May Day

Happy May Day!  Lots of dancing around maypoles and bunches of lily of the valley be yours.  I thought I'd take a break in transmission to bring you some gratuitous garden shots.

same old

except for the exuberant cosmos

Below is the part of the garden I was really interested in.  These will become my 'magic squares' of veggie plants.  I hadn't expected to have a green manure of parsley and artichoke seedlings.  While clearing the furthest square yesterday, I discovered self sown radishes and cucumber.  That's the sort of gardening I like!

the succulent garden has thrived in my absence

but still has a long way to go...

a few tomatoes linger

a silverbeet and feta pie is planned

I ate one of the figs upon my return - good flavour but a bit dry

the leeks, onions and garlic are going well

the icebergs are finally coming to a head

the myrtle is in berry - good with venison

a different view of the Flying Pig

I've potted up the eggplant to see if it will continue growing and fruit into winter.  I potted up the very dead looking cumquat before I went away, and it's coming back to life nicely.  The lettuces and trouve radishes and cucumber are absolutely delicious - full flavoured and juicy.  It's crossed my mind to let it all run feral and just forage.

Klemzig recalled

All that slide viewing and recollection was thirsty work, plus there were deep discussions to be had and plans to be made.

But the time came to say goodbye to the Floosie after the most wonderful day.  The drive home was peaceful, the city serene, all quite other worldly.
Back in Klemzig life fell into a routine.  Mum and I went for some wheelchair strolls which proved to be social extravaganzas with Mum chatting to neighbours she hadn't spoken to for months.  Gardening was on my mind after time spent with FF but there was little that needed to be done apart from a bit of pruning and mowing the grass.  I tried to do my composting trick of digging a hole in the garden and putting the day's accumulated organics in there, but the ground was too hard and dry to dig.

an inspiring card on Mum's sideboard

Mum enjoyed going to the book cupboard at Lochiel Park and we got some good books - a lifesaver after library services closed.

I loved this book and picked up some gardening ideas from it.

On another occasion I picked up these two - a perfect girly trip to Rome and a romp through 17th C Amsterdam.  Combined with Van Der Valk, I've developed quite a thing for Amsterdam.

I did some walks around Klemzig.  Visited my Sri Lankan short-eats shop but they weren't doing curries so I went to Han's Sushi.  Han's is a Korean takeaway really and was the perfect destination when I felt I needed a red meat hit. Mum and I eat fish-based meals when I cook, but she gets her iron from Meals on Wheels which also delivered her 4 toilet rolls on one occasion.  A great initiative.  MoW is suffering a bit because many of their volunteers are over 70 and now are not allowed to be out and about delivering meals.  The Italian gardens are disappearing from Second Avenue but there are still persimmon trees netted to protect the fruit and wafts of the fragrance of figs.  One day I saw 2 women doing tai chi in a small park.  The reduction in air traffic was also noticeable.
On Good Friday I finally got to ride my bike.  First to the book cupboard

where I returned the above books and picked up

then I rode like the wind along the river tracks - totally exhilarating.

Back home I prepared for quarantine

and Easter.

Helly arrived in the evening bringing home-made hotcross buns.  We watched the Gardening Australia Easter Special and I packed my bags.
I left on schedule at 8am the next morning, stopping at Coonalpyn for my traditional cornish pasty.  Then it was frantically onward, wondering what would happen at the border with Victoria and whether I would have to do 2 weeks' quarantine there.  To my astonishment, it was business as usual entering Victoria, though there were barriers for those wishing to enter South Australia.  I reached the ferry at 4.45pm and drove straight on after a rather embarrassing incident when I couldn't remember how to open my car bonnet. I must have been more stressed that I realised. I'm used to them checking the boot but I've never had to reveal the engine before.    A glance at my boarding pass showed I'd been upgraded from a recliner to a cabin, and a lovely cabin it was too.

There was no chance to mix with other passengers.  We were directed to our cabin and had to stay there - no meals available.  I couldn't eat the 'snack pack' provided because it was very oat-based

but I could look through my window and eat the soggy salad wrap I bought in Stawell.  I finished this book,

an easy and entertaining read about a cruiseship, offering a prize I certainly don't want to win.  I reversed the sleeping arrangement and fell into a heavenly slumber with night sky and dark sea rolling gently past.

Snow Angels

It has probably become obvious that these 'school trips' were in fact Charlie's training camps for future Angels

who seem happy to have been so chosen.

Dressed to thrill

with looks to kill.  Never underestimate the Deadly Tredley.
Who is that in red?  Beats me.  Possibly Ingrid Ozols?  Sounds like an East European spy...

with a suitably cool demeanour.

Has she been lliquidated (a Welsh form of assassination) by the trim, taut, undercover trio?  Like, did anyone see Judith D again after the Central Australia trip???

More questions than answers.  The Babe looks rather smug.
And Lady Jayne?  As usual she had duxed everything and was already on a mission, possibly writing the Book of Love.

Trips of a lifetime

I had the best drive ever to Encounter Bay.  There was hardly any traffic.  Cyclists were out. People walked dogs.  It seemed like the height of civilisation.

We agreed on social distancing then headed inside for delicious mandarin cake made with hazelnut flour.

Fortified, as promised I brought out my mobile laboratory and we conducted rigorous soil tests throughout the garden.  Time spent working at the CSIRO had not been wasted.

Then lunch.  This is not a poached egg but dessert: The Floosie's scrumptious lemon meringue pie and a nice cup of French Earl Grey tea.  And then

the screen went up and the slideshow began.

The trip to Central Australia circa 1968.

Australia as I had never seen it before.

H Bells walking the streets of Oodnadatta or Coober Pedy or somesuch

a beautiful part of Uluru which, I think from subsequent trips there, is a place of Women's Business

some very tired young women having climbed Ayers Rock (!!!!!!)

Lady Jayne, CKBeagle, moi (looking dazed and confused), H Bells and Babs.  I have no idea who the boys are.  They look far too interesting to be from our school - though I was younger then.  It was the year of the handmade milkmaid's hat.  The Beagle naturally has more style.

I have no idea who the babe in gingham is.  And who is that teacher person?

hanging around a toilet somewhere, probably wishing we were as svelte as the picture on the wall.

CK doing her Mod stance, and dressed interestingly for the climate.

Lady Jayne with a dress shorter than Lynette Phillips' (??????) shorts.

We were probably queuing to use the toilet.  We lived in terror throughout the trip because Judith D became a mad photographer.  Most of the time we camped out woop woop where there were no toilets.  So we had to wander miles to find a bit of scrub for privacy.  Then you'd look up and there would be Judith snapping away.

Next up:  The Ski Trip

Klemzig calling

I set off on the 21st March - a little early for Easter which we'd cancelled anyway - because Willowa wanted Mum and me to look after Daphne du Greyhound while she went to New Zealand...  Naturally New Zealand travel was canned, so then she was going to Tasmania hmmm then Victoria... finally Melrose in South Australia where she has been a number of times before.  But some of this was in the future as I drove from Melbourne to Adelaide with my (still) dodgy phone.  I stopped at Great Western because the timing was right for lunch at a little restaurant I had always fancied.  I checked my phone and zut alors! a message from Steve saying that the border was about to be closed, so I hot-footed it until I got into South Australia and stopped at the Landrover on a Pole Park at Keith, where I ate my breakfast jar of yoghurt, walnuts and baked quince.
The days at Mum's passed productively while I sorted and cleaned and organised with the only adventures being the Great Tartare Sauce Robbery (which I rectified with Meals on Wheels the next day) and Mum's frantic yells in the night because Daphne was sleeping on top of her.

a compromise

a dog hard done by

Then came the day I discovered a cuppla boxes of slides in Mum's wardrobe.  I held them up to the light thinking they may have been the slides of Aden I had bought enroute to Australia in 1964 but, even better, they were of 2 school trips in the later 60s and featured the Easterers, including CKB!!!  A cunning plan formed involving a photographer friend of mine who may have a slide projector... and who I was visiting very soon.

It's all too beautiful*

It's so good to be back home.  I enjoyed my quarantine time and will blog it soonish,  I treated it as a 'Retreat', which is something I've always wanted to do, and spent the time reading, yoga-ing and tai chi-ing.  Gradually the Wu Tao dances came back to me.  ABC Classic was my constant companion each day until 6.30pm when I'd watch the SBS news, switch to ABC news at 7pm, and then channel hop with access to SBS Movie Channel too.  There were church bells, on the quarter hour, and the atmosphere was a cross between St Davids and Paris.  Which is not a bad thing...
I didn't feel that I missed many things, mainly my hairbrush and my blackbirds.  I did look forward to being in boots and overalls again so, of course, that is how I have spent today.  As soon as I was out in the garden I realised how much I had missed it.  Already my perfect nails are damaged and my supersoft feet (not having worn shoes for a fortnight) are distorting and hardening up. I'm giving ABC Classic a break and listening to the sounds around me - the blackbird and, for a few magic moments, bells ringing - until I realised it was the sound of the metal lines hitting the flag poles at the council offices.
The tomatoes above are not from the garden.  At Jill's insistence we walked to the Gatehouse and I foraged from my secret self-sown tomato patch - that's why they are in a (fresh off the roll) dog poo bag.


* Small Faces' Itchycoo Park - favourite song when skating at the Moonah Ice-skating Rink during Wednesday Activities with students from Elizabeth Matriculation College mid 1970s - and dreaming of a lake in Austria