Cymru am byth!!

Here we are released from the mines briefly to fete Lady Jayne as she rides by.  Thank you, Lady Jane.  And a very Happy St David's Day to you all.

Grand Opening

Finally the big day arrived:  Eileen Brooker's retrospective at The Village, Triabunna.  Eileen and I used to teach together in the 1970s.  Steve's sister, Elizabeth, had also taught with Eileen and they were great friends.  So you can understand that this was quite a big deal for us.

Over a hundred guests turned up.  I was relieved from fly swishing duty

for a while so I could hover just outside the building to catch some of the action.

Eileen is in her 90s now and was in fine form.  I caught up with teaching mates and arty mates I hadn't seen for years.  All in all it was a fabulous party.  It was impossible to really see the art work so I went back today to take some photos.

Back home we have our own small exhibition of Eileen's work.

I forgot to tell you that I saw my first Easter Lilies of the season at Eileen's house a couple of weeks ago.  Eileen drew my attention to them because she loves them.

Dark Gardening

As some of you know this is the gateway to our house.  Come in and walk down the drive to the back of the house.

The driveway is not very exciting and so far my vision of self sown flowers filling all the nooks and crannies is not apparent.  There are some allysum, stunted marigolds and forget me nots.  I thought the seaside daisy would go crazy here but so far not.  Anyway if you look carefully you can see there's a gap between the studio at the end of the carport and the fence.

Jake heroically carried pavers from the back garden to this space.  I think this dappled light is about as much light as the area gets - and that's in summer.  I've gone through many planting ideas - fernery, hydrangeas, fuchsias, etc but am currently favouring the idea of different types of mint planted between the pavers.  Currently I have ordinary mint, chocolate mint and eau-de-cologne mint scattered about the garden.  Here they could run riot or into the caravan park next door.  I'm also thinking that in winter I could keep potted plants safe from frost here.

Plankie's in the slam

When I was a little chap I had a teddybear called Frankie.  I was so young that not only can't I remember Frankie but I couldn't say his name properly, hence Plankie.  I also had a pram, which I pronounced slam.  So I used to say 'Plankie's in the slam'.  This bit of cutesy has stayed with my Mum and often gets an airing.  The other story about Plankie is that I played with him so much that he became very tatty and my parents hid him in the garage with other things that were to be thrown out.  Needless to say, one day when the garage door was left open, I went exploring and found Plankie and triumphantly announced this miracle to Mum and Dad who then had to accept him back into the household.

The Pharaoh Dog has Fred Risby who is her go-to despite having a lovely new intact red frisbee.

And so there's no confusion, this is not Plankie.  This is Thumper, given to me by Rosa Norte when she was Momery and my next door neighbour.  Thumper waits for me in my room at Mum's house.

Sweet FA

It is a lovely day here.  Sunny with an occasional breeze.  About 23 degrees.  I put the parasol over the garden table more for ambience than anything.  I sipped my coffee and idly watched the bees checking out the flowers.  I realised I had nothing to do.  No appointments, commitments, meetings.  Nothing.   And the phrase 'sweet FA' came to mind.  Which took me back to my days in Foreign Affairs so long ago where we, then young things, used to refer to ourselves as Sweet FA.  That's where I met Jean Green Bean.  They were days of great fun.  We endeavoured to celebrate National Days and Jean particularly remembers tins of sardines for Sardinia's national day.

So a propos absolutely nothing, let me share more double hollyhocks with you.

Happy Birthday to the Beagle

Today is CKB's birthday.  Yesterday evening I went to the screening of Bridget Jones' Baby at the Orford Odeon.  For reasons I can't quite pinpoint, Renee Zellweger as Bridget at 43 somehow reminded me of Corinne.

Perhaps it was just my mood.  Perhaps something in the eyes and bone structure?  The way of talking at times?  Something that may call for research at Easter?
As usual it was a great night out.  The canny among you will have noticed that champagne was half price, ie $2 a glass.  A glass of bubbly and a Mars Bar for $4 the lot is as nice a Valentines Day present as most of us were going to get.

back to normal

I didn't tell you that I hurt my back last week lifting a bucket of water out of the bath to go on the garden.  I have been doing gentle stretches and using my yoga knowledge, and I'm glad to say that I can walk and lift and stand as normal now.  The other good news is that yoga resumes twice a week from next Monday.  We've just had Friday classes over the holiday season.

As with everything, some take it more seriously than others.  We were all glad to have Dwayne in class today

when a tiger unexpectedly wandered in.  Thank goodness for Dwayne's cross-training with wrestling - though the encounter was still exhausting.  He soon came to

and was back on his feet in no time.

Mindful Dymphna just kept doing the class

though she did try to choke herself later.  Dwayne reckons we should keep a gun in the hall.  It could be a grizzley next time.


ps really these photos came from A Beginners Guide to Yoga by Nancy Phelan, Sphere Books, 1976.

a new adventure

You may recall some time ago I blogged about kefir .  Recently the Very Kind Bean sent me some information which is rather fascinating and has me thinking about the possibility of making cheese again. In essence, you can add kefir to pasteurised milk virtually un-pasteurising it.  But this is not the current the adventure.

Lynn the Hairdresser told me about water kefir and gave me some to try.  It's rather nice, vaguely like a gentle ginger beer.  Today I made my first batch.

I only made a cup cos you have to experiment with it until it suits.  It uses different 'granules' to the milk kefir, and you can muck around with different sugars (to feed the yeast-like granules), dried fruits and acid makers.  Lynn generously gave me the re-sealable beer bottle and some molasses.  I have used a lemon wedge for acidity so now, it being after 5pm, I can have a Cointreau and lemon with the remains.

Good Things

My friend Mel (who lives on the corner) asked me to look after her cats and chooks for the weekend, and gave me these eggs in advance.

These bunches of garlic dangled enticingly over the chook feed.  And here are the ladies themselves:

And, in a sort of non sequitur, Happy Birthday to Matt who appreciates the good things in life.

My Home in Tasmania

In the absence of birthdays, today was given to culture

and memories.  Liz was a driving force in the republishing by the Glamorgan Spring Bay Historical Society of Louisa Anne Meredith's book about this area.

The event was held at Twamley where Louisa lived for 5 years before moving to Malunnah in Orford.  I think I've got this right.  I'm remembering from my trip to the History Room in Swansea a few weeks ago.

The readings and cello playing took place under the canopy of a huge oak.  Louisa herself made a ghostly chauffeur driven appearance

then wafted into the homestead

bestowing herbs upon chosen members of the audience one of whom I was not.  Curiously the Deep South Male Choir stepped forward,

possibly mistaking the oak tree for a magnolia.  They sang acapella as well as looking very dapper. Of course the Treorchy Male Voice Choir (catch them here to hear them sing my song and emerge, Beatle-like, in Treorchy.  Somewhere in there is a cousin or two.) came to my mind and I was lost in a little reverie, especially when they sang some songs my Dad used to sing.
I resisted the wine, lemon squash, cake platters, tea, coffee etc.  I got talked into joining the Suicide Prevention Group and the next Pop Up Book Stall weekend.  I also talked to a man who was born at Wielangta and grew up there, which was a bit of a coincidence after last weekend's adventure.

Here's a bit more of the Twamley Farm for you.

As planned

We had our birthday picnic at The Saltworks as planned.  This time on the headland where the windmill which pumped the seawater used to be.

looking straight ahead, ie East

looking South

looking North

Steve with the essential

a blissed out Pharaoh Dog

a difficult to see square-rigged boat,

possibly on its way to the Wooden Boat Festival

Today is Sarah's birthday.  We had a luncheon celebration of bubbly, triple cream brie, chicken and cherry tomatoes at The Village where Steve was on duty.

Happy Birthday George and Momery

George and Mo Norte have both shared St Davids and Whitesands beach with me, so here's a little present for them from The Saltworks just North of Triabunna and one of Steve's and my favourite places.

corner of the the saltwork's cottage 

view of Schouten Island from cottage window

checking out a rock pool

one level of the saltworks below the cottage and a recent shelter built by surfers

a slight deviation on the way home to explore the Seaford Road:

oyster farms

We did this trip a cuppla days ago.  The plan is to go again this afty when Steve gets back from acupuncture but the wind is getting up so we'll see.