I have words, random words, written down as reminders of what I what to write about, but I have writer's block about where to start. Perhaps I should do this entry in pieces and assemble it afterwards.

I have a week of leave, which has been welcome. With time to think I have come up with potential solutions for three minor office issues that have been niggling at me. Imagine all the problems I could solve if I had more than a week off.

I also planned to finish knitting my cowl this week. So far I have knitted exactly one row. Still, I have four days left, so perhaps I will get there yet, and have a couple of weeks of winter left to wear it.

In contrast to the Christmas card vision of winter as white and sparkly, winter here wears green and brown. I can tell it's coming to an end because now other colours are appearing. My mother put some miniature daffodils in a pot and they are out, fifteen of them outside one kitchen window, raincoat yellow. I bought a big bag of tulip bulbs labelled "shades of blue" and planted them in the garden outside the other kitchen window and the first of them are out too, mauve-pink and purple-red.

I have been to the library. I saw that the gate to the children's section was open while they prepared for story time, so I wandered in to have a look at the YA section. I have to wait until someone else opens the gate, because my secret shame is that I struggle to undo the child-proof catch. And then I had to hope no-one shut it while I was in there, because, well, what if I couldn't get out again?

Back in the easily-entered general section, I borrowed a book. Back home I discovered it had someone's bookmark in it. We have self-service book borrowing now, which scans the barcode and issues a receipt with the due date. Easier for the librarians, I imagine, but I do miss the leaf at the back with all the previous due dates stamped on it. Now there's no way to tell if this bookmark was left in a book returned yesterday or last year. This was a religious bookmark, with a quote from Psalms on the front and written on the back in an old lady's writing was To Ken with love from Valerie XX. I'll give it to the library information desk when I return the book, just in case Ken has been looking for it.

Last week I went to the local theatre, which had a double bill of two one-man plays, both about the life stories of a relative of the playwright. The first one was a man who opened an old cupboard in his grandparent's garage and found that his grandfather, an amateur brass band leader, had left reel-to-reel recordings of his music and musings to be found after his death. The second was a Gunditjmara man (Gunditjmara being one of the local First Nations) telling the life story of his (I think) great-great-uncle, who went to Gallipoli in the First World War and then came home to be, predictably, treated appallingly.

And this week I have been to the theatre again. Is there no end to my cultural appreciation? Yesterday my mother and I took the ungodly early train to Melbourne to see Come From Away, the feel-good musical about September 11. Which is a glib comment to make, but honestly, f-list, if you get a chance to see a production of it, go. It's just that good.

The City by the Sea, excitingly, now has four trains a day to and from Melbourne, so we were able to catch the early evening train and get home two hours earlier than previously. There was still time to walk to the station via Haigh's Chocolates to get a snack for the trip home. I was very tempted by the chocolate fish, but I bought a bag of scorched almonds instead. The thing about Haigh's is that after you pay, they always offer you a sample of that day's showcase chocolate. Yesterday it was milk chocolate cashews and they were so good I immediately regretted the scorched almond purchase. So that's next time sorted.

Yesterday, some friends and I did a road trip round (some of the the) the 12 Apostles Food Artisans network. (It's called that because they're all near the Twelve Apostles rock formation, although fortunately inland, so we could travel on back roads without getting on the super-busy Great Ocean Road.)

We started at an organic dairy. I didn't buy anything there, but I tried, among other things, some salted caramel fudge (v. nice) and some chilli honey (vile). We did our tasting with another group of four people, including a lady in a bright yellow shirt. Back in the car we discussed the mystery of the chilli honey. The woman running the tasting experience was encouraging us to dig our tasting sticks in generously; not so with the chilli honey, which she warned us to only take a dab. And honestly, that was enough. There was a hint of sweetness and then my tongue went numb. So what would you do with it? You couldn't spread it on bread for a snack. Maybe use it in a stir fry, I suppose.

Next we went to a distillery for whisky tasting — and sparkling mineral water for the driver (me) — and a very nice lunch, sitting several tables over from our yellow-shirted friend. Artisanal whisky isn't really my thing, but I had fun in the attached provedore, getting some lemon butter and orange hot chocolate. Then we took a stroll around the corner to the gourmet ice cream shop. They offered tastings too, but I just made a choice: one scoop of honeycomb (something I'm guaranteed to like) and one scoop of orange and cardamon (which turned out to be delicious).

Back on the road, we stopped next at a cheese maker and did the full tasting experience: soft cheeses, including a brie that just last month won a gold medal as Australia's best white mould cheese; semi-hard cheese; blue cheese; and fresh fetta. I came away from there with some garlic harvarti and chilli-infused fetta. Then the tasting man took us to the counter round the corner and we each got to taste a spoonful of two of his gourmet gelato flavours. I picked salted caramel and coconut, and then I regretted my earlier ice cream, because otherwise I would have had a whole scoop of the coconut. When we walked into the cheese maker, yellow-shirt was there. She was trying the chilli fetta, and she waved the tasting stick at us, saying, "This is better than that chilli honey!" As they were leaving, her husband said, "Did you get lost? We've been going to the same places all day and I don't know how we got so far ahead of you." We explained our walk to the ice cream shop.

Our final stop was the artisanal chocolate maker, where we ran into yellow-shirt and co. on their way out. ("We thought we were finished, but we're going to the ice cream shop now," she said.) I came away from there with a bag of chocolate aniseed rings for my mother (a selfless gift because I don't like them so she will get to eat them all), a bag of dark chocolate frogs for me, and a hazelnut mouse to eat on the way home. So that was a good day out, and my only regret is that I didn't have any way to bring a tub of that coconut gelato back without it melting.

Back home, I had to get to work in the kitchen. My great-aunt Jinny is 98 this week and is having her annual party this weekend. It is the sort of casual affair where everyone brings a plate. When her daughter Sanny rang to issue the invitation, my mother asked what she wanted us to bring. "Well," said Sanny, "you know that pav you brought out at Christmas? Mum said that was the best pav she'd ever had." (And she's 98, so she's had a few pavs.) As it happened, I made the Christmas pav(lova) from a Donna Hay recipe, so I was tasked with recreating it for the birthday party. I finished it this morning and I was very pleased with it. It's topped with raspberries, strawberries (fresh from the market this morning), passionfruit pulp (from my colleague Michelle's vine) and powdered freeze-dried strawberries.



Tomorrow is a public holiday, and I should probably use it to eat sensibly after all the above.

I'm thinking myself into being anxious about the job interview. They did tell me that they weren't going to make a decision until next week, but that's just given me time to think of how I could have done better. That's not going to do me any good, I know, but I can't stop it.

While I wait, I have been making plans for next week. Going to see Kenneth Branagh's Moustache Murder on the Orient Express. Going to Geelong to see the Archibald Prize exhibition (although that may be the week after). And that's it. Two plans. Well, one plan and one potential plan. Let's not get carried away.

Weekly knitting update: ( Not much )

Can you tell if a macaque wants to bite you? I scored 83% on the quiz. I can really read a macaque, apparently.

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It has been a giddy social whirl this week. I've been out twice. Twice! What a social butterfly I am. (I am not.) On Thursday I went to see some stand-up comedy, Jimeoin. I saw him about ten years ago and it was a riot. This year, meh. Still funny, but he didn't seem all that thrilled to be there.

Last night, my mother and I went back to the little town where she and John lived, where her former neighbours were holding a house concert. Their son is a country/folk musician and guitar maker who is touring the east coast and playing in living rooms, including his parents'. So for twenty dollars and a plate of nibbles each, about forty people got an intimate concert. So that was nice.

The only problem is that being out in the crisp winter air has made me wheezy, so I've had to get my inhaler out for the first time in over twelve months. So if I never write another entry, it's because I've died from puffing out-of-date Ventolin.

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Due to work/reading for academic purposes/knitting (mostly the academic reading though), my leisure reading was very light on in May. So here is:

May book read
* The Shepherd's Crown - Terry Pratchett (2015) ★ ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

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Weekly knitting update: ( It begins to look like a cardigan. )

Australia's Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, met Barack Obama to say good-bye the other day. Don't bother reading the article, though. This is the important bit:

But Mr Turnbull says when it comes to trade, he and President Obama believe in the importance of open markets.
"Increasing the opportunities for businesses to grow and develop, whether it's in Warrnambool or Wyoming, it benefits across the world."

That's the City by the Sea! I imagine Obama being slightly baffled by where it is. (Also, Malcolm, why pick a city and a state? Why not a city and a city? Say, Warrnambool to Wichita?)

Anyway, today I have not been in City by the Sea. I've been a few hours north in the... City on the Plains? I don't know what to call it. Let's call it Ballarat, for that is its name. Ballarat was a goldrush town, and is older, richer, and about three times the size of the City by the Sea. It is the third most populous inland city in Australia. (Thanks, Wikipedia!) It also hosted the rowing events for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. (Thanks, Mum!) It was also the site of one of my favourite events in Australian history: when Lola Montez, dancer and mistress of Ludwig I of Bavaria, visited the goldfields in 1855 to entertain the miners with her infamous spider dance (apparently it involved pretending to be a demure young lady who had a spider run up her tights, thus necessitating the removal of layer after layer of clothing), she received a bad review from one Ballarat newspaper, which outraged her so much she tracked the paper's editor down to his favourite pub and horsewhipped him down the main street. As one would.

The Archibald Prize is Australia's annual portrait prize, and this year all the finalists are being exhibited at the Ballarat Art Gallery. I asked my mother if she wanted to see it, and she liked the idea so much she invited her friends Sue and Val. So that's where I've been today. First we went to the exhibition (we all liked the People's Choice winner, Deng, best - it was amazing in person: it's quite a big canvas and it dominated the room). Then we went to Victoria's largest quilting store, which just happens to be in Ballarat. While the three of them were busy picking fabrics for a quilt Val wants to make, I took the opportunity to buy a pack of pre-cut fabric that my mother was admiring. That's one Christmas present sorted.

(Honestly, sometimes people in television shows are just too stupid to live.)

I have had a couple of wobbly moments this week when I wondered if I'd remembered to tell someone at work something. After twelve years it's hard to let go. "They're grown-ups, they'll work it out," said my mother, which made me ask myself why I am reluctant to let it go. Is it because I want to help, or because I want them to remember me as helpful?

It dawned on me that all my appointments and stuff were in my work's Outlook calendar. I have a diary, but I like having reminders pop up. So I spent some time this week setting up the calendar on my Mac, which I've never bothered with before. I've also started a complete spring clean. First stop, emptying my handbag. I've been too stressed to empty my receipts and such the last few months, and that has made me even more stressed. I like a neat bag. Next, the magazines that have been piling up over the last couple of months.

On Friday I went to the first day of the City by the Sea's annual three-day Agricultural Show. That's an odd experience. It was a huge deal when I was a kid, but it's shrinking. I spent a lot of time there thinking how to make it better. I don't think they advertise it enough, and they have a lot of competition now with regular local markets. Still, there are so many people who grow things and make things, there should be way more entries in the gardening and cooking pavilions.

I watched a section of the showjumping. It's funny how quickly you can think yourself an expert. The first rider went round in 41 seconds; the second in 44. How good was that first rider? The third rider went round in 38 seconds; how good was she? The fourth went round in 45 seconds; what a slow coach! Then the next riders completely threw my established ideas out the window, as they all did 37 or 38. Number three didn't even place in the end, and she was my early pick. Hmph.

On Saturday my mother and I went round the bay to Port Fairy. I wanted to go to the spice shop, and she wanted to catch up with her friend Sue. The pair of them run a biannual quilting camp there, and they're in the thick of organising it for next week. I had a very peppery pepper steak pie. They did not lie about that pie.

Today I emptied the compost bin and dug it into the vegetable patch, and put together a 3D apple puzzle that I've had sitting in my cupboard for ages. Look! It looks just like an apple:


This week's knitting photo: ( Back view )

(My mother is watching some sort of variety show and just described a troupe of shirtless male dancers as "the Poldark dancers", which made me laugh.)

Hello, f-list. I am currently watching Anaconda. Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube are being terrorised in the Amazon by a giant rubber snake and Jon Voigt. It's a very silly film.

(The giant rubber snake just spat a dead monkey at someone.)

Anyway, I am home again. It's been a tiring week. As soon as I got home on Wednesday morning, I went into an afternoon of interviews for one of my replacements. Thursday was a day of meetings, followed by an evening at Jenny/NA's house.

(There was just an awesome, and by awesome I mean fake, underwater shot of the giant rubber snake (actually it was a giant bad CGI snake this time) digesting an Owen Wilson-shaped lump, including the impression of Owen Wilson's agonised face on the snake's side. Like Han Solo when he was in carbonite, but in a snake instead.)

Jenny loves a gathering, and she has been threatening to organise something for everyone in the office for ages. The stars aligned this week: my imminent departure, Jenny going on leave next week, a public holiday on Friday. I am not much of one for parties, but this was nice. Jenny bought a trivia game called Linkee specially for the occasion. It was fun, if you are looking for a group board game, and I am not just saying that because I joined with colleague Tim and receptionist Luke to wipe the floor with the other teams. Luke is 19 and does not know who Rod Stewart is, which made the rest of us feel very old.

(Words cannot do justice to what has just taken place. Jon Voigt trapped Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube and the giant rubber snake in a big net, and then the snake broke free and coiled around Jon Voigt, then we got a view from inside the snake's gullet as it swallowed Jon Voigt, then it chased Jennifer Lopez and spat out half-digested Jon Voigt at her, and half-digested Jon Voigt winked at her as he fell down dead. Then Ice Cube managed to set fire to the snake, and the burning snake chased Jennifer Lopez around the river for bit until Ice Cube killed it with an axe. That's what I call entertainment.)

My cheese-making/photo-taking poll results are in: cheese by one vote! Although one of the cheese voters has since had a change of opinion, so that's no help at all. Unlike the LJ polls, I can't tell who voted. I can tell what they voted on though: most on a desktop or laptop, and one each on a tablet and smart phone. So there you go.

I'll be on the road most of this week, on a cross-country trip. My second-last work trip, probably. (Only four weeks to go!) I'm writing this in my hotel room as a stop on the first leg. My mother is all set for four days of Alistair-wrangling. I rang her when I got to my hotel tonight, and I could hear him meowing in the background. He's a chatterbox. She said, "Stop that racket!" I'm sure they'll be fine.

I said I'll be on the road, but actually I'll be on the rails. Fifteen hours of train travel. I like going by train. I like looking in people's back gardens, which you don't normally get to see. Today's trip sights: lots of ducks swimming in flooded paddocks, lots of children bouncing on trampolines, two alpaca farms. A sequence of three houses with tiny back gardens: first, a man pushing a toddler on a tricycle; second, a man mowing his lawn; third, the whole garden filled with trees and cloud of birds that flew up as the train went by.

Across the aisle of the train from me were two students. They played Uno the whole way, and halfway through the trip they ate a whole packet of Thin Captains. (A type of what I would call dry biscuits, and you may call... crackers? Plain, crunchy things you put cheese on.) Anyway, they ate the Thin Captains without putting anything on them, which made my mouth dry just watching them.

I also like seeing what different hotels offer. I've been spoilt by the one my work usually uses, which has a kitchenette in every room. Hot plates and an oven and cooking utensils! Not that I've ever used them, but I make good use of the microwave. I'm not there now, though. I picked one closer to the train station, on account of the early train I have to catch tomorrow. This one doesn't have a kitchenette, only a mini fridge and a kettle. But what it's got instead: a touch-free flush on the loo. You just wave your finger near the button and it flushes. I had no idea such things existed. Truly, we live in the future.

Before I left I had time to take my weekly knitting photo. ( I hope to finish the sleeve after I get home this week )

The job ads for my replacements are now live. That's ads and replacements plural. My 0.8 FTE position is being replaced with two positions totalling 1.6 FTE. Which... on the one hand, it is nice to feel so special that it takes two people to replace me. On the other hand, maybe, just perhaps, just maybe, that might be the problem in the first place.

On Thursday, I went to my penultimate board meeting. One of the board members, Doctor F, caught me before the meeting, very excited. "What's the goss? Have you been head-hunted? Or is it a WEDDING?" I think he might be That Relative at his family's Christmas dinner. He was slightly deflated when I said, "No, it's just time for a change." Only slightly deflated, though. In the next breath he told me about the conference he's going to in Barcelona. (My boss told me that when he told Doctor F that his brother was dying of mesothelioma, Doctor F said, "Oh, dead in a year." Cheers, Doctor F.)

( Friday )

Also this week: Knitting! ( So much knitting! )

Oh, Masterchef, you delight me. I got home last night in time to collapse in front of Masterchef asking three chefs to put their "food dreams" on a plate. One of them food dreams about a seafood restaurant on a tropical island. He represented this as a sort of coral reef made out of seafood in a green broth. But! He was concerned about his burnt lemon purée. Very concerned. He mentioned it often, and every time he did, they showed a close-up of a blob of it. They didn't actually circle it as I have done below, but I think they wanted to. Either that, or play the Jaws music.



Look at it, oozing burnt lemon malevolence!

Today I unpacked my travel bag and found a piece of paper that I'd scribbled a note on, reminding me to say that we drove past a sign that said:

FOR SALE
CHRISTMAS TURKEYS AND ALIVE

Which is an odd way to put it.