Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life something GOOD for the weekend

Episode Seven: Something Good for the Weekend

February 15, 2020

Do you ever have those weeks when each day brings more fatigue no matter what you do?

This week has been like that for me. I think it’s just the heat and humidity and having trouble sleeping – due to aforementioned heat. It messes with my constitution.

This resulted in me limping along to Friday, then waiting for 7.30pm to watch Gardening Australia and turning the light out at 9pm. Such a party girl.

I sure am hoping this will give me a bit of pep for the weekend as I have two bits of homework to do for my Creative Writing course. I tried to do one yesterday but my brain was too addled and felt like it was going to burst out of my head. So I put it aside and made my favourite tomatoes on toast and read a bit of The Girls (which I am finding very, very good – so well written!!) and watched GA.

Now it is early on Saturday morning and I THINK I am feeling a bit better. Better enough, thankfully, to launch into a new episode of Something Good for the Weekend! Hooray!

Something GOOD For the Weekend

Something GOOD to do

Last night on Gardening Australia they were talking about homemade herbal teas. I think that’s a good to-do. If you don’t have a garden you can still grow herbs on the window ledge. They were talking about Moroccan Mint last night, but there are lots of other herbs that you could try too.

I have apple mint, chocolate mint and regular mint in my garden, so I am going to have a tinker. And buy some Moroccan Mint too. (If it sounds like I am good at gardening, know that I am not. I’m still learning!)

I also have echinacea, basil, marjoram, Greek basil, purple basil, oregano, chives, parsley, lemon balm, sage, thyme and scented geranium. I spend a lot of time in the herb section at my local nursery, clearly. Not trying to show off, honest.

This blog —> The Empress of Dirt — has some great info on home grown teas and highlighted this book, which seems like a title everyone’s local library should invest it!

Its author is Cassie Liversidge and it turns out she does all kinds of brilliant garden-y and foodie things. She even has a Grow Your Own Playground initiative.

Homegrown Tea

Something GOOD to ponder

I am pondering how GA’s Costa has not been awarded an Australia Day honour? It seems a bit bonkers. He works so hard to teach the whole country about greening up their lives, being caring citizens, kindness and pottering about in the garden. Perhaps he has and I don’t know about it? I did look and it seems not, though.

Ponder that there is a thing called the Faber Writing Academy and how good does it look?!

Derek Jarman Modern Nature

Also? Ponder whether you can help save Derek Jarman’s beautiful windswept cottage? Such an important effort. Have you read Modern Nature?

Something GOOD to watch

In case you missed Gardening Australia, last night’s episode was a must-watch because Costa visited Melbourne’s CERES and spoke to one little Merri Merri Kids’ Club chap who summed up time spent in the garden so incredibly eloquently. It brought tears to my eyes.

Be sure to check it out on ABC iView if you can. (Not sure what non-AU folk can do to see it … maybe someone has shared it on a shifty streaming site?)

Also? Doc Martin started again on the ABC. I only have to hear the theme song and I feel MUCH better about the world.

All Good Things Are Wild and Free Sticker Book

Something GOOD to buy?

A sticker book? I mean, look how lovely it is. It’s on pre-order at the moment but it’s out next month.

Or perhaps some Kate Middle-Toe socks? Wear the future royal consort on your tootsies? They’re at the British Library.

Kate Middle-to socks

Something GOOD to read

I just read Crudo by Olivia Laing and I really enjoyed it. Some people don’t like it at all, but I loved it. It’s good to note that it was written over a very short period of time and deliberately published quickly and with minimal edits to capture the moment.

Olivia previously wrote a book focusing on Virginia Woolf and this book is clearly influenced by VW’s* writing style. LOVED IT.

I wrote down these lines from Crudo (below) because they are SO ME.

“The hair needed fixing. Fixing it required going to a place with mirrors and Kathy was incapable of looking at herself in a mirror while being looked at by another person …”

* Not that I know a lot about VW. I am halfway through listening to Mrs Dalloway though. (LOVING IT!)

Crudo by Olivia Laing

More reading:

The Cover Story: Why You Rarely See British Cookbook Covers on American Shelves – British cookbooks covers are innovative and distinctive. So why do U.S. publishers change them?

Taylor Swift’s documentary shows why we should stop trying to be ‘interesting’. (I loved the Taylor Swift documentary on Netflix. Totally worth watching!)

How to grow giant vegetables – “I’m often asked, why giant vegetables? The truth is, they’re fun. Weight is the objective rather than beauty. When you’re showing flowers they have to be perfect in every way; giants are the opposite. The bigger they get, the more knobbly, wonky and curious looking they become.” – Charlie McCormick

Charlie McCorkmick

Something GOOD to cook

I bookmarked a couple of things this week. Lemme show you them …

Jammy Tomato-Anchovy Sauce From Phyllis Grant

Phyllis Grant's tomato sauce

English rose cake

English rose cake

An amazing breakfast sandwich

The best tomato and cheese sandwich

Something/s GOOD to listen to

La Roux has a new album out, so you might like to give that a whirl?

And Supergrass are touring Australia (supported by Rocket Science!) So you could get warmed up for that?! Or try a bit of solo Gaz Coombes?

Something/s GOOD to make

How about a bit of crochet? You could start my Snuggle Stitch blanket, even?

Snuggle Stitch blanket

Or perhaps you would like to make beautiful letters?! Naomi can help you do that! Get a head start with IngThings’ cute storybook envelopes (make from torn and bumped-up books!)

Ing Things envelopes

And here is a poem.

Fancy by John Keats
Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let winged Fancy wander
Through the thought still spread beyond her:
Open wide the mind’s cage-door,
She’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer’s joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn’s red-lipp’d fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter’s night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy’s heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy
To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overaw’d,
Fancy, high-commission’d:—send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn’s wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,
And thou shalt quaff it:—thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;
Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment, hark!
‘Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plum’d lillies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway
Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird’s wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering,
While the autumn breezes sing.

Have an ace weekend, peaches!

x Pip


When Life is not Peachy

Pre-order When Life is Not Peachy by Pip Lincolne

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7 Comments

  • Reply Kay February 15, 2020 at 6:24 PM

    I have to say that I very much like your taste in food and want to try all of the recipes. x

  • Reply Reannon February 15, 2020 at 4:40 PM

    The heat over here has been HORRID. I feel February is the hardest month to get through because it’s beennhot for so long & there’s been no rain & it just feels relentless. Sorry, what a whinged I am but it’s just not nice.
    Have you watched Costa’s ep of Home Delivery? I cried because he just so bloody good & nice & he misses his dad so much.
    Also, I feel like you love a tomato-bread combo as much as I do. Itcreally cant be beaten can it?

    • Reply Pip February 16, 2020 at 7:19 AM

      Tomato and Bread = MY YEARLONG VALENTINE. We are a very serious couple. I will most def watch that Home Delivery ep!!

      • Reply Reannon Bowen February 16, 2020 at 5:24 PM

        I made some delicious sourdough baguettes this morning & then roasted some cherry tomatoes so have been snacking on that combo all day long. It really is the very best!
        Let me know when/if you watch it & tell me if you cried too. Not that I want you to cry but it really is just so beautiful to hear Costa talk about his family.

  • Reply Edie February 15, 2020 at 11:19 AM

    Ohhhhh you did get a second wind and I enjoyed ALL of this! Especially seeing Prospect cottage again, I grew up around here so Dungeness is so dear to my heart. I stayed there a couple of years ago in a cottage just down from Derecks with the Pony and she was enthralled! It’s a curious amazing place and the vibe runs in my blood! It’s possibly radioactive ? the vibe that is! You can find some short films about Dungeness on you tube that give you a feel for the place. Jools Holland once did a visit and a small doco and I’ve never been able to find it again wahhh. Lots of people down there live in old railway carriages and there are a lot of interesting buildings. Really I would just love to go back and get myself a shack and never leave again. Especially in winter. It’s bleak and desolate and possibly the nicest place in the world xxx

  • Reply Cheekie February 15, 2020 at 11:01 AM

    Lovely post Pip. I especially love that cake and am a huge Costa fan. I met him once waiting for my daughter at airport. He was so shiny happy and he really makes the world a better place. This Melbourne weather is challenging… I am so grumpy but I planted marigolds and my tomatoes are doing well. As for herbs, mint and chives and sage grow effortlessly in my patches. Thank you for brightening my weekend. mid morning . Off to Vic market for goodies. Ciao

  • Reply Rhonda Hetzel February 15, 2020 at 10:03 AM

    My weeks are usually good but, like you, I’ve not had much sleep this week and I’m a bit of a sop at the moment. I’ve been trying to get myself in the mood to prepare my blogging and writing workshops and s far, 5 weeks on, nothing’s been done. I find comfort in knowing our struggles are similar. That tea book looks good. I’ll try to find that. I listened to a couple of La Roux’s songs, I haven’t heard them before. I’m loving Christine and the Queens and often have her playing in the background. (St Claude, Tilted, Sorry etc) Have a lovely weekend, Pip.
    I hope you’re energised by what you’re doing.

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