Category Archives: Lifestyle

Feeding my inner European

When I got back from Europe in September last year, I went through my usual grieving process: one minute I was walking round Goethe’s house and sipping tea in a chandelier-bedecked café in Frankfurt and, seemingly the next, I was in a yellow cab in Melbourne on my way home, Dave Hughes’ unmistakeably strident tones issuing forth from the radio, the front page of the Herald Sun screaming all things footy and, outside, Beach Road fringed with palm trees.

It’s always a bit of a wrench going from one world to the other, from my former, still parallel life in England were I ever to reclaim it, to my ‘new’ life here. A bit like those early settlers I read about in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, I have held onto bits and pieces from my original home and country as part of the re-settling process here. But at what stage does the new life cease to be new?

I think, in my case, it’s probably already happened. And any newness is simply a figure of speech and a way of distinguishing my life before and after my move to Australia. I’ve now lived in my Bayside suburb for twelve years – the longest I have ever lived in one place – and it does feel like home. Apart from putting my own stamp on my house and garden, getting a dog really helped me to put down roots. I’ve got to know many people and their pooches on our daily walks on the beach or in the park, and that has created a sense of community and belonging. Bertie and I are part of the local landscape and we blend in. And we’re getting used to summer being in winter and winter being in summer.

Last time I got back to Australia and was still battling the pull-push of Europe versus the Antipodes, a friend suggested I found ways to honour my inner Brit and European. Because it doesn’t have to be an either-or situation. I have, after all, chosen to live in the most European of Australia’s cities. Since then, whether consciously or subconsciously, I’ve been finding ways to stay tuned – literally – to Europe and, as a modern language graduate, to rediscover my languages. I started by joining a German Meetup Group. So far I’ve been to a fascinating film about Techno Music in Berlin in the 80s and to a Stammtisch (an informal gathering at a bar) at the Bavarian-styled Hophaus on the Southbank. And I’ve found German cuisine in the most unlikely places. Das Kaffeehaus in Castlemaine is a Viennese café complete with red leather banquettes, gilt-framed mirrors and chandeliers housed in a former carpet factory. I spent five months in Vienna as an au-pair girl when I was 18, and I can vouch for the authenticity of the food – think Wiener sausages, schnitzel, goulash and sweet favourites such as Linzer Torte and apple strudel.

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Then there’s SBS Radio and Television, a hotline to all things multicultural and multilingual. I have downloaded the Radio App and sometimes listen to Spanish news or I download the German Radio podcasts which deliver newsy and interesting items in easily digested 10-minute bites. Listening to the spoken language, its rhythms and cadences awakens dormant neural pathways and I start to remember words, phrases and expressions. Like old friends they flood back with a welcome familiarity. Tunein Radio has been another wonderful discovery; the app allows you to listen live to different talk shows and music stations from all over the world.

I love foreign language films and letting myself be transported to wherever it is. This past weekend I saw two excellent Spanish films (a rom-com set in Madrid and a quirky Mexican road movie) as part of the Spanish Film Festival. We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to foreign language film festivals in Melbourne – French, Spanish, German, Greek, Turkish, Israeli, Russian and Latin American to name but a few, and even, last year, a BBC First British film festival showing golden oldies as well as new releases.

And that’s not all. Palace Cinemas screen productions filmed live in HD from London’s Royal Opera House, La Scala, Opera Roma and the Opéra National de Paris as well as some of the best performances from the British Stage as part of the National Theatre Live program. Whoever first thought of sharing these live-filmed productions globally is a genius.

So far I’ve seen heartthrob Benedict Cumberbatch in Hamlet and Royal Opera House productions of the Marriage of Figaro and La Bohème. The joy of these performances is that you get the equivalent of front row seats for a mere $20 or so and, in the case of the operas, you can read the subtitles and follow the plot with ease. Not only that, each performance is introduced by a well-known actor and he or she goes backstage and interviews the director and actors or singers. My favourite so far has been John Copley’s production of La Bohème. Originally intended to run for a few seasons in 1947, it stayed in the repertoire for forty years, the 2015 filmed performance being the last ever.

The weekend before last a friend treated me to a surprise night out. It turned out to be the BBC Proms – the Last Night no less. Echoing the UK’s Albert Hall tradition, the program on the last night includes sea shanties and jingoistic numbers such as Rule Britannia and Elgar’s Jerusalem. It felt a bit strange sitting in an auditorium in Melbourne waving a dual English/Australian flag and belting out songs about Britain ruling the waves. I reflected that there are certain things you can’t export – it all becomes a bit ersatz. There’s a time and a place to celebrate your heritage and a time and a place to adhere to the old saying: When in Rome, do as the Romans.

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At Home in Hobart

Last week I was in Hobart for work, to run a grant-seeking workshop and meet with a few clients, and I stayed on for a couple of days afterwards. For three out of the four nights I stayed in a delightful studio which I found on Airbnb. Situated at the back of a beautiful period home just 10-15 minutes’ walk from the city centre, it was attached to the main house but had its own entrance reached via a red brick path. But for the bay window (which reminded me of my Oxford terraced house) overhanging the sandstone wall on the street side, you might not notice that there’s a house tucked away up there. Even the wooden lattice gate and steps up to the house are enveloped in a tunnel of foliage.

incognito house

tunnel of green

It was fun working in a different space and looking out on a sun-filled courtyard planted with a bay tree, clematis armandii, weeping Japanese maple trees, succulents and geraniums. My charming host, Bruce, is an architect who relocated from Sydney. What made the stay particularly special was the delicious breakfast he prepared every morning. There was something flavour-enhancing about the blue and white china, the yellow milk jug, the red bowl full of creamy white yoghurt, the black and white striped sugar bowl and the Mondrian napkins. What a joy it was to enjoy a slow and convivial breakfast; Bruce and I talked about everything from politics to arts, books, music and travel. The simple elegance of the breakfast table was echoed throughout the house with its dark green shutters, stained glass panels flanking the front door, polished boards and floor rugs.

Garden view two

breakfast

Having visited MONA – the Museum of Old and New Art – on a previous visit, this time I went to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, where I explored the section covering the arrival of the early settlers who brought with them their ideas of order and post industrial revolution ‘enlightenment’, not to mention animals, plants, trees, insects, salmon and trout eggs, furniture, china, silver and glassware. How strange it must have been moving to the other side of the world in the days before air travel and fast communications. One of the exhibit captions really sums up the experience: “The swans were black, not white. The trees shed their bark but kept their leaves. The seasons were reversed. European settlers in Van Diemen’s Land viewed the new world they encountered with amazement and wonder. They called It ‘The Antipodes” – the name means ‘direct opposite’.

The top floor documents the Aboriginal genocide (with ‘Bugger Off’ you white fellas translated into the native language) and the fear, ignorance and savagery of the colonialists. What I found most confronting is that one of the tribes was completely wiped out and so will never be able to tell their story. On a brighter note, the exhibition does at least acknowledge the atrocities, and Aboriginal people from the community had a hand in developing the space.

I got chatting to a couple in the gallery café and told them I was heading to the Botanic Gardens. Before I knew it they were giving me a lift – thank you Ray and Anne! It was lunchtime when I got to the gardens and I headed straight to the restaurant where I secured a table on the balcony with glorious views over the Derwent Estuary and hills beyond. After lunch I strolled through the gardens in the soft autumn sunshine through the fernery to the lily pond and onto the oak woodland, no doubt planted to remind the colonialists of the Mother Land. Here, briefly, I was back in the land of deciduous trees and the snap of fallen leaves underfoot, the dappled light through branches and the musty smell of leaf mould was so evocative of England that I felt tears pricking my eyes. A few steps on and I was back to the Antipodes in eucalypt woodland watching fairy wrens foraging on the ground for food.

Botanic gdn view

oak trees

That afternoon I headed up to North Hobart to the State Cinema where I got chatting to a woman who was seeing the same film, Rams, a wonderful tale of sheep rearing and sibling rivalry set in Iceland. We shared one of the comfy leather sofas and laughed and cried our way through the film. She insisted on giving me a lift back to my lodgings afterwards. What is it about Tasmanians and friendliness? Perhaps it comes from living on a small island where the pace is slower and people have more time to chat?

Dinner that night was a $12 steak at the Irish pub down the road. It was delicious and easy, and, as with everywhere I chose to eat, dining solo felt very relaxed and I escaped away to Southern Ireland care of my Kindle and Colm Tobin’s (of Brooklyn fame) novel Nora Webster.

After a quick peek at the Salamanca Markets on Saturday, my last day, I headed back to the Art Gallery to see a wonderful exhibition documenting the experience of migrant women, mostly from Britain and Europe, who moved to Tasmania between 1945 and 1975. What I loved most were the re-created interiors showing how the women maintained a connection with their homeland and customs through food, fabrics and costumes, books, religious icons, photographs and paintings. Before the days of email photographs documenting important events and milestones were sent to relatives back in the homeland, even – particularly for Catholic families – mourning photos showing the deceased person. Whether consciously or sub-consciously, many of us more recent migrants still hold onto keepsakes, furniture, china, treasured objects and items of pure sentimental value that connect us to our heritage. My house certainly has an English cottage feel about it.

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One of our clients at work is the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and I was able to attend one of their matinees on Saturday. Cleverly titled Bach to the Future, the concert featured works by Haydn, Bach, Mozart and Barber. But, for me, the most heart-soaringly beautiful piece was variations on Bach and Mendelssohn by Elena Kats-Chernin and other artists with Genevieve Lacey on recorder and clarinet. My only experience of the recorder being at school when it was invariably squeaky, never have I heard it played with such dexterity and clarity. The ‘Re-Inventions’ were interspersed with choral movements from Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Creating an evensong feel, the choir sang by torchlight up in the roof space and the whole thing was sublime. When I turned on the car radio back in Melbourne on Sunday, they were playing a recording of the very same concert. Spooky or what?

Before heading to the airport, I had a final cuppa in the café at the Grand Chancellor Hotel (where I had left my luggage) looking out over the water. Ah, Hobart, you’ve treated me well. Can I come back again soon?

I’m proud to be a 41-percenter

Lists, lists, lists, lists/ lists, lists, lists, lists/ LISTS….. (to the tune of Monty Python’s Spam, Spam, Spam). I love a good list and get immense satisfaction when I achieve and complete a job or chore. I used to try and wean myself off my inner list-ticker but now I’ve decided to embrace and celebrate it.

My notebooks are never this empty...

My notebooks are never this empty…

Some so-called leadership experts (if you believe the Sunday papers) claim that to-do lists are a no-no and can make you more stressed. Studies have shown that only 41 per cent of professionals who write lists actually complete the tasks. I clearly fall into this bracket. But I don’t just make lists for work, I write lists for everything even when I’m on holidays. I like to get things done and make the most of my time whatever I am doing. In some ways I’m a woman on a mission to squeeze the maximum out of life. By working through my to-do lists, I reckon – perhaps kid myself – that I make more time for new experiences and adventures.

Talking of adventure, I recently had an Out of Africa moment or three at the Fundraising Institute of Australia’s annual conference, which, this year, was in Melbourne. I work for a fundraising consultancy that assists not-for-profit organisations to develop effective grant-seeking strategies. Our theme this year was: ‘It’s a jungle out there and we can help you get out of it.’ With a foliage-draped stand dotted with blow-up zebras and monkeys, we donned pith helmets (sourced on-line from the UK; perhaps not surprising given Blighty’s colonial past), leopard print scarves and khaki jackets. It was a whirlwind of networking, meetings, exchanged business cards, chats, dinners, drinks, lots of business development and regular injections of caffeine. It was exhausting being ‘on’ for the best part of three days but we had a lot of fun.

Out of Africa...

Out of Africa…

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Post conference our workloads have trebled and it’s still go-go-go. That’s why I’m so happy I embarked on a list-a-thon during February. I wanted to clear not just my desk but the decks in general – I’d had a whole load of chores building up and hanging over me since Christmas. I slashed and burned my way through my lists and lists of lists of lists every weekend for a month. I tackled the front garden by my carport and replaced a weed suppression mat covered with dusty old stones and shells with new soil and plants. I weeded and pruned my courtyard at the back, moved pots around, transplanted cuttings from a hardy geranium grown eleven years ago from a cutting taken in Country Victoria and scrubbed paint splotches off my garden table. On behalf of the Body Corporate, I finalised negotiations with fence contractors and tree removalists, did the minutes and the accounts, the latter badly as I am no mathematician, and organised for a new fence to be erected.

I replaced saggy cushions on my newly-acquired op shop sofa with firmer foam inserts that didn’t leave bottom-shaped hollows. The only problem was that the guy in the shop measured the new cushions against the old ones which cascaded over the edge of the sofa. As a result, they stuck right out like a ledge and my feet barely reached the ground. Off I went straight back to Clark Rubber to get them trimmed, problem solved. I also replaced my old office desk with a state-of-the-art electronic height-adjustable desk. My brother, who happens to live next door to a guy who runs an office furniture outfit, got me a fabulous deal. While I don’t stand for more than about 30 minutes at a time, it does relieve the pressure on my lower back and keep me energised. Another of my back saving strategies is to swap my chair for a Swiss Ball here and there as it (apparently) helps to engage my core muscles – and that’s de rigueur nowadays, so the gurus tell us, if we want to stay fit and healthy, that and the consumption of chia seeds, pomegranates and kale. The change of desk brought on an office spring clean and general tidy-up. I threw out lots of old paperwork, tied up all my phone and appliance leads with cable ties and made the room feel more spacious. My old desk is in my carport awaiting collection by the Salvos. Another tick!

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Once my desk and office were sorted, it was time to tackle the paperwork and I did so with a vengeance. All that getting up and sitting down and circling my pelvis on the Swiss ball clearly put fire in my belly. I started by changing bank and credit card. The process wasn’t as complicated as I thought, thanks to my lists of course, but time will tell if I managed to successfully swap over all the direct debits, standing orders, on-line accounts and other payments. Then I had to do my tax return. Technically, it wasn’t due till May but the ATO thought I owed them money (for reasons I won’t bore you with) so I had to get it done. Lots of phone calls, scanned documents and spreadsheets later, the matter was all settled. I also had to call my health insurance provider about some back claims and make some on-line purchases, cashing in a Marks and Spencer voucher for me and then ordering a replacement dog training whistle for Bert. I can’t think where or how I lost the old one, but my voice just doesn’t carry over the wind and waves at the beach so a new one is essential. I could have ordered a cheapo pack of children’s party whistles from China but thought better of it and ordered a couple of shepherd’s whistles instead. When I came to phone through my credit card details, I found myself talking to a delightful woman in Inveraray on the West Coast of Scotland. We had a lovely chat – lists can you take you interesting places.

My kitchen was also in need of a bit of life laundry. First, I bagged up some surplus dry food items and tins and took them to a drop-off place for asylum seekers, then I sorted a large pile of recipes torn out of magazines and newspapers and filed them, at the same time banning myself from looking at any more recipes for at least a year. Needless to say, I did have a recipe relapse the weekend before last when I took a photo of a delicious-sounding chicken salad in Sunday Life. Leopards and spots…

Another task that I’d been putting off since I got my new job in October was to transfer all my photos, files and music from my old to my new computer. I’ve now moved them over but haven’t organised the photos, which somehow seem to have duplicated themselves into copies and copies of copies. Getting round to sorting out the photos keeps dropping to the bottom of the list along with doing my stretches, shredding old paperwork and cleaning Bertie’s teeth (he swallows rather than chews his food so gets plaque build-up).

I may sound like I’m incredibly organized, and in some ways I am, but don’t be fooled, I can also be chaotic and absent-minded with too many things on the go. But a bit of chaos and unpredictability is good and healthy. Too much listing, doing and thinking kills off spontaneity and bombards the brain with too much activity. How about you? Which of you are go-with-the-flow types and which of you are more plan and list-driven?

Needless to say I never arrive at the Nirvana-like state of being list-less, but after a blitz, the lists tend to plateau out and it’s easier to tackle the day job and to keep the rest of the time free for fun, creativity and socialising. In April I’m signed up to go to Mud Island off Sorrento on a bird-watching trip. It promises to be wet, muddy and full of fabulous waders and wetland birds. Well, I hope I get to go, I am on a wait LIST!

A good soaking

I recently watched a program featuring Dunleary on the Irish Coast and, specifically, an open-sea bathing area known as Forty Foot, where hardy souls brave the chilly waters of Dublin Bay all year round. On Christmas Day the number of swimmers increases significantly as festive frolickers plunge in.

I wouldn’t like to think how cold the Irish Sea would be in the height of summer let alone the depths of winter. But it did look gloriously wild and rugged and the chance of coming nose to nose with grey seals might warrant the risk of hypothermia.

Here in my Bayside suburb of Melbourne, there’s a mob called the Brighton Icebergers – they’ve been around since the 1980s and even have their own website – who swim year round in the Bay. And don’t confuse Melbourne with more tropical parts of Australia – the water here drops to around 7-12 degrees in winter and the air temperature might be a mere 5 degrees topped off with a wind chill factor. And when it’s cloudy, the water can seem as grey as the Atlantic.

I’ve certainly made the most of the warm summer days and enjoyed swimming in water at an ambient 20 degrees followed by a spell in the sun to dry off afterwards. A few weeks ago I met a seasoned Iceberger who tried to convert me: “The water’s lovely even in winter,” he said, describing how he puts on a neoprene cap over his regular swimming cap to insulate his head against the cold. “The worst thing you can do is to jump straight into a hot shower when you get home. Your body’s numb and you need to warm up gradually. Anyway, you should be used to the cold, you’re British.”

How many times do I get that comment?! And how many times do I reply that a person’s ability to tolerate extremes of temperature is not so much determined by geography as by constitutional type. Having said that geography can of course influence your body type (think Inuits, for example), but not in my case. I didn’t tell my fellow burgher and iceberger that if I go swimming when the outside temperature is anything less than a warm 20-something, preferably 25 or over, my hands go numb and my ears ache.

I may have terrible circulation, but my Anglo-Saxon heritage has made me stoic when it comes to dealing with inclement weather. I think nothing of putting on waterproofs (you still get soaked) and walking Bertie even if it’s tipping down with rain and blowing a gale. Thirty-something years of (often) wet holidays in the UK and family walks in all weathers, come rain or shine, have proved a good training ground.

What’s more, I once sat through A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the pouring rain in the garden of an Oxford college – the show clearly had to go on even if it were more like a midwinter night’s dream. It was hard to concentrate on the rhyming couplets as the rain puddled in the grooves of the bucket chairs on which we were sitting, forming a mini lake around our bottoms.

And just last summer when I was in England, Dad, Sally and I had a wet picnic in the Yorkshire Dales. But, this time, with a combined age of 216, the three of us opted to stay in the car and enjoy the wonderful views. Without all that rain, of course, the fields wouldn’t be such a lush and vivid green. Sally, who is wonderfully organised and a fabulous hostess, had prepared a delicious lunch served in 1970s orange-coloured Tupperware-like containers. A bit like an in-flight meal but way better, we had bread and butter in one compartment, prawn cocktail in another, strawberries in another and so on.

Spot the orange lunch trays!

Spot the orange lunch trays!

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As I write this the temperature is climbing to a sticky 33 degrees in Melbourne. If I had managed to get out of bed an hour earlier, I would have been able to enjoy a swim before getting to my desk. A bit like all-weather swimmers, I greatly admire people who can get up between five and six every morning. I am definitely a lark rather than an owl, but I’m currently struggling to get out of bed at 7am! Anyway, mustn’t grumble as the Brits would say (that’s the thing we grumble, we don’t whinge) as I might fit in a swim after work instead. If I can first clear my desk…

Princely gardens, barmen and baggage

My mother loves the Royal Family and is fascinated by them. From all she’s read, observed and seen I think she thinks she knows them. I’m quite happy to join in. When I got to England in August she’d recorded a documentary and saved it for us to watch together. Prince Philip: The Plot to Make a King made fascinating viewing and started with his family’s flight from Greece in revolution when he was just a baby. Funnily enough, the same program screened recently here in Australia on SBS. Anyway, the reason I say all this is that it referred to a country residence owned by his German relatives, Wolfsgarten near Frankfurt, where he would sometimes spend the summer holidays.

My ears pricked up as I was due to stop in Frankfurt on the way back to Australia. A Google search revealed that the gardens at Wolfsgarten open twice a year, and, as luck would have it, my trip coincided with the autumn weekend, the Fuerstliche Gartenfest (Princely Garden Festival).

So it was that on a glorious autumn day in September – blue skies and temperatures in the low 20s – I found myself in the gardens of a former hunting lodge tucked away in the woods in Langen, just outside Frankfurt. I had envisaged an open garden but it turned out to be a garden design and outdoor living expo with stalls selling everything from garden furniture, plants and ornaments to hats, scarves, food and wine.

hats

In the old orchard, amid ancient pear and apple trees, I stopped to admire a jumble of retro galvanised metal watering cans and enamelware. Then I came across a table laid out with heritage apple varieties in all their mismatched, variously coloured, un-waxed,un-polished, irregular glory.

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heritage apples

Strolling on through a courtyard and past a large imperial-style fountain, I came to the Japanese garden, an oasis of calm with Monet-like water lilies floating on the surface of the lake amid shimmering reflections of acers and willow trees. Another favourite place was the old half-covered swimming pool where a flower arranging competition was in full flow. And we’re not talking church rota type arrangements but lavish and exotic sculptures.

Jap Garden

A bed of dahlias in reds, yellows and oranges (the theme of the show was ‘flammende Gaerten’ meaning flaming gardens, as in warm and hot colours) reminded me that, yes, it was autumn here even if I was days away from returning to spring in Australia.

Lots of stalls were selling edible treats: I sampled truffle-infused honey; salt infused with cornflower petals; variously aged Gruyere cheeses; and baked apple chips on offer at a wholefood store where a lean, lanky guy with sandals and a beard (a cliché but true) was promoting the nutritional benefits with evangelical enthusiasm. With the rigorous Australian customs regulations in mind, I decided against buying the honey and the apples but did get some of the salt. It’s blue and turns my scrambled eggs green! Other treasures I would have loved to bring back include a pink-painted ladder and an Ark-like collection of brightly painted animals.

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Wandering around, I listened to a string quartet, ate my home-made picnic (smuggled out of the hotel breakfast bar), supped on mint tea at one of the many stalls selling Moroccan sweetmeats and got chatting to a like-minded local woman in a courtyard where cheeky putti angels sat atop the garden walls.

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Wolfsgarten is surrounded by woodland – there’s something special about German forests that goes beyond Black Forest Gateau fame; in fact I spotted a red squirrel (a rare thing since the introduced greys have taken over) on my way to the station – and was a very special find. I felt a deep wave of happiness walking round the gardens and a renewed love for Europe, its history, languages and culture.

Another bonus was that the hotel where I was staying was just three stops away from Wolfsgarten. Searching for something affordable yet elegant, I remembered Hotel Wessinger from the 90s when I went to Frankfurt for the International Book Fair as part of my job The Wessinger was good then – small and family run with its own chocolate shop and patisserie – but it’s recently been renovated and now has a fabulous pool and spa, which I made good use of.

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After cheap guesthouses and/or Airbnb places the last few trips, it was a treat, and I ate in the excellent restaurant every night. I also had a drink in the bar, a cosy place suited to tea with your aunt or a drink with a business colleague, two of the nights. I wheeled out my best German for the barman only to discover he was Irish, and flirty at that. Calling me young lady, he assured me I was only as young as the man I was currently feeling. Had that been the case, it would have taken about twenty years off me; I discovered he was a mere whippersnapper born in the 80s. On my last night he asked what my plans were for the evening and was most insistent that I join him for a nightcap, adding that he would be around till 1 a.m. Flattered as I was (golly, can I still pull?!), he was a bit of a lush and I preferred to save my energy for shopping at the flea market the next day.

As well as the flea market, I explored the arty/studenty area of Sachsenhausen and had fun browsing in a olde worlde crime fiction bookshop with a spiral staircase. I bought a few books but restricted myself to avoid excess luggage. I asked the ladies in the shop if baggage in the German language can mean emotional as well as physical baggage. I told them I was writing a humorous, warts ‘n’ all memoir, formerly an A-Z. We came up with a good opening line: Charlotte always had so much baggage…

Wendeltreppe

The baggage problem became a self-fulfilling prophecy after the flea market and I had to cram my cases to the gills! I’m always a bit sad to leave Europe so like to buy up a few souvenirs – that’s my excuse anyway!

Bird, Beaches and Balmain

I started writing this post at the weekend sitting outside on the deck surrounded by subtropical rainforest with a soundtrack of bellbirds, whip birds, scrub wrens, finches, kookaburras, catbirds and yellow-tailed black cockatoos echoing around me. I was staying with my friend Nicki, who moved from Melbourne to the New South Wales (NSW) Central Coast earlier this year, for the Australia Day weekend.

Having been in Melbourne all over Christmas and New Year I was more than ready to get away, and NSW very much delivered. Nicki had an unexpected family commitment in Sydney on my first day and offered me the choice of staying home with her delightfully playful and engaging young cat, Maya, or catching a ride into the city. I decided to go into Sydney but wasn’t up for touristy stuff, crowds, shopping centres or sightseeing.

Maya

Maya

I just wanted wander without any fixed agenda. Nicki used to live in Balmain and suggested that it could be a good place to nose around. It sounded suitably village-y so I took the ferry (‘ticking off’ – from the relaxed distance of the boat – a few of Sydney’s iconic landmarks on the way) and got off at East Balmain.
I’d only walked a short distance up Darling Street when I found a small shop called Home Industry selling vintage items, linens, glassware, china, soft furnishings and cotton reels in jars. I bought a non-vintage, but charming, small white bowl with an embossed dragonfly on the rim – it’s already in use as a butter dish – and got chatting to the two sisters who run the business about cushion cover sizes. As you do…

Further up the hill I came to St. Andrew’s Church where there’s a weekly market. I browsed bric-a-brac and jewellery and then spotted a Chinese massage stall. Something to do with the early start the day before and Jetstar failing to get my luggage on the right plane had left me with a cracking headache. I negotiated $15 for a head and shoulders massage and the guy worked wonders, pinpointing the areas of tension and hammering away at the knots.

Feeling clearer and lighter I walked on to a café where I enjoyed an extended cup of tea and the papers. I got chatting to a few people, even a good-looking man, but it started to spit with rain (it’s hair-curlingly damp in NSW this summer) so it was time to move on. Part of the fun of hanging out in an unknown area is observing people, their houses, gardens, kids and everyday comings and goings.

Balmain was once a working class suburb and home to coal mines, shipbuilding, metal foundries, boiler making and soap factories. The tiny cottages lining many of the streets were originally built for the workers. Now, of course, it’s undergone a process of gentrification – hence the smartly groomed samoyeds and standard poodles walking head-in-the-air with their owners and the boutique-style shops, but I’m happy to say that it’s retained its soul and character.

I browsed a few shops and ended up buying a hand-made damask duvet cover with matching pillow cases in a knock-down sale in a pop-up shop. At only $70 including postage to Melbourne, it was an irresistible bargain. In a men’s clothing store, I got some ‘designer’ shaving balm as a birthday present for my brother, and then met Nicki for lunch at a wholefood emporium called About Life, a wonderfully earthy place with a sustainable/paleo focus. We had planned to visit the Brett Whiteley studios in Surry Hills but it got too late. Next time. Less is more.

We picked Sunday, the only totally rain-free day of the four days, to go to Pearl Beach. We walked from one end of the beach to the other looking out over northern Sydney and Pittwater Basin. We tapped back into that slow, leisurely holiday vibe and swam, sunbathed and read the papers watching pelicans flying overhead.

Dodging the rain, we managed a couple of bushwalks over the weekend too. We got a bit lost on one of them and negotiated a steep slope by slithering down on our bottoms, collecting a few leeches in the process. Like sticky, super-glue sticky slugs, leeches cling to your skin or shoes and take some prizing off. Yuk! On another walk we laughed at a laryngitic-sounding kookaburra surveying his territory, as we enjoyed views out over Brisbane Water.

Nicki looking out over Brisbane Water

Nicki looking out over Brisbane Water

In between bushwalks and outings I enjoyed reading on the deck with Maya cuddled up close by. I started Ruby Wax’s A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled while, for once, feeling anything but. In her inimitable humour and with soul-baring honesty she explains really clearly what mindless rushing around and constant multi-tasking does to our bodies, brains and neural pathways. I decided to follow her 6-week program and started then and there by attuning all my senses to the birdsong on Nicki’s deck. Let’s see what happens when life speeds up again back in the Metropolis and world of work!
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Hoovering, holidays and tents

Even though I returned to work on 4th January, I’m still tapping into the holiday vibe as much as I can. There’s such a frenzied build up to Christmas Day and a pressure to get everything done that I’ve begun to really cherish the peace that comes afterwards when everything and everyone calms down.

Two months into a new job, this year’s yuletide season proved quite a marathon. My workload started to intensify at the end of November and, from the beginning of December, life became a seamless blur of grant-writing and deadlines, social stuff, choir rehearsals and practising new songs (I’ve joined a smaller choir and we did a couple of pre-Christmas performances), putting on a garage sale, co-hosting my first dinner party for about two years – typically, it turned out to be the night (a late night) before two morning choir gigs, one of them in an aged care facility. What joy it was to sing (even if I was a bit post party croaky) new versions of old favourites such as Away in A Manger and Silent Night to the oldies.

Deck the Halls...

Deck the Halls…

The week before Christmas I went up to Brisbane for a couple of days of work and play. After a day and half of strategizing followed by a long and lavish staff Christmas lunch, I raced off to the Powerhouse to see a show by Cocoloco, a madcap duo consisting of a university friend from Bristol and her Australian husband.

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I spent my last day wandering round GOMA – the Gallery of Modern Art – before squeezing in another show at the Powerhouse, having a quick chat with Helen and Trevor, and then travelling straight to the airport from there. It’d all been fun but exhausting and I had a sense of humour failure when I got stopped in security because the funky fish-shaped corkscrew I had bought for my nephew had a foil-cutting knife on it. What?! I’d been in too much of a whirl to notice. Amazingly, I was allowed to go back out to the Qantas desk and post it back to myself. Even more amazingly, it arrived in time to go under the tree!

I got home late the Saturday before Christmas and on route to a lovely Christmas lunch the next day, I managed to hit my head on a shelf, drop a bowl I was given for my 21st and then scrape my car along my carport wall. Not a good look, any of it! Things continued apace until Christmas Eve when I spent all day cooking two complicated desserts (and this from the woman who is 90% sugar free) to take to my brother’s. Dinner was at 7 p.m. and at 6.30 p.m. I was still hoovering and mopping the kitchen floor. I just couldn’t bear to leave it dirty; Christmas, for me, is also a time for renewal and reflection and I didn’t want to kick off with a crumb- and dog-hair-strewn floor.

Talking of hoovering – it’s not just the Brits, some Kiwis also talk of hoovering – reminds me of my trip back to the UK in August. My hoover is a Sebo (yes, I know that’s like saying my Mazda is a Toyota), a German make, which travelled the seas with me from England in 2004. It could probably do with a complete overhaul but my mission in England was to track down a spare part. Now the small market town in Nottinghamshire where my mother lives is no retail Mecca – at best, you’ll find Dorothy Perkins, Primark and Poundland, but it is exactly the place to find a store specialising in vacuum cleaners. Near the train station, in a residential street, is a shop that looks just like the one in the BBC show Open All Hours with Arkwright and Granville. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mTxaK1AHMc

The shop is delightfully cluttered, dusty (don’t think they ever hoover it) and a bit dark. Somehow it’s escaped the digital age completely and there’s not even a computer anywhere in sight. An older man in brown overalls (Arkwright without the stutter) explained that the shop started life in 1946 when his father was one of the first approved Hoover dealers in the area. He, in turn, now works alongside his son who will inherit the business. Helpful as they were, they didn’t have the spare part I needed – my Sebo is now so old as to be obsolete. However, visiting the shop was quite an experience. As we were leaving, a curious-looking man with a pot belly, lank, dyed blond hair and a generally dishevelled appearance strolled in and greeted us with a rather affected and effeminate “Helloooo!” The son explained it was his brother and quickly ushered him next door to a rather run-down house. All I can say is that if this bloke wasn’t the inspiration for Little Britain’s “Only Gay in the Village” sketch I don’t know who is.

Anyway, back to the Christmas holidays – once I had farewelled English and interstate visitors on the 28th, I sat in the garden with my feet up and got stuck into a fabulous novel about a Special Operations Executive parachuted into France as a spy in World War II. But the real hero of the holiday was a sun shelter tent lent to me by friends. I feel so blessed to live near the beach and really made the most of it. There’s something magical and healing about swimming in salt water and then lying on warm sand and sculpting it to your body shape. It’s as good as a massage. Without phone calls, emails, chatter and the normal day to day stuff, it was pure bliss and the tent meant I could stay for longer and not get burnt. Just me, the birds, the waves, the wind, the sun and the sea.

All the World is a Tent

All the World is a Tent

I even let myself off the hoovering – well almost. All that time on the beach – whether alone in my tent or walking Bertie adds up to quite a few grains of sand on the floor…

Bertie sporting sand and salt sculpted hair...

Bertie sporting sand and salt sculpted hair…

Spruiking sofas and faffing around

We had a garage sale here yesterday – we, being me and my neighbours in the next-door unit. In fact, they (bless them) did most of the legwork including advertising it on various on-line sites and running around putting out signs the night before. And what fabulous eye-catching signs they were! We had a steady flow of punters throughout the morning right up until we were packing up at 2pm.

Shaun - sign-writer and spruiker extraordinaire

Shaun – sign-writer and spruiker extraordinaire

I was happy to piggyback on their efforts as I’d just emerged from a somewhat gruelling two weeks at work which saw me working weekends, some evenings, on my days off and generally walking around with a rabbit-in-the-headlights deadline-driven mentality. I was working on a hefty application for three different organisations and it took a lot of hours, brain power and mental and physical knots.

So rummaging around for things to put in the sale was the perfect antidote to all the cerebral intensity. I had a couple of old suitcases, a somewhat deflated gym ball, a yoga mat (yoga doesn’t do it for me; all that holding and extending makes me tenser than ever), a self-inflating camping mat (I’m far too Princess and the Pea to go camping), bits of jewellery, crockery, clothes, an unused dog kennel (which I tried but failed to sell on behalf of my brother) and a sofa. And the sofa became the unwitting star of the show.

I bought the sofa a couple of years ago when my mother was here from England. We spotted it in a shop that called itself an antiques shop but was, in fact, more of a junk shop. Anyway, it was a vintage two-seater Chesterfield-style sofa upholstered in a floral design. Although I loved its shape and size, the floral design didn’t really blend with my other sofa or décor. I made do with drapes but they looked messy and student-y so I got a quote to have it re-upholstered. Suffice it to say that I could have bought two new sofas for the same price.

I look at IKEA online and kept an eye out on Gum Tree but nothing really grabbed me until I walked past the window of St. Vincent’s a few weeks ago. There was a two and a half-seater sofa in just the shade of green I was looking for. At only $60 it cost almost more to get it delivered but, never mind, I had a new sofa. I was reluctant to pay $40 to get my old one taken away so listed it on Gum Tree but got no takers. The garage sale was my last resort. Meanwhile it looked fairly ridiculous tipped up on its side against the window of my kitchen/living room.

My 'new' sofa from Vinnies being christened by his Lordship, Bertie

My ‘new’ sofa from Vinnies being christened by his Lordship, Bertie

My neighbour’s brother, Shaun, not only helped me get the sofa out of the house and down the driveway for the sale (and, boy, was it heavy!), he spruiked it like mad as did Bianca’s husband Christos. Now, for those of you who don’t live in Australia or know the vernacular, spruik means to promote or advertise. For all their talking it up, however, it looked as if we weren’t going to sell it. But then, around midday, a man came along looking for a two-seater sofa for his daughter. He telephoned her to describe it, knowing she was really looking for something beige. Shaun sprung into overdrive at this point, highlighting the beigey background colour, the comfort, size, elegance and absolute must-buy quality of my sofa. At the same time, he dropped the price down from $50 to $25 until the deal was done. The man also bought Bianca’s mother’s fire guard and stopped by for a chat, sharing some wonderfully succulent strawberries and blackberries he had purchased at a farmers’ market that morning.

Full on sofa spruiking

Full on sofa spruiking

And that’s what made the day such fun. We chatted, ‘spruiked’, bargained, haggled, nibbled on fruit, nuts and dips, joked and larked around and made a bit of pocket money along the way.

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My vintage-style gilt mirror, while useful for ladies trying on tops and shoes, didn’t attract any offers. Not everybody likes the classical look. My 1970s house, although very different from my Victorian terrace in Oxford, still strongly reflects my English heritage with antiques dotted around, lots of china and other nods to past centuries. You can’t take the British out of this girl. After eleven years, G’day still doesn’t trip off the tongue but I can pronounce spruik. I still use a lot of English expressions. One of my buyers laughed at my use of the word faff yesterday. To faff, according to the Oxford Dictionary, ‘is to spend time in ineffectual activity.’ There’s nothing wrong with faffing, it’s good for the soul in our busy, busy world. All this talk of England and Englishness reminds me that I still haven’t blogged about my August trip ‘home’. Next time! Meanwhile, I’m going to faff around for a bit – it is Sunday after all.

Continental Confusion, Krakow and Commissions

Hello, I’m returning to my blog after a long gap. In August, I went ‘home’ to England to see my elderly parents, family and friends – more about that in future posts – and returned to Australia via a few days in Frankfurt (ahh, Europe…) at the end of September. I came back suffering the usual dose of continental confusion! Where is home, what is home, where do I want to live/retire? Those long-haul flights don’t help; they merely intensify the feeling of distance between Australia and everywhere else. When I first get back, I remain suspended in some kind of limbo, my head and heart still in my mother’s kitchen while my physical self has landed on Australian soil. Sometimes it’s a schizophrenic existence having two parallel lives across a large divide. But I am glad to say I’m feeling far less conflicted than when I first returned.

There’s nothing like springtime blossoms, a beloved dog with floppy spaniel ears, a bunch of fabulous friends and a busy new job to anchor me back here. I’m now a month into my new job and it’s varied, fun and stimulating but busy, client- and deadline-driven so I don’t always have much juice left over for blogging.

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That was what was such a treat when I was away; how I relished keyboard-free time without the constant need-to-know pull of social media, without deadlines, word counts and writing commissions. Seven weeks without my mobile ringing – can anyone remember what that is like?! I only went onto international roaming a couple of times: once when I spilled red – very red staining to purplish blue – fruit tea on my sister’s brand new carpet and missed the train to Margate as a result; and the second time when the return train from Margate was delayed due to a trespasser on the line.

This trip was more luxurious than previous European trips. I travelled Premium Economy which, although nothing like as comfortable and pampered as Business Class, was well worth the investment in terms of the overall travel experience (in fact I got a great price as my itinerary involved a hop-skip-and-a-jump 10-hour layover in Hong Kong both ways and a stop in Frankfurt). The food is a bit better, the seats are longer and wider and recline further than in economy minimising sleep-sabotaging episodes of neck slumping, and, with fewer people, there’s more air to go round.

I also ditched Airbnb accommodation in favour of hotels as, frankly, I am over shared bathrooms and kitchens and self-catering. Lovely as the spacious attic room in Krakow (November 2014) was, when I ran a bath it leaked all over the floor as the tub needed sealing with silicone. Then the window-less broom cupboard-sized shower room stank of damp. You get the picture.

No, this time I stayed in a boutique hotel in Margate with funky chandeliers, sea views, great food and cocktails, and in Frankfurt I went to a family-run hotel just outside the city complete with pool, spa and sauna, patisserie, chocolate shop, fabulous restaurant and flirtatious barman! Again, that’s another story. But don’t get too excited…

Frankfurt's Eiserner Steg or Iron Bridge - complete with lovers' padlocks

Frankfurt’s Eiserner Steg or Iron Bridge – complete with lovers’ padlocks

Anyway, back to my November 2014 visit to Krakow, a gem of a city packed with history and interest. And full of museums. Hence my travel feature commission titled ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’. I ran around Krakow in an adrenal whirl packing in as much culture, caffeine and culinary delights as I could in the three days I was there. No time for luxuriating. Hopelessly conscientious (I was a bit of a swot at school…), I visited all bar one of the museums mentioned in my article. So I was particularly pleased when my article was finally published last month in travel magazine Get up & Go. If you’d like to read it, click on this link:http://emag.getupandgo.com.au/?iid=130929#folio=62

In flight from a pest-ridden house…

About two weeks ago my Airbnb guests got back to find the contents of my food cupboard in a plastic crate on the front doorstep and several of my jumpers in the freezer. As you do…

The preparations aka Military Campaign for my extended trip overseas to spend all important time with family began about a month ago. I needed to finish up two jobs – one of them a maternity cover contract with high expectations and ambitious KPIs, organise my travel plans and get my house and garden in order ready to rent out – a job in itself.

I was doing pretty well, even if running on adrenalin, and found it a good opportunity to test drive some of the time-management strategies suggested by Brendon Burchard of the Performance Academy (as mentioned in my last post). To share a few of them: he recommends not checking any social media for the first hour of the day and, instead, focussing on what you need to achieve. I found that to be so simple and effective in freeing up and clearing my headspace. Because, as he points out, the minute we tune into the emails and messages we’re taking on other people’s agendas and demands, and we lose our focus. I put my phone on airplane mode before I go to bed and leave it like that until after breakfast. He also advocates dividing the working day into 50-minute blocks broken up by drinking water and stretching. And, importantly, ditching the social media and screens again at the end of the day and finding some time to meditate or do something that gets us into a less thought-driven and more grounded space before bed.

But then I discovered critters in my cupboards. I was getting ready for a meeting with my new boss (I have an exciting new job starting later this year) when I Googled ‘how to get rid of moths’ and up came ‘how to get rid of moths in the pantry’ and ‘how to get rid of moths in clothes’. My initial search was prompted by holes in my jumpers but then I realised, with a sense of panic, that the worm-like creatures lurking in my food cupboard and on the ceiling were pantry moths – well the larvae anyway. I’d never even heard of pantry moths before, let alone seem them. The hour that I had set aside to compose myself for the meeting was spent frantically chucking out dry foods – the larvae get everywhere even under lids of spice jars. Some were even inching their way across foil sachets of Miso soup while others were hanging out in the rice noodles. Yikes! I scrubbed the shelves and left them clear for several days – hence the food that I had not yet inspected being relocated to the doorstep – until I blasted them with barrier spray and then set up tent-like moth traps that I bought in the hardware store. Fingers crossed that they don’t stage a comeback when my guests move in a week after I leave.

A pantry moth larvae

A pantry moth larvae

My sister has been through the whole saga of moths in her clothes and instructed me to wash all my jumpers and then put them in the freezer for a few days before placing them into individual plastic bags. Sounds simple enough but not when you’re working 12-hour days, getting ready to go overseas AND have about 50 items of wool in your wardrobe. At the time of writing, my departure is about 12 hours away and I am just cycling the last woollies through the freezer and into vacuum-packed bags. The trouble with these critters is that they are discerning and choose the highest quality wool and cashmere, leaving aside the more ordinary sweaters made of acrylic and other man-made fibres, damn them. And, from what I read, they can graduate to other areas of the house and tuck into rugs, linens, towels and curtains. Perhaps I will come home to find my house full of holes like a piece of Swiss cheese…

Just some of my many woollen items

Just some of my many woollen items

deep-freezing my jumpers

deep-freezing my jumpers

One of my mother’s favourite expressions is ‘what a pest!’ meaning what a nuisance. Now I know just how much of a nuisance. My house and garden seem to be ultra attractive to pests. Mid-packing I’ve just zipped out and zapped my lemon tree as some kind of leaf mite was chomping its way through the leaves, then I noticed a bulge where a gall wasp had set up home, and THEN I came back inside and there was one of those European cockroaches crawling across my kitchen tiles. As you might know none of this has anything to do with cleanliness. Regular readers know that I’m a bit of stickler when it comes to cleaning. So maybe it’s payback for something I did in a past life – who knows?!

Needless to say I have not talked about bugs and beasts in the detailed house manual I have prepared for my tenants. But maybe I should have; listening to the science program in the car the other day I learnt that having a pet spider in the house is a great way of keeping other creepy crawlies at bay as the spiders eat them for dinner. The program gave spiders a very good rap.In one of my more Buddhist moments a few years ago, I did allow a Huntsman spider to live in the corner of my study window. The only trouble was that, after a few months, lots of tiny black dots appeared in the web and I realised they were babies. Did I really want to share my house with about 30 spiders? Needless to say I had to dispatch the spider and its babies to the next life. There’s a limit to this co-habitation thing; I’m finding the Airbnb guests enough.

But now it’s my turn to take flight and be a guest myself. By the time this goes out, I’ll be on my way to England to spend precious time with family and friends especially my elderly parents. And true to the original meaning of the word holiday(s), as in holy day(s) – a rest from the daily grind – the blog and are going off air and taking a break to rest and recharge away from the keyboard, the emails and all the stuff I do in my day job! That way I’ll be more available for my family and for new adventures. We’ll be back in October. Stay tuned.