The Daily Blog experiment – hello winter

Yesterday was a top of 20 degrees Celsius. Today, it was 14, and even cooler up in the Hills. MidWife and I had lunch at Miss Marples’ Tea Rooms in Sassafras.

I don’t know why people rave about the Devonshire tea. Because I have never had a good scone out of that place. The gluten ones are cut and have the consistency of a cake slice. The gluten free one I had today fell apart, was coated in flour, and tasted like flour all the way through. Dry as buggery too. Urk. Oceans of butter might have saved it, but all I had was good raspberry jam. I gave the scone up as a bad job, and contented myself with the pumpkin soup, which was excellent.

It was very obviously a tourist bus day. Every company tells their mob to eat at Miss Marples, which they dutifully do, then run around a Sassafras in the 90-120 minutes given to them to find the epitome of a Sassafras souvenir. Will it be raspberry jam? A tea cup from Tea Leaves? Woollens? A plush flying possum? whatever it is, it must be packed and if a size to go on the bus.

We trooped in and out of every shop, skittering between rain showers, and increasing cold. Fog lingered in the folds of the hills.

I can’t wear wool, but I do like stroking it, so I searched for skeins to buy and knit with over the winter. I didn’t see any. I suspect I’ll have to head to Healesville for that.

I got back into my car around 2.30pm, and drove slowly down the mountain, heater on, and Joan Anderson’s A YEAR BY THE SEA chattering quietly.

A happy, if chilly, day.

The Daily Blog experiment- Bruno’s Sculpture Garden

Last time I visited Bruno’s Sculpture Garden in Marysville was a couple of weeks before the deadly Black Saturday bushfires in 200o.

The fires burned through Marysville, and devastated the Garden. Some of the terracotta sculptures survived, but huge trees fell on others.

Sculpture salavage

Bruno always vowed to rebuild, and I think I sent him $200 towards that goal.

I’m so happy that, today, the Garden is recovered, many of my favourite sculptures are resurrected, and there are plenty of new friends to encounter around every corner.

A beautiful Autumn day, with early morning fog giving way to warm sunshine, as as I drove us through the Yarra Valley, some trees were brilliant red.

We stopped in Healesville for morning tea, and headed off again through the twisty turns around the Black Spur.

We were listening to Seanan McGuire’s book INDEXING, and that kept me from getting overly anxious about the drive.

We stopped in Marysville for take away sandwiches, and drove the extra 500m or so to the Garden.

This ‘poor poet’ is rich in my opinion. However, ask me again if I’m up here in the depths of winter.

PizzaBoy and I ate our sandwiches in the shade, sitting on a wooden bench, and listening to people’s reactions to their surroundings. One man didn’t have any reactions – he was intent on solving his Rubic’s Cube. I guess if that’s what it takes to get your husband to come with the family on an outing…

“Look through the wizard’s eyes, and get a surprise”

I noticed many more fantasy characters, rather than the ones that sprang from Bruno’s travels. He doesn’t show any sign of slowing down, and was out in the garden, pointing things out, and telling stories of the bush fires.

The Sadhu.

Of course, when I see an amazing life’s work like this, the urge to follow suit comes over me. “Get a bit of land, take some sculpture lessons, erect stuff to the fae folk.”

Sure, just like that. Maybe, Satya, you could start with some pottery classes and making a few terracotta lumpen things for your own small garden… (My ADHD pouts, because for a moment, it thought it spotted a new hyperfixation)

I guess we left the Garden around 2pm. As always, I debate with myself over buying a copy of the photo book Bruno has produced of his garden.

I know I’d end up cutting pictures out for art and to use on my altar and it seems a shame to destroy a beautiful book like that.

I’ll settle for printing some of my photos out and using those.

The drive home was tiring. I’d had gluten, a lot of sugar, and barely any fruit and veg all day.

I’m now flopped on my bed, and processing the day.

The Daily Blog experiment- A Wopping Day

Some years ago, in Hobart, Tasmania, PizzaBoy and I saw a sign from a distance saying The Wopping Shop (it may have been The Wapping Shop). Neither of us had any more tourist energy to walk there and see what it was.

Me: “It’s probably a store where you can go and potter for hours. Just looking at stuff, and avoiding the housework, family, and responsibilities. The sort of place most women want to go at 5pm, when children husbands, and assorted others want attention, food, bandages, and driving across town.”

Bill: “So you could say you’re just going to the Wopping shop for an hour. And disappear.”

Since then, both of us have declared Wopping Days. It’s shorthand for ‘I’m going out, where is none of your business, and I’ll be gone most of the day.”

For PB, this often means a trip into the city to the State Library. For me, it could mean any old thing.

Today, after Active Seniors at the gym, I took off for Ringwood. Lunch there, and a mooch through 3 op shops. From there, a pleasant country drive to Warrandtye, next to the Yarra River.

I took a short walk, then sat and watched the ducks for a bit. There’s one big white duck who everyone thinks was someone’s pet dumped to fend for itself. It’s made itself at home amongst the smaller brown ducks. He(?) was sleeping, and his head got lower, lower, until his beak touched the ground, and he’d half wake, raise his head, and start all over again. At one point he got all sleepy floppy and his neck lolled to the side. He donked his head on his own shoulder.

It’s Mabon today, the start of Autumn, and a time to give thanks for the abundance of Spring and Summer. I sat and talked to my gods, thanking them for the creativity, help, and general abundance in my life.

From there, I drove to Kilsyth and visited three more op shops. It was only as I was driving home with a good swag of books that I realised that, yes, I had an abundance of good op shop fortune today. Another small prayer of thanks while I drove back down Canterbury Rd.

And now, I will go have a warm bath full of magnesium salts, because I think the weekend’s kayaking has finally bitten me…well not quite on the bum, but certainly on the legs, shoulders and arms.

I shall lie there reading THE ZANZIBAR WIFE while I try to ease aches from my body. (The book makes me want to visit Oman, and see Bahla, the 5th most haunted city in the world. What are the first 4? No idea.)

Oh no…the bath is upstairs….

The Daily Blog experiment – changing it up

I was in a different yoga group today. Yesterday’s unpleasant visit to the sleep specialist took up my regular 10.30am Monday yoga slot, so I grabbed a spot in the Tuesday 9.15am class.

Different day, different time(hello not-quite-done peak hour traffic), different people, different spot in the room. It was all a bit discombobulating to autistic self who likes same-same.

I know our teacher plans the same class through the week, with variations in difficulty depending on the group. Well, I felt worked out, and did not realise how much I hated back bends until today. Sphinx pose – great. Can do. Reach back and grab my foot. No fucking chance. It might as well be in China.

I just didn’t want to put in the effort today. I wanted to schlop around on my mat and stare at the big elm tree outside the windows. In the matter of a few days, the leaves have gone from healthy green, to dried, brown, crispy, and on the ground. No beautiful yellow this year, due to high temperatures. Autumn got baked.

Right now at 7pm, the sky is trying to squeeze out rain.

Where are autumn’s golden days? Cooked, it seems.

Tales From The Tor – England Travel blog Day 6.2

And so we journeyed out from London, with cities becoming towns, becoming villages, and the countryside growing through the hedgerows that whipped past at speed. Our first stop was Woodhenge, a neolithic site formed in six concentric circles. It was discovered by a woman pilot, Maud Cunnington, when she sighted marks on the ground. Excavation in 1926 revealed that the marks were the remains of post holes for wooden posts. Cunnington named the site Woodhenge for its similarity and proximity to Stonehenge.

I’ve heard many theories as to the purpose of Woodhenge, one being that it was a party place, whereas Stonehenge was for more serious ritual, and another theory that this was a gathering place and staging post for ceremonial procession through a sacred landscape to Stonehenge. It certainly has a lighter feel than Stonehenge, and these days, low concrete pillars mark the post holes. Some are colourfully painted on top.

We sat in our first group circle in the hot sun, and tapped into the landscape. Whether I’m just not adept at this, or my normal psychic senses were on high protective alert, I don’t know, but throughout much of the tour, I felt little, and looked on enviously as others felt into various sites. It’s only later, as I come to write about them in a quiet atmosphere, and take myself back there in sense memory that I can interpret what I felt at the time.

The ground was warm and dry, despite recent rain. Bumble bees drifted in and out of nearby wildflowers, and small insects added to the underlying hum of the earth beneath our seated bodies. It was near to Summer Solstice, and I felt very faint and occasional wisps of unseen people in great numbers, as though through a heavy curtain, or just on the other side of this dimension. I don’t want to sound all woo-woo, or new age, but I sometimes opened my eyes, hoping to catch of glance of…I don’t know what, or who. The closest image I can give is that moment in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, when the mothership has opened, and brilliant light spills forth, and the first faint movements of the aliens are seen.

A lady called Guerna was also at Woodhenge, and placed crystals and flowers at various places around the oval of pillars. At midday, she would conduct a ritual to call in the Archangel Michael energy to heal the Earth. We were invited to add our own energy to this, and we did, placing ourselves around the oval, and tuning in, all in our own ways, to the energy she raised. I felt peaceful, if rather sweaty and hot, and my mind kept drifting like a bumble bee. “I wandered lonely as a cloud” repeated in my head, like a mantra. Not your landscape, Wordsworth. Buzz off.

Or was I feeling into the sense of Earth being dragged through space, as the Sun raced ever onwards, dragged by the Milky Way galaxy? Were we wandering lonely in space, unsure of companionship in the wider universe? If I was thinking this way on the very first day, would I, by the end of the tour, start thinking I was in the reincarnation of Queen Guinevere?

It was with gratitude when we climbed back into our bus, and made our way to the Stonehenge Visitor Centre for lunch, drink, and a sit in the shade.

Seasonal observations: high summer, Melbourne 2022

End of January, 2022.

Even though a La Nina was predicted, we’re having a heat wave. Is summer more humid that it used to be? It feels very tropical this year.

Constant humidity.

Temperatures hovering 28-35, highs overnight from about 19-25.

Salt crystal lamps sweating if not turned on all the time, hence I’m starting to get rid of them in favour of Elemental Design crystal lamps.

Most of the garden is burnt to a crisp, despite watering.

Strong harvest of cherry tomatoes, all of which I’ve given to neighbours, because I can no longer eat tomatoes. I enjoy growing them, though.

• invest in better tubs for tomatoes for next year.

The bamboo, which I thought was dead, has come back, with green leaves in amongst the dried, dead straw-coloured leaves. Roots too near the surface though.

• how to dig them in deeper in such compacted, undernourished soil?

Mint, oregano both burned and dead.

New basil plants well watered and thriving thus far.

Geraniums flourishing, but nothing kills them.

The pineapple sage is crispy. Not dead I don’t think.

• more hummingbird sage plants needed. Buy in early autumn.

Time to pull everything out of the tubs, re-vitalise the soil, and plant broccoli and spinach for winter.

Not much sign of lorikeets atm.

I hear the magpies and ravens early morning.

Galahs and corellas foraging madly.

Haven’t heard a kookaburra in a while.

White butterflies everywhere. Cabbage whites?

Saw tiny pale blue/grey butterflies yesterday. They didn’t stop still long enough for me to get a photo for identification.

Days very slowly getting shorter, sun up a minute later every morning, dark a minute earlier.

Lammas on the 31st/1st. First harvest festival. I’m supposed to bake bread. I cannot be bothered. Not only don’t I know how, but finding out how to bake gluten free sourdough is just too hard. Plus, I’d never keep the yeast alive. Supposed to be keeping away from carbs anyway. (So much for that. I had cheese on toast yesterday morning, chips with my dinner.)

None of my billy buttons came up, but L’Occitane in the Block Arcade in Melbourne had a huge display of what I think was dried billy buttons spilling out of their iconic French provincial bicycle out the front of their store. They looked a bit too yellow for billy buttons though…. Ugh, asking through their website is pointless. I got sent to ‘gift wrapping’. I’ll have to phone them.

Rain two nights ago, more rain promised today. Adelaide has been inundated, so I guess it’s our turn for a taster of that lovely rain. It could rain for days and my garden would still be thirsty.

I sweat all the time. We’ve invested in a big tub of powdered Gatorade, and both of us are drinking it daily. I’m also having water, iced herbal teas, plenty of salad, and switchel. I miss Remedy’s finger lime switchel so much. I can only order a slab of blood orange cans from Remedy, as nowhere stocks it in store. Or buy from Gorgeous George, but honestly, I don’t love any of their switchels.

• talk to The Fermentary about learning to make lime switchel, or berry switchel.

My body still feels overweight, heavy, sweaty. My hair is heavy. But my body feels clean, like I’ve attended a daily sauna. I’m sticking mainly to cool smoothies of a morning. Chai yesterday was a huge mistake. I won’t be doing that again until cooler weather, I don’t think.

I crave mint teas, Tea Tonic’s Blue magic(rose and mint in it), digestive teas. I crave salty foods, a lot of bloody hot chips dammit, and salads. Chicken. All the time skinless roast chicken. Sometimes fish.

Creativity at a low. I think my mind and body are waiting for cooler weather, and better sleep. I crave the sight of lush green, and water. Not beach, but cool English forest, rippling creeks, shady trees.

I’m deep into witchy memoirs such as THE WHEEL. Craving inhabiting my magic in a quiet way.

It doesn’t feel like the right time of year for me to be planning, sowing seeds, organising. It feels like quiet time, like I’m still in the liminal state between Xmas and New Year, when I don’t know what day it is, and hope the fridge is full of leftovers.

I presume this phase will pass, but right now, it’s reading and quiet thinking time.

Late Spring Tide, Vermont South, 2021

We are now in the late Spring tide. What I’m observing:

• weather is warmer all over. Not as cold at night, warmer during the day, even though today is cool, and has been raining.
• rainy season, but not as much as is expected from past years. The ground is quick to dry out here, being a dried out clay base that hasn’t been well nourished.
• the local sports oval – the council seems to have sprayed to poison(?) the grass, then immediately laid down a cover of sand, prior to reseeding. The old grass looked fine to me, green, and lush, and yellow daisies quick to grow. Not much sign of daisies anywhere in the park. How exactly are the bees meant to feed?
• the irises are done with. Last week they were still thriving, deep purple. In the past few days, they’ve dried out and withered, although their stalks are still hardy.
• all my rose bushes are beginning to bloom. The yellow rose bush was a little late this year, but is the most abundant now.
• the borage hums with bees on warm days. My side garden is so thick with borage and rose bushes that the nasturtiums can hardly find space.
• pineapple sage in flower, but the leaves look reddish. I didn’t cut it back during the winter, so it’s thready and straggly.
• I’ve killed off a bit more of the back lawn, prior to putting in more no-mow ground cover, and raked and refreshed the little space next to the tap that gets no sunlight. NB: what to plant there that will just keep going on its own, with benign neglect?
• local lemon trees are laden with fruit
• the orange tree cross Hawthorn Road is laden and yet the oranges aren’t being picked.
• geraniums are flowering.
• most blossom is done with on cherry plum trees. The high winds have blown a lot of it away, creating vistas that look like a wedding has gone through.
• my mint has come back after languishing all winter, and is producing BIG leaves.
• the three tomato plants I put in are going well.
• the pot of chocolate lily seeds hasn’t done much yet.
• I think tiny seedlings of basil are poking through
• my hummingbird sage is fighting the good fight against weeds but next week will be given more freedom
• my garden sage looks good and it’s on my mind to harvest some in the next week or so.
• I’ve not seen much evidence of local magpies swooping, so I’m wondering if they are nesting elsewhere this year. The usual extended family that pecks around my front lawn I haven’t seen in about three weeks.
• the weather continues to be Melbourne’s usual Spring confusion. Warm and sunny one day, sudden temperature drops, rain. However, I’m not seeing winter’s thick coats, or beanies on heads. Lighter jackets are in evidence. Too windy for umbrellas most of the time.
• my lavender is blooming after a very late cut back, and my potted rosemary is showing signs of life.
• my cats are shedding their winter coats and need a fair bit of brushing, if they’d let me. Only Penny and Chloe like brushing. Rexy, my chihuahua x jack russell, was groomed last week and Amber gave him more of a summer cut.
• I am shedding my thick winter hair growth. Thorough brushing reveals long strands of hair coming out in the brush, and during hair washing.
• plenty of birdsong and squawking.
• my own cravings for bitter teas like nettle and dandelion, sudden revulsion at winter stews. I want lighter food.
• Year 12 students officially graduated this week, and have only to sit their final exams in the coming weeks. Emmaus College had their ‘muck up day’ yesterday, and thus, young people sporting all sorts of weird outfits came past my house after 3pm.
• in yoga, everyone’s bodies are feeling achey with the changeable weather, and heavy, after a lockdown winter.
• it’s time to get out wide-brimmed hats, and buy a new bottle of sunscreen.
• more water and spring tonic teas.