Reading: Bryson & Marchetta

0609 Reading: Bryson & Marchetta
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

What riches! Two of my favourite authors each popping a sprog.

Bill Bryson's travel books are enduringly wonderful, so after the taster from the Lost Continent, "I was born in Des Moines. I guess somebody had to be." here is his memoir of childhood.

Looking for Alibrandi and Saving Francesca are favourite teenage novels - Melina Marchetta has such an ear and pen for creating a voice. She's not prolific, so each new work is to be savoured. Hear an interview with Melina.

Phooey! - NO time for reading this weekend. They'll just haunt me till I can start. And then, which first????

This is one of my favourite quotes about reading:

I read because the words that build the story become mine, to build my life.

I read not for happy endings but for new beginnings; I'm just beginning myself and I wouldn't mind a map.

I read because I have friends who don't, and young though they are, they are beginning to run out of material.

I read because every journey begins in the library, and it's time for me to start packing.

I read because one of these days I may want to leave this town, and I'm going to go everywhere and meet everybody, and I want to be ready.

(Robert Peck)

Sunset

0609 sunset
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

There was the most amazing sky late yesterday - the wash of redpink went right across, not just in the west. By the time I could stop and reach for the camera, it had retreated a little. Quarter of an hour later, all was greying into evening, not a trace of fire left.

The big salad

The big salad lunch
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The cornerstone of a happy lunch is the big salad.

Apart from the extensive array of vegetables, there are four secret ingredients. The ham, if ham is used, must be at least double if not triple smoked (more flavour). The dressing is a secret combination including lemon, lime, pepper, mustard and honey. And finally a small amount of peanuts and fetta add crunch and yet more flavour.

Prepared in advance by the in-house chef (that would be me), it transports to work with ease and when fully assembled and tossed in dressing, represents a decent half hour of crunching (there's a whole carrot julienned in that lot).

Highly recommended. Lotsa veges. Real food. Deeeelicious.

Yellow banksia rose

0609 yellow banksia rose
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

There I was, pootling around the streets noticing other people's blossom trees and magnolias, and I miss the turn of the banksia rose, from green sprays one week to floral arches the next. I've always preferred the yellow banksia rose to the white - it's a great subtle creamy yellow.

Purple and silver

0609 purple and silver
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This carpet of silver leaves has been growing and spreading for months over winter and when I walked past it today, had sprung forth with purple daisyflowers. I'm sure they're loverly when open, but I rather like them furled in the fading light, like this. It suggests fairy skirts, or a glorious umbrella to shade the Great Panjandrum.

Arum lilies

Arum lilies
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

A surprise gift, and one of my favourite flowers, elegant unfurling sculptures.

July 2006 mosaic

July 2006 mosaic
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Something of a red and green month, partly to do with Christmas-themed projects. Bananas - coming down a bit in price, but still around $7/kilo and sometimes a bit bingled.

River

0609 river
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

If it wasn't raining cats and dogs and other assorted small quadrupeds today, the view of the river would look just like this. But it is and so it doesn't. It's welcome rain.

Beadstrings

0609 beadstrings
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Took this photo (with permission) at a craft show recently. All those colours! - I could look at beads for hours just to enjoy colour and texture. The number of bead traders at craft shows has exploded in the last 12 months.

I will not ever..

0609 picture book
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Love this one. Lauren Child draws great eyes and expressions.

United 93

0609 United 93 film poster
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The most extraordinary, sad, brilliant film I'll see all year.

I brought a hanky, and then needed it sooner than I had expected. In the end, it wasn't the end one knew which brought me to tears. It was the ordinariness of people boarding and settling into a routine flight, and then the moment, after delays, when the plane took off, and you knew those people would never land alive.

As they found their seats, put bags in the overhead lockers, ignored the flight attendants doing their safety advisory I thought, I've been on that flight. It looks like most any flight I've ever been on.

Paul Greengrass, who wrote and directed it, his actors, his crew did an astonishing job of putting us there. The participation, as themselves, of a number of people who were a part of the day's events in control rooms shows their trust, in him and the film he was making, trust which was justified.

Roger Ebert's review describes this as masterful and heartbreaking. He's right. I wanted to see it on a big screen, in the darkness and focus of a cinema, and that was right too.

As the fifth anniversary approaches, the television documentaries are multiplying: The Falling Man, 9/11 (combining re-enactments with real footage). It's still not possible to do anything but shudder at the burning towers, the breached Pentagon, the scarred Pennsylvania field.

And wonder, without ever being able to know, how it could have been avoided, how else world affairs might have been conducted to avoid this.

Irish soda bread

0609 soda bread
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

My absoutely favourite bread in the world. Bar none.

Pink blossom

0609 pink blossom
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

So many beautiful trees in the streets and gardens now - thought it was time to add a darker pink one to last week's array. It's been so warm, the last couple of days - 27degC - but there's a cold front coming for the weekend, so winter's sending a final greeting before spring takes over.

Carwash

0609 carwash
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

If it's Father's Day (and it is) then best make sure the car looks clean.

To market

0609 today's market specials
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It felt quite French (or Melburnian, if you live near enough to the Queen Victoria Market) to decide dinner on the basis of what's on special, fresh, good and thus probably seasonal at the greengrocer's. Leeks 3 for $2, strawberries 3 punnets for $4. Yum. Potato and leek soup, followed by strawberries and cream. Both the leeks and the strawberries smell differently wonderful - they fought for supremacy in the car on the way home.

Rowing course

0609 rowing course
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Blue water, blue sky, a rising moon, reflections on the water, a quirky shed, the first (calendar) day of spring warm and sunlit. What's not to like?

Green swords

0609 green leaves
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Not sure I captured the light through these leaves as I would have liked, but it's probably thanks to omnia's brilliant photographs that I even noticed it at all.

June 2006 mosaic

June 2006 mosaic
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

A month in pictures. Quite a colourful month!

Rural track

0608 rural track
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

There's a track, winding back - but no shack, and this isn't on the road to Gundagai. Just the wonder of an enormous sky, the clouds catching the warmth of the late afternoon light. Five minutes later the sky was monochrome, the warmth but a bare smoulder of crimson on the western mountains.

Winter tree

0608 winter tree
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This tree has local heritage listing - it's enormous. In autumn, the leaves below form a thick carpet that delights small children as they fall and toss and play. Now in winter, against the grey light of early morning, it seems more remote; but still beautiful, an intricate tracery of twigs and branches against a monochrome sky. With so many local trees being eucalypts and thus evergreen, this one offers a different view.

Quilt: work in progress

0608 work in progress
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The sample block, the cut out pieces, the design in a plastic sleeve, the design notebook, the black Bic fine point pen (blame my sixth grade teacher for that particularity), the sewing machine, the plastic sectioned box with extra feet, bobbins, threads, the green cutting mat, the (invisible) yellow rotary cutter - yup, it's all there.

Reading: Watership Down

0608 Watership Down
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It's years since I read this for the first time, and some years since I've read it again. It was just as much of a pleasure - this time particularly, beyond the well-told story, which mostly came back to me as I read, other things made an impact. Adams's ability to put you into the English countryside with all your senses, so you hear the birds, see the turn and shape of leaves - evocative writing. The story remains strong, but also the truth of it - how many times and in how many countries/cultures since has a Woundwort had the chance to change the world, and has stayed with autocracy rather than adventuring to co-operation?

If you haven't read it in a while, treat yourself. Wonderful writing.

It's not easy being green

0608 it's not easy being green
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

And it's a complete puzzle as to why someone woud require pleated woollen shorts in precisely this eye-dazzling shade of green. The world's a strange place. Even more when you can find shell buttons in pretty much precisely the same shade. Perhaps the fact that I found the shorts in an op shop might explain them - they're in very good nick, so it doesn't look as though they saw much wear...

Magnolia

0608 magnolia
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Is it blossom week or what? I keep noticing and enjoying the neighbourhood magnolias. I remember none from childhood, but now find them glorious.

Another blossom tree

0608 blossom tree
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

More spring, even against a grey morning sky. They're promising rain, which while welcome will probably batter about some of these delicate blossoms. So they're to be enjoyed while they're here.

Blossom tree

0608 blossom tree
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

More evidence of spring.

Vista

0608 vista
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The river that's been there forever, and the lakes being created from quarrying gravel for a hungry, growing city. Hadn't been to this lookout for a while - the sheer size of this project is astonishing. Photo was taken late afternoon, with the mountains casting an eastward shadow.

Jonquils

0608 jonquils
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Spring. Or something like it - although while the days have been rather warm, it still cools down close to zero at night.

Jonquils are a favourite flower - and still, unlike many flowers/fruits/vegetables, seasonal, so you can enjoy them and then anticipate them. They don't become ho-hum.

Cart (no horse)

0608 cart (no horse)
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Some kind of vintage cart - I don't know enough about carts to know. The garden beyond is filled with sticklike rose bushes, waiting for summer - although on a warm Sunday afternoon in winter, summer didn't seem so far away.

Gee whiz

0608 quilt
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Back in May, I began a challenge inspired by on a Gee's Bend quilt.

Quilt's done.

Bird on a wire

0608 bird on a wire
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Kookaburra sits on a telephone wire...

or maybe it's an electricity wire.

This is not my area of expertise. I do quilts.

(would you look at that beautiful sky??)

(Patchwork)

0608 patchwork
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

There's patchwork everywhere - we are always putting elements and geometry together in a multitude of ways, from the rustic honesty of this letterbox? pillar? to the technoprecision of city office buildings.

The fence adjacent to this is a sandstone wall, with deliberately-chosen stone of fairly even colour. I'm intrigued by this, though: will is remain so varied in colour (which I do like very much) or is this the kind of base that then gets rendered or otherwise hidden?

Frosty violets

0608 frosty violets
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

(OK, so I'm still mining the weekend's photos.) But how can I not use this one? The precise, delicate frost on a tangle of violets. The leaf caught amongst them.

It can be so much easier to see the places you don't live every day - it freshens your eyes. In the everyday round of work and home, the everyday routines of this day, week, year, it's more of a challenge to find something new. And yet... I am pleased with what I've learned and am learning to see.

It's still a pleasure to go away and have beautiful things like this to photograph.

Lake George

0608 track on Lake George
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Lake George is on the way to Canberra, just after the village of Collector; the road skirts around the lake.

It fascinates me - it's vast, and so often there is little water there, so you see fences and grazing sheep. Other times all you would see in this photo is water between the trees and the distant mountains.

More information on Lake George here and here (scroll down to the end for this one).

Abandoned church 1

0608 abandoned church 3
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This is on the Federal Highway heading into Canberra. I always look for it and wonder about its history. No particular settlement or villages nearby, just this small church. Little or no zoom on this picture, so you can see how it looks from the road.

Look at the difference between the watered paddocks and the unwatered foreground.

Abandoned church 2

0608 abandoned church 1
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Context, rather than just the building's detail.

Abandoned church 3

0608 abandoned church 2
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Hurrah for a better zoom lens than I've had before. Love the texture of the roof's decay.

Ladies' Toilets at Old Parliament House

0608 Ladies Toilets at Old Parliament House
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Canberra's Old Parliament House is now houses the National Portrait Gallery, but the opportunity to consider its former use is still very much there. You can view the chambers - House of Reps (green leather seats) and Senate (red leather seats).

This evidence of its past made me chuckle. When the bells would ring for a division and members were needed in the house to vote, they clearly made sure there was no escape - even in the loo! The bells to alert you, and the lights to advise for which chamber.

I do not plan to blog regularly, if ever again, on the features of public lavatories, but this was irresisistible. The architecture - much of it original, like this door - is part of its appeal: for example the loo basins are in period (with modern washers) and the rectangular 'brick' -style white tiles on the wall too.

The soon-to-close exhibition, Mrs Prime Minister about PM's wives since Federation (from 1901) was entertaining, particularly in the small details of how they conducted themselves in their 'first lady' role (eg. Pattie Menzies got a second-hand stroller/pushchair for her visiting grandchildren, painted it herself, and in using it discovered the inconvenient lack of footpaths in Canberra. And did something about it.)

Frosty leaves

0608 frosty leaves
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

After an obviously cold night, these usually richly coloured leaves were painted lightly with frost. Beautiful.

Painting

0606 painting
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This was an op shop find, on a particularly hideous 3-D shadow-effect home-made frame which has now Gone To A Better Place.

I'm left with a painting I find serene and rather appealing - it has the feel of somewhere in the British Isles, Scotland perhaps. It's painted on masonite, the textured side, which gives a canvas-like effect.

Reframe? Leave as is? I don't know yet. But I was glad to have found it to bring home.

Another morning eucalypt

0608 another morning eucalypt
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The last one, a few days ago, was aglow, whereas this morning the light was brilliant, the eastern side of the tree sharply defined, the sky a clear and vivid blue. I tried to catch last night's full moon, but it defeated my camera. It was reminding me of the Alfred Noyes poem, The Highwayman, learned many years and moons ago at school

The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding--
Riding--riding--
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.

There's a new Flickr group, A Year Of Color, that's a simple, engaging premise: one crayon colour a week, photos posted to be featuring that colour - and it's a different colour each week for the year, so it's a BIG box of crayons they're coming from.

The red one

0607 the red one
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Isn't it an education in colour, how that one red one highlights the subtle variety of all the rest? These were in a kitchenware shop, and are from Bison Australia .

Found another blog to enjoy full of colour and patterns that I'd love to draw out of the computer as quilting fabric....print & pattern.

Census

060808 census
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Tuesday 8 August 2006 is Census night. This household has done its civic dooty.

Today's tidbit? (since this seems to be turning into a week of look what I found!

Omnia takes some of the most beautiful, astounding photos I've found on Flickr. Take a look and treat yourself.

Morning eucalypt

0607 morning eucalypt
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Ali Edwards has an approach to her creativity that I admire very much - finding art in life, redefining what art might and can be.

Great quote from her blog today:

John Burroughs : The lesson which life constantly repeats is to 'look under your feet.' You are always nearer to the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars. Every place is the center of the world.

I can see this tree from home. It's not under my feet, but it's something close, not travelled for, part of my place.

So.....

...how do you like the new banner?

And if you can tell me how to eliminate the border around it, if I want to, that would be grand!

Old bank gates

0608 bank gate faces (large)
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

I walked past these gate medallions on a 19th century bank building today - it's not the Commercial Banking Company (which is long-subsumed into another bank) but the building with its iron lace balcony does still house a bank branch.

I'm intrigued by the fact that they're different faces - was there more than one goddess of banking and money, or did the sculptor just feel like a change?

One of the great advantages of a photoblog is the way it makes you open your eyes and pay attention. I'm glad I noticed these.

Food for thought

Happythings has begun a new blog about giving up shopping (for everything but essentials), inspired by a book (which she didn't buy...!).

Food for thought in our consumer-driven society.

It's called Every Little Thing.

Bus restoration

0608 bus restoration
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

While today was mostly about quilts in various ways, inspecting this bus restoration was a profoundly educational part of it.

It's a pre-WW2 Leyland bus, which after years of patient restoration is expected to take the road on Australia Day 2007.

It's astounding how many decisions, discoveries and challenges are involved in the process. Take this seat for example.
- The seat frames came from a later vintage bus, so the legs you see on the left have all been moved several inches from a position closer to the centre. Because on this model bus, they were on the edge.
- The seat frame has been restored in two parts: when originally constructed, the top of the metal was dipped in chrome, in a way you can't get done now. So these have been painted brown, and the top chrome pieces have been made separately and joined.
- The seat and back are made of brown leather. I was shown an original: the colour match is remarkable.
- The seam at the back of the seat is correct for this model and vintage.
- The back of the seat back has been scumbled to echo the original finish.
- The chrome frame also provided 'straphanger' room to hang on. To finish the leather in that corner, half-cylinder metal has to be found, cut to appropriate lengths and screwed in place.

This bus will shortly be painted in its historic livery, red and cream with some black.

I have no plans to acquire a bus, let alone restore one. But it's fascinating to see, in someone else expounding their passion, the same commitment to imagination, problem-solving, patience and ingenuity which one can require to design and make a patchwork quilt. All of us on these different roads, which are so often the same road. I've seen this bus in progress at several stages over the years, and it's the most complicated, challenging 'jigsaw' I've ever seen.

Wattle/acacia

0607 wattle/acacia
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

In gardens, along the roads, in shrubberies and parks, wattle is unfurling in a wondrous variety of yellows.

Having been battling a heavy head cold all week, I've finally grabbed a moment to get the blog back up to date. Thanks for your patience! Now for the next item on the neglected, ever-growing list.

Bouquet

0608 bouquet
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

An unexpected bouquet. Roses, carnations, lavender, dollar gum, jonquils. Smells gorgeous, looks so pretty (even with a background of work desk and paperwork - what a lovely thing to have in my office).

Bananas again

0608 bananas again
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

For those not familiar with metric, 15cm is about 6in. So these are tiddly bananas. They cost $3.15 in total (at $12.99/kilo, the going rate). Tasted good. Still be March next year before things are back to how they were, banana-wise, or so the papers say.

The background is the other wrapping paper design from Australian Patchwork and Quilting - this is a quilt by Marianne Roberts called Pink (not fiasco, not fiasco..!) Fiesta.

An apple a day

0607 Royal Gala apple
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

...isn't having the desired effect.

{SNEEZE COUGHCOUGH}

Royal Gala apples are the most beautiful ones. Taste great too.

more soon.