Dried leaves in boiling water...

...an exercise in associative blogging.

Tea.

My Nanna (Dad's mum), who I remember as teaching me to drink tea - no sugar, a bit of milk, strong and hot.

Breathing in the steam from the mug, cupped in cold hands, sitting around a campfire at night. So many glorious camping holidays with my family and my mum's twin sister's family when I was a kid.

Yum cha, the brew getting stronger as the meal progresses until the pot is refilled and it goes back to hot water lightly tinged with colour and flavour.

The ritual of Grandma's teapot, readied before every meal and filled with boiling water as dessert was finished, the cosy tucked around it, and cups of tea poured when perfectly brewed.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and the cup of something that was almost but not quite entirely unlike tea which was all poor Arthur could get out of the Nutrimatic drinks dispenser.

Cold tea being used as a burns treatment in one of the Sue Barton books.

The Swallows and Amazons were always drinking tea; Lucy had tea with Tumnus the faun; Bilbo drank tea with Gandalf; the Mad Hatter had a tea party; Bunyip Bluegum, Sam Sawnoff and Bill Barnacle brewed tea in a billy to have with the puddin'; and there's nothing better than sitting down with a nice hot cup of tea and a good book.

Standing at the bus stop waiting to go to school in the morning with my cup of tea, the bus stop was right by our letterbox, when I finished my tea I'd put the empty mug in the letterbox and retrieve it when I got home in the afternoon. I once dropped and broke a favourite mug (given to me by my best friend Rowena) juggling too many belongings while trying to open the front door.

Tom reaching for my mug of hot tea from his perch on my left hip at maybe 9 or 10 months old and demanding his share of it before it got cold. Asbestos mouth that child.

Sitting on our front deck with my gardener, drinking tea and listening to tales of him growing up on a farm in South Africa and becoming a cheesemaker and eventually emigrating to Australia. He's moved up to the Central Coast now and has passed the Sydney part of his business on to his son. They're both lovely people but the son sends minions rather than coming himself (he's also living on the Central Coast) and I'm not at home as much so the tea break with the gardeners isn't happening any more.

Comfort, the cure for all ills. Peppermint tea for morning sickness (or rather morningnoonandnight sickness as it was), chamomile for sleep, English Breakfast tea for fueling up for the day, Earl Grey tea at night.

Watching Star Trek with Adam and wrangling cups of tea from each other with humerous orders "Tea, Earl Grey, hot. Make it so?"

Smoko at the shearing sheds when I went on a Scripture Union Agriculture camp during school holidays in year 7. It's called a smoko but it's really all about the mugs of tea. And the enormous trays of slab cake. I rode a pony bareback (and fell off) and drove a car across a paddock on that camp too. Then sprained my ankle so badly I couldn't walk for several days because I tried to chase sheep over rough ground wearing gum boots. My friend Rowena carried me piggy-back from the paddock back to where the camp staff were.

My kids bringing me cups of tea when they see I'm stressed or upset. On Wednesday night after Caitlin's dance concert this week I was so exhausted and strung out that when we got home I collapsed on the lounge and cried a little. Next thing I knew I had two cups of tea, both Caitlin and David had independently made one for me. I drank them both.

Drinking tea with my Mum and my brother on Saturday night. We sat at the kitchen table at my Mum's place after having left Grandma's room at the nursing home. We talked and cried a little and remembered and smiled and even laughed a little.

Tea.

Dried leaves in boiling water.

50 Things post No.18

This isn't quite a usual Friday Fragments style of post, not least because it doesn't just cover the last week - more like the last 40 years - but it's certainly fragmentary and it does include a couple of bits from the week just gone, so I'm linking up anyway. Don't forget to visit all the other fabulous fragmenters too!

Hosted by Mrs4444.

Swimming

I can't remember learning to swim, though I do remember swimming lessons, specifically taking the life-saving course at Pymble pool in the summer holidays while my younger siblings were learning to swim and going to the school swimming scheme in primary school. I know diving clicked for me when I was 9 and we were in Tahiti on our way to the US where my dad was going for a 4 month sabbatical. There is also the family story of sibling rivalry wherein I was going without floaties for the first time at 3 years old and my sister, 21 months younger than me, decided that meant she could too and plunged straight to the bottom of the ocean pool.

I have so many cherished childhood memories of swimming. Out beyond the breakers with my uncle and cousin, body surfing and ending up with a cossie full of sand on numerous beach camping holidays. Floating on airbeds in the Kangaroo River, again with our cousin. Canoeing and swimming in Smiths Lake and swimming out to help my sister and cousin who were having steering issues with their canoe. My sister and I swimming out to the pontoon in the middle of the bay at the resort in Crete and FREAKING our parents out because it was so far off shore, I was 14 (Dad swam out to "rescue" us, we beat him back to shore by a long shot and then he got disoriented on the way back and ended up off to billy-o around the shore-line). At 15 years old, going to the YMCA in Boulder Colorado on a Friday night for a family outing at the pool, in winter, and stopping off at Baskin and Robbins on the way home. Getting up at 6am to go with my Mum to the local pool to swim 1km before breakfast on school days during my HSC year.

By the time that last one was happening I had well and truly reached the point where I felt uncomfortable in a swimming costume in public. It was an effort to go to a public pool and take my clothes off, the less time there was between removing my shirt and getting in the water the better. I was about half the weight I am now.

When I had kids I made a conscious decision that my issues with my body would not stand in the way of them having the fun of beaches and swimming pools and all the things that I loved so much when I was a kid. I made that decision long before I'd even heard of Fat Acceptance and it was hard to follow through on. For a long time I had to have at least a day's notice before a trip to the local swimming pool, I needed to psych myself up to it and wake in the morning knowing that we were going. Going on beach camping holidays was an exercise in being tense and hyper self-conscious for a whole weekend, or a whole week. Even being in my in-law's backyard pool was challenging, not that any of my in-laws have ever said a single word to me about my weight, but still.

Me, David and Caitlin in Adam's parent's pool

But I did it and I'm glad I did. For one thing I have photos like these and the memories to go with them.

Caitlin



David



Me



Me, Caitlin and Tom

I had conversations with small children at beaches who informed me, as small children will, "You're fat!" and I found that I could respond with humour and be ok.

Me, David and Caitlin (and my mum's arm)

I got to be the one teaching my kids how to watch the breaking waves and decide to either jump over or dive under. (With help from Grandma!)

Me, my Mum, David, Caitlin and Thomas

David boogie boarding

Last summer I tended to be the one behind the camera, but I was still there, at the beach and the pool, in my swimming costume and in the water.

Adam and Caitlin

Adam and the kids.

This summer I plan to make sure I'm in the photos again.

50 Things post No. 2

Sundays in My City

Hosted by Unknown Mami

Last Sunday I wasn't in a city, instead we had traveled back 1000 years and were in a pine forest near Armidale camping out for 4 nights with over 400 other people. I keep promising myself and others that I'll produce the definitive post-holiday post but I still haven't recovered enough for my brain to be up to the task, so you're getting a pictorial teaser instead.

Tom cooking quail



Our tent, complete with replica viking queen-sized bed



Battle lines



Markets



Bonfire on feast night

The past is an awesome place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there all the time, as David noted, when we arrived at Cruickshanks Cottage for 4 days of farmstay bed and breakfast indulgence after the camp, that shower felt damn good.

Pictorial fragments from the past week

Hosted by Mrs4444.

This week's Friday Fragments has, very conveniently, been put off till Saturday which means I didn't have to be incredibly rude and spend part of Christmas Day hiding away behind the laptop in order to participate. Of course just because I didn't have to have net time yesterday doesn't mean I stayed completely away.... I'm so addicted. Head on over to Half-Past Kissin' Time for more fragments from the festive season.

****

Our camping trip to Fingal Bay last weekend kicked off to a great start with us stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway, we took 2.5 hours to travel about 5km. I was able to get online from my phone and find out that the reason for the jam was a caravan accident, that there was a rescue helicopter on the road and that all lanes were closed. So we resigned ourselves to being late and were very grateful for cool weather, fully charged Nintendo DS's and that it wasn't us who'd managed to flip their huge caravan and have the roof of their 4WD removed (not sure if that was due to the accident or the rescuing). We arrived with just enough time up our sleeves to get the tent all set up before the light faded.

****

The next morning Tom was ready to head to the beach at 7am but, as it was still quite overcast and cool and we had shopping that needed doing, we made him wait for a while. By the time we got to the beach there was not a cloud in the sky and we were all well and truly ready to get wet. The water was crystal clear and FREEZING but that didn't stop anyone - not even me, but there are no pictures to prove that ;-)

This was about as big as the waves got.

****

On Christmas Eve we went to Adam's brother's place for lunch. I made a Greek salad and a pear, blue cheese and walnut salad, and we took some prawns along as our contributions to the meal and we sat around eating and talking while the kids played in the swimming pool. It's possible Caitlin may have been in there just a little too long.

Wrinkly fingers!

****

Christmas lunch was at my Mum's place and we were very happy that my 99 year old Grandma was able to join us. It was quite an effort for her to be there but she was glad to be there and, as I told her, it's such a wonderful thing for the kids to know their Great Grandma and be able to share special occasions with her. As we sat around the table after the meal Caitlin ran off and grabbed her new sketchbook and Derwent pencils and drew a portrait of Great Grandma which she then gave to her to take home. I think it was a bit of a hit.

Caitlin with Great Grandma

****

Caitlin scored big on the art front for Christmas, as well at the set of 72 Derwent watercolour pencils, she got a desk easel with paints, brushes, a palate and a couple of canvases, they seem to have gone down well.

Caitlin painting a dragon

****

One of Tom's presents was a drawing kit with a book on how to draw mythological creatures, this has been a huge success with Adam and Caitlin getting in on the act as well. This one is a collaborative effort between Tom and Daddy.

Dragon by Tom (with some help from Dad)

****

Today we have eschewed all the traditional Boxing day pursuits of movie going, sales shopping, cricket or Sydney to Hobart yacht race watching and have spent the day lazing around doing nothing much. Adam did get a bit energetic for a while though and whipped up a loaf of Ginger Beer Bread using the Spiced Ginger Loaf recipe from our bread machine's instruction book and using Lord Nelson Old Admiral beer in place of water. It was pretty damn good.

Bread, cheese, ham and pickles. Perfect.

Beorgwic was...wet

We left home rather later than we had intended for our trip to Beorgwic, the annual event hosted by the Ancient Arts Fellowship at the Danelaw property in the Southern Highlands. As we drove south I tweeted my fear that we would be putting the tent up in the rain, what I didn't quite anticipate was that it would also be be dark. Pitch black dark. We put the tent up in the rain and freezing cold by torchlight. I am so very glad that putting up a geteld is incredibly quick. (Many thanks to Talisien of Blue Draco for making us such a beautiful tent - it was perfect!)

Our tent

You'd think that with a start like that I'd have been feeling utterly miserable but the truth is I was having fun. I scare myself sometimes. Unfortunately going to bed very cold with wet hair and wearing my furry hat left me with an ear infection that got slowly worse over the course of the weekend, the agony peaked on the drive home so it didn't really spoil my weekend but it did leave me feeling not my best. (Turned out in the end to be a combination of external and middle ear infection, I've had that once before and I suspected it was heading that way. That part not so much fun.)

The kids were great dealing with the wet and cold and went to bed without any complaints being very careful not to let their sleeping bags soak up the puddles on the ground under their airbeds (does this sound like fun yet?). I was so very glad we'd decided to grab dinner of sorts when we'd stopped for petrol about 90 minutes before arriving at the camp.

We woke to drizzle and mist 1000 years in the past. It took Adam a very long time to get the fire going so we had cold breakfast - bread, cheese and fruit - before heading off to do crafting workshops. Adam did blacksmithing and made a cloak broach and I learned how to do Viking wire-weaving (more on that in a later post). Then we had porridge for lunch.

Our fireplace became a favoured gathering place during the day for many of the camp's kids who had a great time alternately poking at the fire with sticks and at each other with rubber weapons. It was...noisy, but at least our fire didn't go out!

Tom and Odin

Caitlin, Emily and David

Dinner for the kids was served early in the tavern, a huge improvement on last year when the kids ate at the same time as everyone else, whinged about the food and generally made dinner time rather stressful.

The kids at dinner

Dinner for the rest of us on Saturday and Sunday nights consisted of a four course feast of deliciousness provided by our hosts. Saturday was meatballs in a creamy sauce, then red wine beef and honey roasted vegetables followed by lamb cider stew and topped off with saffron custard and ginger biscuits. Sunday was lombard chicken pasties, then pork and honey roasted veg, lamb stew again and pears poached in red wine with cream for dessert. Top that off with a drinking horn or two full of beer and mead and all is well with the world!

I got a little bit of tablet weaving done, loosed a few arrows at some targets and generally hung around talking to people and not caring what the kids were up to. That particular approach came a little unstuck when Caitlin almost managed to get herself lost in the bush en route back from the Danelaw fort 700m up the road - she was set on the right path by others who were heading to the fort through the bush and came hurtling down the path to the village with tears streaming down her cheeks having given herself a huge fright and a useful lesson in the do not separate from your companions rule. The kids had all gone up to the fort together via the road and then some had headed off into the bush while the others had gone back via the road and then somehow Caitlin had ended up ahead of the bush bashing contingent who had then retraced their steps leaving her on her own. Or something, I never did quite work it out.

Me tablet weaving



The archery range



The village green



The tavern, complete with beer garden out the back



View from our tent looking towards the village

When it came to pack up time on Monday the kids did not want to leave, I on the other hand was well and truly ready for a shower and clean dry clothes, it seems a long weekend is about my limit for living in the dark ages! We capped the weekend off by packing the tent away in the rain and crossing our fingers that we wouldn't get bogged on the way out of the forest and then drove home through a hail storm. The tent is currently up in our backyard slowly drying out and I'm already looking forward to next year.

Lithgow Ironfest

Yesterday we hauled ourselves out of bed at 6:15am and headed off to Lithgow for a day at Ironfest with my mum in tow. The Huscarls had a paid gig there to provide a living history display so a bunch of them were camping Friday and Saturday nights but we decided it was all too hard and that we'd just come up for the day. I packed my bead making stuff but didn't end up using it as the club trestle table hadn't made it to the camp. When we arrived I couldn't wait to get into my dark ages kit, it was cold and windy and woollen clothes, a blanket cloak and a furry hat were just right. But I don't have a photo of me dressed up. Sorry.

Huscarls Encampment



Does he look cold? It was cold!

I went for a wander around the show and found someone doing wood turning using a pole lathe. Awesome! Adam has been wanting to make himself a pole lathe so I was going to send him over to have a stickybeak, then I saw the sign offering a 1 hour workshop each day, 2 people only. I asked and he still had one place free so I booked Adam in.

They started with logs, complete with bark, and had to split and trim the log with an axe and then shape the blank using a draw knife. Then it was turned using foot power and carved with chisels.

Shaping the timber with a draw knife



Fitting the blank into the pole lathe



Turning wood



And here's the end result!

Don't ask me what we're going to do with one chair leg though....

Here, have a video of Adam in action.

Half-way through the day my brother and his family turned up unexpectedly so the kids got to spend time with their cousins which was nice. We watched jousting, and I failed to get any decent photos of it.

We headed home about 5pm, it was starting to get a bit grey and the temperature was dropping. Here's what the Sydney Morning Herald says about Lithgow right now:

Lithgow Current Conditions

• Current temp: 6.7°C
• Recorded min: n/a
• Recorded max: n/a
• Feels like: 0.9°C

• Humidity: 69%
• Rainfall since 9am: 0.0mm
• Wind: W 52km/h
• Wind gusts: 94km/h
• Pressure: n/a

I can not begin to tell you how glad I am that we were there yesterday and not today! At least they're not being rained on.

Not blogging, not sleeping, not coping

It's 1:45 in the morning. I'm supposed to be taking the animals to be boarded for the weekend first thing tomorrow, have to leave the house at 7:30am. I've not made the clothes for myself that I wanted to get done for the reenactors' conference this weekend. I'm not being very nice to my kids. And I'm up to my eyeballs in stuff to do both at work and at home.

Stress = not going to bed. So fucking stupid.

*kicks self*

At least I'll sleep while we're camping, it's much harder to stay up too late when living in a tent.

Food and love (Part 1)

Some time ago Liz posted a piece titled Love You With Food, it ends with these lines:

There is a legacy of love and food and cooking in my family. I'm so glad to be part of it and so glad it doesn't end with me.

I wish I could say the same thing about my family. It's not that there was any lack of love, or indeed of good food, in my childhood - far from it! But somewhere along the way food became a problem instead of an uncomplicated celebration and the legacy I inherited could be better described as a fraught relationship, with food often being both the focus of special times and at the same time an enemy to be controlled and guarded against.

It's hard for me to write about this without feeling that I'm being too harsh about the choices my mum made when I was a kid and as reached my late teens. I know she was doing the best she could as a mother and many of her choices are ones I have made too. My dad played his part in shaping my relationship with food too, and mum's for that matter, but he wasn't ever much involved in the shopping and cooking side of things, he comes into play more on the emotional side and with 20/20 hindsight we now know that much of what he did was down to him being bipolar (he was diagnosed about 5 years ago).

So I'm going to talk about my good food memories first.

Liz writes about the foods her mom cooked for holiday meals, dishes that were loved by particular family members -

"something that my mother [had] made for that person. Ryan's Stove Top. Jason's Roasted Potatoes and Carrots. Jeff's Angel Food Cake. Ted's Chocolate Cream. Martha's Cheesecake."

My mum did cook special things for us, I'm told I requested veal casserole, which featured regularly at our family table, for dinner on my 3rd birthday and I remember boiled fruit cakes being made, also for birthdays. What I don't remember much of is Mum cooking anything just for the fun of it, I don't think she really liked cooking very much, so most of my good memories of food and Mum are of once off type experiences. Except for when we were camping, there were lots of camping trips and something about an open fire seemed to demand frivolous fare - damper cooked in the coals, twist bread toasted on sticks over the open fire, marshmallows all singed and gooey, jaffles made in a proper jaffle iron with their edges burnt black and filled with hot baked beans and melted cheese. Good times.

Grandma (Mum's mum) and Nana (Dads' mum) both had special things they would make for when we came to visit. Grandma did the Christmas cake every year, there were always homemade scones (apparently she used to win prizes for her scones) and slices for afternoon tea, and baked dinners at Grandma's house were often followed by a baked fruit crumble. Nana used to make a fabulously sherry drenched trifle which I famously loved so much that when I was very young I was discovered after the meal with the empty trifle dish spooning the remaining sherry out of the bottom of the dish and exclaiming "Lovely gravy!" She also made rock cakes, I think I have her recipe for them somewhere but I've never made them, must do that one day, they were good and we'd get to take home the left-over ones with us when it was time to leave. Nan's Christmas specialty was hot brandy sauce which she would nurse over "a bead of gas" for hours on end, used to drive my dad nuts. We might mock but it was awesome with Christmas pudding. My brother makes it now, he's less precious about the slow heating, it tastes about the same but it tends to separate a little and I don't remember Nan's doing that.

When I was first going out with Adam and he started coming over to our place for dinner my friends all asked him if he'd survived the ultimate culinary test. Had my mother fed him the dreaded Chicken and Broccoli*? Of course the answer was yes, it was one of my mum's staple feeding of guests dishes, I loved it but I gather it caused much trauma to my friends over the years.

Oh, here's another one! Each year we would go to the Royal Easter Show, almost always on the Thursday before Good Friday. Mum and Dad would come and pick us up from school at lunchtime and we'd spend the afternoon and evening at the show, coming home after the fireworks display. The food that was available at the show back then was truly awful, overpriced and almost exclusively deep-fried, pretty much my mother's worst nightmare in food terms, so Mum would try and take food with us so we wouldn't have to buy dinner there. One year she made Cornish Pasties, they were awesome, I have the most vivid memory of unwrapping them from their foil packages, dolloping tomato sauce on them and savouring every bite. As far as I can recall this was the only time Mum ever made them.

When we were living in the US, in Boulder, Colorado, my mum perfected the high altitude pavlova. I gather her first attempt as per cooking in Sydney was not a success but pretty soon she had it down to a fine art and the Aussie dessert (yeah yeah, I know, shut up you Kiwis and let us cling to our illusions :P) was shared far and wide. Or, you know, with anyone who came to dinner or at any "bring a plate" function. I seem to remember there was some re-adjustment required on returning to Sydney, Mum being unable to remember what she used to do before the high altitude tweaks were made.

I'm actually really reaching for good memories here. I know there must have been many, many wonderful meals and a great deal of my mother's love for the family poured into providing for us. It kind of scares and saddens me that the not so wonderful stuff has overshadowed the good stuff so much. In fact, I'm getting a bit depressed thinking about it, don't know when I'll ever get around to writing Part 2....


*BBQ chook cut up, placed in a casserole dish with a layer of steamed broccoli on top. Then pour over a can of cream of mushroom soup mixed with some milk, thyme, lemon juice and maybe extra mushrooms, sprinkle with grated cheese and bake till hot and bubbly with the cheese nicely browned. Serve over rice and glare at any child that dares protest (my sister wasn't a fan and nor are my kids sadly).

Merry Beach

We're back! We came home a couple of days earlier than planned because I managed to do something nasty to my back and was in agony. Plus the forecast for Saturday said we'd be copping at least 35 degrees C (95F) and I stop functioning in anything more than 28 degrees. So there didn't seem to be much point in hanging around only to spend a large part of our one remaining full day going for a drive in the air-conditioned car just to keep me sane (we'd done that once already).

I didn't take very many photos, I'm terrible at remembering to take my camera with me which is one of the reasons Adam bought me a Nokia N95 - because I always remember my phone - but there's no mobile phone reception at Merry Beach so I wasn't carrying it around and besides, cameras and sand in close proximity make me nervous.

Every morning we had a major drama with David over getting ready to go to the beach. He didn't want to go, he wanted to stay at the tent while we all went without him, he refused to put sunscreen on, we were all so mean and unreasonable (ah, the joys of an anxious child)....and every morning he came into the water and was in raptures. "THIS ROCKS!" he whooped with glee on the second day as we dove into crystal clear perfectly gentle surf, just right for hesitant kids and overheated mothers. He also memorably announced to us "The beach is wet! And very wavy!" I'm keeping that one filed for future reference.

David on our first day discovering that the surf is actually pretty fun

The water was fairly chilly and Caitlin doesn't have much insulation so she ended up spending a bit of time amusing herself on the beach while the rest of us swam and by the time I was prowling with the camera she'd had enough of being cold.

Caitlin making sand angels

Tom had the best time, he didn't want to come home. He headed off into the surf without the slightest hint of fear. As he drifted down the beach away from me and towards one of the rips (otherwise known as an express ride out to sea) I called to him to come back and stay with me. "It's OK" he said "it's just the current in the water." Um, yes, that would be what I'm worried about.

Happiness

Tiredness

One lunchtime Adam was making the sandwiches and let Tom have free rein with the fillings, he chose lettuce, tomato, devon, ham, salami AND chorizo. And thus the 4 meat sandwich was born. He was pretty disappointed when we ran out of chorizo.

Our campsite

We were a fair bit back from the beach behind the office and caretaker's residence but we were a mere stone's throw from the pool (which I completely failed to take a photo of) and we had a little bit of a view of the beach.

The view from our tent

On Thursday it was stinking hot and my back was killing me. I don't really know what I did to it but I think it must have had something to do with having Tom and Caitlin in the surf with me on Monday out at the point where the bigger waves were breaking. They were hanging onto an arm each as we ducked under breaking waves and I guess I managed to pull a muscle. After a couple of days of swimming laps in the pool before breakfast and then surfing for a couple of hours before lunch I'd managed to get it really nice and sore. I ended up with my whole back and half my abs cramping up. We went for a surf on Thursday morning which was blissful...for a while. The water was very cold, crystal clear and gorgeous, but COLD. Wasn't doing those sore muscles any good at all. By lunchtime I was in serious pain and the heat was making me even more miserable. We went for a drive down the coast to do some exploring and avail ourselves of the air-conditioning in the car. There are some absolutely gorgeous little and not so little beaches down past Bateman's Bay.

Guerrilla Bay



Broulee

On our way home today we found ourselves driving though the edge of a very intense storm, hail too. We could barely see the car in front of us.

Through the front windscreen it looked like this



But out the side window there was this

Weird.

Now all that remains is the washing, the tidying up, the putting away of the camping gear and I have a buggered back and can't do anything useful! Thank gawd Adam is so utterly awesome and will look after the worst of it without me.