We’ll gloss over that teensy daily posting blip …

I’ve been completely wiped out the last two nights and haven’t been able to do much more than scroll (and scroll and scroll) Pinterest.

My feed is very soothing and pretty right now and I sit mesmerised by short crafting videos as they appear. Who knew that watching weaving was so calming?

Perhaps I’m subconsciously hoping I’ll absorb some of this creativity by osmosis.

The grand plan for monthly grocery shopping was perhaps a little ambitious.

We’d run out of a few essentials so forced ourselves out for a top-up shop today. Yikes. Everyone is trying their best, but it can does sometimes get a little close for comfort in the supermarket.

I was so unsettled by it all that I forgot a couple of items on the list – we’ve agreed we will just make do with what we have until we’re brave enough to go out again in a couple of weeks.

xxx

Before shopping I grabbed the bag of vegetable scraps I’ve been saving from the freezer and turned them into stock.

It smelled marvellous, looked wonderful and tasted like … poison.

Ugh! Way way way too bitter.

Various sources on the InformationSuperhighway tell me that I allowed it to simmer for much too long.

We’ll consider that small experiment a fail and move on!

I spent a good deal of the day organising fabric. There’s definitely enough to keep me in projects for more than a little while.

After all that sorting, I traced out a pants pattern from an unused pattern I’ve had sitting around for probably 16 years. Traced because I want to make a couple of modifications and leave the original pattern intact. I’ve never really adjusted a pattern before so I’m trying to push through the slight discomfort.

Tomorrow I’ll start on a pair of baggy red flannel lounging pants. If they work out there will be more in my future – all the better for remote working. I’m never going to get on board with the idea of dressing as if I was going to the office when I’m working from home – bare feet and tracksuit pants forever!

I don’t expect I’ll finish the same day because I’m winging it – but I have a vision and plenty of time at my disposal.

You’d better believe I am going to get into some crafting this weekend.

Any outstanding chores can go to hell.

I’ll also make vegetable stock for the first time. I’ve been saving assorted peelings in the freezer for a couple of weeks. This is like peak frugal and I’m excited to make it happen.

And I will sit in the sun (with adequate sun protection of course).

And I will nap.

usual afternoon spot

Tomorrow I will:
+ Take the usual morning walk around the park
+ Spend 10 minutes on the exercise bike
+ Start compiling that way overdue reading list
+ Listen to three songs
+ Talk myself out of buying art supplies

I’m discovering the joys of committing to spend 10 minutes doing a thing. I can pretty easily find a spare 10 minutes somewhere – and it generally means I will do the thing rather than continue to avoid it. Will try to extend this out to some of those craft projects I’ve been perfectionisting over.

Back to work today after five glorious days off. I don’t know that I was terribly productive, but I don’t really think productivity matters over much right now (if it ever really did).

I could easily become accustomed to a reduced workload and more days off. Something to add to the Big Thoughts list.

We’re now entering week four of remote working and isolation. I think everyone is slowly habituating to this as the new normal.

For me this period has really shone a light on the fact that I have little-to-no regular connection with anyone apart from Don, the offspring and SML colleagues. And I wouldn’t describe many (any?) of my SML connections as particularly meaningful. All the Big Thoughts!

I’ll leave you with something infinitely more cheerful – delightfully cheering pix from our Monday walk. I’m sure you’ll agree that the first bunny is completely fabulous.

Yesterday we decided to take a slightly longer morning walk and headed to Callan Park. It’s 60 hectares of parkland in what was formerly an insane asylum. The grounds are very well maintained and there’s even a teeny rainforest. Many of the larger historic buildings were restored some years ago and house Sydney College of the Arts and the NSW Writers Centre, but a great number of other buildings are in a pretty dilapidated state – just sitting plonked amongst the grass. Marvellous if you like that sort of thing! Lots of signs about warning of asbestos.

The park is also located on prime Sydney real estate, so there are constant threats it will be sold to property developers who will then quickly erect thousands of hideously expensive apartments of substandard quality – with a couple of, completely out of context, large chimneys (we love a large chimney in Sydney) left standing as a nod to “heritage”. Giant sacks of money for everyone!

There were definitely quite a few people about enjoying the glorious weather – but the park is large enough that social distancing is incredibly easy. If you’re in walkable distance (James?) – you should totally visit.

I knew we’d walked around and taken photographs before, I also knew it had been a while and spent hours after we arrived home searching the archives. Finally I realised this post contained a link to a flickr account with only those photos in it. What a baffling choice. I guess we didn’t overload posts with photos in 2007?

Thankfully that has now changed – prepare to be utterly overloaded. Those interior shots are definitely my favourites. Because the day was so bright I couldn’t actually see through the windows very well, so I shoved the phone against the glass and hoped for the best!

The quality of cameras (2007 was a camera, 2020 is my phone) and my photography have both rather improved in the intervening 13 years!

Will make sure we return before 2033.

Another of those not-craft things was messing about a bit with the plants on the lower balcony – stuck some dirt in pots, thinned some stuff, cast some seeds about.

I’m a big fan of letting most mystery plants have their way and seeing what happens. This is how we’ve ended up with what appears to be wheat. Courtesy of a passing bird? I adore the giant weed with the yellow flowers in the bottom of the curry tree and can’t bear to pull it out.

I had intended to buy some large(ish) rectangular plastic pots for the spinach and rocket, but sense took hold and I figured I could likely make do with the smaller pots we had kicking around in the garage. We don’t really need any more stuff, though of course this view is subject to change. I’ve been reading about planting in cardboard boxes, but have yet to try the experiment.

90% confident this is wheat

i’m crazy for the flowers on this giant weed

The seeds I sowed here sprouted very quickly and then started looking a little sad, so I moved them to larger pots and threw in a couple more seeds in case none of the first lot made it.

It definitely could benefit from more trees and much more wildness! I would love a citrus tree, but have banned self from buying another – though I have chucked some seeds in a tiny pot.

Despite best intentions, I’ve not done a smidgeon of crafting. There have been chores. There has been pottering about.

And there has been long slow cooking. So far I’ve made (modified) beef and guinness pie and pasta bolognaise. Both were delicious – you should totally make them.

As always, I made the pastry for the pie. We’re accustomed to having a couple of kilograms of flour on hand at all times, but there has been significantly less baking in ThePalace(OfLove)since Bessie moved out and I’ve been letting the stash run down.

What this meant was that because of widespread lack of availability, I had to take whatever flour I could get at the store. This is how I ended up with a 1kg bag of “sharp flour”. I’d not heard of sharp flour before and there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount about it on the Information Superhighway. The texture is quite unlike normal flour – it’s not at all light and fluffy as with normal flour, but very fine and quite grainy. Apparently it’s great for cakes, sweets and pizza bases.

It definitely made for an excellent pasty. We’re almost out of it and I’m sure I’ll never see it anywhere ever again.

layers – I has them

xxx

I’ve been talking of doing a
short online class for years and years and I finally started a coursera course on American Postwar Abstract Painting with MOMA which I’m really adoring. I only had a very passing familiarity with some of the artists, so this has been an excellent intro.

There’s an optional studio component which I had no intention of completing, but now I’m amongst it I absolutely want to grab a canvas and some paint and get to messing about.

xxx

And of course there has been the usual walking around the neighbourhood before breakfast. I don’t know that I recall seeing jasmine flower in April before.

xxx

In an effort to at least make something this long weekend, I’m planning a news-free Monday.

Despite our pact to not grocery shop for a month, one of the reasons we walked toward Blackwattle Bay yesterday was to possibly hit up the supermarket for a lime which we’d forgotten to include on the extensive shopping list.

A little while into the walk I realised that the supermarket was unlikely to be open because it was Good Friday – one of the only two days of the year where pretty much nothing is open.

I’d resigned myself to using a lemon when there on the footpath was a citrus tree! A tree absolutely laden with what appeared to be limes. I sniffed them to make sure and grabbed one** because I figured The Universe was rewarding me for the walk, and encouraging me to stick to the monthly shop.

I started second-guessing the limeness when we got home. It certainly looked like a lime and smelled very citrusy if not entirely limey. Definitely not an orange or a lemon, so surely must be a lime.

After cutting it open this evening I was much less convinced it was a lime, the pulp just didn’t seem quite right, though the smell was almost there. Perhaps a very sharp unripe mandarin or tangerine?

Nonetheless, whatever it was did the job and Don’s guacamole was excellent, so hopefully we won’t become hideously unwell overnight from not-lime poisoning.

I really should 1. learn when stuff is in season; 2. return to the tree in several weeks to see what the fruit becomes.

xxx

** located on public property so I think all good and I won’t face imprisonment or transportation for lime theft.