The queues are getting longer and more restless.

On my daily drives for coffee and company I noticed that at the Mittagong Medical Centre around the corner where I live the Covid testing queues have doubled. At the local hospital the queues are now so long that people bring chairs and cushions to sit on. The genie has bolted. No matter now that the Government is urging only those with symptoms to get tested, more and more the panic is gripping the angst driven burgers. I can’t help but think of the lemmings analogy with people hurling themselves with great enthusiasm over the cliff. Surely, there is no better way than catching a virus or anything than standing for hours in a queue with both infected and non-infected people…

Christmas was not shared with my family because one grandson had met up with his friend who felt unwell and after due testing was found to be ‘positive’ This was about two weeks ago but with the long queues and huge numbers of tests the Covid testing labs have been overwhelmed and the results now take three to four days. It was thought safer to cancel the Christmas with family while one of the grandsons was in isolation. Instead, I was fortunate to get invited by a good friend and I had a lovely Christmas and not a word about viruses. It now turns out that hundreds were given negative results while in fact they were positive. It’s odd how the word positive has become a negative in the world of contagion.

Of course, I have now a two and half leg of cooked Royal Raan lamb in the fridge and am heroically eating it with stealth and determination. I did have my brother visiting me and he too helped the eating of the lamb along with a nice bottle of wine he gave me. ( An ambitious little number with lots of cigar and muffled pear ambience) We now face the New Year’s Eve and yet another public holiday. The fireworks have been cancelled and again crowding kept to a maximum of two people per 4 square meters. No loud cheering and kept to a D note only

I wish all my readers a healthy and virus free New Year with more cheer and less angst. We might have to let go of Covid fear a bit and demand not to be ruled by it. There is more to living than just nurturing an overblown fear of just dying.

Ho- Ho- Ho, It’s Christmas time.

Christmas time is always a bit of a trial. The expectations are so often overboard and I actually prefer normal times. Families can get together at all times but I do know and understand that for children Christmas and birthdays are always very special and often magical.

The magic of Christmas in my mind as a child was loaded with the atmosphere of  glistening snow and smells of spruce, almonds and home-cooking. It doesn’t really go well with heat, sands, smells of stale beer and verdant odorous armpits.  And the specialty of the oft revered mince pies is forever escaping me no matter how hard I try and swallow them.  The Southern Hemisphere lends it self much better to horse racing, coarse oaths renting through hot still air, sailing and vigorous tennis.

 We, as adults agreed unanimously not to give presents at Christmas time, and the children are now adults, although from last year’s Christmas’ memory, a deposit in their bank accounts was welcome.

Apropos, the last post, The French onion soup (with the brioche and gruyere) was very nice and we might well have it for Christmas as I have a formidable stash of it in the freezer. So far, Christmas is too far away to know where I will be.  Most times there are often late changes made depending on the ease of meeting up with my grandsons and their mother.  I have put up the twinkling little lights and they  look very pretty, the Christmas wreath is on the door and I might yet get a living conifer for Christmas tree.

 We shall see. I am sure it will be a good Christmas. 

Of Roses, driftwood and Christmas.

A very good friend gave me the bunch of roses as shown above. It gave so much pleasure and the spontaneity of it all was overwhelming, and to think the roses came from the giver’s own garden made it so special. I can’t remember having received flowers of late or indeed ever. Normally the house has flowers which I buy often. It is really a habit formed by Helvi who could hardly live without flowers about. That beautiful vase is a typical example of Finnish art often strongly related to its culture and the National Finish epic, the Kalevala.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala

Of course, Christmas is now a bit over three weeks away and a nervous tension is palpable in shopping centers. A kind of annual frenzy which now is firmly controlled by the corporations rubbing hands together (in glee) in anticipation of fat profits. One would be wise not to look at commercial TV or read papers, listen to the news, especially with another variant of Covid rolling about. I am determined to load up the house with Christmas cheer and have started to put up some decorations, just for the sheer pleasure. The above cane wood wreath is hanging from my front door and it gives a nice welcome each time I come home from shopping or morn’s latte.  I remember Helvi seeing it years ago, and buying it immediately. It is real and so much more natural than those made of plastic, no matter how ‘real’ they might look. ( avoid doctors or hospitals with artificial plants)

And of course no real Christmas is without a Christmas tree. Most people by now would have taken the Christmas tree box out of storage and screwed on the branches on its stem, usually supported by a tripod keeping this tree upright when festooned with decorations and presents. The above photo takes some liberty with reflections but shows that this item too is made of natural things, bits of driftwood all glued together. It is hanging inside from my widow into the garden. One wonders where those bits of wood have come from? What tree, what country, what continent? 

Little treasures for the lockdowns

With now over thirty Covid 19  detected in the Beach side areas of Sydney it seems likely a Sydney wide lockdown will be imposed. A pity, because for many weeks there haven’t been any locally acquired cases of Covid in Australia.

If Sydney gets a lockdown my daughter and grandsons won’t be allowed to visit and neither will I be allowed to go there. No big deal really. I will hold my own visit, light some sparkles and sing ‘The little red nosed reindeer’. 

I thought I’ll give you, dear followers, some pictures to look at.

A friendly lizard that I spotted at the lake I walk around almost daily.

The wisdom of ducks clearly visible.

A long necked turtle. Unfortunately the turtle spotted Milo and withdrew it’s neck. They are he longest neck owning species of turtles in the world. 

My garden is now getting to the jungle-like stage and attracts small birds scurrying for nectar and insects.

More of the garden

Lake Alexandra near my place. 

Enjoy the pictures.

Happy Christmas to you all.

See you next year!

The first house and Billabong

Billabong 1972 entree for the NSW Wynne Prize. https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/wynne/1972/24292/

It is a miracle that this painting has survived because, as indicated above, it was shown decades ago in 1972 at the NSW State Art Gallery. Each year this gallery runs a competition for the best portrait, the best Australian landscape, and the Sulman for the best genre or subject painting. It is a yearly well published artistic event followed keenly by the public almost as enthusiastically as the Melbourne Cup, which is a world famous yearly race-horse event where many women turn up wearing funny hats and many men with ties get drunk. Well, not all men, but some do, and then some of those inebriated men end up grabbing women inappropriately (who are wearing the funny hats), and end up in court charged with indecent assault or even worse.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/billabong

But the real miracle about the painting is that it is still in my possession. I am not sure when I painted it because it is not dated. The year after we moved to The Netherlands so I must have taken it with me and then some years later back again. It now rests in my garage at Bowral. Amazing. Another oddity is that not only was this painting accepted for hanging but the very walls on which the paintings were hung were also painted by me. I had won the contract for the painting of the new addition to the gallery of NSW. I am sure that this combination of painting walls and the art object hanging, from the same person, was unusual. I have now been asked to provide a photograph of Billabong in order for the Gallery to update their electronic data. The photograph was taken yesterday by my American friend who has the right very large and heavy cameras.

After the taking of the photo we decided to go around our old haunts where we lived in Balmain so many years ago. The little cottage where I painted Billabong is still standing upright . Here it is. Helvi and I lived there between 1969/73 and from 1972 with three lovely children.

We bought the house for $12.500.-in 1969. It was built in 1869 on a very small block of just 135 Sq. m. It has extensive harbour views including Sydney’s harbour bridge, the city itself with lots of water including the coming and going of boats, both large and small, luxury yachts, ferries, pleasure boats, anything that can float and move about on water. Large freighters when being pulled ashore by tug boats and reversing their engines used to make the landmass shake including our old weatherboard cottage. It was probably the nicest place to bring up children and paint pictures. It was a life of excitement. The house was stimulating to live in. In fact all of our places we lived in have been stimulating or at the minimum they were made to be inviting and stimulating.

Here an old photo from the inside;

Our daughter on the phone

Notice the modest b/w TV now-a-days  overtaken by many people showing giant screens to such an extend they have to have ‘home theatres’. Some TVs are now so large they are being sublet to small families. The house was completely open and all walls downstairs had been taken out by the previous owners, an architect, leaving a large living space that included the kitchen and bathroom. Right in the middle was a slow combustion old cast iron heater that heated the whole house. With the exposed wooden floor and a mat here and there we made it into a lovely and glorious home. Oh, the nicest memories I have of that period now.

Our little daughter in front of the cast iron solid fuel heater.

Here a photo showing the living room. Behind the pine wall is the bathroom and laundry which we partitioned off. Previous the bath was fully exposed to the living area which our friends thought as rather progressive.

Christmas party. Helvi looking at the camera.

Notice the modest sitting arrangement on paint drums and wooden planks! We felt like Lords. A real pine Christmas tree on the left.

Those were the times!

( the present value of that timber house is estimated at 2.7 to 3.5 million dollars)

New Year’s ( but happy?)

We are again at the doorstep of another year rolling over. I thought to-night was the fireworks at Sydney’s harbour bridge, but I was mistaken. It is tomorrow night. Fire now seems to be associated with the breaking of the new year, but the traditional fireworks are on the cusp of being cancelled. There are so many fires burning now, it is difficult to find something that is not burning at the moment. To celebrate the New Year with fire-works seems insulting, especially to those that have given their time fighting fires all over the joint. I noticed that one fire out of control is now approaching our area. People are a bit tense, huddling in groups and talking in hushed tones to each other, no doubt advising on possible escape routes. The quickest way to a lake or pond with a view to immerse oneself in case the firestorm approaches. There are also designated safe areas for people to evacuate to, including the Returned Soldier’s Clubs where I play my bowls.

https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/about-us/our-districts/southern-highlands

“Alpine, Aylmerton, Willow Vale, Braemar, Balaclava, Mittagong and Mt Gibraltar areas

• Monitor the changing conditions. Strong north westerly winds may push embers into the area.
• Stay alert for embers and spot fires.
• Embers can be blown well ahead of the main fire front, and start spot fires that can threaten homes”.

The above is copied from the latest warning on a fire approaching the Southern Highlands. It is out of control and covers over 227 000 ha. It is large enough to create its own climate and cause dry lightning to strike for fires to spread even more. Tomorrow is going to be very critical with predicted temperatures in the 40’s C. The nation is on high alert.

I was given a couple of nice bottles of wine at Christmas time. It included a ten year old tawny Port. I am actually considering to cut down on my alcohol consumption. I noticed that my appetite is languishing and lessening. I have a banana and pear for breakfast and that seems to carry me over lunch as well. And then in the evening I force myself to eat a salad with a salmon cutlet. Of course, I had the lamb curry on Christmas Eve, but on the whole I seem to eat a lot less. But…I still had my few glasses of alcohol, I suppose to carry me through the evening when my new sole-ness makes itself felt so keenly. It helps to make me go to sleep. But I noticed that in the morning on wakening I feel parched and often suffering a grey mood.

I decided two nights ago to cut down and just have at most two glasses of wine over about a five hour period. I started last evening and it helped, I woke up feeling better and put on my socks with quickened pace.

I am also considering giving up some of my bowling in exchange for doing the U3A  https://sohiu3a.org.au/course. The bowling is a nice exercise but in between, while having a cup of tea, the players segregate into one table for the women and at a separate table the men. It seems so anachronistic. On top of that, at the men’s table they have a ‘swearing tin’. This is a tin in which the men are supposed to put in money if they swear. It seems that swearing is the domain of men.  And then the remarks about ‘Muslims are bad, Lebanese, Chinese are bad, etc. Before I could cope but now I am too fragile to just put up with it.

What do you all think about that?,

 

Slowly does it

This Christmas I will try and keep the tradition of the lamb-curry going, hard as this will be. It’s been almost two months since Helvi past away and the grief wells up at the very mentioning of it right now. I don’t want to stop the grief from doing that, I owe it to Helvi and myself, even though she would not want me to suffer. It has to be seen through, and perhaps a time will come when it lessons and the joyful memories of her will grow in strength.

You know,  last week my sister and husband stayed with me for four days and the second last evening we decided to grab a meal at a restaurant. The choice was to go to the local Chinese, always a handy and safe standby, even though through the decades the ‘Chinese’ here in Bowral has been toned down to something between a spicy cultural experience to a more muted localised event! Perhaps the reader might conjure up the localised Chinese fare slowly but inexorably edging towards Fish & Chips! Anyway, I chose a mixture of Szechuan chicken with black bean sauce while others went for a variety of similar dishes, including prawns, all served with white rice.

On the table near us an elderly couple had taken a seat at a table for two. When entering the restaurant I noticed both were unsteady on their feet and he used the aid of a walker to get to his seat while she was seated down by the help of a kind waitress.  Soon they placed their order and even quicker came their dishes. In Chinese restaurants one of a huge advantage is the quick service and no sullen waiters either.

What amazed me was that during their entire meal not a word was spoken between, I assumed, husband and wife. I noticed she looked at him but he did not respond to this eye contact. The wife might have wanted to say something but their contact, during meals anyway, had gone beyond talk or exchange of words. They kept looking past each other. I have seen it before, and not only between elderly couples. Young couple too. They just sit there, and have giant jaws masticating up and down, but no words. They get up and walk away. The elderly couple were dressed for the meal though, but I wondered how they were going to bed that night. Would they say; ‘we had a lovely evening?’  But no words.

Anyway. right now I have the following ingredients in the oven to make what I will hope will be a really nice lamb curry with spinach. An easy dish which just needs a couple of fried onions mixed with a de-boned leg of lamb all cut in large chunks. Added to that are at least two table spoons of curry paste with a tablespoon of turmeric. Then the whole lot given a tin of Italian dice tomatoes, two cupful’s of vegetables stock, 250mls of coconut milk. The then whole lot in the oven on low heat of 150c for a bit more than an hour. Just before the end one mixes in about 250gram of frozen spinach. When dished out you can garnish it with fresh coriander and then just eat…

But please, talk

Christmas and the Pavlova.(667 recipes)

We have bought the ingredients for the pavlova including the cream. Helvi thought that the cream was overdoing it, but reading the recipe on the box, it clearly stated that cream was needed. The supermarket was in a total pandemonium. Some people so swept up, they grabbed whatever they could get hold of. As if possessed by voodoo magic. It is the same each year. People try and remain calm but then totally loose it during the last few days. Hospitals are on standby, broken bones, bloodied faces and marital whiplash are so common during the Christmas festivities. For some it just gets too much. The say; ‘uncork and unwind’ does come with consequences!

My Christmas started early when I found an abandoned trolley with its 2 dollar coin still in its little holder near my car.  I suspect some shoppers might well think it costs two dollars to go shopping. They walk to the car with the full trolley and after loading the car just leave the trolley to its own devices. All the better for the canny shopper on the look-out for trolleys with 2 dollars. Something for the school kids to latch onto.

Getting back to the pavlova. Its history continues to be a much disputed item over a sweet dish made in honour of the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova who toured New Zealand and Australia during the 1920’s. It is a dish made in honour of her. Till this day both countries still claim ownership of this dish. Some even totally dispute the Pavlova being of NZ and Australian origin, and say it was invented in the US. Another in-depth study claims its origins are Austrian.

This from Wiki.

“Keith Money, a biographer of Anna Pavlova, wrote that a hotel chef in Wellington, New Zealand, created the dish when Pavlova visited there in 1926 on her world tour.^[7]

Professor Helen Leach, a culinary anthropologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand, has compiled a library of cookbooks containing 667 pavlova recipes from more than 300 sources.^[8] Her book, The Pavlova Story: A Slice of New Zealand’s Culinary History, states that the first Australian pavlova recipe was created in 1935 while an earlier version was penned in 1929^[2] in a rural magazine.”^[1]

A potpourri of pre-Christmas events.

Last week we drove to Sydney to visit our daughter who was meant to visit us. Due to storm damage  the trains were delayed and the buses were not running, we thought it easier to drive to Sydney instead. Trains are often risky and even a rogue wombat can derail trains. I bet the old ‘fast-train’ service will be raised again now that an election is due soon, together with the perennial second Sydney airport.  It keeps us nice and docile. Gee, the French sure know how to get things moving. I like their spirit.

This is our daughter and her youngest son, Max, who has reached that stage of being a teenager very drawn to languorousness.  This means he likes to adopt a seating arrangement between sitting and lying. He is Tom’s brother who is almost at the end of his Indonesian adventure and at present in Bali’s Ubud. Tom is 18 and now taken to sitting upright again.

The lunch was beautiful and included as a dessert a nice chunk of water melon ‘infused’ with mango gelato. This coming Christmas day she and both our Grandsons will be visiting us for a Christmas lunch with a possible stay over-night. Of course, that has the proviso the trains are running and that the wombats stay away from the rails.

The latest new’s item that really stunned me that for over 150 years a Tattersall club in Brisbane, Queensland, prohibiting women becoming members. They excluded women. Can you believe this? A vote was taken on the issue and the ban was lifted. Oh, Australia; where is your Santa list for moving forward?

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/brisbane-s-exclusive-tattersall-s-club-votes-to-allow-female-members-20181219-p50na1.html

The vote in favour of allowing women wasn’t all that overwhelming. It was mainly for financial reasons and not because it was so outrageously  misogynistic.

I wonder if the Republican issue will be dealt with soon? I suppose, we are waiting for the English queen to pass away. Another terrible sad bit of news is that the issue of refugees on Manus and Nauru will not be resolved before Christmas. When, oh when, will Australia be dragged in front of some court to face charges of crimes against humanity?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-20/boy-raped-on-nauru-asylum-seeker-lawyers-claim/10632882

But, there is also good news. It seems that keeping pets helps to keep children healthy and possibly avoid getting infections. And…the more pets, the better!

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-12-20/pets-allergies-asthma-dogs-cats-immune-system-microbes/10630174

We are both now fitting in some more medical appointments as well. The medications we now ingest are keeping us alive as much as possible. This morning at 9am I was ordered to get in my underpants and take my valuables to the medical room and submit myself to a bone-density test. It was a remarkable experience. My feet were strapped in while laying on a hard surface in the horizontal position. ‘Just relax’, I was told by a female technician operating a sliding monitor taking images of my totally prostrated body. You know, when it was all over, I had trouble getting vertical again. The woman had to actually lift me up and prop me up a bit. The ignominy of ageing. It seems only yesterday we were skating and somersaulting about.

And now, look at it!

 

 

The Hydrangeas are coming.

The Hydrangea.

It always seems that when Christmas gets closer the days give up less of their time for the normal things to do. This morning at 8.45 we had an another appointment at the local hospital. Just a routine visit but the waiting room was already crowded. The oncologist who saw us said; ‘Christmas is a crazy time’, the sooner it gets past, the better’. This was wholeheartedly agreed. Helvi said a few weeks ago; ‘oh dear, Christmas is coming. We so much like normal times.’ The waiting room was so full, we stood upright, no empty chair, and the TV was on some commercial channel espousing the benefits of a face-cream, guaranteed to take wrinkles away. Most of the patients were glued to it, I suppose, any promise is better than none, even though no cream has ever taken away a single wrinkle. We believe in magic as we believe in a jolly Christmas. The doctor told us he read somewhere that thirty days of food are bought for just one single day when the shops are closed. I enthusiastically added; ‘. We have seen people buying complete trays of mangoes and 5kilo hams.’

So when we got home, we took Milo for a walk hoping he would do his ‘business’ under the bushes. He is very hygienic normally and have no need to take a plastic bag with us in case he does it on the food-path. He did it once in front of a kitchen shop and people were hopping about, while Helvi quick as a flash distanced herself from me and Milo. However, he again happened to do it on the street in front of some pedestrians, but I pretended not to have noticed and bravely walked on. ‘ Hey, someone shouted, look at this,’ pointing to the still steaming little tart. I joked, ‘I did not do it.’ The woman looked totally perplexed but lacked humour. ‘Of course, you did not do it, your dog did. Go and do the right thing.’

Helvi was furious with me, especially when it was added, ‘finders keepers’ to the humourless woman. All social graces seem to have gone. Where are the good old day when there was laughter about? Is this the Christmas spirit so many bang on about?Surely, no one could have taken my remarks seriously?

When we got home  and things cooled down, Milo looked me in the eye. He winked. What do you feel about the above Hydrangea? Isn’t it a beauty?.