love the garden!!

reading

This year I read 8 books:

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay;
The Naming of Tishkin Silk by Glenda Millard;
The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith;
The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith;
A Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp;
Calebs Crossing by Geraldine Brooks;
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett;
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith
Not many... but I also browsed many other books and read magazines. ;)

Last night Melanie showed me this list.  The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. I am not sure who decided which 100 they would be, but the deal is that you highlight those which you have read.  I have coloured the ones I have read blue.  There are 15.  I own a good many that I have not yet read.  Shame on me.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible (but not over to cover)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of  (some of)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Posession A S Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazu Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I read this quote the other day:

"Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one." Augustine Burrell

I love it.  And fingers crossed, this coming year should see all of my books orderly, like this...

image from here

Is it any surprise one of my favourite scenes in Funny Face with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire is the book shop scene??

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year

CHARLES DICKENS

so it has begun...

This morning Nicholas crawled into our bed and said "mama, it is Christmas Eve today!"
He loves the Christmas Carol, 'The Little Drummer Boy' and yesterday made a drum and has been playing it while listening to it on this movie... 

I play the Josh Groban version loudly.  It has a very regal feel!

David and I stayed up late last night making fruit mince tarts and bon bons...

Audrey has been in awe of Santa and was in tears the other night as we were leaving the shopping centre as Santa had "gone home".  We don't "do" Santa at Christmas but last night took her to say hello to him.


More poignantly for the Season, listening to the Little Drummer Boy, i pondered this line...

I have no gift to bring...
That's fit to give a King

And last night I read Touching Wonder Recapturing the Awe of Christmas.

Recognition

Who on earth saw him first, knowing

truly who he was? belly to belly, when

John, prophet in utero, distinguished

in the natal soup the fetal bones, the body

curled like a comma, eyes tight, skull

packed with universal wisdom,

the unborn cousin began to dance.

And when she, birth-giver-

her ordinary vision arrowed down between

her legs, through pain and straw, to her son's dark,

slime-streaked hair hair, to his very skin, red with

the struggle of being born - she lifted him

to her breast kissed the face of God,

and felt her own heart leap.

~ Luci Shaw

This year my thoughts at Christmas time have been on the fact that this really happened. 
A baby born, that man no more shall die.

Christmas catch up

I haven't posted pictures from when we decorated the tree a few weeks ago...

Advent treats

Some cute links.
A puppet nativity scene and colouring pages here.
Oliver & S measurement chart here (they are too cute!)
This blog has some lovely Christmas related ideas.  As I peaked my Christmas enthusiasm about 4 weeks ago I'll save it for next year!
The kids in their Christmas play...

And, not Christmas related, but our proud little Joey

Christmas baking

Last Christmas I made Margaret Fulton's fruit mince tarts.  They were so yummy and I felt very pleased with myself for producing something from scratch that can be easily bought from the supermarket myself. It was the real thing.  :)

This year David is going to make them with me (which is great because his pastry is always perfect).

At the moment I am addicted to Martha Stewart's Spiced Maple Glazed Pecans.  They are SO good (probably not so for the hips) and I am making bags of them to give to work colleagues.  yum, yum!

Spiced Maple Glazed Pecans
from Martha Stewart
500grams unsalted pecans
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
4 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon light-brown sugar
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and toss to combine. Spread nut mixture in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet lined with a nonstick baking mat. Bake, stirring frequently, until browned, 12 to 15 minutes; let cool. Pecans can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container up one week.

...and the Christmas cds.  My favourites this year are Bette Midler's O Come, O Come Emmanuel, Josh Groban singing Little Drummer Boy and CeCe Winan's Do You Hear What I hear?

Advent calendar in use!

 

 

at the moment

I don't feel particularly on top of my Christmas plans... Christmas cd collation is ready to hand out, I have started writing Christmas cards, baking and shopping for gifts is yet to commence....So I have been listening to music.

just playing around...

...so photos are not necessarily in order, but I wanted to look at highlights from our year to date.

tis the season

It doesn't seem like long ago I was bemoaning the fact that I wasn't ready for the Christmas season to end.  And now it is just around the corner!

I have made my mix of Christmas songs for this year (some to be posted to friends on cd as Christmas cards ) and although I have a thing against using anything with snow at Christmas time I couldn't resist a couple of songs that mention sleighs and snow bells because Bette Midler has a great Christmas party voice.  And Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby remind me of my grandmother at Christmas time.

We will watch favourite movies with great Christmas scenes (all with snow!)  and this year I plan to watch all of It's A Wonderful Life.  I bought the kids Polar Express, which will be a fun family night (with treats). 
I have all but finished the advent calendar and am looking forward to making Margaret Foultons mince pies.  I'll watch Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas again because it is just so nice to see. 

And of course we will read all of the versions we have of the Nativity, with this one making a special appearance at church.

I love creating our own family traditions around this time of year!

loving these

very cute paper dolls from here.

...and loving that David has almost finished his assessment for uni and we can then throw ourselves into preparations for the comingChristmas Season !!

starlings fly

This is breathtaking.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Love of Literacy

A couple of weeks ago I bought this book for Nicholas and Audrey - based on the fact that my favourite children's book illustrator did the drawings.  When it arrived I firstly noticed the limited text.  As I looked at the illustrations the story played out before me.  I saw that it was set in an underprivileged area.  Two children find a book and escape to the backyard to read it.  Their imagination takes over and the message of the book is simply to look after books as they will take you places and can be read again and again and again.

Some time ago I came across these gorgeous videos  (I have shared one previously ).  As a bibliophile I was inspired by the idea of providing books where there are none and wished I could get involved with something like this from home.


Capucine for Edurelief in Mongolia from Capucha on Vimeo.

Today while at work I received two emails that reignited this desire.  I   am thrilled to see these initiatives close to Australia - I have visited both Papua New Guinea and East Timor.  I am aware of challenges in each country and am close to my counterparts there.



I am hoping to become more actively involved in the Buk Bilong Pikinini program. I actually need to be at the PNG High Commission over the next couple of weeks so will try and find out some more while I am there.  If interested, you can read an inspiring story about the program here.

The program reminded me of Mem Fox's visit to East Timor when one of her books was translated into Tetum. No sooner was I sharing this with colleagues when I received an email promoting the Alola Foundation 'Christmas Gift Certificates'. With a donation of $10 you can provide a pack of 8 readers to Timorese classrooms.



If you would like to support this (for only $10) visit here.

my spoils

(If anyone knows how to do a mosaic in Blogger please teach me!)

 

Audrey again

 

It is hard to believe that in the blink of an eye Audrey will be 4 and starting preschool.  I search my mind for memories of her as a baby.  Always quiet, it was  a job to try and get her to smile.  In my womb she was quiet.  I didn't feel the powerful kicks and rolls that I did with Nicholas.  The birth was quick and painful.  Although I started this blog as it was an easier way to record memories than writing in my journal, I rarely go back and look at old entries.  While thinking of Audrey I looked at a couple from 2008 and came across this one written when I was about to return to work.  Last night I dreamt I had another baby....

compassion, respect and manners

Be warned.  I am hopping onto my soap box.

I have seen two interviews in the past couple of weeks with people who were able to put in more eloquent language the very things which have stirred me most in recent months.  They are things that can quite easily get my blood to boiling.

One of them is how people have such little respect for other people these days.  Boy, do I sound old?  Alexander McCall Smith was recently in Australia to speak at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas.  His idea was, manners.  Jennifer Byrne interviewed him (can be watched here) and this is part of what he had to say - I would have given a standng ovation if I was present!

"...I have for a long time made that particular point in the books, particularly I suppose in the Isabel Dalhousie books where I talk about the nature of community and obligation. Isabel is a philosopher and she goes into these issues - obligation to one's fellow citizens. I have witnessed, I think, as probably most of us have, a curious development in society of, I suppose, the sort of casual rudeness and lack of concern for the feelings of others - a certain selfishness and greed, etc. You can come up with various descriptions of it - which worried me. Also, I was worried by the increasing fascination with violence. .. Then came the London riots, which really, really brought this home dramatically, in that there had been political discussion in the UK prior to that. People were talking about the broken society. They tended to be mocked by others when they talked about the broken society. Others said, 'Well, here you go again and moaning about how things were going to the dogs.' Then, of course, this extraordinary manifestation of extreme social dysfunction became apparent - manifested itself. I think the point about my talk at the Opera House really was how we need ask ourselves certain questions about that and say, 'What has gone wrong? Why have we got people who seem to be willing to behave in this way, many thousands of them?'

... [Manners] can be a shibboleth for entry into particular classes of society or a group. I agree with you on that in that respect, but many other manners are really directed towards the feelings of others and showing basic respect for other people, so something as simple as asking the other person to go through the door before you go through is quite nice, or helping somebody to get their bag down from the overhead storage bin in an aeroplane, or as simple as not looking irritated while they do that. Have you noticed that... ..how people can look so cross and irritated with other people when they're doing simple things? So manners are actually a really very important form of social lubricant. We're almost in the area of the zero-tolerance argument here. Remember, with zero-tolerance in relation to crime they said we'll stop people committing small street crimes and then you'll stop the major stuff. That does appear to have worked. There's a lot of evidence of the success of that. in those American cities where they've actually applied it. There's hard evidence that you actually reduce the risk to people in walking about the streets in safety if you adopt that particular approach. Manners are the small things - the small building blocks for a general attitude of respect and consideration for other people. So if you don't teach children these rather formal automatic manners, then I think it may be more difficult for them to grasp the bigger issues later on - the bigger issues about respect for others. And I remember as we all do when bringing up children, right at the beginning you sound like a long-playing record going on. 'What do you say? What's the magic word? Where's the thank you?' That sort of thing. We have to do that. And it's a form of fundamental socialisation. The problem seems to me that a lot of that has been somewhat pushed to the side because of pressure on parents, perhaps. They've got less time. Everybody's having to work harder, and therefore they have less time. The fact that people aren't having meals with their children - that's a rather disappointing development that if you look at the figures for the number of families that ever eat together, in a formal way, it's rather sad. Now, that again is a... Eating with the other person is a very fundamental form of social communication. It's a recognition of the humanity of the other. It's a fundamental social ritual which we're allowing to be eroded by the pressures of modern life. Is that making us lonelier as people? I suspect it is. I suspect we're becoming far more isolated and we sit there with our computers and iPhones, our electronic gizmos and we're losing the ability to talk to people. Look at what's happening to conversation. How many good conversations do you get on an aeroplane these days?

...I remember talking to people on aeroplanes. You don't want to talk the whole way. but you certainly want to say a few things, after all, you're sitting next to another human being for eight hours or nine hours or whatever it is. If it's a long flight, you sit next to another human being and you aren't acknowledging the humanity of that other person. You know nothing about them. Now, I think that is impoverishing us. I think that's really sad."

I am tired of materialism, keeping up with the Joneses, the attitude of  walking over people to get what you want first...

Then last week on Compass Geraldine Dogue spoke to another author, Christos Tsiolkas and in a closing comment when asked what he thought an ideal Australia would look like, he said:

"It would certainly be an Australia that would be much more thankful. I'm going to speak really plainly: You know what I would say, I would say, "Stop bloody whinging. Stop complaining. Stop wanting more. Stop thinking it's all about the ... plasma screen and stop thinking that a few thousand boat people is going to do anything to change what you have." I will say that's what I would want for Australia.

I think we have become, as I said really at the beginning, we have lost kindness. You know, that's [my] ultimate verdict..."

To me, these two people hit the nail on the head regarding all that infuriates me about our society.  I just had to get it down here.  For the record.

that time of year

Our vegetable garden has laid dormant this winter.  The neighbours bushes have grown to a point they block most of the winter sun. 
Summer shouldn't be a problem though so on Monday morning I turned the soil.  I threw in some blood and bone and manure.  I shoveled it again and raked it.  It felt good to see it there, bare and ready for new planting. 

Yesterday I sowed the seed into pots.  Tomato, rocket, beans, zucchini, basil and beetroot.  We need to get silverbeet and cucumber.  Audrey "helped". 

I held my breath as she threw some rocket seeds into my pot of tomato plants.  Not where I wanted them but still, I remind myself to include her more often in what I am doing.

I have been reading about companion planting.  I like the sound of marigolds throughout the garden so will buy them as well.

Currently I am reading The Secret Garden:
"She went through the door and found that it was a garden with walls all around it and it was only one of several walled gardens which seemed to open into one another.  She saw another open green door, revealing bushes and pathways between beds containing winter vegetables.  Fruit trees were trained flat against the wall, and over some of the beds were glass frames.  The place was bare and ugly enough, Mary thought, as she stood and stared about her.  It might be nicer in summer when things were green, but there was nothing pretty about it now."

When this is finished I am hoping to read my third Isabel Dalhousie before this book arrives.  I have read about Crossing to Safety on a number of blogs and I am keen to read it. 

Last weekend I made Audrey a book bag and made a sponge cake.  It felt like a CWA/Martha Stewart weekend! Last night I began putting numbers on the pockets of the advent calendar I have made.  Slowly, I am clearing the backlog of things to do, which gives me peace of mind.