Perky Superb Fairy Wren
The other day I perused Brisbane News and was immediately struck by the image of this perky little bird which featured in an article about an exhibition by Jodie Wells at the Lethbridge Gallery in Paddington.
Apart from his attitude, and this he does have, I love the boldly applied thick paint, which apparently takes six, yes 6, months to dry.
Thoughts about not really needing another painting, not having enough wall hanging space, wanting to downsize and not spending any more money, just dissipated.
It didn't take much to convince darling Geoff that this little bird would enhance our well being by being able to gaze at it across the dining table, which incidentally is also used for breakfast, for lunch, and of cours, for morning and afternoon coffee!
Well, the perky wren is now hanging precisely in a position where we can feast our visual senses often. The resultant very lean bank balance is almost forgotten when I look at him.
The Bose sound streaming dream
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| Jodie Wells Perky Superb Fairy Wren |
Apart from his attitude, and this he does have, I love the boldly applied thick paint, which apparently takes six, yes 6, months to dry.
Thoughts about not really needing another painting, not having enough wall hanging space, wanting to downsize and not spending any more money, just dissipated.
It didn't take much to convince darling Geoff that this little bird would enhance our well being by being able to gaze at it across the dining table, which incidentally is also used for breakfast, for lunch, and of cours, for morning and afternoon coffee!
Well, the perky wren is now hanging precisely in a position where we can feast our visual senses often. The resultant very lean bank balance is almost forgotten when I look at him.
The Bose sound streaming dream
So, we were in the middle of renovating our, what my
mother in law called, cottage. The perfect time to organise a sound system. All
my life I have been longing to walk from room to room listening to the same
sound of whatever I like listening to at that particular moment, here I imaged
my classic Jazz records. Easy, isn’t it? With all the new technology it should
be. Full of optimism I walked into the Bose shop. Bose has a good name, doesn’t
it? I explained to the young man in the shop that I would enjoy switching on a
device that enabled me to listen to its sound in four rooms. In olden days you
pressed a button on your radiogram and voilà, its sound filled your house.
He assured me that the Bose wave system that we already had
was perfect for this. All I needed to buy was four speakers and a sound touch
box. Feeling happy I paid a lot of money and went home with my packages. These
sat for a couple of months as the renovations were still ongoing and we wanted
our sound system to be pristine in accord with the rest of the house.
The time came to move and enjoy the Bose sound streaming
throughout the house. Having that aspiration turned out to be our problem. No
matter what my husband did, he couldn’t get the thing to work. He used to be a
programmer, so it wasn’t that he didn’t have the technical knowhow. After
numerous phone calls with the Bose shop, by now it was close to Christmas, it
turned out you need an iPad to operate the thing. Not a problem, we got one of
those. After too many attempts to mention, we now, sometimes, manage to listen
to the same sound in four rooms. For this to happen I have established a
morning routine.
First, I unplug and re-plug the sound touch box. Then I
switch on the radio on the wave system. Next, I take the Ipad, unlock it, walk
it to the internet access box, take it into every room to where a speaker is
and say good morning. This process enables the box to gather itself, and if it
feels so inclined, display the aux symbol. If that happens, I touch same, and
if we are lucky, all four speakers with sound come on at the same time.
Sometimes, they don’t come on at all, or only three out of four, or only two,
or, like today, only one. Other times the sound cuts out for a few seconds in
one room and on other occasions any one of the speakers can give us the silent
treatment. If we switch the speakers on individually and they grace us with
sound, it’s not simultaneous. It’s out of sync, like an echo.
I am sad to say that my aspiration to walk from room to
room listening to the sound of music with one reliable press of a button,
remains an unfulfilled longing.
Global climate change protest
My friend Deborah asked me on Friday, 20 September, if I wanted to join her in the world-wide climate strike that was taking place in Brisbane. I did, and we met at Queens Gardens. Thanks to the creativity of my artist friend I had no problems finding her amongst the huge crowd that had already gathered there.
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| How could you miss my darling friend in the crowd? |
About 30,000 students, workers, activists, women, men and us, took part in the protest against climate change inaction. Apparently Brisbane has never seen such a huge turnout. School students as young as 11 years of age, took to the platform to eloquently and passionately voice their concerns about the future. My daughter sent me a very apt cartoon. A big fish and a small fish are in a fishbowl, which has water leaking out of a hole. Little fish says: 'The tank is leaking' to which big fish replies: 'Do your math homework!' Who does that remind you of??
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| Protesting with my friend's artwork |
Sunday, 28 July
Another beautiful morning, beckoning a stroll along the river at New Farm Park, a drive to the water at Bribie, or - strawberries are in season, aren't they? - a strawberry flan. Here I use my friend Beate's German recipe that has never failed me. And it is soo easy. All you need is: strawberries, jam, 3 eggs, 1/2 glass sugar, 1/2 glass flour, 1 tsp baking powder.
Separate the eggs, beat 3 egg whites till stiff, whilst beating trickle sugar into the mix
mix in the 3 egg yolks together with 3 tablespoons of boiling water
sift in flour and baking powder into the mix
Bake at 180 for approx. 15/20 mins. While hot spread thinly with jam, cover with sliced strawberries and then gelatine (I use Dr Oetker's Tortenguß).
Happy Sunday and Guten Appetit!
Friday, 26 July
Geoff and I went to a fascinating and thought provoking presentation Contested Histories: Photographs from Mandate Palestine in the JH Iliffe Collection at the RD Milns Antiquities Museum at UQ. It was curated by James Donaldson and Dr Janette McWilliam, who gave insightful information about how this exhibition came to fruition, its historical, and geographical background.
Thursday, 25 July
We attended a Melanoma Patients Australia (mpa) function at the Translational Research Institute Auditorium of the PA Hospital. Professors Mark Smithers and Euan Walpole gave updates on strategies concerning melanoma treatments. A presentation about the importance of keeping fit, a talk by a melanoma survivor, and a Q&A session concluded this informative presentation.
Monday, 22 July
Yesterday I attended a Pomodoro session at the Ashgrove Library from 10 am - 3 pm. This was organised by Kelly Lyonns of the Ashgrove Writers' Group. There were eight of us and we all benefited by attending. You write for 20 mins, Kelly organised powerpoints for laptops, then you have a 5 mins break, back to writing, another break, and so on. This was the second time that Kelly had organised such an event. I found it to be most productive, I am sure the other participants did too. I wrote my QSO review and most of my travelogue to Bolzano. After editing I will load that onto my travel snippets.
Thank you Kelly, for getting us motivated into creative productivity!
Thursday, 18 July
So I went yesterday with my friend Sue to the Gallery of Modern Art. Neither of us had seen so many Margaret Olleys in one space. It is really worth visiting a few times. And it is free! Apart from her many beautiful paintings there are filmed interviews and tributes to her art and life. It is very well curated. Last time I saw William Dobell's and Ben Quilty's Archibald portraits of her was at the Gallery of New South Wales. Now GOMA shows both. Ben Quilty's works are exhibited in a space opposite Margaret's. After lunch at the tranquil cafe with the soothing water features I introduced Sue to Angelika Kauffmann's Deserted Costanza, whom I have mentioned in my snippets Alfred. I was satisfied that she is still hanging in the international collection.
That reminds me of a fabulous movie loosely based on the life of the German artist Gerhard Richter. It is entitled Never Look Away and I saw with my friend Katalin a couple of weeks ago. It depicts Richter's early years as an aspiring artist in what was then Communist Germany and his further development in West Germany. Geoff and I were lucky enough to have recently seen some of Richter's works in European galleries. Come to think of it, GOMA also had a great exhibition of his work in 2017.
Wednesday, 17 July
Don't you just love the crisp blue skied mornings of Brisbane? Energising and sharp, ready for action, be it a walk along the creek, not just now, a visit to the gallery, later may be, cooking something, eventually - yes, baking a cake, yessie! Looking through my scrapbook of recipes I came across an oldie but a goodie. It never turned out peculiarly individualised, like some, it is soo easy and soo yummy. I have had the recipe for more years than I like to own up to. It was passed down on the back of an envelope at a party where the women sat in one corner and the men were somewhere down the back. Here it is:
Beer Cake
You need:
20 cm round baking tin, butter, brown sugar, 2 eggs, chopped walnuts, chopped dates, plain flour, bicarb of soda, cinnamon, powdered cloves, mixed spice, XXXX* beer.
*The lady who passed this recipe on to me was most adamant that you have to use XXXX, I never dared to deviate and credit my successfully baked beer cakes to her advice. Though I'd like to point out here that I don't have any shares in XXXX.
Cream: 1/2 lb of butter or marge
1 cup of brown sugar - packed firmly
Beat in: 2 eggs - one at a time
Fold in: 1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped dates
Sift dry ingredients: 3 cups of plain flour with
2 tsps of bicarb of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp powdered cloves
1/2 tsp mixed spice
2 cups XXXX beer
Fold in flour and beer, starting with flour and ending with flour.
Cook in mod oven (180) for 1 hour or until skewer comes out clean.
Enjoy! Guten Appetit! it's lovely with a bit of cream or healthy joghurt!
So I went yesterday with my friend Sue to the Gallery of Modern Art. Neither of us had seen so many Margaret Olleys in one space. It is really worth visiting a few times. And it is free! Apart from her many beautiful paintings there are filmed interviews and tributes to her art and life. It is very well curated. Last time I saw William Dobell's and Ben Quilty's Archibald portraits of her was at the Gallery of New South Wales. Now GOMA shows both. Ben Quilty's works are exhibited in a space opposite Margaret's. After lunch at the tranquil cafe with the soothing water features I introduced Sue to Angelika Kauffmann's Deserted Costanza, whom I have mentioned in my snippets Alfred. I was satisfied that she is still hanging in the international collection.
That reminds me of a fabulous movie loosely based on the life of the German artist Gerhard Richter. It is entitled Never Look Away and I saw with my friend Katalin a couple of weeks ago. It depicts Richter's early years as an aspiring artist in what was then Communist Germany and his further development in West Germany. Geoff and I were lucky enough to have recently seen some of Richter's works in European galleries. Come to think of it, GOMA also had a great exhibition of his work in 2017.
Wednesday, 17 July
Don't you just love the crisp blue skied mornings of Brisbane? Energising and sharp, ready for action, be it a walk along the creek, not just now, a visit to the gallery, later may be, cooking something, eventually - yes, baking a cake, yessie! Looking through my scrapbook of recipes I came across an oldie but a goodie. It never turned out peculiarly individualised, like some, it is soo easy and soo yummy. I have had the recipe for more years than I like to own up to. It was passed down on the back of an envelope at a party where the women sat in one corner and the men were somewhere down the back. Here it is:
Beer Cake
You need:
20 cm round baking tin, butter, brown sugar, 2 eggs, chopped walnuts, chopped dates, plain flour, bicarb of soda, cinnamon, powdered cloves, mixed spice, XXXX* beer.
*The lady who passed this recipe on to me was most adamant that you have to use XXXX, I never dared to deviate and credit my successfully baked beer cakes to her advice. Though I'd like to point out here that I don't have any shares in XXXX.
Cream: 1/2 lb of butter or marge
1 cup of brown sugar - packed firmly
Beat in: 2 eggs - one at a time
Fold in: 1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped dates
Sift dry ingredients: 3 cups of plain flour with
2 tsps of bicarb of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp powdered cloves
1/2 tsp mixed spice
2 cups XXXX beer
Fold in flour and beer, starting with flour and ending with flour.
Cook in mod oven (180) for 1 hour or until skewer comes out clean.
Enjoy! Guten Appetit! it's lovely with a bit of cream or healthy joghurt!
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