Bellerive today, Evandale yesterday

I walked to the shop to get bread, milk and baklava* but mainly to observe footy fever in Bellerive.  Some team was playing some other team at Bellerive Oval and the streets have been chockers with parked cars.  The game must be over as now there is a traffic jam outside my window!  Similarly exciting, the tide was very high at the beach.

Yesterday I returned from my overnight trip to Evandale in the midlands.  It was like a lightning trip to an English village.

main street Evandale

the reason - a mission to buy a besom from The Village Store

The Stables - my accommodation behind the Village Store

 

first view of my cottage upon entering

There is parking and a huge garden at the back of the cottage.  Just my sort of late winter garden -  violets white and purple, daffodils, winter iris, a hyacinth or two, camellias and japonica in blossom and blackbirds galore.  There is a lane to Pioneer Park, an alternative way to walk to Russell Street, the main drag.

this is the back of the cottage.

Note that it's named Sasha - the reason I chose this particular cottage.

view of the cottage from the back door

It was a splendid place to stay:  furnished in the style I like with heaps of books and magazines.  I only used the telly to listen to ABC Classic and kept it on all night long - an indulgence I've long promised myself.

I took this book but got waylaid by all the magazines.  I finished it today and highly recommend it. Charmian Clift tells stories of her life on the island of Kalymnos in 1954.  She writes so well and so thoughtfully.  It was the perfect read as I emerge from a Tasmanian winter and eat baklava.

* If you search hard enough, you can discover the health benefits of baklava online.

Ron is here

The sad news is we have withdrawn our appeal against the building of the 8 units next door after planning advice that we were unlikely to win and to proceed would cost thousands more.  So I have been trying to adapt with help from the New York skyline sent by Sandrine.

possible future outlook from my bedroom window

it was quite exciting early this morning - thank you Moon

I have started using other gifts that I was saving for later,

including the set of coasters from the Floosie that I intended to use sometime when I lived in small accommodation.  The time is now.  And I had not noticed previously the pointy eared black dog.

I have been basking in culture now that it is a short bus ride away.  I have a season ticket to the Van Diemen's Band lunch box series.

last week it was the excitement of the baryton - the only one in Australia

This week it was a pianist from Melbourne.  She played gentle music but  it still seemed a bit shrill to me.  Perhaps it's the piano.

note the bare feet.  She was the sort of person you wanted to befriend

A friend had told me about an exhibition of aurora photos in Salamanca Place, so seize the day.

They were amazing photos but I can't really accept them as real.  I need to be there bathed in those improbable colours.

being a balletomane I was enchanted by this

and Miss Haidee Millinery

just a photo to show the Floozie the wedge shaped building

then to the waterfront

remembering some people have to work...

 and get ready to catch the ferry home

This is  not the Bellerive Ferry.  Last Thursday I met the Weily Fox for lunch at the Eastcoaster and then cruised on to a soiree at Anne's.  The Foxy One has just returned from cruising Iceland and is finding the concept of night difficult.

Of course, there's more to life than gadding.  There's reading.

To be honest I haven't started this one yet but I have seen the film!!!  It's got a dog in it and its set in NY so of course I enjoyed it but I didn't quite get the friendship and suicide themes.  Perhaps they'll be stronger in the book.

I have also seen Bride Hard with Rebel Wilson which I thoroughly enjoyed, despite the corny American sex jokes.  I expected to see a send up of the tough boy movies, and that is what I saw.  It's been panned by the critics who, apparently, rate Ballerina highly.  Well I think they're pretty line ball in being ridiculous but Bride Hard is fun.  Ballerina seems out to destroy everything in her path - though I have  no idea where her path is leading - whereas our Rebel is out to save a rich American family and her best friend, all the time wearing her bright red bridesmaid dress and still eluding and defeating hundreds of bad guys.  Far more noble and edifying.

These books I have read:

a good read set in places I know

wordy and overly descriptive but clever idea to have Julia Child as part of the team

This I found a difficult read and am still not quite sure of some of the storyline.  But it is hugely thought provoking and presents a view of the community of people who are deaf which I've read about previously but had not seen it so strongly championed.

And now I'm off to seize another day.

Gentlewoman's concerto

Joaquin Rodrigo's gentleman's concerto /  Fantasia for a Gentleman is one of my favourite pieces of music.  For me it evokes genteel living, and that's what I've been doing lately.  Having no commitments is a wonderful thing and something I don't think I've had the luxury of before, apart from in St Davids and when in covid quarantine in a Launceston hotel room for 2 weeks.  I have always lived by lists.  I still do, just to keep me on track, but am beastly careless if I'm slow to action them.

living with the Earl  

Sashi Babe sent me 3 jars of organic teas:  Serenity, Digestive and Earl Grey.  I  like them so much that  I indulged in this infuser cup from the Japanese shop I found recently in Hobart.

Sashi also sent me this New York outline.  I'm still looking for its perfect place.

My immersion in the Ela of Salisbury series reflects my mood for grand living.  I have read all three that are available from the State Library.

I have always been intrigued by life in Medieval Europe and am curious as to whether Ela could have lived the life depicted.  The author's American language slips in occasionally which I find jarring but Ela's search for justice in the Thirteenth Century makes for thought provoking and gentle reading.

I have also fallen again under the spell of Alexander McCall Smith.

One of the things I love about McCall Smith's and Donna Leon's detectives is that they ponder wide philosophical questions and simple truths.

Beyond borrowing books, the libraries are providing me with other entertainment.  The State Library has an exhibition of banned books.  I learned about this at an evening lecture by an archeologist with a fascination with Tasmania's convict history.

the names of previously banned books have been struck through

I've made this one extra large so you can see some of those naughty banned books.

After the convict archeology lecture, I raced to catch the bus to get to Bellerive Village in time to dine at Cugini.  I had eaten there once before, trying their spaghetti marinara.  I noticed that they served veal marsala and resolved to treat myself one day.

And here it is.  A lot of meat, with some a little pink for me, but very satisfying with a glass of South Australian Red and a table overlooking Bellerive Boardwalk.

Another culinary goal achieved when I met Rob in Sorell on some FoTR banking business and suggested we lunch at the Tasmania Golf Club.  I'd heard that the food was good but the views were outstanding.  Rob and I agree.  I had their Christmas in July menu so have now had the full glory of turkey, ham and roast pork with Christmas Pud to follow.  I happened to notice that their cocktail list looks tantalising.  Perhaps I can get the Weily Fox there when she returns from cruising around Iceland.

I have also been invited to attend a meeting of the Bellerive Historical Society Committee.  It was lovely to be sitting around the big table at the Watch House where Mrs History and I started the Society.

This postcard was presented as a donation.  As the committee said, we have many copies of it in our collection but it was the reverse that made it so special.

Bellerive indeed looking very pretty [and please put the year on all your correspondence].

And here is my Bellerive view the other day after an overnight snowfall.  I am so going to miss this view from my bedroom when the monster 8 conjoined units replace the red tiled house.

gather ye rosebuds...

Jilly Pup came to stay with me for a couple of days but just prior to that this little fellow came for a short visit and made himself comfortable.

My neighbour had been taken ill in the night and the ambulance guys had to break her door down to get to her.  They had to close little Hudson in the bathroom so he could not wander.  He was very distressed when I found him.  Now happily re-united both seem to be returning to normal.

And finally, I have achieved one of my life ambitions and bought myself a suncatcher.  Many years ago Mrs History's daughter gave me a Dragon's Tear which I loved dearly but which eventually fell and broke.  Now my glass pendant catches the morning sun and sends rainbow flashes all over the living area and kitchen.  It's like living with fairies.

The gadabout

I'd been trying to come up with a title for this blog post.  I was about to settle for Singing and Reading, though I thought that a little bland.  Then, sitting on the bus today, I got a message from the Floosie to say her radio show was on this afternoon.  I replied saying I was on the bus but would be home soon.  She said that I am a gadabout.  And I liked it.  I spent the rest of the ride and walk home alternating between Dinah Washington's Mad About the Boy and Shostacovich's Romance from The Gadfly.

Singing was definitely the theme for last weekend.  It was the Festival of Voices.  Brunching with a friend on the Saturday, he announced he had to be at Kangaroo Bay for 11am.  He was singing in a choir.

the Uplift Choir and security

The next day I went to the Farmers Market in Hobart for groupie duties with the Maria Voices

who were their usual magnificent selves and were called back for an encore.  You can tell a Tassie crowd:

is that a bullet hole?

It was also NAIDOC Week.  I was aghast at the complexity of this puzzle at the State Library.

Some easy and enjoyable reading:

I like the Perveen Mistry novels for the insight into Indian Society.  They are set in the 1920s.

David Owen is a Tassie based author.  Every one of his whodunnits seem to take the reader on a tour around Tasmania - very satisfying for those who know the place.  There is something I find abrasive in his writing but I'm not sure what.  The books are written in the first person so perhaps it's his character I can't get on with.  But that's fair enough - I'll keep reading the books.

This is a fascinating book.  I'll finish it this evening.  It makes me appreciate Picnic at Hanging Rock all the more.

Yesterday there was a Re-loved Market on Bellerive Boardwalk.  Some very good fun clothes and a lovely sunny day.  I had walked to the Rosny Library and was on my way to shop at my Salamanca Fresh.  Admittedly I was very tired by the time I'd walked home.

Today I went to checkout the Earth Rally on the Parliament House lawns.  As speakers said, they were preaching to the converted, but it is nice to see the diversity of the converted, and hopefully they can convince others.  Dogs were certainly a feature.  If only dogs could vote.  We have an election, again, next Saturday.

I made my way up Murray Street and was stopped in my tracks by this hotel architecture.

cutting edge indeed