Is it really summer? Tasmania hasn’t got the memo. I’ve put the winter sheets back on the bed, we’ve had snow on the mountain and yet I harvested this giant bowl of strawberries! It’s so odd.
A lot of people I know have finished work for the year and I hope this week might hold some slowing down for me and Tom too. I don’t wear this as a badge of honour, I will just share in the spirit of how I’ve always tried to be online, which is as honest, authentic and unguarded as one dares to be on the internet - it’s hard for me to rest. It’s something I feel I have to earn, and I am never entirely sure if I have. There is a dark side to being driven, ambitious and disciplined - you are afraid to ever stop in case the momentum disappears. This is something I really want to work on over the next year. And there I go again, using the word work and making it a project!
Favourite experience/s of the week
Babysitting our nephew, who is nearly three months old and the sweetest little boy. I had Bach’s Brandenberg concertos playing when he was dropped off, which I switched to Baby Shark, thinking that’s what he’d prefer…. but his dear little face screwed up and he seemed a bit restless! I put Bach back on and he was much happier, and barely made a squeak after that. He’s such a placid, happy little guy! His big sister came by after she was finished at the dentist and, a bit like me when I was her age, went looking through the pantry for things to eat. I keep forgetting to get kid friendly stuff in - all I could offer was dried apricots and vegan banana bread, which was low-sugar and had too much cinnamon in for her palate! One of my aunties had a similar pantry when I was a child - only healthy snacks, no junk food. I adore that aunty and must have subconsciously modelled myself on her for, 35 years later, I am now the aunt with healthy food in her pantry…and who plays Bach when the kids come round! I find it highly amusing. Spending time with the two youngest of our nieces and nephews is always the highlight of any week, they are the sweetest children.
Speaking of children, another high point of the week was hearing that a dear friend of mine had a baby girl on Monday. She sent me a video of baby sleeping and I could not cope with the cute!
Reading
My weekly trip to the library - always a joy to spot your own book on the shelves! It never gets old :) And what an honour to be next to Captain Sir Tom.
I received an ARC of a new memoir, All My Wild Mothers: Motherhood, loss and an apothecary garden by Victoria Bennett and I am quite spellbound by it. Poetic, compelling, heartbreaking yet hopeful, it’s beautifully written and I am quite in awe of Bennett’s strength and resilience, creating something beautiful out of life’s inevitable grief and harshness. I’m planning to read the rest during the day rather than at bedtime, as I read until nearly 1am the first night I picked it up!
Ann Patchett’s These Precious Days was one of my favourite books of 2021 and this week I read This is The Story of a Happy Marriage, an earlier collection of essays, just as interesting, funny, moving and incisive about life and the human condition. She is fast becoming one of my favourite writers.
Continuing to dip in and out of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath which I mentioned last week and am enjoying so much. Also nearly finished with Stolen Focus which is terrifying and reassuring at the same time!
All other reading was PhD related! Particularly enjoyed getting my teeth into this.
Listening to
This week I participated in an Inner Peace challenge on Insight Timer which I wasn’t expecting to get as much out of as I actually did. There were so many enlightening moments of comfort and wisdom, including this week’s Quote!
TIDAL put together a “new for you” playlist, showcasing brand new tracks from all my favourite artists and there are some bangers on there! Especially loved this one from Ben Böhmer and this one from Matthew Halsall. Tom and I are still deciding on our Albums of the Year - sometimes we pick the same one, but most years it’s different. A lot of albums I’ve discovered this year were in fact released last year!
Best Friend Therapy: Dreams - why do we dream? How can they help us? And what on earth did Elizabeth’s dream mean? This was a fascinating episode which involved some “live” therapy as Emma worked with Elizabeth to interpret the hidden meaning in a vivid dream she had had. I found it really useful to view everything and everyone that appears in your dreams as various aspects of your subconcious, not the literal people (very reassuring!).
The First Time: Masters Series: George Saunders - such a lovely man whose wise, reassuring insights into the craft of writing are revered not just by me but by so many. I really enjoyed this and it encouraged me to pick A Swim in A Pond in The Rain again, which I’ve dipped in and out of infrequently over the past year.
Otherwise, just a shit ton of Christmas music! My Christmas playlist heavily favours the Bing Crosby/Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong/Brat Pack versions of the modern carols, but there’s also some jazz instrumentals, Taylor Swift, Julia Stone and a gorgeous rendition of my favourite Coventry Carol by Kate Miller-Heidke, Jess Hitchcock, Alice Keath, Marlon Williams and Paul Kelly. I also love the King’s College Cambridge choir and Kate Rusby’s The Frost is All Over.
Eating
I made a gorgeous vegan Victoria sponge for a dear friend’s birthday on Tuesday - I used this recipe from Tesco as a base and it was brilliant. I’ll test it a few more times before I write it up but I thought it was a real winner! With fresh strawberries from my garden, it was such a delicious treat. Most of it went home with the birthday lady but I think there’s a piece left in the fridge…
Otherwise, because it’s been so damn freezing our dinners have been mostly of the warming and comforting variety, not quite what I expected for this time of year! The poor lettuce in the fridge may end up getting turned into soup at this rate! I made my favourite soup this week, as well as the following:
Tinned tomato risotto - a household favourite we hadn’t had for some time. As delicious, comforting and easy to make as always!
A pasta I made up - roasted tomatoes, walnuts and basil blended and tossed through wholewheat spaghetti.
Breadmaker bread made with Australian bush herbs, sun-dried tomatoes and green Sicilian olives.
Rachel Ama’s roast cauliflower curry from her book One Pot: Three Ways - we also had the Quinoa Pad Thai from the same book this week.
I made one of the most ambrosial meals I’ve had all year this week, one evening when Tom was out. I had read about a delicious-sounding tomato gochujang pasta in Sonya’s newsletter which I didn’t think would be quite to my beloved’s taste but that was right up my alley. I had a perfectly sized portion of pasta for one in a packet waiting to be used up and, in anticipation, I bought some Lauds cultured oat butter from Hill Street Grocer which, sidenote, is also incredible.
The recipe is from Joy Cho and I followed it to the letter but I veganised it - using the above mentioned butter, nutritional yeast, vegan “chicken style” stock and oat cream. To be honest, the only thing I missed was the Parmesan. Otherwise, it was stunning. I didn’t even take a picture of it, that’s how keen I was to tuck in. With this plate of pasta and an episode of Belgravia on ABC iview to watch, I was in heaven. There was enough sauce for another serve, but instead of cooking more pasta I just thinned it out with more stock the next day and had it as a creamy spicy tomato soup. Incredible. I will be making it again and in all honesty I think even Tommy would like it - his tolerance for chilli is a lot greater than it used to be!
Christmas cooking is in full swing! I’ve made a pear, apple and harissa chutney and Nigella’s vegan gingerbread so far. I’ve just got the vegan brownies and a few other things to do. I hope I don’t run out of time!
Drinking
We enjoyed a gorgeous Gibson ‘The Dirtman’ shiraz from the Barossa with our Friday night pasta - we were lucky enough to visit that winery back in January 2020 (where the picture is from!). Always a winner! It was the most I’ve enjoyed a bottle of wine for a while.
Something I’ve really enjoyed about blogging again is writing about my life rather than just captions for photos, which is what I did prior to stepping away from social media this year. I would have loved to have written about our trip to Western and South Australia in the way I do now. Is there an argument for doing a retrospective post? Or shall we just use it as an excuse to recreate the trip…?
PICKING
Gorgeous homegrown strawberries! I managed to get 350g into this bowl, which I used in the aforementioned birthday cake, in smoothies and then froze the rest once they started getting soft in the fridge. It’s interesting how homegrown fruit deteriorates faster than what you buy at the supermarket (is it the lack of chemicals, I wonder?). There’s more fruit to pick now, and birds to shoo away from them! But the pinwheels seem to be doing the trick for now.
In the side garden, lots of silverbeet and spinach shoots are coming up, the potato tower has another load of compost added, and tiny peas are starting to appear on the vines. I’ve planted more peas and beans, and I’ve noticed rogue tomatoes, potatoes and what looks like pumpkin starting to peek through. I just need the weather to warm up and maybe things will really spring into action.
Watching
SO many Christmas movies!
Last Christmas - We all know the Wham! Christmas anthem “Last Christmas”….but what if someone really did give you their heart?! I won’t say too much more as I’ll spoil it but if you love Christmas movies, especially Christmas movies set in London, you will adore this. Tom and I discovered it last year and it was wonderful to watch it again this Christmas - we laughed and cried throughout this watch of it. It’s a beautiful film that perfectly captures the London we lived in. Full of beauty….but also piles of garbage that one inadvertently falls into. The cast are wonderful and Emma Thompson is, as usual, magnificent. A must watch for the festive season!
Die Hard - which I found surprisingly enjoyable! Tom enjoys movies that aren’t Christmas movies strictly speaking but that are set at Christmas, which this movie is…and it’s really good fun, which I wasn’t expecting.
The Holiday - my pick, as it’s one of my favourite Christmas films, and which we both really enjoyed! This Christmas Eve we too will be having fettuccine, popping some bubbly and celebrating being young and being alive!
Happiest Season - another Netflix discovery of last Christmas, which we were saving for a rewatch. Hilarious and heartbreaking all at once, you’ll need tissues for this one too. Dan Levy steals every scene he’s in!
About A Boy - one of our favourite films (and soundtracks) and another one that has a few Christmas scenes but not technically a Christmas film but it always feels like one!
With a week until Christmas, there’s still time for more Christmas favourites….stay tuned!
Quote of the week
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” - Joseph Campbell (mentioned in one of the Inner Peace meditations this week)
If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post, or anything else, with me, please do! I hope you’re finding things to enjoy at what I know can be a tricky time of year for many (it has been for us too) and staying warm or cool, wherever you are! xx
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