Dry

Augusten Burroughs, Sydney, N.S.W. : Hodder Headline Australia, c2004

Semi non fiction tale of a soggy addiction mess, rehab and relapse. Honest, even about less that noble impulses. Augusten is really hard on himself, perhaps with good reason. 

The alcoholic haze is well described and the love Augusten feels for all the paraphernalia of drinking; the bars, the low lights, the pretty jeweled colours in sparkling bottles, and how he has just too much time when he is not drinking. 

The observations about new york city life, advertising, even office politics are all pithily captured. The rawness and mess was revolting at times. Easy to read, gossipy, like a extended magazine article. Strangely, sort of, a love story. 

The library copy was heavily annotated, and the comments were an amusing side story. Someone identified closely with the troubles. I'm looking forward to reading his other books.

comfort reading

Sometimes I like the pleasant company of a well resolved mystery where everyone gets just what they deserve. And Footscray's Kerry Greenwood is better than most and sets this series in St Kilda of the 1920's. 

Phryne Fisher is everything one could possibly desire in a lady detective: smart, beautiful, brave and so very bohemian. The cast she is surrounded by are gems in their own right; the charming adopted daughters, crafty well brought up lady's maid, cool butler, superb cook, magician Chinese lover, communist taxi drivers and socialist lesbian sister. (hope I have not left anyone out) Phryne uses the cast around her as able assistants, leaving her the serious business of being glamourous and fabulous in the course of good works. 

Alexander McCall Smith's writing has been criticised of being twee and trite, but I don't care, I love being around his characters' daily wisdom. 'La's Orchestra Saves the World' is set during WW2 in country England. A sweet grown up romance. Yes, a romance, shocking! There is even that elusive thing - a measured subtle maybe even happy ending. 

big fan of the angry chicken

I am a big fan of the angry chicken - a blog. look it up, I'm not sure how to link...yes I could know by now...Anyway I have been enjoying angry chicken's blog for a few months now. And tonight I made a batch of the 'dirty hippie' (in a good way) home-made deodorant. I'm so excited that I had to write to thank Amy while I'm waiting for goop to set in the fridge. I used jasmine and lemongrass, and orange and clove, made two batches (half size) just to see which one I would prefer, mainly because I could not smell the mix so well after a while of mixing as there were too many essential oil mixes on my fingers.

Singled Out

Virginia Nicholson. How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War. Viking 2007

I really enjoy how Virginia writes, and loved her earlier book - 'Amongst the Bohemians'.  

"...the surplus two million had much to wing their hands over, but if such women...had weakly submitted to being unjustly marginalised, we might still be living in a patriarchy...women might still lack the professional, political and social status that they have today...for them being denied marriage was a liberation and a launching pad." p235

Great to able to see the positives instead of concentrating on what is missing. Filled with personal stories of unusual and rich lives. Ladies with causes and drive. 

potatoes again

potato stamps this time, going for the view outside; plane tree with bird visitors. 

sewing corner

Oh the happiness of a sewing corner, set up in the wardrobe, of course. Who needs that much wardrobe? not I. It had become the junk store, and with 'freecycle' junk can be gone. I sourced 2 cabinets at a warehouse that I thought was a furniture store but was actually not a store at all but some guys clearing up and moving out and it just so happened two file draws were looking for a new owner. A filing cabinet can hold a lot of sewing paraphernalia. Trusty cabinetmaker made up a table top to fit and voila sewing corner bliss. Sewing machine and overlocker always at the ready and hey presto there are skirts and pincushions and plans and daydreams aplenty.

carrot

carrot Salvador Dali moustaches

Breath

Tim Winton

Hamish Hamilton (Penguin Books) Austrlia. 2008

Well, who knew where that was going? It (and i won't ruin it for anyone) is pretty tough subject matter to make believable / palatable. Poetic prose, as you would expect from Tim Winton.

I had a premonition about drugs from the magically appearing surfboards and the absence of work in Sando and Eva's life. 

Interesting use of retrospect. The man tells about his adolescence with some hindsight. The interior of the book is his youth and the grown up sections at the beginning and end are like book ends. I almost forgot his paramedic character when I was with Pikelet.

The theme  - the courting of danger and the need for increased risk - was thoroughly explored. 

Eva was my least favourite character. I'm still not so sure she was believable.  The reader only gets to know her as a love interest. 

i like it... just need to wash my tongue a little bit....

pickled ginger

birthday radishes

A birthday celebration in the park. champagne, sausages at 10 am. Most pleasing - home grown radishes.

A sunday in the country

The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies

Beatrix Potter. 1909. Frederick Warne

We love this book. It's perfect for children without being too simple. There is drama, adventure and proper characters. The illustrations are beautiful and the size is just right for little hands to hold. 

What a great start to the story:

It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is "soporific".

I have never felt sleepy after eating lettuces; but then I am not a rabbit.

p7

..some of the girls at school put lipstick, quite thick lipstick...

overheard in a train during school holidays

The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate

Margaret Mahy, Illustrated by Margaret Chamberlain. 1985 Puffin Books.

There are a lot of saintly mothers in children's books and every now and again it makes a lovely change to read about a mother who is a pirate, as in this book. A fulsome, jolly, gold wearing colourful pirate who glows in the city setting. Her son is a brown suited accountant, of course. The mother tells him that they must go to the sea, even though they must travel with just a wheelbarrow and a kite. The image is when they have arrived and are frolicking in the sounds, smells and taste of the sea. Great for planning a beach holiday and for your own inner pirate. Aye aye!

Nail Soup

Eric Maddern illustrated by Paul Hess

Frances Lincoln Children's Books 2007

This is a traditional fairy tale - I knew it as 'Axe soup'. A traveller (wearing a beautiful vest ) stops at a house in a forest and softens the heart of the grumpy lady of the house by showing her how to make a soup from a nail. Of course the soup would be even better with: oats, some herbs, perhaps some milk, a little potato, barley and some salted beef. All these additions are prefaced with the traveller saying:

"But...what one has to do without

It's no use thinking more about"

Gradually the soup becomes the soup fit for a queen and king. The lady is tricked into offering much more hospitality than she wanted to at first, or is she. The drawings are magical, perspectives from strange angles and glorious colours. The timeframe is tricky: when the story starts it is autumn, then we see snow and by the time the traveller is ready to leave after one night it is spring.

Joy loves this book, so do I, as I am not immune from magic. 

sewing machine is fixed

The tunic has been cut out since April... my story is that the sewing machine has been broken...I used some lolly fabric for the bodice lining. Fancy lining is making me so very happy even though you hardly ever see it.

The little strip quilt is for a baby of a friend, also 6 weeks or so late-ish. she requested a red theme.

Show

We saw some prize winning cattle, very healthy rounded sheep and cows. Ahh cows... Serious judging commentary quite funny if one is not a  farmer. There was craft, and scones at the CWA cafe and compliments on grandma's latest knitting from ladies in the know.

Shame about all that plastic bags full of plastic  junk - not for us.

...your dressing gown is not for wiping squashed banana out of your eye...

...well, it's not is it....

The Potato People

Pamela Allen. 2002 Puffin books (Australia)

We have been planting  vegetables, watering and watching them (a lot of watching, three days into it there is little above ground progress...) Today we put away some potatoes to grow sprouts and remembered this much loved book. We made some potato people of our own.

The potato is a tuber close to my heart, well the stomach is close to the heart isn't it? We've been celebrating the year of the potato with potatoes fried, and gnocchi.

Tugun

sunshine, soft squeaky sand, warm waves, smooth pebbles in colours of tweed, recliner lounges with water views, pensioners resting on balconies watching the world and sunning themselves, surfers bobbing along the shoreline, rock pool crabs pretending to be stones, night views of city lights, walking tracks through dappled light

...we are going on a summer holiday...fun and laughter on a summer holiday...for me and you...

Among the Bohemians

Experiments in Living 1900 - 1939. Virginia Nicholson. (2002) Viking.

Free thinking artists and the development of a bohemia, based on gypsy travels and colourful dress, garlic, freer love lives, unorthodox relationships, naked wild children, and experimental parenting bordering on neglect. What's not to like? Fabulous book with themed chapters about manners, love, children, money, travel; all the good things. Gender relations I found particularly revealing. Great inequality continued.

"Today we can conduct relationships with people from any class without fear of ostracism, while deploring oppressive , stratified societies. Our choice of friendships and love affairs are our own. The idea of chaperonage makes us laugh; women are independent. We recognise that children have potential that must not be squashed...We re hatless, relaxed and on first-name terms with people we barely know. Red paint, ratatouille and yellow corduroy brighten our lives...We live in a society which most people's great grandparents would hardly recognise..."p279

"the Bohemians... resolved to bring their children up as happy, carefree, creative individuals, and they were determined to spare them the boring, punishing childhoods that so many of them had been forced to endure. It was Rousseau versus repression." p97

Some children did not learn to read until 12 and it seemed not to do any harm to their future lives and careers. Some felt the need for strict order, one son of the John brood for example joined the navy.

"Many parents saw the provision of liberty for their children as a prior condition of creativity, both their own and their children's. But at times one feels that this neglect was as much expedient as ideological. Bringing up children is very hard work. For parents with not much money, teams of nursemaids boiling nappies, starching frills and enforcing table manners were beyond their reach. Leaving children to get on with their lives was a great deal simpler and cheaper than keeping them up to the mark....You could maintain cleanliness and order, or spend the time on creative activities - but not both."p 76

Slinky Malinki strikes again

parrot hat

The parrot hat is complete, and now cryptic instructions like 4htr into 4 ch sp do not scare me. The flower used almost as much wool as the hat itself. It's lovely and warm with extra heat on one ear...

i heart the co-op

i heart the co-op...for the fresh fruit and veg, all in season, organic even, and a reason to venture out  to the park on a saturday.