Garden Snaps

I'm going to miss having a garden to wander around every day, especially this garden. My daily wander often takes me about 30mins, by the time I de-head some roses, prune some geraniums, attack some blackberries and play with the cat.

 The artichoke flowered, not sure I had ever registered an artichoke flower before, very pretty, definitely worth forgoing an artichoke for. It is always interesting to let vegetables bolt and flower. In this garden there is no vegie patch, the edible plants are just part of the general bedding. Also see this blog for some musing on flowering vegies.

 I was pleased with my fly photo, not sure what kind of fly it is, not a regular blowie or housefly, it kindly sat and let me take it's picture.

Hello kittycat! This cat is very practised at looking adorable, he especially likes to look through the branches of trees. He looks docile here but in reality five minutes earlier he was hanging upside down stuck up a tree.

Some food snaps

I take a lot of photos of food. I think the ole food photos are a real digital camera phenomenon, I used to take the odd one on special occasions with my film camera, of cakes and the like, but not very many. I think most people take them now. Sometimes I think if I didn't photograph a meal it didn't actually happen. I always mean to post them, like a lot of things, but then I don't. So here is a random selection of January ones.

Homemade choc croissants, just store-bought puff pastry rolled around squares of dark chocolate, brushed with a big of egg on top. Made these for New Year's day breakfast.

Artichoke tart on the deck. I think I posted this in another post. I realise I haven't done enough sitting on the deck. I did a lot during my first week here, but then it rained for a week, then I forgot to, then it was HOT. This week should be fine and not hot though so I must do it again.

Omelette and fennel and white bean salad. Cooking omelettes on gas is a revelation! So much quicker. 

Cheese platter at tapas place in D'ford, the cheese was pre sliced, which I don't really like as a rule, plus one cheese was under the bread so we didn't see it till we had finished the bread? The cheese was still pretty tasty though.

Walnut bread, this suddenly looks very dark on the blog. Anyway, it is walnut bread from Himalaya Bakery in Daylesford, buy some if you get the chance and eat it freshly sliced with cheese.

Or toast it and eat with plum jam and coffee.

Prosecco at the Perfect Drop. Any place that serves prosecco by the glass wins my vote.

 Taramasolata with radishes. I think I need more radishes in my life.

Freshly picked blackberries, raspberries and mulberries. I ate these with yoghurt.

Coffee at Woodend station from the coffee man. Good coffee, crisp morning, sunlight, feeling of virtuousness for getting up at 6am, leopard print scarf. Win.

Tea and blueberries with yoghurt. I like to vary my breakfasts, some people eat the same thing every morning, I could never do that, it would be like eating the same dinner every day. Do you vary breakfasts?

This was one breakfast, mmm freshly baked scones.

Pancakes with mushrooms, tomatoes and cheese, grilled. Pancakes are also super easy on the gas stove, there is also a proper grill, which I don't have at home either (my kitchen is pretty basic).

 I love beaujolais, even if I do have an aversion to pronouncing it correctly. You can put it in the fridge and drink it chilled.

My friend's pavlova. Was super dooper tasty. I had two pieces.

That's enough for now. What have you been eating lately?

Bits and pieces

Having a productive week this week. Yesterday I sent off the final draft of my thesis to my associate supervisor, which means it is basically done. At the moment I am doing lots of tidying and editing. I still need to chop some words and I am pruning the footnotes. I am also cross checking my footnotes with my bibliography and it is INCREDIBLY TEDIOUS. Argh. So much of the work I have been doing lately is very dull. Things just take forever when it is such a long document. But anyway mostly it is exciting to actually know I am finally handing it in after sooo long. I have been dealing with the tedium by watching movies while I do the mindless tasks. Especially the image formatting. I had to make a pdf document with 293 images in it. Seriously. Most people I know have had from 8-50 images. I think it is partly my topic, gardens often mean lots of different angles, and several different representations of the one object or garden. 

The weather has been lovely in the country this week. I have been enjoying hanging out with the cat and snatching moments in the sun to read books and drink tea and eat pancakes. I have been refreshing my head by going out and dead heading the roses and weeding the raspberry bed and attacking the mammoth blackberries that seem to have appeared out of nowhere.

Picture essay...

 I have spotted some big butterflies in the garden, about 12-15cm across. I chase them with my camera like I was some kind of nature photographer. Mostly I have photos of blurry leaves but a few came out OK.

 

I ate lots of berries in early Jan, and there now seems to be a second lot growing. Knowing my luck these will ripen just after I leave. Mulberry above, blackberry below.

 Golden tree.

 Lavender

 Crazy evil-hand-shaped lemon. Tree also has normal lemon-shaped lemons. I am guessing it is insects that do this.

Stylish blogger award

I am currently sitting on the couch wearing old leggings and a $5 singlet and watching the cricket and I thought what better time to respond to an award for being stylish. The award is from MissKittyCat.

I now have to tell you seven things about me, I don't know what really.

1. Yesterday I shocked Daylesford by parading down the main street in a completely paisley outfit. They may never recover. Part of the outfit was bright blue paisley pedal pushers from Witchery of all places, but Witchery circa 2002, doubt we would see them there now...
2. I have judged the people I am housesitting for because they have no anchovies in their cupboards. Honestly.
3. I love Buffy and I am watching it all again from the beginning at the moment. I have watched season one and now into season 2.
4. I love scarves as in the silk style ones not woolly (though I do like those too), I have many, luckily I'm not at home or I would probably go and count them and discover I had 60 or 70 or more! I do have 6 with me in D'ford, which probably says a lot.
5. Hmm i'm running out of things now. I know, I made scones this morning. Only second time ever, I almost ate them all at once. They were so soft and creamy I couldn't tell where the butter ended and the scone began (If I do say so myself). Here's a pic.

6. I have been in the Vatican Secret Archives. It's pretty amazing but not dusty or musty or anything like that, more concrete with metal shelves, like your average library. Well except for the amazing documents.
7. Finally I have nearly finished my PhD, how excitement. And on that note I should get back to work.

Apparently I have to tag or award or something so here goes:

Snippets of my Life
What Katie Did Next
Minx in Black
Maxie et Zuel
A Flash in Japan
The Sunday Sesh
Yikes Machine
FickleLand 

Is that enough? Have I lived up to a Stylish Blogger award?

The Cat who thinks he is a Dog

I have been gathering evidence that the cat I am minding actually thinks he is a dog, or is perhaps a dog trapped in a cat's body.

Here he is being cat-like because every time I try and take a photo of him being a dog he composes himself and looks all serene and self satisfied.

Reasons why he is a dog:

1. He runs out to meet people when they arrive, not just people he knows either, pretty much anyone.
2. He constantly rolls in the dirt.
3. He wants everyone to scratch his tummy.
4. He chews on shoes.
5. He comes when he is called.
6. If you pat the seat next to you he jumps up immediately.
7. He eats his dinner really fast.
8. I once fed him outside and he buried his dinner.
9. He constantly runs up and head buts me.
10. He follows you round the house and garden while you are doing things.
11. If he sleeps on the bed he doesn't try and slowly take up the whole bed by stretching himself at weird angles.

Maybe these are cat-like qualities but none of the cats I have ever owned did them, usually they just sat around looking at me like I was an idiot, chased birds and occasionally deigned to sit on my lap.

Hope you are having a nice Saturday. I am off to to eat blueberries and yoghurt with a silver spoon.

Dallying along in the country

My first few days have been very nice. Up early with the cat, I always plan to head back to bed but I find getting up and feeding the cat just wakes me up. I have been working through my thesis, making good progress at the moment, though I know the later chapter need more work. I have been wondering around the garden a lot. Being in the country was meant to be less distracting but instead I find myself outside looking at flowers or checking the raspberry patch.

 Breakfast on the deck, toast, coffee, figs and the Times Literary Supplement.

 Behold my fig!

Behold my breakfast view.

 Yesterday I bought a new scarf at a junk shop, I like it a lot.

Sleeping in the sun. (This is fake, the sun is quite strong and I am very pale and have already got a little burnt, after I took this I put my enormous hat and sunglasses back on.

 Flowers, I like the orange a lot.

 Arty flower shot.

 Pink roses, I have been making some nice vases of fresh flowers.

 Lunch and reading, I finished that book today, so I am off to a good start on my plan to read more.

 Gin and Tonic time! I have made a delicious pesto from the cookbook underneath, capers and walnuts. I am going to have some more now. Yum.

My 2011 to do list...

I have always been a list writer, I blame my Dad, he is a list-a-holic, he often has several different lists running, a long term one, a short term and a daily one, usually written on the backs of old envelopes (which has also led to me being almost unable to throw out old envelopes, I found about 50 cluttering up my cupboard the other day). Sometimes when I pop over now as a grown up (more-or-less) he will have a list of things for me to do (usually along lines of 'fix computer', 'find me an email backup program', 'fix mum's computer'). I do it too, I always have them for my thesis work and for round-the-house and just general lists of desires.

I was de-cluttering the other day and found a stack of old notebooks, I was flicking through them to see if they had spaec in them and I found a list from my teenage years, I am guessing probably for summer '96 or '97. I should have taken a snap of it but I didn't and now it is down in Melbs and I am in the country. It was funny though, amongst more mundane stuff like reading certain books I had written 'Learn the Internet', which I guess I can tick off now. It is funny to think of actually learning the internet, nowadays I feel more like I need to learn to not be on the internet. We had the internet at home quite early on as Mum was a masters student and the uni let her have a free dial up connection. I would sit there trying to find info and things to read, I remember I used to have to use a whole range of search engines to try and find something that was relevant.

Anyhoo that is by the by, I am writing a list for 2011 now. I read somewhere recently that resolutions are silly because they aren't really resolutions, they are desires and most  people won't actually act on them. I think that is true, however, I also think the act of writing down or vocalising your desires can often lead you to think about how to achieve them and can shift you from the just desire stage to the 'doing something about it stage' (or even realise it was a silly desire and you should stop worrying about it). I often find myself stuck in a rut and I lack the mental energy to pull myself out, so I sit forlornly at the end of another day or week or month thinking 'oh why have I not read any of those interesting books/ cooked any different meals/gone to the art exhibition etc' This is not really meant to be a list of resolutions though, more a to do list for 2011 that I can check back on and slowly cross off.

• Read more books. My reading has been terrible lately, I read for study, but even then I really just dash into books, read a few pages or a chapter, read footnotes and dash out again. To get me started I want to read the following fiction and non fiction books cover to cover:
• Enigma - Robert Harris
• Arcadian Friends - Tim Richardson
• My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk
• Istanbul - Orhan Pamuk
• The Roman Forum - David Watkin
• The Venetian City Garden - John Dixon Hunt

• Go running again. I never completely stopped but I am quite sporadic now, maybe once a week. I like being able to run 5km, it made me feel special, I also found it good for mental health.
• Try some harder yoga. I did yoga all last year after being more of a pilates person (which I still do as well). I love my class but it is a general level class and I feel ready for a bit more of a challenge.
• Watch more movies. I have hardly seen any movies lately, I think I went to the cinema all of about 3 times last year. I think I can make a good start on this while house sitting as I can see 5 shelves of dvds.
• Be inventive and positive about ways to get work. I am applying for some postdoc things and maybe I will get lucky, but if not I must not mope and I must look for something other than sessional teaching, which drives me up the wall and stresses me out.
• Cook some new things. I love to cook but I have been in a bit of a rut lately, cooking much the same things on rotation. I always buy the same vegies from the market too. Maybe if I choose one recipe a week to try that will get me back into being inventive.
• Finish some sewing projects. I always plan to borrow mum's machine, perhaps post-thesis (handing in Feb 14 yay!) I will and set it up on my desk.
• Declutter cupboards and properly file all my articles and notes. I am generally OK at this but there is a lot that can be thrown out - old drafts and old notes I won't read again - and a lot that needs to be filed and entered into endnote so I know I have it and know where to find it.

I think that is all for now, it doesn't seem like a very long list. Perhaps I could add to it when I think of things or come up with other books to read. In other news I just made a list for today and tomorrow and I actually included two items that involved making more lists. I think I have a problem...

Caramelised Garlic tart I made for Christmas, a start on my plan to try new recipes.

Hello 2011

Hello new year, you seem nice, do you think we will get along? I have a feeling you will be more eventful than the last one, which secretly I found a bit, well, run-of-the-mill. There were some nice things (like travel) and some sad things, and there was a lot of frustration. I'm in Daylesford now, where I am house sitting for 5 weeks, I will be living the country life and finishing my thesis, as well as a few other small projects. I have a flowery paisley shirt on and am ready for gin and tonics in the garden. I might even blog a bit more, I might blog some stuff that happened during my hiatus, but maybe I won't. We will see.

Here I am in holiday mode being zen at the cricket, half watching, half contemplating the mysteries of life. I'm not really grumpy, just concentrating.

Sunday sittin around

So I have some grand plans people. I have fourteen pages left of thesis to edit, which I am sure I can finish tomorrow as semester is finito and my only commitment is pilates. I also have a handful of footnotes to do as well but hopefully a day dedicated to this at uni can sort most out and frankly at this stage I am ready to jettison any that prove too hard to track down. Then I plan to tackle my image catalogue, I have almost all the images and most of the captions in varying states of completeness. I am hoping to finish all the images this week and then send entire thesis to supervisor next weekend. Can it be done?! I have to aim high.

Anyway today has been pretty laid back, I was out last night and there was a decision made to order a jug of sangria between two people, which was both fun and slightly unwise. But there wasn't much choice, the wine was dreadful, I don't really drink beer and the gin and tonics were almost all tonic. I didn't think I had drunk that much but I did decide to eat some blue cheese and crackers when I got home at midnight, and then today I found myself making scrambled eggs for lunch and drinking 1.5 litres of tea, so, well, the evidence suggests I did drink a bit much.

Here are my eggs

 

I also made some more necklaces, I have a slightly ridiculous amount now, I don't know how many exactly. These are made with beads I bought in Venice, apparently they are 1960s glass beads. I tend to be a tad sceptical about claims in shops in Venice, that said they were only about 50c a bead, which is pretty good value anywhere so perhaps it is true. There are two necklaces, one red and black and one white and blue, the little beads are just simple czech glass seed beads.

These grey ones I bought in Rome from one of my favourite market stalls, the guy sells an amazing array of stone and glass beads. They are all marked at outrageous prices but then he basically sells any strand for 5 euro, just for me of course, ha. They are really beautiful beads though, he always explains the names to me but in a kind of half Italian/ half English and I can never remember. I hope this holds together as the beads are very heavy.

Now I am drinking pink prosecco (actually it isn't prosecco but it is Italian and sparkling and I can't be bothered going to the kitchen to check).

Nom.

Argh, facebook

The ole book is driving me a bit nuts lately. I am really quite sick of it. But I don't hate it in that way most vocal haters seem to, I get it and I don't think everyone should hate it. I understand the appeal of sharing the ephemera of life, it is what we do in normal 'real' life as well. I like twitter, I like blogging. So why is facebook driving me crazy...

1. Photos. Argh. I like photos, but I like to share them with maybe 5-10 people, not everyone. I am also really sensitive to photos of myself. I know everyone isn't and that they find silly photos hilarious, which is great, but I don't, it makes me sad. Not really because I worry about bad photos, though I do, but also because it just seems so over share to have 15 photos of me at some party on the internet w tags of various people that can make that photo available to maybe 1000 people. I know most of them won't ever look at it but it makes me feel so exposed.

Also for posting my own photos, I stopped using facebook when it became clear that facebook has absolutely no regard for your ownership of the photos, you have to sign away your rights to them and they can use them without asking your permission. Granted the likelihood is low but nevertheless it is so draconian and unnecessary and disrespectful to your users. Also they keep your deleted photos online, if someone has saved a link they can keep visiting that photo even if you delete it. I prefer flickr or picasa or just writing little blogs about them.
Oh and the whole owning thing goes for everything you ever post, not just photos.

2. Too much overlap. When I joined it was just one group of friends on the book, then it was a couple of groups, then it was family and extended family, then it was old school friends, then it was uni colleagues and other work colleagues and people I met at a conference and so on. I feel there is no way to present myself that fits with all these groups. The things I want to discuss with one lot of people I don't want to discuss with others. Partly for privacy reasons, but also just general interest. On twitter I just have my twitter personality and people who like that can follow and those who don't, don't have to. I don't really use twitter to keep in touch with people, so I feel no compunction to gather in everyone. Basically I prefer social media that can reflect my real life groups, rather than pushing everyone into a big group.

This little presentation explains the whole overlap issue really well http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2

3. Privacy, facebook seems to have no respect for it. Options are always opt out not in and basic settings I think should exist do not. Like letting us decide not to let people tag us in photos! Instead I have to ask people not to tag me, which seems so dramatic and cranky. This is exacerbated by the fact that I am relatively certain that the reason they don't exist is to force people onto the site and onto more and more clicks on the site. I feel that as social media/networking goes facebook is the biggest but also the baddest.

I think that is all.. I am tempted to delete my page but it feels like such a dramatic reaction, plus there are people who it easy to stay in touch with via the book, so I am happy to keep it for personal messages. Also I help maintain some pages and as far as I know there is no way to do this without having a personal profile.

Sigh. Am I being over dramatic?