catching up

My favourite hot cross buns in Hobart are from Jackman and McRoss - no mixed peel sadly (why does everyone hate it?I love it!) but with apricots and hazelnuts instead.

Hello friends - I can hardly believe we’re in the middle of April already! I had a post almost fully written just before Easter for you but then Squarespace logged me out while writing it and…that was that, it was all gone. I’m afraid I didn’t have the strength to rewrite it immediately!

Life has been full and busy, with deadline after deadline, but that is to be expected when you run a business, are in the final year of a PhD and like to keep your hand in with freelance journalism! But I am loving it. I just need to keep up the self care, which has always been a challenge. But I’m trying to get better at it - at the suggestion of one of my supervisors, I have a list of rewards that I decided to treat myself to when I reach certain milestones (two of those arrived, more on those further down!). Tom and I have also put some fun things in the diary to look forward to.

Favourite experience/s of the week

We had a lovely Easter celebration with the family - last year Tom and I started a new Easter tradition for the nieces and nephews, the Easter lucky dip, and we continued it this year, which was great fun. We get a number of big bags of mini M&Ms, Mars Bars, Cadbury Dairy Milk, Malteasers, all kid-friendly things and whack them inside a sack (well, pillowcase), along with a booby prize, which is usually a packet of dried chickpeas or pearl barley from the cupboard. Each child (though quite a few of them are teenagers now!) then picks a prize from the pillowcase and it’s so much fun, everyone seems to enjoy the suspense and theatricality of it. This year, our three-year-old niece picked the booby prize of pearl barley (we had given her a little chocolate bunny separately, I didn’t think her parents would appreciate her being given an entire bag of mini Mars Bars) which she actually seemed quite delighted by!

But the best moment of the past few weeks was Tom getting 100% on his Australian citizenship test!

Reading

Alice Pung is one of my favourite writers - I loved her workshop in Hidden Nerve last year on gesture - and so I was delighted to pick up a copy of her latest novel, One Hundred Days, which was shortlisted for last year’s Miles Franklin (probably the highest literary honour in this country). I devoured it in an afternoon, lying in bed, hot water bottle pressed to the abdomen (which made me feel a lot of the book’s content quite viscerally!). It’s simply outstanding. Set in the late 1980s, which I really enjoyed, it was almost a retelling of the Rapunzel story - an intense mother-daughter relationship which is taken to a new level of smothering and control when the teenage daughter discovers she’s pregnant. She tries and fails to keep it from her overbearing mother, who loves as fiercely and protectively as she knows how, but which leaves the daughter feeling like a prisoner, quite literally. It’s a tense and almost claustrophobic narrative at times but also very funny in places too. I really loved it.

The New Yorker: The Unexpected Grief of a Hysterectomy

British Vogue: Bernardine Evaristo: 2023 Is A Breakthrough Year For Black British Women Novelists

The Cut: My Marriage Was Never The Same After That - oof, I felt every word of this.

Lit Hub: The Hero We Need: Keanu Reeves is Demolishing All Our Dumb Stereotypes - I did not realise that there is an entire sub-genre of Celebrity Studies entirely dedicated to Keanu Reeves, especially in relation to his representations of masculinity. Just one of the many rabbit holes I fall down on a daily basis when doing my PhD work! Tom and I have ended up having a bit of a Keanu season as a result and we’ve both enjoyed thinking about his films through that lens.

I also read Ashley Kalagian Blunt’s new crime-thriller Dark Mode in just a few days - it’s really quite gripping, despite the dark and disturbing subject matter. Not normally my preferred genre but having listened to Ashley talk about it on her podcast for the last few months, I was very excited and intrigued to read it. I also loved that it was set in Sydney! Masterfully crafted and absolutely riveting, you’ll find it hard to tear yourself away - and do not read it at bedtime is all I will say. Ashley’s also shared a lot of the inspiration behind Dark Mode on her blog, which is also fascinating reading.

I’m re-reading Stephanie’s Journal (now out of print) for about the millionth time - always a good comfort read, and I always notice something different, something else to relate to. This time what has struck me most is the restraint with which she writes about difficult situations, especially in friendships and professional relationships breaking down. The details are spare but her anguish is very plain.

I borrowed this vegan cookbook from the library - I love how a local author can be easily identified by the map of Tassie sticker on the spine! - and was quite enthralled by all the delicious ideas. I think I’ll have to get my own copy, which you can get direct from the Bob Brown Foundation or Hobartians can stroll into Fullers and grab a copy by the looks of it. See Eating for more!

Listening to

I have been listening to Alexandra Stréliski’s new album Néo-Romance non-stop - it’s the perfect writing music. Londoners, she’s playing there on 4 May! I so wish I could go! If you love haunting, melodic piano (similar to my beloved Ludovico but she’s most definitely got her own style), I think you’ll love her work.

The First Time: Masters Series with Cate Kennedy - OMG this was amazing. So full of insight and reassurance. Cate Kennedy said some wonderful things, but this I played back several times: “it’s uncomfortable to write. To make anything is a state of of discomfort because you have to sit with it being in an imperfect state for a long time.”

I’ve also been enjoying revisiting the music of Riyuichi Sakamoto who sadly died at the end of March. His last album 12, released in January, is wonderful.

Inner winter playlist, on repeat!

Best Friend Therapy remains a favourite podcast, I’m always glad when Monday rolls around because I have a new episode to listen to! The episode on guilt was especially helpful - that very day the episode dropped I was in a conundrum about something, and through listening I realised that I didn’t actually feel guilty about my feelings, because I trusted them, I just felt afraid to express them. It’s easy to mistake fear for guilt, it turns out.

Eating

Tom and I went out for brunch for the first time in ages - it feels quite wondrous going into cafes again, though I am still a little skittish at times - and we were both in raptures over the Scrambled Stunner at the Little Lotus Cafe. This was scrambled tofu, squares of crispy polenta, chargrilled broccolini, tomato chilli jam and rice paper ‘bacon’. Absolutely delicious! I also enjoyed a proper chai alongside.

This pasta was also a stunner - this is parsnip pasta! Not sweet, if that’s what you’d be thinking with parsnips. Made with wholewheat spaghetti, some smoked vegan cheese, kale and chilli, it was a real treat! I also used Jamie Oliver’s trick of roasted the parsnip peel in the oven with some nutritional yeast (he uses Parmesan). I will never compost parsnip peel again - it was amazing.

I love Shepard avocado season! It divides the nation every year - from February to April - but I don’t know what the fuss is about. They’re lovely! Far better than hand-grenade Hass, who go from perfect to inedible in what feels like half a day. Shepards last well and are nearly always blemish-free. The flesh of Hass oxidises far more quickly too. We’ve enjoyed Shepards on toast, in salad, every which way we’d normally enjoy an avocado and think they’re fabulous. Shepard forever!

I made a vegan zucchini and potato bake from zucchini and potatoes from my garden, which was absolutely sumptuous. There were leftovers, which I blended into another batch of zucchini butterbean soup a week later.

This is the chilli sin carne from Lisa Searle’s Feeding the Resistance mentioned in the Reading section. It was scrumptious! I followed her suggestion to make it mild and then smothered my own portion in pickled jalapeños! Perfect cold weather food. We loved this and the recipe made enough for me to stock the freezer with, and leftovers (with rice) for both of us to take to our respective offices the following day.

I had leftover porridge from breakfast a few days ago and was moved to make porridge bread for the first time in quite a while. It was divine. It’s so wholesome and delicious, like having porridge and toast for breakfast in one. We enjoyed thick slabs of it toasted with marmalade and cultured oat butter for breakfast, and with soup for dinner. It was so good I deliberately made extra porridge for breakfast today so we could have another loaf for the weekend. It’s in the oven as we speak and the house smells heavenly.

I roasted a whole heap of root vegetables (and a broccoli stalk) - including beetroot I grew myself - for a yummy quinoa salad.

Other meals have been the standard tofu fried rice, frozen dumplings, sweet potato mac and cheese, baked potatoes and kimchi, and leftovers thereof. I’ve also made this vegan bolognese which was out-of-this-world good - it stocked the freezer and we have plenty of leftovers in the fridge.

These chocolates were one of my “yay, you did it!” rewards to myself - I got the Love and Light Bundle, which is a box of their artisan chocolates (the Lover’s Box) and a divine sandalwood and vanilla candle. I was seriously impressed with the delivery - I ordered them on Monday evening and they were in Tassie by midday on Wednesday, packed in ice! These chocolates are unbelievable. Handmade in Byron Bay, vegan, free of all nasties, packed with superfood ingredients and natural flavours, I can’t get over how decadent and delicious they are. And seriously satisfying - Tom and I shared three between us and that was more than enough! I’ve not made my way through the whole box yet but my top three flavours so far are Coconut & Cashew with Vanilla, Dark Peppermint Creme with Matcha and Butter Caramel Pecan with Cinnamon. Seriously, I may never eat any other kind of chocolate again. If you love chocolate and want to treat yo self (and you should), I would highly recommend them.

Drinking

You guessed it - my favourite. Nothing like a proper chai this time of year.

Picking

The garden has been full of delicious things - the aforementioned potatoes, zucchini and beetroot, and yesterday I picked nearly 1kg of cherry tomatoes which went into my vegan ragu. I held out so little hope of the tomatoes going red that I hadn’t been to check on them for some time, and some of them had exploded from overripe-ness on the vine. Whoops!

I picked another kilo or so of figs, which have been roasted and frozen for winter porridge, but there are still a handful of them ripening on the branches. Some green beans, which I’ll pick to go with our shepherd’s pie this evening. It looks like we have a few pumpkins on the vine too.

My parents told me to go and pick some of their apples and tomatoes while they were away on the mainland, so I picked a bag of each. I stewed the apples with lots of cinnamon and vanilla into a delicious compote, which we’ve had with porridge most mornings, and the tomatoes became a kasundi, one of my signature condiments. I used to make it for neighbours and workmates in London who all loved it. It’s great made with tinned tomatoes as well as fresh. I use Anna Jones’ recipe.

I bought lots of basil from Hill Street Grocer today (on special!) so I think I’ll make a pesto with it together with the beetroot stalks and leaves. I also have a giant half of a red cabbage to do something with - I might make Nigella’s pickled red cabbage from Cook Eat Repeat.

Watching

As mentioned, Tom and I had a very Keanu-themed Easter thanks to my sudden interest (as mentioned above)! We watched John Wick (the first one), A Scanner Darkly and Street Kings, all on 4K BluRay. These sorts of films, it must be said, aren’t usually my cup of tea but it was fascinating to watch them taking particular note of how the roles Keanu Reeves plays are nearly always a comment on some variation of masculinity, and reflect the profound importance of kindness. Tom, of course, was thrilled that I wanted to watch these movies and dissect them from these particular angles! Film is his thing.

I always associate Easter with Little Women - very odd I know, as it’s more of a Christmas film - because the Gillian Armstrong directed version was released on video (!) at Easter when I was a teenager. My sisters and I watched it on Good Friday, eating our fish fingers and chips. For the longest time I was very protective of that particular version, I thought nothing could touch it (and I still think Christian Bale is a very charming Laurie) and I was sceptical when a new adaptation came out in 2019, even though it was written and directed by my best friend Greta Gerwig. But then I watched it. I should never have doubted Greta. It’s without question the best version of the story I’ve ever seen. So we watched that for our Good Friday movie and both laughed and cried, as usual! Utter perfection.

Succession (Binge) - after two very lacklustre episodes (we thought) to start Season 4, this week’s episode was a nail biter! A complete return to form for the series that both Tom and I were left reeling from! Who else has watched it?!

I’m also still making my way through a complete rewatch of Call the Midwife which is definitely my comfort watch (though there’s nearly always some dark tale at the heart of each episode). I adore it.

Wearing

It’s getting cold and therefore one needs SOCKS. I went to see Tracy and Jen at Red Parka in town, who sell delightful, colourful, warm and ethically-made bamboo socks. And I love that they have Tasmanian animals on them! I bought some fairy wren ones and some pademelons. I wasn’t sure if the 7-11 would fit me, as I am an 11, so I got the pademelons in an 11-14, just in case. I’m happy to report the 7-11 fit perfectly and the 11-14 are a little big, but both very comfortable and fun to wear either way!

I really love socks, I’ve discovered.

Another of my making-a-deadline rewards was this Ipsum Face Oil Intense which I’ve been wanting to try for a long time since I read about it in an article about winter skincare dos-and-don’ts (Spaced fans, you’ll get the joke I’m sure) a few years back. I’ve only been using it for about 10 days and it’s already giving me a glow. It may well be the best thing I’ve ever put on my face. It smells divine, full of lavender, chamomile and fragonia, and feels delightful and nourishing on the skin. Everything feels smoother since I’ve been using this oil. It’s just beautiful and I can imagine it will help keep my skin in good condition over winter. Ipsum very kindly included a full-size Cleansing Oil Balm with my order too, as that product has just recently won Best Skincare Product at The Best of The Green Edit Awards. I can see why, it’s also lovely and leaves my skin so soft! It also arrived within a week of ordering and I got a lovely personal email from the director of the company to thank me for my order. Supporting small businesses for the win!

Proud of

As mentioned, my darling husband studied hard and learned all about Australia’s history, system of government, culture and various other things for his citizenship test, which he got 100% on! We were both so thrilled and relieved. Not that I thought for a minute that he wouldn’t pass, but something of this nature always has a lot riding on it (I remember it well when I did my British citizenship test and interviews). I am more proud of him than I can say.

Quote of the week

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.” - Coco Chanel

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything else, with me, please do! I hope you’ve been keeping well and that you’re also finding things in your life to savour and ponder, that give you pleasure and comfort.

Please note: this particular blog post does not contain any affiliate links. Usually I have affiliate links for books I mention but this week I couldn’t be bothered, haha! I’ve not been paid or asked to endorse anything in this post. Everything I’ve mentioned and linked to is a genuine recommendation - but that is always the case :)

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 week

Blossom watch has started….

We’re at that time of year where the mornings are getting (slightly) lighter and we’re no longer under a cloak of darkness at 4:45pm; where you can see bright jonquils springing up in gardens and the beginnings of blossom on the trees. There’s still frost on the cars in the mornings, the air is still bitingly cold, and I can’t see myself wearing a dress without tights any time soon, but we have entered that stage in the season where everything is waking up, the wheel is turning and soon there will be barbecues, bare arms and beach swims after work again. I’m looking forward to summer. Winter has felt especially long this year, even after spending some of it in the UK. A weird feeling, but then it’s been a pretty weird year.

Favourite experience/s of the week

A book was sent to me to review and it must have been sent from the future because it was (mistakenly) addressed to “Dr Philippa Moore” which made me laugh but also filled me with utter delight. That’s still at least two and a half years away but nice to think it might have already happened in a parallel universe!

Browsing a bookstore looking for a gift for a friend while it poured with rain outside and acoustic Missy Higgins was playing on the stereo.

A walk at dusk with Tom where we encountered many friendly wallabies. Some fellow walkers also enjoying the area after dark mentioned that tawny frogmouths (a bit like owls) can be seen on occasion!

Hearing that a surprise I sent a friend in New Zealand made it there!

A lovely chat with my dear friend in London, seeing her sitting in her garden with the sun beating down, and finding it so bizarre that I was sitting in the exact same place just two months ago!

Solitude as I worked in my office at uni, which smells of old library books and chai. Two of my favourite smells.

Having dinner with my sister and my nephew, who is a sweet and caring young man who I am really enjoying getting to know better.

Things I was grateful for this week

A few clear sunny days in a row, in which to hang washing out and get it dry. Ah, the things you get excited about in your forties!

Encouragement, support and always useful feedback from my PhD supervisors, which led to a productive week.

The abundance of my tiny garden, even in winter, with chard, spinach and thick celery picked fresh for nearly every meal.

When the little stings come, being able to absorb the wisdom of other writers who have been there. And having a husband who also gives the best hugs.

A healthy body that can walk and run and take just about anything I throw at it. But, as Neil Young put it, “I’m gettin’ old” so eye tests have also been booked. On that note, I’m also grateful to live in a country with public healthcare where eye tests are still bulk-billed.

Also grateful to science and the caring medical professionals who gave Tom and I our second covid boosters today - our fourth jab in total. Vaxxed to the max!

A few poetry collections I’m savouring at the moment.

Reading

Poetry. Mountains of it. I can’t get enough. The picture shows a few of the collections I’m working my way through (most of them purchased from Foyles in London). I also have the collected works of Philip Larkin, Adrienne Rich and Judith Wright which I’ve been dipping in and out of. Online, my discoveries of the week were Felicity Plunkett’s “What the Sea Remembers” and Anne Sexton’s “Her Kind”. Nikki Gemmell once said that poetry is her tuning fork when she writes fiction, and it is mine too.

The Conversation: A Brief History of Curry in Australia by my colleague Dr Frieda Moran (curried wombat was once a thing, apparently!)

Lithub: The Childfree Effigy: On Network’s Diana and the Tropes that Betray Women. A brilliant essay on how the image of a childfree woman has been controlled in Hollywood over the past five or so decades. “Were it women directing 85 percent of Hollywood films today, how might that change the global perception of power, and even power itself?” So much yes in this article!

The Guardian: Greta Gerwig films - ranked! Greta is one of my favourite directors (if not my favourite….though Jane Campion has held top spot for a long time) and I enjoyed this ranking of all her films, that she’s directed, written or acted in. I disagree with Greenberg being number one though! Ladybird or Little Women should have grabbed that spot. Thoughts, fellow Greta fans?

Sydney Review of Books: Taking our Time - a very interesting essay about how academic work has both intensified and been increasingly devalued over the last few decades, and hence how time is measured in relation to academic workloads, as well as freedom to pursue research and thought without (too much) restraint or control, has changed. Lots of food for thought.

Listening to

After hearing an unfamiliar song of hers in the bookshop, I’ve been listening to everything Missy Higgins has recorded since 2012. Her latest EP Total Control is fabulous. “Watch Out” is my favourite track.

Michael Kiwanuka - so fantastic. I particularly love “Piano Joint (This Kind Of Love)” and the Claptone remix of “You Ain’t The Problem”. That’s been a particularly reassuring song for the last year or so!

Fable released a new album, Shame, last week and Tom is a huge fan! We listened to it on repeat over the weekend and I really loved it. Powerful, intense and haunting, but so listenable.

But my most incredible listening experience of the week is in the Watching section….

Thursday’s tofu fried rice - always a favourite!

Eating

The week’s eats were as follows:

Saturday: Pasta bake

Sunday: Minestrone soup with homemade bread

Monday: Sweet potato and lentil curry (made with my homemade Sri Lankan curry powder) and rice

Tuesday: Linda McCartney’s Deep Dish Pie with mash, green beans and peas, which I made for my sister and nephew who joined us for dinner. They brought a warm vegan brownie for dessert, which was also scrumptious! No leftovers, unsurprisingly.

Wednesday: Minestrone soup with homemade bread (leftovers from Sunday)

Thursday: Tofu fried rice (using leftover rice from Monday)

Tonight: who knows?! Probably pasta. Maybe sweet potato mac and cheese (which I now make a vegan version of - and it’s so good!)

There have also been a lot of winter smoothies for breakfast. A winter smoothie is, quite simply, a smoothie made with a mixture of fresh winter fruits and dried fruits. A typical one for me and Tom is:

one large apple/one large pear/one large orange + one frozen banana + two Medjool dates + frozen or fresh spinach + ground flaxseed/LSA + maca powder + tahini/peanut butter + cinnamon + almond milk + a hefty scoop of porridge oats. All blended together. It tastes amazing! And gets lots of fibre and good things into you.

Admittedly, it’s not the most warming breakfast on a two degree morning when there’s frost on the cars outside (!) but always delicious! Add a side of Vegemite toast and that’s our WFH breakfast most days. Smoothies were something I really missed when we were couch-surfing/housesitting/staying with my parents when we first moved back here. No one seemed to have a blender!

Next week we have a few long work days in a row so this weekend will most likely involve a few cook-ups so there’s a tub of soup, curry or pasta sauce to simply reheat when we get in. I’m keen to try a few new things too so we’ll see what inspires me! I’m keen to make those cabbage rolls I made last week again, so let’s hope Hill Street Grocer has plenty of cabbages…

Watching

The most profound watching (and also listening) experience of my week was Kasey Chambers’ cover of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”. The original was a favourite running song of mine in years gone by but this is something else. I found myself in tears at this performance’s energy and power. There was something about this song being sung by a woman in her 40s, hair spilling down to her waist and a banjo in her hands, a song of melancholy, anger and hopelessness, and how it slowly built and built until it exploded into energy and power and…magic, for want of a better word. Seriously, just watch it. I have barely stopped thinking about it.

Tom and I also enjoyed a long overdue rewatch of a favourite film, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. This film is very special to us. We went to see it at the cinema in September 2010, a few days after we were married. My parents had left that day to return to Australia and we were feeling a bit blue, as we always were when Aussie family and friends departed after a visit, and in need of perking up, we decided to stroll up the King’s Road and go to the movies. The minute the film started, we knew we were going to love it - and we did! It was absolutely hilarious and still is, nearly twelve years later. I also recognised a lot of places in the movie from my trip to Toronto (where it’s set) which at the time had only been three years earlier (it has now been 15 years!!). On my trip I had paid a visit to the record store (Sonic Boom) and I so loved going to Second Cup for my signature beverage at the time (I’m sure you can guess). It’s just one of those movies that’s full of good memories and associations for us, and one I think we’ll probably watch once a year forever and never tire of. Do you have a movie like that?

Quote of the week

“I’m just going to write because I cannot help it.” - Charlotte Brontë. This is a card I bought at the Haworth Parsonage in Yorkshire in June, which I plan to have framed for my study at some point.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything else, with me, please do! I hope you’re keeping safe, well and warm or cool, wherever you are xx

this week

A favourite corner of my living room, especially around 4:30pm this time of year, when the light is fading, necessitating candles and fairy lights.

Didn’t I just do one of these?! Does anyone else feel like the weeks are flying by at the moment?

Let’s get to it!

Favourite experience/s of the week

A pre-paper selfie I took for my friend in Melbourne sending supportive “go get ‘em!” texts - I don’t look nervous but I was!

Despite all of the nervousness leading up to it, I actually loved giving a paper to my UTAS colleagues and fellow HDRs at lunchtime today. It’s so funny, I know that I know my material and I always feel such a buzz afterwards. I even enjoy it while I’m doing it, dry mouth, racing heart and all. But the lead up to giving a paper is always excruciating for me. What am I so afraid of, that I’ll go completely blank and be rendered speechless? Or that there will be a technical malfunction that my peers will use as an excuse to tease and humiliate me? In my brain’s defence, that has happened to me before, but only once and I was 13 years old at the time which was the best part of 30 years ago now (what?! That can’t be right). It was a very scarring experience, but perhaps it’s time I stopped giving those memories so much power. I find giving a paper regularly is the best remedy for getting over my stage fright. I also discovered an excellent podcast this week that really helped (see the Listening section).

My darling husband also bought me some flowers because he was proud of me, which was so sweet. I love having flowers in our home.

I also loved seeing my family on Sunday for a belated birthday gathering - which felt very strange, because my birthday was at the end of May (while we were in the UK) and now it’s the middle of July! But whatever, it’s been a weird year. Mum made my favourite dip (hummus) as the centrepiece for her usual amazing spread and a delicious cake, and my nephew and niece helped me blow out the candles. It was lovely!

Reading

Bedtime reading is The Bloomsbury Cookbook which I’m finding fascinating. If time travel were possible, one of my choices would be to attend a pre-WW1 Bloomsbury Group meeting - what a bunch of characters they were. Though I daresay I would have become infatuated with the wrong person and had my heart broken - it seems to be a common theme so far!

Also related is Square Haunting: Five Women, Freedom and London Between The Wars which I am loving - it’s both a pleasure read and very relevant to my research, because I too am exploring ideas of female subjectivity and self realisation in relation to place. I’m focusing on colonial Hobart and Sydney, but I really admire how Francesca Wade has structured this and it’s given me lots of ideas. It’s absolutely fascinating so far!

I finished The Missing Ingredient by Jenny Linford, which was a birthday gift from a dear friend in London. It was such a thought-provoking book about the role time plays in creating great flavour in food. And you might be surprised by the kind of food that responds well to a bit of extra time taken - jam, for example! It was a really interesting read that I enjoyed dipping in and out of. And it made me wish I had read it before we went back to the UK so I might have sought out some of the products mentioned (not that we had much time for shopping in the end!) - but there’s always next time!

The Village by Matt and Lentil Purbrick - I borrowed this from the library as I’m missing my vegetable garden (which is currently asleep for winter) and wanted to get some inspiration and ideas for spring planting. I’m excited to plant some companion plants this year, like marigolds and Queen Anne’s lace, which will hopefully distract the pests! I have also learned my lesson and will PLANT EARLY this spring! I can't wing it here like I used to in my London courtyard. If you want some inspiration for your home veggie patch and living more sustainably and in a more community-minded way, this is a great book to get you started!

The Guardian: Growing up trans in country Australia by Candace Bell

Open Book (State Library of New South Wales): On literary merit by Kerryn Goldsworthy

The Offing: Fourteen Ways of Looking by Erin Vincent

BBC News: We found a baby on the subway - now he’s our son - get tissues for this one!

The Audacity: Knee Deep by Sandy Silverman

Listening to

My “writing beats” playlist which is perfect for client work, editing, writing emails, writing blog posts and also getting psyched up before giving a paper! It’s also great “getting ready to go out and party” music, not that I do much of that these days!

Lots of affirmations this week too on Insight Timer, the meditation app I have used for the last six years. I hit 1900 consecutive days this week which is a bit scary…in terms of how many years that is, but in days it doesn’t seem like that long.

My inner autumn playlist was on repeat.

WILD with Sarah Wilson: You are weird! Here’s the scientist who can explain why

The Imperfects: Glenn Robbins - Listening To The Voice In Your Head - I loved this interview with Glenn and the message felt particularly resonant for me this week. Glenn spoke candidly about how he has battled performance anxiety and nerves for pretty much his entire career, and how he has learned to listen to the encouraging voice in his head rather than the one that tells him he isn’t good enough. It got me through this week and the nerve-wracking thing I had to do! This is my new favourite podcast, all about resilience and vulnerability, and I can’t wait to listen to the back catalogue!

The Full Vegan

Eating

Have I introduced you to The Full Vegan yet? This is a brunch meal that Tom and I started making in January when we accidentally went vegan and enjoyed it so much we’ve kept it up (like many things I decided to do over the summer!). It’s avocado toast, hash browns made in the air fryer, baked beans, sautéed mushrooms - those are the Big Four (even though Tom isn’t a fan of mushrooms, their vitamin B12 make them a great vegan food so he has a few!) and then we usually add some seasonal greens, maybe vegan sausages if we have them in. A blob of ketchup, a glass of orange juice and The Full Vegan is complete. It is absolutely delicious. And so hearty and filling, I honestly don’t miss eggs, halloumi or any of the other things we used to have for brunch at the weekends before. This week’s Full Vegan had no avocado but extra mushrooms and sautéed sprouts (very good!). We also got a new air fryer at the weekend because our old one completely died the weekend before, which I was very grumpy about - but all the grumpiness dissipated when Kmart suddenly got some stock in of the one I’d had my eye on! It’s an upgrade every sense of the word!

Spinach, risoni and lemon soup - recipe here

Bread in the bread maker!

I also made a giant pot of my favourite soup which was delightful - I hadn’t made this soup for ages, possibly not since last winter. It’s so comforting and tasty. Alas, my local grocer was out of fresh dill so I made this batch with tarragon instead. It wasn’t quite the same and I missed the dill (in my top 3 favourite herbs for sure) but it was still amazing!

We had a friend round for dinner at the weekend and we had a vegan cheese platter to start (delicious) and for main course I made the 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 before. I didn’t have pappardelle so used orecchiette instead, and it was just as good as using long pasta! I have also made my own vegan Parmesan which is pretty delicious too - I’ll write up the recipe soon.

I also dusted off our old bread maker and made a loaf in it for the first time in a while - and the house was filled with that utterly divine smell of bread baking. It was a lovely loaf with good structure, it held up well for toast all week. I enjoyed it so much I might set it going tonight so I can wake up to the smell of fresh bread! I also bought some more of my favourite Maggie Beer Seville marmalade this week….so I don’t see that I have a choice but to make more bread, frankly.

Watching

Not much this week. More Parks and Recreation (Netflix) because after some long days, I just needed some escapism and I so enjoy this show. And also The Babysitters Club (Netflix) - the last pure thing on earth. Wonderfully entertaining, enough nostalgia for me to enjoy it but updated to be inclusive, fun and modern. I adore it!

I can’t remember if I mentioned it - jet lag is real and I’m only just feeling back to normal - but we rewatched Frances Ha (we bought it on iTunes and also own it on Blu-Ray) a few weeks ago, and I adored it as much as I did when we first watched it. Greta Gerwig is one of my favourite directors and writers, and I think her work has only got stronger in recent years. I can understand why some people might find Frances Ha overrated or frustrating to watch...especially in 2022, a film about privileged 20-somethings trying to get to grips with adulthood seem to be ten a penny. But in 2012, I think it captured something. I loved it and still love it, even though my twenties were quite some time ago now! I think the film spoke to me because I was a bit of a late bloomer myself and, as long time readers will know, my own twenties were a time of great transformation and flux. I was both Frances and Sophie in some ways - I floundered for many years, and then steamed ahead and people felt like I'd left them behind. I think the movie captures that melancholy and resistance to change quite well.

Quote of the week

“Because you are alive, everything is possible.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

Thank you Jo for inspiring this weeks’s quote!

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything else, with me, please do! Stay warm, or cool, wherever you are, and I’ll look forward to chatting to you again next week…which I’m sure will be here before we know it! xx