multi-cultural — the teachers as well as the kids coming from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, which made for a wonderfully rich soup of culture and experience—and one which the school always celebrated in a variety of different ways.

I nearly didn't go — I'm always a bit apprehensive about revisiting the past, but this turned out to be lovely. I caught up with so many kids I used to teach -- it was an absolute blast seeing them and hearing about their lives now, and their reflections about their school days. I think I was still smiling when I went to sleep hours later. 

Mandarin season

It's mandarin season here, and as usual, I can't get enough of them.

Years ago when I was traveling (backpacking) I arrived on the tiny Greek island of Lesvos at the start of  mandarin season and I must have been deprived of vitamin C or something, because the whole time I was on that island, I ate mandarins by the bagful.

They were sweet and tangy and almost entirely seedless. It was the first time I'd come across seedless mandarins, and I was hooked. I ate mandarins for breakfast and lunch and only at dinner time did I have a normal meal.

Now whenever I buy myself a bag, I smile as I remember those happy days in Greece.

Quilt Gorgeousness

A parcel arrived today containing a wonderful surprise — a beautiful patchwork quilt made for me by a friend of mine's mother. She knows I like colorful things and decided to make me this, and isn't this simply the most gorgeous, colorful quilt you've ever seen?

 

 I'm thrilled. I spread it out on my bed, and took a few photos of it. It's not a quilt, she says, "it's just a throw" — but it nearly covers the whole bed, so I'm calling it a quilt. The sun was shining through my bay window, so the front part looks a little paler and the back a little dark, but it's gorgeous all over — bold and colorful and geometric and asymmetrical — all of which I really like.

It's a thing of beauty and it makes me smile every time I look at it.

Helen, thank you so much.