this week

Autumn has most definitely arrived in Tasmania. We woke up to snow on the mountain on Wednesday, and while I sipped this glass of Chardonnay, as it was a warm afternoon, yellow and rust-coloured leaves danced on the pavement outside in the breeze.

Favourite experience/s of the week

I’m an unofficial writer in residence at an old building in the city - the same building my main character lived and worked in in the 1820s - and spent a happy afternoon there working on my book. Afterwards, I met a friend for a wine and long overdue in-person catchup. We met at a media launch in 2019 and might have had every reason to lose touch because of the pandemic, but regardless of everything she’s had going on, she’s made time for me regularly over the last few years and that warms my heart no end.

I also loved being on campus this week for International Women’s Day where our school had an afternoon tea for staff and HDRs and it felt so wonderful to see people in the flesh again after so long. The campus feels alive again, in a way I haven’t witnessed for three years now…almost to the day.

I had a pretty good run on Thursday too, the morning after overnight rain. The smell of wet gum leaves was quite incredible, not to mention mind clearing.

Another of the week’s highlights was going round to spend an evening with my sister and her family. Her daughter, who is three, utterly adorable and heavily into Frozen, sang us most of the soundtrack. I held back tears watching her sing (and take a bow at the end as we applauded!) - not just because she’s so sweet and expressive, but her innocence, the complete innocence of all young children, just undoes me.

Reading

I adored Minnie Darke’s latest contemporary romance With Love From Wish & Co - as she’s a Tasmanian writer, the setting always feels quite Hobart (and therefore very cosy) to me. This was a delightful escapist read - Marnie is a young entrepreneur desperate to buy back her grandfather’s old store, currently in the hands of her cold and distant uncle with a grudge against her deceased father. She makes a career-ruining mistake with one of her best clients, throwing his 40-year marriage into jeopardy. He offers to help her try to buy back the family store, if she will work her magic and help him win his wife back. It’s whimsical and full of heart, and I just loved it.

A wonderful interview on Kate Forsyth’s website with the writer Alison Croggon, whom I always knew as the blogger behind theatre notes, a popular and acclaimed Australian theatre blog in the 2000s. I loved it when I lived in Melbourne and I loved it when I lived abroad, it helped me keep a somewhat steady finger on my country’s cultural pulse. I am so intrigued now to read her latest book, a hybrid memoir called Monsters. A lot of what Alison said in the interview I can really relate to. I think a book similar to hers might be in my writing future!

Lit Hub: Clare Pooley on Writerly Perseverance and Knowing When To Give Up and I’m also a subscriber to LitHub’s wonderful newsletter The Craft of Writing which this week featured one of my favourite writers, Xiaolu Guo on translating the self. I adore anything Guo writes and was intrigued to hear that this was an excerpt from a forthcoming anthology, Letters to a Writer of Color edited by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro. Having looked at the contents and contributor list, I am so curious to read this once it’s out!

I absolutely devoured Julietta Singh’s No Archive Will Restore You in barely a day. One of my supervisors got me on to a fascinating hybrid genre of thought experiments centred around the theme of the archives - works that blend memoir, poetry, historiography and essay. This book is one of them and is so personal yet also embedded in the literature and theory of the body, subjectivity, and identity. Singh considers her body, aware of it “as both archive and archivist” (p.32), and poetically catalogues its legacies of pain, sexuality and desire, the “feral moan of childbirth” (p.70), identity and race, and finally, the unconscious, the “the most evasive archive of all” (p.97). It reminded me that our bodies hold historical traces of everything that has happened to them, everything that has gone in and come out. We are everything we have experienced. I found it absolutely fascinating and quite unputdownable. And I love the sound of the publisher, punctum books, too, for their tagline is spontaneous acts of scholarly combustion.

A favourite poem.

The Thesis Whisperer: Preparing for a binge-writing session (this will be me very soon) - I highly recommend this website to all PhD candidates. I subscribed to it perhaps in my very first week back in 2019 and Inger’s generous wisdom has been very reassuring over the years!

Sydney Review of Books: Jessie Cole on Art as Love

Finally - OMG, I cannot wait for this book! And this one!

Listening to

My nouveau pour l’écriture playlist

Katie Wighton’s new single Narcissist - absolute banger of a track and great official video too!

Tom and I have been working with our friend and indie Melbourne musician Mezz Coleman on her forthcoming album release - the first single has dropped and it’s amazing! We’re pretty proud of the artwork, I took the photo and Tom did the rest!

How to Fail: Rick Astley - really enjoyed this interview with an icon of 1980s music who would have every reason in the world to have a big head but he really doesn’t. Also Margaret Atwood on wisdom, witchcraft and womanhood - any interview with Margaret is bound to be wonderful, I listened to this one on my run and felt her strength push me on, up the inclines.

Best Friend Therapy - Inside the therapy room - what it’s like to be a therapist, how to find a good one and lots more.

Picking

Our neighbour texted me to say come round, pick whatever I wanted - I didn’t need to be asked twice! I came round with a small bowl, which she took one look at and replied, “go home and get a bigger bowl!” She very kindly gave me some 4kg of tomatoes, some zucchini and cucumbers, as well as a bag of rocket and dill.

I picked some of my own zucchini (the only one left that the possums hadn’t got at! Well, I hope it’s possums. The other possibility is too ghastly to contemplate), silverbeet, rhubarb and strawberries. The wind picked a lemon for me! And I picked all the ripe figs on my tree and left them on my neighbour’s doorstep. A few days later, more have ripened.

Eating

Rather than preserve all the tomatoes my neighbour gave me, I’m trying to cook with them all instead. Hence, our diets will be quite high in lycopene for the forseeable!

I made this Nigel Slater tomato pasta recipe but I found it a bit…grassy. I think that was my olive oil! The grassiness was remedied by plenty of nutritional yeast.

I also made Nigel’s tomatoes and couscous recipe from his A Cook’s Book which I ended up making with rice instead of couscous because I didn’t have enough….and only checked this once I had embarked upon the roasting of the tomatoes. I will never learn. But the citrus spiced rice from Elly Pear’s Green was a lovely accompaniment - and the citrus was my lemon from my own tree. Though I’m not sure how the recipe is meant to serve 6-10. It served me and Tom, with no leftovers!

Two more recipes from Elly Pear’s Green cookbook for seasonal produce - Piedmont peppers (red capsicums stuffed with tomatoes and garlic, and roasted) and zucchini agrodolce. Both eaten with rocket salad and bread for lunch.

My zucchini and butter bean soup, the perfect vehicle for the giant, more marrow-like zucchini and all the lovely soft herbs from my neighbour’s garden. The green chilli I used was from a bag in the freezer of chillies my lovely beautician Lisa gave me last autumn!

Some lovely Deliciously Ella recipes including a sweet potato and lentil stew and a tofu chickpea korma.

An epic lasagna made from ragu I had in the freezer from last year, and we made the pasta dough fresh using this recipe. This fed us for three dinners and reminded me of how delicious and comforting lasagna is - I must make it again very soon!

A three-fruit crumble made with rhubarb and strawberries from my garden, and apples from my aunt’s garden. Eating it reminded me that there are many consolations of it getting colder and darker.

The Full Vegan of course made an appearance at the weekend, with sausages, and I managed to have one of my favourite silken tofu bowls on a less cold morning!

Lots of plans for the rest of the tomatoes in the coming week - including a tomato and cashew pilaf which I’ve cooked before and really enjoyed. Though, after reading quite a bit of Nigel Slater, I am now of course craving potatoes and wishing those were ready in my garden right now. I suspect I will have to wait a few more weeks at least.

Drinking

Quite a bit of Chardonnay.

I also had the most incredible cold drink at Hobart institution (and all vegan, I was surprised to learn!) Bury Me Standing - the Grandma Barb, which is iced coffee with vanilla. It sounds simple but it was like drinking a (I want to say warm, but it was iced!) hug. Tom tasted it and immediately regretted not getting one too!

Source

Watching

We decided to go with an absurdist theme for our weekend viewing, and started with Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s White Noise (Netflix). Personally I can never resist a Greta and Noah film, regardless of who’s directing or acting - I know it will make me think and laugh. I studied White Noise as an undergrad and was surprised by how much I loved it (a rare thing for assigned texts, I found). Having not read the book since I was 18, I was intrigued to see how much of it I’d remember.

Set in 1984, White Noise centres around Jack Gladney, a professor of Hitler Studies (a field of study he invented, his colleague wants to do the same with Elvis Presley) at a small college, who lives with his wife Babette and their blended family - it’s the fourth marriage for both. Almost immediately, the film’s themes of consumerist domination of our culture and fear of death are apparent - the supermarket is a central setting for many key scenes, bright and dazzling and confusing, urging people to buy now, buy more. Jack and Babette (played brilliantly by Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig) have their idiosyncrasies and quirks, but mostly their life with their startlingly mature and insightful children is quite idyllic. This is shattered by an “air-borne toxic event” - a train collision with an oil tanker releases toxic chemicals into the air near their town (scarily quite similar to the Ohio train derailment which happened just last month) and they must evacuate their home. Almost instantly, we see the children remaining calm and more knowledgeable about what is going on while the adults panic, finding they can no longer contain their deep fears about death and struggle to cope with the impending doom. It turns out much has been going on for Jack and Babette without the other knowing.

It’s (unsurprisingly) noisy, hard to follow at times, funny, moving, well acted and terrifyingly prescient in some respects. Most of all, it’s about how we try to keep the chaos of life, and our fears of death, large-scale ruin and destruction, at bay by filling our lives with, you guessed it, white noise. And shopping.

“Well, if you liked that, you will have no trouble following tomorrow’s film,” Tom remarked as the end credits rolled!

Source

Everything Everywhere All At Once (4K BluRay) was one of the most creative, mind-bending films I’ve possibly ever seen. It’s weird, daring, fantastical, and very funny but its beating heart is the universal search for love, belonging and meaning. I absolutely loved it.

Evelyn Quan Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh) is a middle-aged immigrant whose life is both mundane and spinning out of control. She runs a laundromat with her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) who feels increasingly lonely and disconnected from his wife, even going so far as to prepare divorce papers. Two decades prior, they were full of hope and passion, for life and each other, when they eloped to the United States where their daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), was born. Life in the US has entailed a lot of hard work and sacrifice for them both, and now they are being audited by the IRS - something that would give anyone anxiety and sleepless nights. To top it off, Evelyn’s father (James Hong) is visiting for the first time in years which is also putting the family on edge.

Not quite the setting for an epic kung-fu adventure in the multiverse, right? WRONG.

From hotdog fingers, to googly-eyed rocks, the everything Bagel and some impressive martial arts, this is a film that is not only visually stunning and imaginative, but it embraces its wackiness and takes the audience along for the ride. You can tell that every member of the cast had a ball being involved. It’s worth watching for Jamie Lee Curtis alone, who is almost unrecognisable and incredibly funny. We’ve all known a Deirdre. And even she is humanised!

Everything is put together with care and passion, and the performances, particularly Michelle Yeoh’s, are just stunning. Underneath all the dazzling visuals and kooky-ness of the parallel universes is a simple story of a family struggling to connect with each other. It’s about living with regrets, unmet needs, dreams you didn’t dare to have. It’s about how love and kindness are so very healing.

Ann Lee at The Guardian has discussed why it deserves Best Picture at the Oscars and I also enjoyed seeing a therapist decode and react to the film. UPDATE: It cleaned up at the Oscars, and most deservedly so!

What else have we watched - we finished Season 5 of The Crown (Netflix), which was gripping and addictive, particularly as we’re now in the era we remember. I wasn’t convinced by all of the cast changes but Imelda Staunton as the Queen and Elizabeth Debicki as Diana were very convincing. We’re also re-watching the last season of Succession (Binge) so we’re ready for when the final season drops in a few weeks!

Wearing/using

LUSH’s latest shower gel Sticky Dates which smells like toffee and vanilla. Perfect for autumn, I love it!

Jeans, for the first time all year.

Quote of the week

Courtesy of some hard rubbish that was on our street! It felt poignant and poetic, and like a sign from the Universe.

All we have is now.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything else, with me, please do!

I hope you’re also finding things in your world to savour, that give you joy, that make you think and smile.

Please note: this blog post has affiliate links with retailers such as Booktopia which means I may receive a commission for a sale that I refer, at no extra cost to you.

this summer

The view from Wendy’s Secret Garden in Sydney, where I was a few weeks ago.

The longer I put off writing a catch-up post, the longer the draft gets! And now we’re at the end of the Australian summer. I saw autumn leaves scattered on the pavement on my walk the other day and almost groaned out loud in indignation! I love autumn but I’m really not ready for summer to be over just yet.

But that’s the thing about the seasons, you can’t stop them from turning. They have their time and then have to give way for the next one. All we can do is make the most of them.

It has been a summer of fun, hard work, adventure, sun, books, words, friends, music, planting and harvesting. A summer of being brave, of being curious, of filling the well.

Grab a drink - warm or cold, depending on what it’s like where you are - and get ready for the mother of all catchup posts!

Favourite experiences of the summer

Every visit to the beach. Lying on a towel, refreshed from the ocean, a warm breeze drying my skin, looking up at that brilliant blue sky.

Shakespeare in the Gardens. This was a wonderful evening, watching one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed in the open air, under the trees which lit up as the sun set and night came. Tom and I sat happily among a few hundred other people on picnic blankets, having a lovely time. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a Shakespeare performance so much - the language was so beautiful and poetic, and I didn’t find myself switching off like I usually do with Shakespeare because the language is usually a bit too ornate, even for me! It was such a lively and engaging performance. I hope this will become a summer tradition for us.

Sydney. My first time in the city since November 2019, and what a joyful reunion it was. I went for work and so spent most of it doing research - site visits and working at the archives. I didn’t really tell anyone I was there apart from two friends, who I was overjoyed to see again. The rest of the time I spent alone, working, reading 200 year old letters and documents, deep in thought about my project, writing until 1am, soaking up as much art and culture and history as I could. It was my first time away from Tom in over three years too, so that was very strange! But despite missing him so very much, I had the most incredible time. I have to say, being able to travel interstate freely again feels wondrous! It’s crazy to think that this time two years ago our state’s borders were still closed to most of the country. It feels surreal now. But it ensured I didn’t take a moment of being in Sydney for granted.

Elizabeth Farm in Parramatta was one of the highlights of the trip. It’s an incredible place, where time has stood still, where history is made tactile and immersive. The chairs can be sat on, the beds laid on, doors opened, objects can be touched. It was as if the Macarthurs had slipped out to tend to the sheep, and I was just wandering around, looking at their lives. The guides were amazing, particularly one who had heard of my subject! “You’re the first person I’ve encountered since 2008 who’s heard of her!” she told me. This particular lady was very lovely and generous with her time, and showed me many hidden gems that other visitors walk right past.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales remains one of my favourites: Wednesday was late opening night, so when the archives closed at 6pm, I packed up and walked right over! It was pretty busy, hence my mask. Wandering around a gallery is one of my favourite things to do, with someone or alone, so I had a lovely time. I particularly enjoyed the From Here, For Now exhibit (and took selfies with the Tracey Emins, above!), the Daniel Boyd exhibit, and the 20th Century Galleries in general, particularly 15 gunshots… by Xiao Lu. The perfect Artist Date, really. My mind was buzzing with ideas, concepts and inspiration. The Sydney Festival was also getting started but I sadly didn’t catch the Frida Kahlo immersive biography, as it was booked out (unsurprisingly)!

Instead, on my last day, as the rain poured down and I could swear I saw steam rise from the hot pavements, I immersed myself in Brett Whiteley’s Studio not far from where I was staying in Surry Hills. It was AMAZING. I didn’t know much about Whiteley at all before this trip and now I’m a bit obsessed! I also visited Wendy’s Secret Garden, the stunning natural wild garden in Lavender Bay that is owned and maintained by his widow, and that is open to the public.

Working in the archives in Sydney was incredible, as expected. Having been prevented from visiting them in person for years because of the pandemic and all the interstate travel restrictions that existed for the longest time, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get there again before my thesis was due. I was deeply grateful to be there. The staff were kind and helpful, and I saw everything I wanted to see. There’s a lot of boxes of “documents relating to the settlement of Tasmania” in the Mitchell Library, which aren’t very specific so one has to sift through so much stuff in case there’s a hidden treasure in there. And I did find some! The whole trip was so fruitful for my work and I returned to Hobart absolutely itching to start putting everything together.

Mona Foma! It was fantastic. We watched lots of great musical acts, drank fabulous wine, and really let our hair down for the first time in what has felt like years. Well, it has been years! I didn’t wear a mask once. It felt so wonderful to be out again, properly, seeing live music for the first time since January 2020, to mingle with fellow humans and seeing everyone happy and buzzing (it was a great crowd, no dramas or weirdos, and no insurmountable queues). It felt like a return to old times, but with everyone more mindful, more conscious that being able to do this - go to a festival, see live music, dance in a throng of people under the stars - was something we really used to take for granted. We now know how easily those joys and privileges can be taken away.

Reading

I wrote a separate post about Rebecca May Johnson’s Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen which is one of my books of the year so far - it’s just so brilliant and intriguing. I wish I could write about food and life in the way Johnson does, taking the everyday act of cooking and following a recipe and linking it to classic literature, psychology, histories of oppression, philosophy, the self, and what the food we cook says about all of that, and us.

I got some wonderful cookbooks for Christmas and have been steadily cooking my way through them for most of the summer - see the Eating section for more!

I am a huge fan of the Sydney Review of Books and so when I saw their latest anthology of essays, I knew I would love it - and I did. Open Secrets, Essays on the Writing Life is a collection from a wide variety of writers - some known to me, some not - about various aspects of their writing lives. Some are about one memorable turning point, others about the contents of their days and brains as they navigate the ups and downs of writing. As a writer, you cannot help but feel seen and understood reading a collection like this. Most of them were pandemic-tinged, unsurprisingly, which still made for fascinating reading. Standouts for me were the essays by Lauren Carroll Harris (boy, did I relate hard to that one), Laura Elizabeth Woollett, Fiona Kelly McGregor and Eda Gunaydin, but I particularly loved Oliver Mol’s essay, “La Vida”, which was an odyssey-like journey from Sydney to Barcelona, where Oliver is trying desperately to write a book he’s been thinking about for years, now he has the freedom to do so, and finds he cannot. And yet, around every corner, are coincidences and signs that he is being encouraged and supported, that he is a writer, even if the actual writing is proving temporarily elusive. I wiped away tears and felt viscerally in my body the self harm Oliver does to himself in a fit of helplessness and confusion at his perceived inability to cope, as my younger self had similar moments. And I rejoiced in his eventual realisation that “our only objective is firmly, and with great attention, to continue; to kindly, sincerely, try” (p.121) and how he learns to write without pressure, without expectation of outcome, meaning or purpose. Highly recommended!

Speaking of Sydney, I had a wonderful time walking through the bookshops there. So many favourites! Elizabeth’s in Newtown welcomed me back like we’d never been apart and, predictably, I spent hours there combing their packed shelves for treasures. During my trip I read Fiona McGregor’s A Novel Idea, which is the photographic documentation of McGregor writing her novel Indelible Ink over several years, which was fascinating; Between Us, a Women of Letters book that I didn’t have in my collection; and The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear which covered a lot of familiar ground but was still a good read, I think I’m just addicted to books about writing, really.

The Guardian: Why one woman is drumming for 100 hours over 10 days - we caught Chloe Kim’s final hour of her performance on Sunday at Mona Foma and she was quite extraordinary. This is a great article about endurance in art and music performance.

I am a huge Fawlty Towers fan but I think remaking it is a truly terrible idea - and I’m not the only one.

I’m enjoying Jessie Tu’s modern analysis of classic 1990s films for Women’s Agenda - she’s done Sister Act and Mrs Doubtfire so far.

This New Yorker article was….bizarre.

Vanity Fair: Monica Lewinsky shared 25 life lessons on the 25th anniversary of her name, and life, becoming one of the most scrutinised/villified of the late twentieth century (and all the years afterwards). Monica would be one of my dream dinner party guests; she seems like an incredibly grounded person who is empathetic, intelligent and a lot of fun. I loved all her tips but particularly #22.

The Conversation: ‘Something that happens in fiction’: romance writer Susan Meachen’s ‘fake death’ reminds us that the author is a construct by Ika Willis - OMG, Bad Art Friend, hold my beer. The romance writer who faked her own death and came back to Facebook as if nothing had happened is next-level twisted. I enjoyed Ika Willis’ literary studies take on it!

Also on The Conversation: an interesting analysis of the potato shortage that plagued Australia for much of the summer and Melanie Saward’s favourite fictional character is Queenie.

The Spectator: What a voice Plath had – stern yet somehow musical, long-vowelled, bear-like: Radio 4’s My Sylvia Plath - on 11 February it was 60 years since Plath’s death, so I also spent some time on the wonderful Gail Crowther’s website, especially Sylvia Plath, Safe Spaces, and the Violation of Women.

Finally, Room on the Broom, many times over, with our darling niece - we got it for her for Christmas and she is OBSESSED. It’s a wondrous thing to have a child in your life who loves to read as much as you do. I think it needs to be encouraged at all costs!

Listening to

At the start of the year, I decided to mix things up a bit with my writing music, which was almost completely dominated by my beloved Ludovico Einaudi and Nils Frahm. Every month, my most played artist on Tidal was Ludovico, by a mile! Nothing wrong with that of course, but when January 1 clicked over, I was suddenly seized by a desire for new and different, to shake up my creative practice a bit. If I listen to the same things, watch the same things, absorb the same things, I won’t be changed. My work won’t expand in the ways it needs to.

So I made a new writing playlist for myself - nouveau pour l’écriture - full of new piano discoveries, mostly by women composers and performers. Sophie Hutchings, Grace Ferguson, Alice Baldwin, Poppy Ackroyd, Olivia Belli, Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, and more! It’s been wonderful to surround myself with the sounds I love but with new melodies and energies. I highly recommend all of them.

I also made a Sydney playlist - something I love to do when I travel is make a playlist of songs I hear while I’m there. In a cafe or bar, in a shop, on the street, in the hotel lobby. Shazam on the iPhone is a godsend! These songs will always make me think of this trip!

As for podcasts…..there have been a few.

The First Time: Summer Series - A beginning & Claire G Coleman and Summer Series: Helen Garner

Books and Travel: Solo Walking the Camino De Santiago Portuguese Coastal Route with J.F Penn, Thoughts From the Pilgrims’ Way

The Creative Penn: Writing Tips: How Character Flaws Shape Story with Will Storr (Will Storr’s work was recommended by my PhD supervisor)

The Art of Work: Classicist and bestselling writer Dame Mary Beard on what she has learnt about power - this was an excellent interview with a woman I very much admire. She said something that has stayed with me in the weeks since I listened to it: that resilience is a very underrated/undervalued virtue these days, that life is tough and of course it would be great if the world only had nice, supportive people in it but the reality is, it doesn’t. You’ve got to carry on regardless.

The Imperfects: Santa Claus - A Special Vulnerability House - this was hilarious. Glenn Robbins playing Santa Claus, getting worried phone calls from Rudolph because the sleigh is in a no standing zone…genius!

James and Ashley Stay At Home: Digging into shame with Hayley Scrivenor and all the mini-episodes about Ashley’s new novel Dark Mode, which I can’t wait to read!

Writer’s Book Club Podcast: This kept me company while I was in Sydney. The Kate Forsyth episode was the standout one for me - I will be listening to it again, with a notebook alongside. I also very much enjoyed the Hannah Kent and Nigel Featherstone interviews.

The Rich Roll Podcast: my friend Mary, who I was lucky enough to see while I was in Sydney, got me on to this! I loved the Seth Godin, Mel Robbins and Rick Rubin episodes.

Akimbo: Once I heard the Rich Roll interview with Seth, I needed more so I listened to his own podcast, particularly enjoying the Genius, It’s not about the chocolate and Blogs and Platforms and Permission episodes.

All The Small Things: Natasha Lunn on love and friendship and Is wellness just another fashion trend? with Rina Raphael

The Guilty Feminist: Phoebe Waller-Bridge at the Royal Festival Hall

Daisy is Insatiable: Shahroo Izadi - I’ve been really captivated by Shahroo and her work, but I’m not going to list all the interviews with her I’ve listened to over the summer because I’ll probably look like a bit of a stalker, haha! But this one was probably the best.

Wellness with Ella (formerly the Deliciously Ella podcast): I’ve got back into this in a big way! Really enjoyed all the episodes I’ve caught up on, especially Happiness, Change and Emotional Resilience, Jay Shetty: the untold journey, Ella on finding purpose and putting mental health first and Jake Humphrey: the power of optimism.

Eating

The cinnamon scroll from the all-vegan Sydney patisserie, Miss Sina. Run, don’t walk!

Obviously, the food in Sydney was AMAZING. I’ve written all about my favourite Sydney vegan eats for Onya magazine - as I ate my way around the city and slowly amassed a list of must-trys, places I definitely wanted to return to with Tom on our next trip, I thought that surely this information would be useful for others too. Once a journo, always a journo - I pitched the idea to Sandi at Onya, she said yes almost immediately, so now there’s a whole vegan series in the works. Melbourne, unsurprisingly, is next!

But here’s what else I’ve been cooking and eating at home over the summer:

• For Christmas treats, I made vegan gingerbread truffles, Nigella’s sticky vegan gingerbread and the now famous Oreo brownies

• Tomato orzo one-pan bake (from The Green Roasting Tin with a few amends)

• Spicy tempeh sushi and a vegan cheese platter for Christmas Eve Eve (sushi recipe from Veganomicon, which I picked up in NYC in 2015)

• Rick’s pasta for Christmas Eve dinner - we were inspired by The Holiday and how Miles and Iris eat “Christmas Eve fettuccine” - like them, we ate pasta, popped some bubbly and celebrated being young and being alive!

• Caesar salad with crispy chickpea croutons from Moby’s Little Pine cookbook, one of my Christmas presents

• Asparagus and romesco aioli pizza, made on the barbecue - a variation on a recipe also in Moby’s Little Pine cookbook

• Jerk lentil burgers (from Natural Flava)

• Pickled avocado - OMG, life changing! Great to put on burgers (from Cooking from the Spirit by Tabitha Brown)

• Sweet potato curry with jollof rice (from Natural Flava)

• Potato and broad bean quesadillas - broad beans grown by me!

• Silken tofu summer breakfast bowls - these are so wonderful! If you want a refreshing and delicious summer breakfast, you have to try them.

• Mexican rice bowls with black beans, guac, corn, salad, etc - these have been a staple meal all summer ever since I had a delicious similar meal at Bad Hombres in Sydney. So filling, so healthy, so delicious!

• Callaloo pesto pasta (from Natural Flava)

• Roast carrot and sweet potato rice paper rolls with homemade satay sauce

• Mango coleslaw (from Natural Flava)

• Tempeh “shwarma”, something I just made up and it was delicious!

• Butterscotch pudding from Moby’s Little Pine cookbook (really nice!)

• Muesli tahini flapjacks/breakfast bars

• Deliciously Ella’s orzo (risoni) recipes from the app - we tried a mushroom miso one and a red pepper tahini one, both amazing!

• Chargrilled broccolini with pesto linguine

• An EPIC quinoa salad I made up, featuring green beans from the garden, roasted pumpkin, and tofu ‘feta’ which was amazing. I made it for my friend Anne who came round for dinner one baking hot night. Served with an Imago sourdough baguette alongside, it was quite the feast.

I also made apricot and vanilla jam and dried apricots (on the dehydrate function on my air fryer) with the four or so kilograms I got from a farm across the river. No fruit on the family trees this year! Most jars of the jam have been given as gifts, I have one left for me. And the dried apricots were the best ones I’ve ever had, and made my garage (where the air fryer lives) smell like my grandparents’ house did.

Drinking

A Red Corvette cocktail at Wrest Point’s Birdcage Bar, which I hadn’t been to or had since perhaps 2003. It tasted just the same as I remembered and went down all too easily!

I got hooked on bubble tea while I was in Sydney - I know, why did it take me so long to try it? Gong Cha was my favourite place to get one and I was delighted to find out they have a branch in Hobart too. QQ Passionfruit is my favourite flavour, followed by Lychee Oolong.

Above, me with an Aperol Spritz at Mona Foma! A bright drink to go with my bright outfit, haha! They always make me think of trips to Berlin.

Finally, pandan soy milk at Han Phuc Vegan in Sydney - surprisingly good! Sweet, creamy and refreshing.

PICKING

Over the summer I’ve harvested strawberries, potatoes, garlic, peas, green beans, broad beans, zucchini, and silverbeet on the regular. The caterpillars got my kale, boo. We also have random pumpkins taking over the entire garden! Beetroots are starting to look good and soon we’ll have even more potatoes. The fig tree’s branches are heavy with fruit that’s slowly going from green to purple. The tomatoes are plentiful but still green on the vine. Never mind, I have a great green tomato pickle recipe if they don’t end up being coaxed into their fullest, reddest expression.

Watching

The Crown (BluRay and Netflix) - we decided to watch the entire series again before embarking on Season 5, so we went right back to the wonderful Claire Foy and Matt Smith beginning. Seasons 1 and 2 really are the best, in my opinion!

We had a bit of an Edgar Wright season and watched Baby Driver (Amazon Prime) and Last Night in Soho (Amazon Prime) back to back. Enjoyed both very much, but I preferred Baby Driver out of the two.

I’ve got back into Call the Midwife (ABC iview and Binge) in a big way, as it’s a bit of a comfort watch for me - well, I say that, every episode is hard-hitting in its own way. Every episode makes me cry, even if it’s just a routine birth where nothing goes wrong! It’s an emotional release of sorts, I think.

Wearing

I’ve been wearing this running top I got in Sydney non-stop - it even kind of works with my Kemi Telford skirts!

I’ve also been wearing this beautiful perfume that Tom got for Christmas and it’s been my scent of the summer, though I can see it working well for winter too, with its smoky and leathery notes of oud and amber. I also love Goldfield and Banks’ Sunset Hour which smells of peach, mandarin, raspberry and ginger - absolutely stunning scent for warm weather. Confession, I have nearly all of the Goldfield and Banks range! They make incredible perfumes. Seven years ago, the perfume tray on my dressing table was nearly all Jo Malone bottles and now I’m well and truly in my Goldfield and Banks era! I am happy to skimp on makeup but on scent, never.

Other favourite wearables this summer have been our ally-friendly Always Was Always Will Be shirts from Clothing the Gaps, replacement running shoes (I just bought exactly the same ones!) and this jumpsuit from Tassie designers Keshet, very much a head turner like the one I bought this time last year! As seen on me in the pics at Mona Foma 💚

Grateful for

A fun start to what I think is going to be an interesting year.

Quote of the SUMMER

“Seek joy” has really been my quote of the summer, as it was the attitude I decided to go into this year with. But this quote really spoke to me when I came across it in the pages of a book that I now can’t recall the name of.

I’ve been thinking about this concept of belonging to yourself a lot, particularly as 2022 ended and the new year began. It’s now been over a year since I stepped away from personal social media and I can see how much I’ve changed. How much kinder I am to myself, how much stronger I feel, how unafraid I am to set boundaries. Stronger in the broken places too - some difficult things that happened now belong to “last year”, or even the year before. Time has given me the gift of perspective, and perspective has given me strength.

So, that has been the start to my 2023. Working hard but also taking every chance I can to enjoy life.

If you’d like to hit the button below and let me know what you think, or what you’ve been up to in 2023 so far, please do - I would love to hear from you.

I hope you’ve had a fun, relaxing and memorable summer, or a restorative winter, depending on where you are in the world. Stay safe and well, until next week, when normal programming will resume! xx

Please note: this blog post has affiliate links with retailers such as Booktopia which means I may receive a commission for a sale that I refer, at no extra cost to you.

this week

No mud, no lotus.

Another week closer to Christmas, friends! Work shows no signs of slowing down for Tom and I, but we like being kept busy. Lots of cool projects on the go, which is great!

Favourite experience of the week

I really enjoyed the “work in progress” day run by the multidisciplinary research group I’m part of at uni. I didn’t have to present for a change so I just got to sit back, enjoy a vegan brownie and a soy chai latte and hear about what other people are researching, what bliss! The highlight of the day was an afternoon podcasting masterclass from Dr Siobhan McHugh, who has produced some of the country’s most interesting and awarded narrative podcasts in recent years. Podcasting has changed so much from when I was doing mine 10 years ago. I hope I might start that up again one day, it was one of the highlights of my career so far.

Reading

Books I picked up from the library today….to add to the every growing pile!

I finally finished Olivia Yallop’s Break the Internet, which really cemented the decision to step away from social media for me. The more I read, the more I realised that social media and the wider internet, once fascinating portals for connection and unique experiences, have become increasingly problematic, bloated by clickbait, “patrolled by brands and policed by algorithms” (p.247). I found this quote particularly resonant: “2020 just proved that social media platforms aren’t engineered for action, but for advertising, promoting call-out culture over community and individualism over solidarity.”

Yallop herself reaches a breaking point similar to my own in January, finding the world of social media, junklords and influencers too triggering, too vacuous, too caustic and fraught. If you are thinking about stepping away yourself, this book will probably make the decision for you. I also found the glossary, as an elder millennial not entirely au fait with all the latest internet lingo, very helpful!

Sydney Review of Books: Only Feelings - Catriona Menzies-Pike on Gina Rushton - really enjoyed this, especially this quote: “What’s unusual about this book is that it is nothing like a manifesto. It makes no firm case for any woman to decide to want to have a child or not — not even Rushton. There’s plenty of anger — about climate change, access to health care, and the shadow of patriarchy — but if there is a call to action, it’s a very quiet and highly caveated appeal to reflect and listen, to make space for the varieties and complexities of human lives.” [emphasis added by me]

To All the Recipes I’ve Loved Before - I discovered this wonderful foodie newsletter and indulged in reading the archives and fantasising about recreating some of the dishes Sonya writes so evocatively about. I was even more delighted to find she lives in Tassie too.  

I also started diving back in to this wonderful biography of my beloved Sylvia Plath who I’ve got back into in a big way this year. This doorstop of a book spares no detail and while I’m deeply familiar with Plath’s life story, I’m so enjoying the deep dive particularly of episodes I haven’t read much about before.

Listening to

I overheard Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” playing in the Reject Shop (UK readers, it’s Hobart’s equivalent of Poundland, perhaps?) when I was there earlier (more about that in the Picking section!) which was quite the earworm so I have had some 2010s electro pop playing on repeat while cooking. So many of them used to be on my running playlist! I have started listening to podcasts when I run now, which is interesting. I don’t run as fast as I do when I run to music, but the run itself goes faster, if that makes sense?! I don’t know which I prefer!

I was inspired by Tuesday’s podcasting masterclass to get into some new narrative podcasts so I checked out Stuff the British Stole, which Siobhan played us an excerpt of - loved it!

The Imperfects: Josh, Hugh and Ryan are awesome and I so enjoy listening to this podcast. This week I listened to their interview with Oliver Burkeman which was great entertainment for me while gardening and on my run I listened to Josh’s episode on how to defeat envy, which was so very interesting and relatable.

Eating

It’s been a funny week for cooking and eating - I had a list of new things to try but didn’t quite get round to them and instead relied on leftovers and the freezer as it turned into a rather busy week. We had pasta with lentil ragu which I cooked up and froze a few weeks ago, dhal from the freezer with basmati rice and flatbreads, a noodle stir fry (not unlike this one) with vegetables I was given from the work in progress day, and the mushroom and pumpkin crispy gnocchi from The Green Roasting Tin. The Full Vegan made an appearance on the weekend (we ate outside, in 30 degree heat! That feels like a dream as it’s freezing again now!) and the Tom of Hummus (see last week’s post) has also been made again!

All the Oreo brownies have been eaten so naturally another baked good was needed - the usual vegan banana bread was made yesterday with the blackened fruit in the bowl I had left there especially for the purpose. As bananas are so cheap at the moment, and frozen fruit is not, I’ve taken to buying a generous bunch or two of bananas and freezing them for smoothies (I also do this with other seasonal fruit in the summer like apricots and berries). The peels get made into fertiliser for my garden and two or three get left in the fruit bowl deliberately for banana bread. It’s a most satisfying arrangement!

I’ve also stocked up on apples and pears for Christmas chutney, which I think will be made this weekend, if we’re in for more rain…sigh!

Drinking

I discovered this alcohol-free Prosecco while in Melbourne and was delighted to see it in our local Woolworths! A really lovely alternative to sparkling wine, perfect for the silly season.

Watching

Honestly? 30 Rock and a few how-to YouTube videos (mostly to do with CSS and cleaning fountain pens!). Nothing exciting.

Wearing

A mask, everywhere! Hobart’s COVID risk level has gone from low to moderate, and I’ve noticed a lot more people wearing them. I can’t remember the last time I went into the supermarket or the library without one.

Something else I’ve been wearing, despite the mask…makeup! I bought some while I was in Melbourne from, of all places, The Body Shop and it’s amazing! I used to wear Body Shop makeup a lot when I was younger (in fact, my first ever lipgloss and mascara were from there, circa 1994) but hadn’t used them for many years, as I worked my way through the loot I was given from the Cosmo beauty cupboard (which surprisingly lasted a very long time!). I was delighted to find the Body Shop still works on my slightly more mature skin! My standard routine is now their Fresh Nude foundation applied with a sponge, concealer and powder (still using my Hourglass and Laura Mercier ones respectively for now), this gorgeous Shimmer Waves blush palette (which, while I was travelling, doubled as eyeshadow), and their Super Volume Mascara. Everything is so easy to apply and stays in place pretty much all day. I love how The Body Shop is slowly working towards having a fully vegan range too. I highly recommend them!

PICKING

Strawberries! Well, just about. I’ll pick all the ripe ones this weekend, as I’ve been fending off the greedy birds all week. I had to go to the Reject Shop to get some pinwheels to keep them off. As shown here:

When the wind gets up (and boy does it down here!), those pinwheels spin like mad and scare the birds off a treat. They have been a very handy addition to the garden these past few years!

I also picked two giant bags of spinach and silverbeet when I gave the side garden a haircut. The zucchini are coming along beautifully now that the sun can get to them. I also noted with delight the green shoot of the potatoes poking through in the tyre tower. I don’t know what kind of summer we’ll have, but I am hopeful.

I also picked MY FIRST LEMON!

Tom got me a lemon tree for Christmas in 2020 and fruit only started appearing this year - I was worried I’d killed it for the longest time! Today I needed lemon for the Tom of hummus, so I picked my first one off my very own tree. It was a proud moment. I grated some zest in as well as juice. It’s a very lemony hummus as a result, but I like that.

Morning routine - coffee and Morning Pages…

Proud of

A very satisfying work project being almost at completion, and the client being delighted, with only some minor changes left to do. I’ve so loved working on this and am very excited to share it (so is the client)!

Sticking to my morning routine of meditation for 2,048 days straight (that’s 5.5 years) and doing Morning Pages for 1,085 days (nearly 3 years to the day). Not that I’m counting, the apps do that for me! I started a new journal this week, my sixth for the year. They fill up very quickly these days!

I’ve got a huge post in drafts about journaling, as it’s one of the things I’m asked about the most. Stay tuned for that very soon, hopefully I’ll have it ready for you to read over the holidays!

Quote of the week

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” - Mary Oliver

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything else, with me, please do! I hope you’re also finding things to savour at the moment, that make you think and that make you smile. Have a happy and safe weekend xx

Please note: this blog post has affiliate links with Booktopia which means I may receive a commission for a sale that I refer, at no extra cost to you.

the last two weeks

The usual excuses, my friends! I seem to have blinked and it’s another Friday. And how is it October tomorrow?! I promise I will get back to more regular posting soon. I have two weeks to catch you up on, though there hasn’t been anything too exciting to report. Except…

Favourite experience of the last two weeks

The birth of and meeting my new nephew. Holding him, stroking his silky cheeks and downy head, marvelling at his tiny ears and fingers with those miraculous little specks of nail on them, watching his eyes flutter open and look at me. He is beautiful. I can’t wait to get to know him.

Reading

While it feels like I’ve been working non-stop (and I have!), I’ve also been reading a lot. My brain feels like it’s had some hearty meals.

I read Blueberries by Ellena Savage which I thought was excellent - so inventive, clever and affecting. I watched quite a bit of Parks and Recreation while I was reading it so somehow found myself reading this book in the voice of April Ludgate as it’s quite dry and cynical in its humour (I thought), which added to my enjoyment (though some parts of it, the first essay in particular, are not funny at all). At the same time, it’s so poetic and fragmented, and really pushes your perceptions on what you expect to find when you pick up a memoir. In fact, I started the book halfway through, because I opened the book at random and was so intrigued by what I saw, I read from there, and then went back to the beginning…which added to the slight disorientation, never quite knowing what to expect. What does it mean to write about yourself, your body, your traumas, the way you live in the world? These are questions which, on reflection, I’d like to have grappled with in a more intellectual way in my past work. The toothpaste is already out of the tube in that regard but these questions still really interest me and I love seeing how other writers play around with them. Savage is really clever and creative in how she straddles self-enquiry and enquiry about the world at large. I really loved it!

I also read Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder which I devoured in mere days. I was intrigued by a mention of it in one of Jen Campell’s videos and thought I’d check it out at the library. All I have to say is WOW. It’s a very clever and utterly surreal novel that has an element of fairytale about it (which are, after all, incredibly dark stories). It’s about an exhausted, rage-filled mother of a young child who starts turning into a dog. As in…she is literally turning into a dog. She starts growing fur, prowling the neighbourhood at night, killing small prey, and eating a lot of meat. Even her child gets in on the act! It was quite a trip to read this on Day 1 and 2 of my cycle, I have to say! Of course, it is an extended metaphor and a very, very clever one. I think every woman, mother or not, can relate to that rage that is so deep it’s in your bones at the sacrifices and behaviours that are expected of us, with or without children. Fabulous. Highly recommended!

I also started reading A.S Byatt’s latest short story collection Medusa’s Ankles which I’ve been dipping in and out of - again, very surreal fiction set in a recognisable world.

The Guardian: I enjoyed this piece on Lena Dunham, this one on writing the story of Australian history, this one on how more doctors are writing about the harsh reality of practicing medicine in this country but I particularly loved this one by writer Sarah Moss, who wrote about buying herself a small gift when at a low personal ebb:

Maybe we’re allowed to find small joys, in proportion to our situations, on a burning planet with the ancestors howling in our ears.

I was gutted to read of the death of Hilary Mantel, whose command of and passion for the craft of historical writing has had such an impact on my own work these past few years. I highly recommend all of her Reith Lectures which make for fascinating and compelling listening, in one of which she says:

You don’t become a novelist to become a spinner of entertaining lies: you become a novelist so you can tell the truth.

What an incredible human and writer she was, and what a legacy she leaves.

Sydney Review of Books: Hypocrisy, bruh! which introduced me to another (previously unknown to me) literary controversy surrounding a book I will probably never read but the real-life drama was very intriguing!

The Audacity: Not Your Gilmore Girl: A Meditation

LitHub: How dealing in facts helps fiction writers hone their craft

Listening to

Wellness Unpacked with Ella Mills: Manifesting, creating your dream life and adaptogenic mushrooms and How to lead a more fulfilled life, let go of perfection and the power of a daily gratitude practice - both very good episodes but particularly enjoyed the latter one. I should have liked to have known Sarah when I lived in the UK, I think we would have had a lot to talk about!

The Atlantic: How To Build A Happy Life: How to forgive ourselves for what we can’t change - a new to me podcast and I really enjoyed this episode.

BeWILDered: Elizabeth Gilbert gets Bewildered! Loved this one, it’s fascinating to hear what Liz has been up to and how much I relate to a lot of what she says!

The First Time: Masters Series: Sophie Cunningham - a very enjoyable window into the craft and work of a writer I have always been curious about but whose work I don’t know well. Maybe the time has come for a deep dive?

Eating (and cooking)

So many delicious things.

Creamy pumpkin risotto, pictured - absolutely scrumptious.

I made Deliciously Ella’s spiced cauliflower and cashew pilaf traybake, which was utterly divine. It’s a recipe from her new book, which I haven’t got yet - I got this recipe emailed as part of her newsletter (but I found a link online for it for you). I’ll definitely be getting the book, as hers are some of the ones I cook from the most often (and if you know me, and how many cookbooks I have, that’s saying something!).

Fennel, walnut and sun-dried tomato pappardelle from Special Guest by Annabel Crabb and Wendy Sharpe, a book on whose brilliance and delicious recipes I have waxed lyrical several times before. This is my favourite recipe from that book and one I love to make when fennel is cheap and plentiful.

Yellow split pea dhal with loads of greens from the garden and chilli - I wanted to use up a huge bag of yellow split peas that I bought during the national lockdown of 2020 when red lentils were nowhere to be seen. This cook-up helped me stock the freezer and the dhal was so nourishing and warming.

Speaking of a cook-up, I made Jamie Oliver’s pasta e ceci soup and a loaf of bread for my sister and her family for when they brought the new baby home from the hospital. I’m planning on making a vat of that soup for us too, as the sample I tasted for seasoning was very delicious indeed!

Vegan sausage rolls to watch the Grand Final with….which we ended up not watching much of at all! Sob!

We cheered ourselves up with nachos for dinner, which were heavenly as always. I used wombok cabbage instead of lettuce for a winter variation and we didn’t have any avocado in, but oddly that seemed not to matter - in fact, Tom told me he preferred it without.

I’ve also discovered Biscoff spread which is somehow vegan (how?!) and has proved to be very dangerous indeed. I made a version of peanut butter cups with it (with Biscoff instead of peanut butter, obviously) all of which disappeared far too quickly. I also made a vegan chocolate cake for a celebration and put dollops of the spread in the middle of the batter before baking. It was unbelievably good.

Vegan banana bread also made. It’s compulsory when there are spotty bananas in the fruit bowl, am I right?

Watching

We finished the whole series of Parks and Recreation for perhaps the second time this year. One of my favourites!

We finally watched the film Citizen Kane which in all honesty I had never seen - and I was astonished at how many Simpsons jokes and homages I suddenly understood, after all this time. Ahead of its time - absolutely. The greatest film ever made, as so many have claimed it to be? Not in my opinion. But worth watching all the same.

We also finished The Thick of It series which made me almost yearn for my former British workplaces in a very, very weird way. Though I don’t think I’ll ever yearn for the one that had its office inside Paddington station.

We’ve just started watching The Newsreader, which is on ABC iview here and I believe is also on BBC iPlayer in the UK. It’s just brilliant. If you liked Morning Wars (which is what it’s called here, because we have a show called The Morning Show, which is what it’s called everywhere else), you will love this - I think it’s even better, in many respects. We’re two episodes in and I’m already hooked. The series is set in Australia in 1986 and there’s something quite surreal about watching something set in a place and time when you were a young child and realising how much of it you remember.

Picking

Rainbow chard, silverbeet, cavolo nero. I also picked a big bunch of celery for my dad. In the garden itself I planted some broad beans and marked out a spot for my potatoes. Soon it will be time for spring planting!

Moving

I’ve felt like doing a lot of yoga this week - I really love Jessica Richburg’s channel on Youtube. She has a lot of lovely gentle practices. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence but ending my work day with some gentle yin yoga has also coincided with me sleeping better than usual. So I’ll be curious to keep that practice up!

Noticing

Magnolias in full bloom, everywhere. How the air when you go outside at night is fragrant with jasmine and wattle flowers. How alive everything suddenly looks and feels after a long winter. And yet, the minute you change your bedsheets back to the spring and summer ones, the nights suddenly dip back to a freezing two degrees!

Quote of the week

It had to be Hilary, of course. There were so many I could have picked but this one felt apt:

“The things you think are the disasters in your life are not the disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it.” - Hilary Mantel

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything else, with me, please do! Wishing you all a happy and safe weekend, filled with enjoyable things xx

this week

The ducks in the Botanical Gardens have so much personality and always make me smile!

There was snow on the mountain and ice on our windows this week, so I think winter has definitely arrived. I wore my favourite scarf in all my Zoom meetings and video chats with overseas pals. “Ah, it’s your turn to wear the woolies now,” laughed my dear friend Lisa in the UK, who’d noted my tank tops and dresses over the Australian summer with longing!

There’s been a lot of ‘not easy’ weeks in recent history. I’m learning to roll with it. In one of the podcasts I listened to this week, they quoted Eckhart Tolle who said: “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” Obviously that won’t apply to everything (it would be a bit insensitive to say it to someone who has just suffered a tragic loss, for example) but I appreciate this quote for the fact that it encourages you take back some power, particularly in situations where you feel very vulnerable and at the mercy of others. What is the lesson you can take from it? If you had intended this situation, what was it that you were trying to learn? Sometimes it can help to ask yourself that question, to make meaning out of hard times rather than wallow. As I am wont to do on occasion, admittedly!

I have drawn a lot of lessons from this recent period in my life but the overriding one is to trust myself and my instinct, always. It is very rarely wrong. This week, it was proved right once more and I will never, ever ignore it again.

Favourite experience/s of the week

Having my dear friend Isabel round for dinner! I hadn’t seen her for over three years and it was wonderful to be reunited. I cooked Pip Lincolne’s casserole again, perfect comfort food for a freezing night, and we talked for hours about writing, life, politics, and everything in between. You know how some people in your life are just balm for the soul? Iz is one of those people for me.

I also thoroughly enjoyed this month’s Hidden Nerve lecture, and discussing it with a lovely new friend who I’ve met through the course over Zoom the next day. We were both stunned that we were drinking the same tea, the same way (black, no milk or sugar), in two different parts of the country! I love life’s delightful surprises and synchronicities.

Reading

Sydney Review of Books: Critic Swallows Book by Catriona Menzies-Pike which argues that Trent Dalton, a phenomenally successful Australian author, is “the definitive novelist of Scott Morrison’s Australia” which I found very compelling and deeply thought-provoking. And let’s hope that Scott Morrison’s Australia will be a thing of the past after the election tomorrow.

I also loved Notness by Oliver Reeson who reviewed Yves Rees’ memoir of transition with great care and insight. I found Reeson’s ideas about representation, “reinforcing difference through representation, and how this relates to social power” and what this particular book said about these things really interesting, especially the way global popular culture validates certain ways of being. Reeson writes: “In fevered discussions about the importance of representation in popular culture we are forgetting how many cultures exist, quite successfully, completely outside of global popular culture [my emphasis]. In this idea that a way of being can only be taken up if it is first modeled and seen in popular culture, we are engaging in a bizarre denial of our humanity, ignoring that most of our impulses originate in our mind and bodies, rather than being taken in from an external source.”

Write or Die Tribe: Brad Listi: On Writing Autofiction, Working Through Failure, Quitting Twitter, and His New Novel, "Be Brief and Tell Them Everything" - I enjoyed this interview because it’s always validating to hear other authors talk about the process of trying and failing while you’re writing a book, experimenting with form, realising the form is wrong and starting again, or going in a completely new direction with a work.

Nathan Bransford: I’ve followed Nathan’s blog for years and this week’s post on Breaks, permission and writing was very timely and relatable!

The Wilderness Cure by Mo Wilde - this book is coming out in August, and I was lucky to get an advance Kindle copy to review. I really liked it! A compulsively readable, engaging and compelling book about a woman who decides to spend an entire year eating only wild food - what she can forage. And the challenge begins at the end of 2020 just as Scotland is heading into winter... I think a lot of us would like to think we eat seasonally and locally, but this book showed me that there's a lot more I could be doing to tread more lightly on the earth. One scene has had a profound impact on me - when Mo floats the idea of making a video to encourage people to eat organic food. She proposes making a gorgeous dinner full of organic produce, then placing it in front of people who aren't convinced of the benefits organic food, along with a shot glass of the legal amounts of pesticide and herbicide that you'd typically ingest with non-organic food, to pour over their food like you would a salad dressing. What a brilliant idea. I think such a video would almost certainly go viral and have an incredible impact. Overall, this book comes highly recommended to anyone interested in foraging, eating locally (that's an understatement!) and the natural world. Mo's passion and commitment is obvious and admirable in this very enjoyable and, I think, important book.

I also just read Caitlin Moran’s More Than A Woman and found it very enjoyable too, but more of a memoir this time and less a gritty, full-of-fight manifesto than its predecessor, her massively successful How To Be A Woman, was. Of course one can only write what one knows, but it’s then important to note that this isn’t a book all women will relate to, as the stories are told through a white, cis and educated lens. The parts about her daughter’s illness, however, were beautifully written and very moving.

Listening to

TIDAL inner autumn, yoga, running and writing beats playlists

I’ve also just discovered the Kronos Quartet - wow! Do you know of them? I’m quite blown away.

Best Friend Therapy: Endings - Are they a bad thing? What’s the difference between loss and change? How do we make meaning? I don’t know how they manage it, but the themes of this podcast always seem to be incredibly timely for me. Lots of useful stuff in this episode.

Eating

I had to think about this and try to recall from memory because, since being off social media, I don’t really take photos of my food all the time any more, nor that many selfies, which I find very interesting. I sometimes go through my phone looking for photos to accompany my This Week post and there’s very little, in comparison to how many photos I used to take.

We had the aforementioned Pip casserole for several lunches and dinners, either thinned out with stock as a soup, or with reheated with rice. I also made this wonderful West African Peanut Stew which I’ve made many times since discovering Rachel Ama and her wonderful books over the summer. If you love peanut butter it’s a must-try, and also a great way to clean out all the peanut butter jars sitting in my pantry with a teaspoon or two left stuck to the bottom! I also turned leftovers of this into a soup by thinning out with stock. Gorgeous!

We also discovered, thanks to a kind hostess gift from Iz, these morsels of heaven:

I don’t think I’ll ever eat any kind of chocolate again! They are seriously incredible.

Picking

I’ve been picking ruby chard, celery and kale - there’s still plenty to be had out there. I planted garlic last weekend and to my delight the soil was soft, crumbly and dark, like coffee grounds, and writhing with healthy worms. Bodes well for spring planting!

Watching

The football (by which I mean AFL) with my sister and her husband - I don’t know any of the players any more! I only recognise the commentators….who were players when I last followed the AFL with any seriousness, which was about 15 years ago. My lack of knowledge is a source of great hilarity to the family, as you can imagine.

Long Way Up (Apple TV) - the Long Way series, where Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman attempt epic motorbike journeys across the world, are our very favourites. No matter our mood, we can put an episode or two of any of the series on and it’s guaranteed to make us smile and ignite that spark of adventure in us. Long Way Up is the latest in the series, filmed 2019 and released in 2020, where Ewan, Charley and their loveable crew ride electric motorcycles and electric vehicles from the bottom of Argentina to Los Angeles, California - 13,000 miles in 100 days. It’s quite the adventure! I love that Ewan and Charley did the whole thing with such mindfulness of the environmental impact and wanting to show that these kind of epic, off-road trips are possible to do with electric vehicles.

Rick Stein’s Secret France (DVD) - I don’t know what it is about cooking shows, but they are the TV equivalent of a foot massage. I find watching them deeply relaxing, nothing makes me switch off as instantly as seeing Rick, Nigella, Jamie or even John and Gregg on the screen. I particularly enjoy Rick’s shows because they combine travel and cooking. Long Weekends is probably my favourite but this one, which takes him all over the less-visited parts of France where there is plenty of good food and wine to be found, is also fabulous. I do wish he’d get another dog sometimes. That Chalky was quite a character!

Quote of the week

“I must choose between despair and energy - I choose the latter.” - John Keats

I’m going to take a few weeks off from my weekly posting, as I need to focus on some other projects, but I will be back with a vengeance in June. Until then, my friends, stay safe and well and know I am cheering you on, whatever it is you’re striving for or working through.

And as always, if you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything, with me, then please do! Thank you for reading xx