Commonplace days …

Monday 1st April
Easter Monday

I woke up quite early, although everything seems early now because it’s dark in the morning for so long. I lay quietly for a while, then made myself a cup of tea and scooted back under the covers to watch the day break. I can see quite a lot of sky from my bed, and this morning’s clouds were like little puff balls, with several combining to form quite a decent sort of elephant. It’s still hazy out though, the result of some preventative burning-off apparently. My lungs do not like this haze, but my brain likes the helpful nature of the burns so I’m ok.

I am still feeling crappy, so I took a hot bath after that and read a long article about Marian Keyes published, can you believe, in the Daily Mail. I know it’s the gutter press, but it’s a great piece and I particularly like the insight into Irish people liking to eat coleslaw alongside their pizza. I had no idea! It makes sense, really. A bit of crunch alongside your smoosh. Yes please.

Getting dressed: A checked dress with leggings and Birkenstocks.

I’m going to make pumpkin soup today, and perhaps some of the carrot and cheese muffins that my family likes to have with it. 

Yesterday when I got home from Gemma’s, Max told me about a house around the corner that had put a bunch of gardening things on the kerb. He’d already picked up an amazing granny square rug from the pile for me (it needs some repair and I’m really excited to do that!) He and I drove around to the house and picked up a lime green esky, a box of empty plant pots, a mini ironing board (we didn’t have an ironing board … and now we do!) and some garden mesh and stakes. How good. Ten minutes well spent, pals! 

I checked the seeds in the back fence bed this morning and there are more and more coming up. They’re very straight and green and proud, not at all seeming to mind their petite stature at this point. They’re just happy to be sprouting and fulfilling their potential, it would seem. The snow peas are particularly keen to show themselves now, which is excellent news. They’ll be wee bushes before we know it.

Monday afternoon

I made the soup and decided to just buy some Turkish bread instead of making muffins. So I did that. Next I tidied up my pot plants, snipping dead leaves off the geraniums and deheading the roses and hibiscus (It’s a humble little collection of plants!) Then I planted some spinach and rocket seeds into big pots and swept up outside a little bit. It was so peaceful out there, like the whole neighbourhood was having a nap. I also realised I have lots and lots of seeds for different things, I need to do a bit of a stock take and think about what I can use and what needs to be put aside for later days.

I decided to start watching Vera from the very beginning … an episode here, an episode there … so I’m doing that and working on some crochet until I can’t. It’s such a strange hybrid of Summer and Autumn today in Melbourne. Overcast with patches of rain … but not in the slightest bit cold. That weather is on the horizon, apparently, so best to enjoy the marvellous mildness while it’s here, I think.

Super Simple Pumpkin Soup

1kg of pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and cut into big chunks
1 large potato, peeled and chopped into big chunks
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced into 1cm-ish discs
2 sticks of celery, chopped
1 onion, peeled and diced
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
6 stock cubes (vegetable or chicken work well!)
1.5 litres of hot water
150ml cream
SPICES: Salt, pepper, chilli flakes, paprika to taste
A slosh of olive oil

In a big soup pot, fry the onion, celery and carrot for 5 minutes or so over a medium-low flame, stirring often. Add the garlic and potato. Fry for a minute or so. Then add the stock cubes, water and SPICES. Bring to a boil and then simmer over a medium heat, stirring often,  until everything is tender (especially the carrots). Puree with a stick blender or in a food processor. If you have neither of those you could use a potato masher but your soup will be lumpier than the usual. Stir the cream into the pureed soup. Mix well and taste. Season and then serve!

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Good things

Make soup!
A letter written by Georgia O’Keeffe
I am very jealous of Julie Gibbs’ amazing studio.
This book – Reading Lessons – looks so good.
This brand – Farm Rio – has some amazing prints and pieces. Perfect for my imaginary wardrobe where I keep the garments I can’t afford to buy. These shoes can go in there too!
I love reading this blog. It’s a long-time favourite.
Cross-stitched CCTV … genius!
I’m agnostic, but I love reading this heartwarming, homey, faith and family-filled blog.
20 of the most romantic British films from the last 20 years
Amazing DIY firestarters … and they’re so pretty!
To cure burnout, embrace seasonality (found via Melissa)
This made me laugh!
A bunch of overlooked and under-rated British TV shows.
Here’s what’s popping up on streaming services in Australia for April.
A new series from Sally Wainwright !!! Why is evrything I want to watch suddenly on Disney+?!
Edith Wharton’s guide to Italian villas and the gardens that surround them. Gosh WHAT a life.
This Tumblr always has such pretty images.

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Tuesday 2nd April

I was feeling pretty awful yesterday and then … well … reader, then I burnt the soup. It’s not as bad as it sounds, the soup part at least. I mean, at least I burnt it AFTER we’d had some for dinner, leaving the flame on super low until it was a mere scrape of itself in the bottom of the pot. The only thing to be done in situations like this is to start over, so this morning’s focus is regathering the ingredients and making it again. We don’t always get it right, do we? I did because the soup was the best pumpkin soup I ever made … and then I didn’t because, well, you know the because. I’m going to erase my mistake with a new batch and remember to triple check the flame is off after I scoop it into bowls this time. I feel a bit cross with myself to be honest, but really there is no use crying over burnt soup, is there?

I’m going to put it to the back of my mind, sip my first cup of tea for the day and do a little bit of reading … then get dressed and redeem myself (to myself!) with an ingredients mini-shop and a second turn in the kitchen. Actually? I needed to get a couple of things for Green Tomato Chutney because I’m going to pick all the tomatoes today and make some tomorrow. I might even look for a couple of new soup bowls, to add to the get-back-up-and-try-again vibe of the soupmaking/day. Maybe that chair I wrote about in my previous post will appear while I’m out and about?

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The soup is on!

images top: L/ garden tomatoes, green and red and R/ Willow breakfast cup
images middle: Vintage Scrabble set from Vinnies
images bottom: L/ Two cats named Chippy and Bruno + R/ Pretty endpapers from Barchester Towers

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I pulled out all the tomatoes and now I just have to weed that garden bed and give it a top up of soil and compost … and a bit of a turn over. Those are jobs for later in the week, I think, as I’m still feeling peaky and don’t want to make things worse for myself.

While I was out getting the soup supplies, I went past the Vinnie’ op shop and found a vintage copy of Barchester Towers which Miranda mentioned in one of her older videos, a Sixteen Candles puzzle, an old game of Scrabble, and a Willow pattern breakfast tea cup. $12 well spent! The op shop lady and I discussed the Willow print in earnest, both name-checking our grandmothers and the importance of the white space in the print … the way it makes the blue stand out more. She agreed the cup was a particularly good size and I said “I’ll think of my grandmother and you and yours when I drink from it” and she seemed very pleased and beamed at me. I brought it home and gave it a sudsy wash and made a cup of tea, and I did think of the beaming op shop lady as I drank it. I did. (And the grandmothers too.)

Anyway, my Willow pattern curiosity (I was trying to find the exact same sized cup to show you online and came up with this out of stock one) led me to this blog by Francis Pryor, which led me to his brilliant-looking book called A Fenland Garden and now I really want a copy!. This is the way with folk like me. Never enough books. Always a shiny new gem to collect and read. I’m going to keep my eye out for a within-my-budget second-hand copy, I think. He’s written a whole bunch of other titles, in case you need to know that.  I particularly loved reading about the rare-moth caterpillar’s discovered in Francis’ garden too. 

THEN, while I was looking up a link for the Sixteen Candles puzzle, I found this 40 000 piece Disney jigsaw. Can you even believe it?! 40 000 pieces! It is all yours for $1299, if you fancy 40 000 pieces of “oh my gosh where does this bit go?!” in your life. 

Wednesday 3rd April

It’s cold this morning! At last! I think THAT is the last of the warm days? I know. I said that a couple of weeks ago, but climate change is what it is and the weather is often an indeterminable force that does whatever it likes, regardless of seasonal conventions.

I got dressed straight away, let the dogs out, made tea and perched in front of my computer to tap out some words. AND I put on the heater. Just a quick burst to take the edge off my chilly room, but it felt like a mini preview of the cooler days to come.

Getting dressed: Op shop jeans, an old eBay dress, old spotty Stan Smith sneakers. I love cold weather dressing! 

(I know I say ‘old’ a lot with the ‘getting dressed’ bit, but it’s because I was mostly in bed for two and a bit years. I didn’t really buy clothes or get dressed much then. Thus all my clothes are pretty old! From before I got sick, really. So weird!)

I was feeling much better than the last couple of days, so I popped over to Ari’s house and showed him some useful student-y sites I use for uni (he’s working on his own degree!) Then we popped into Saver’s and then I dropped him home. I listened to The Secret Garden on the way home and (if you SOMEHOW ignore the racist bits) honestly it’s such a gorgeous story. I suppose it is an expression of some attitudes during the time in which it is set, and that needs to be reconciled some way. But the REST of the story is lovely and the audiobook version is so beautifully narrated. 

image: A pot of lamb shanks and a pot of mashed potato – excuse crappy lighting!

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At Saver’s I found a copy of this old Stefano de Pieri book and also this little book – Pike Place Market Recipes which seems to be packed with good ideas. The Stefano book has my favourite vegetable soup recipe in it, so I will make that on the weekend and tell you more about it after that. 

When I got home from visiting Ari, I put a pot of lamb shanks on to slow cook with a sort of made-up recipe that I often use. And now I’m tapping out a few lines here before I begin some uni work of my own (close reading of The Labyrinth.) I’m so glad to feel cosy again and these cooler days really highlight how heat-intolerant I am with this stupid illness. So pleased the hot is no longer, for now. It honestly makes me ten times sicker. It’s very unfun.

Also? I STILL haven’t made that planned apple and rhubarb crumble, but I’m glad I waited because now I realise I want to make a free-form tart instead. So I’m going to do that this afternoon too …

images: my freeform fruit tart before and after baking – excuse the terrible lighting. It was evening and my kitchen has fluorescent lighting. Ugh.

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I made the tart, pals. That’s it above! I used a recipe I used to make when the kids were little. It was every bit as good as I remembered. It’s from a Marie Claire cookbook from the early ‘90s and the cool thing about this cookbook is that it was written by Nigel Slater waaaay back in the day. The pastry recipe is super easy and when baked it’s lovely and shortbread-y and divine.

Basically you cut up your fruit and toss it in lemon juice and sugar. You make your pastry and rest it for a half hour or so. Then roll it out – not super thin – and pop it onto a baking tray. Sometimes you might have to add a bit of flour and roll it out twice as it can get a bit sticky, so do that if you need to. Next, you pile the prepared fruit in the middle and then fold in the edges. Paint the pastry with eggwash and bake in hot oven for 30 or so minutes. Delicious, I tell you! I used rhubarb, Granny Smith apples and a handful of frozen raspberries as my filling and gosh I’m so glad that I did. Serve with a spoonful of vanilla ice cream – or the accompaniment of your preference – and you’re sorted. Yum!

images: page spread from the Marie Claire Cookbook by Nigel Slater – published 1992.

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Now I’m going to snuggle down and watch I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here because I’m a hopeless case when it comes to reality TV, because I think Julia Morris is super funny and also because the silliness of it all makes me laugh. Who doesn’t need a wholesome giggle before bedtime? Speaking of bedtime my back is a wreck so I’m off to lie down right this minute … xo

Thursday 4th April

If you, like me, follow Miranda online, you are likely curious about the idea of The Commonplace Book. I am too and I just stumbled upon this piece that partly focuses on this anthological genre. I suppose this blog is a bit of a Commonplace Book, actually. Perhaps it’s A Commonplace Blog?

It’s another cool morning and I found it QUITE hard to get up due to being an idiot and having a glass of wine last night. One of my sickness things is that I’ve developed an intolerance to alcohol. But it was such a cosy night and I had made lamb shanks and a fruit tart … so I wanted to see if the intolerance was still happening. Reader it was. I am still intolerant. Such a bore. Swelling mouth, coughing, hives. A chaotic caboodle and a good reason to just forget about it and have a nice cup of tea instead. 

I’ve had some tea and toast and now I’m going to dress my groggy self and head out into the day for a little while. We need eggs and butter and I want to buy some bowtie pasta to have with the leftover sauce from the shanks. Such a good value meal, that one! Remember when lamb shanks used to be $2 each? And nobody wanted them? Gosh. Those days are long gone. These shanks were two for $7 and that’s because they were approaching their ‘use by’ date. I don’t even eat the meat, truth be told. I just have the sauce, the first night with mashed potato and the second night with bread or pasta. Pasta it is tonight.

images top: L/ Sixteen Candles jigsaw R/ Whale leviathan below jigsaw and bottom: L/ Modern Italian Food by Stefano de Pieri R/ Pike Place Market Recipes by Jess Thomson

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Getting dressed: (it’s going to be 20 degrees, apparently … no rain.)
The mood is practical today … op shop jeans, an old striped shirt (originally from Kmart), blue Birkenstocks.

After my blog mention of (favourite Beatles song) Blackbird the other day, Geoff sent me this article about the history of the song and its connection with the Little Rock Nine and Black history. Thanks Geoff! I thought you, dear reader, might like to read it to if you haven’t already. (Geoff is Australia’s best curator of the work of my great grandfather, Frank Boreham. I’ve written about Frank here before. He was a prolific writer and Baptist preacher, publishing 46 books with Epworth Press over 70 or so years. He also wrote more than 3000 editorials for The Age and The Mercury. It’s fair to say I caught the writing DNA from him.)

I spent a few hours doing Honours reading and writing long lists of short notes on the book I’m examining, as well as other related details to consider in my just-started creative work. I have written all of two paragraphs, but it feels like the fiction project element of Honours might come together this way … with some standalone paragraphs providing a rough structure for the elements/sections of the overall story. At least, that’s what I am thinking now … it may change. I’m quite excited to speak with my supervisor next week, to relay some fresh thoughts I’ve had and to chat a little more about my fiction work. There is a lot to learn and I am very, very fortunate to be learning (some of) it.

Oh and guess what else …. I made you a playlist for the weekend! Here it is!

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Wishing you the very best kind of Friday and a very okay weekend, pals.

See you back here very soon. Thank you for all the kind comments and messages … and thank you for reading about the everyday and commonplace.

x Pip