The Baked Beans Walk, Horace, journals, Bruno, poppies & jaffles

Monday 15th April

Weetbix for breakfast, friends, alongside a giant cup of tea and a bit of a YouTube catch-up with one of my favourites. Today she was talking about her favourite Persephone published books, ahead of the Persephone Festival that’s coming up very far from these Australian shores..

Last night I did all things I hoped to do before bed. I wrote a page in my journal and watched my silly show. This morning I wrote a page in my newly established Commonplace Book and then a quarter of a page of random stuff I want to do/act on/think about. All of this was very helpful and I am sure I will go on to do this incredibly inconsistently or not at all. Because habits are hard to form, aren’t they?! Anyway, I am going to do this night and morning writing when and if I feel like it, and that will be good enough. There are no prizes for this stuff, and also they shouldn’t feel too burdensome. I’m going to try though. I am.

Getting dressed: Black gingham dress possibly from Kmart, leggings, spotty socks, Blundstones.

I nipped to Bunnings to pick up some bulbs and seed raising mixture (for the snowdrops). I accidentally bought a fuschia which I could not resist because a) it looked so beautiful and b) they were one of my Nan’s favourites, and I can alway do with some reminding of her. I hung it up outside the kitchen window as soon as I got home, so there will be a lot of looking at it and thinking of her, I think. For a while there she lived in Newtown, just out of Hobart and her balcony at Jutland Village was loaded with all sorts of pot plants back in the 90’s. I remember the fuchsias the most. They had their little pink and purple dresses on, or at least that’s what little me thought when I gazed at them dancing in their little green neighbourhood.

I started watching the Lehrmann trial judgment and then turned it off because it was grim viewing. Instead I’m going to write my assignment outline and perhaps put a cake in the oven. Seems like a much less upsetting course of action.

Then I’m going to lock in five hours of study. At the moment I’m reading academic papers and trying to sort my information and writing into a system. I’ve tried various things (notion, spreadsheets) but have landed on a series of Google Documents labelled for each part of my Honours work. I think that’s working really well at the moment. I still have a spreadsheet for my study diary (to keep track of what I did when) and another for snippets of text/extracts from my reading (with the reference details alongside each snippet). And I have a master list of everything I have read, too. Organising the information is a big part of the study process, I now realise!

Reader, the risotto bolognese I was planning last time we chatted turned out great! I sloshed some oil in the pan and then added the arborio rice, frying it until it was all well coated and happy. Then I added bolognese sauce and ½ cups of boiling water in increments, waiting for the liquid to simmer away each time before adding the next sauce/water combo. In about 25 minutes it was done! I couldn’t be bothered to take photos so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Before bed I did my journaling, writing down some thoughts from today. I had a hot bath and combed a treatment through my hair. Then I made a batch of overnight no-knead dough (I used Rhonda’s recipe from The Simple Home) and left it (covered) on the kitchen bench to bake in the morning.

I conked out quite early (about 9pm) and was pretty happy with that.

Good stuff

This is gold. Bookmark and check back often. The best Bunny Rabbit TV shows.
Twelve lovely British films you might have missed.
A gorgeous vintage atlas of natural history at Colossal.
This middle-brow book looks like a worthy read.
Absolutely adore the look of this weedy gardening book. Just bought it on Kindle, in fact. What a treat.
Tavi Gevinson made a free zine about Taylor Swift (and you can print it out if you want, or read it online!)
Felt Love ? This is beautiful! 
These flowery photos are so lovely and down to earth, aren’t they?

Tuesday 16 April

I watched a little bit of the news this morning, then turned it off again. I like to be informed, but I don’t want to be sucked into the cycle of constant rolling coverage. That’s not good for anyone. When multiple incidents like this occur, I sometimes go back and read this piece. We really are not doing of good job of keeping people safe and well in Australia – or anywhere, really. We have to spend more on housing, education and mental health to have a better functioning society. 

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image above: From a gorgeous vintage atlas of natural history at Colossal.

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I did my usual morning thing – watched some positive and gentle YouTube videos (this one is super cute and slow and relatable) with a cup of tea – wash the treatment out of my hair and get dressed. Honestly, I think I’m fighting a losing battle with the hair treatment. My hair has totally changed since menopause and I’m still not used to it. It’s wiry, pals! 

Getting Dressed: Jeans from the op, the plaid shirt from the other day (again!), socks with dogs on them, Supercourt sneakers from years ago.

I might go for a walk and buy a tin of baked beans. I really feel like beans on toast after watching that Highland lass’s video (above)!

I didn’t have much of an appetite this morning … no, that’s a lie. I was hungry, but I didn’t feel like eating anything I had. Such a brat. Of course I told myself off and then I toasted a piece of rye bread and spread it with red pesto and homemade relish. Next, I popped a slice of cheese on top (not melted), seasoned with salt and pepper and … voila! A perfectly delicious meal for a temporary Breakfast Brat like me. After that I popped the bread dough in the oven – in a too-large Dutch Oven, so it came out a bit wide and short, but otherwise crunchy and chewy and airy and delish.

Someone nice left a comment recently saying I buy a lot of books and I thought I should clarify that I had a birthday and my mum gave me some money to buy whatever I fancied. So I used that to buy op shop books (and a rose plant!) I don’t usually buy the volume I have of late. Usually I spend about $15 a week on second hand books. Please know that. Sorry if I made you feel otherwise or book-lacking or something like that. I have a very small income because I’m studying at the moment, rather than working. I am not a woman of means, by any means! (Ill health has meant I have not been working as I used to since before the pandemic, unfortunately. But I can study, due to its flexible nature, and I am so grateful for that.)

Someone else emailed me to say they liked reading about the walk to the Little Shop as their mobility is not what it used to be. I am lucky that I am still able to get about, yes. Mobility issues must spark a particular kind of challenge, and clearly there’s an element of frustration, from what I can gather from your email. I will take thoughts of you on my next walk, dear reader, and I will be sure to notice extra things along the way on your behalf. Perhaps that can be my Baked Beans Walk? I think so. I will report back here about how it was and what I saw …

The Baked Beans Walk

Seeing as I had my sneakers on and it was lovely outside I was quite keen to go for a slow walk to the shops, so that is just what I did. My cat Bruno looked at me out of the corner of his sleepy eye as I left. He was burrowed into the pile of mulch that has been sitting (and slowly being used up on the garden) in my driveway for almost a year. Not even kidding. Maybe an actual year. He likes it in the mulch pile, I think because it holds the heat and also because he can create a little dugout for himself. Anyway, I walked past Bruno (glad that he did not want to follow me to the shop) and onto the footpath, past my neighbours house with the fairy lights on their front fence, past the next house with the car wrecks and olive trees jostling for space, around the corner and across the road. 

Another corner and I’m onto the street that leads to the Little Shop. I walked past the series of units that are being built where one house once stood, noticing that this development is being dwarfed by an under construction modern mansion directly opposite. A man was sitting up on the scaffolding of the giant modern place. There’s usually a man or two messing about there, so I did what I always do, ignoring them and walking on. I passed the house with the front garden full of vegetable and fruit and flowery plants. They still have hundreds of tiny cherry tomatoes on their otherwise brown and crunchy vines. They’re cheerful gleaming red buttons when you pass by. There were also lots of chillies curling from leafy plants, a small pomegranate tree weighed down by pink-red fruit and some pale lemon dahlias enjoying the last of the warmish days. 

Further along the street were two old and broken cream coloured sofas stacked like Jenga blocks on the verge, an old rake with a broken, a pile of torn cushions. A man passed me pushing a cheerful toddler in a pram and I smiled at them both. Then an older lady walked by and I did the same. It’s just a tiny bit further and I’m at the shop, the door sliding open to let me in. 

I balanced the groceries in my arms: frozen peas (to have with steak and mash for dinner), that can of baked beans, English breakfast tea bags, a tin of cat food, a Cherry Ripe. Following a short scramble in my bag to find my ATM card, I paid for everything, packed my bunny tote full of the things and wished the shop man a good day. (His name is Tony.)

I walked back more slowly, noticing the house over the road had a new hammock on its front porch, that some cosmos were peeking over a squat brick fence, that there was a makeshift terracotta bird bath filled with stones and water on another fence. Back past the cherry tomatoes and the construction sites, around the corner to catch a glimpse of the house with the pink hibiscus, past some sprays of bead-like black olives on the corner-house tree. Then I’m on my street again, shopping bag over my shoulder and banging merrily against my hip.

Bruno is sleeping on the bonnet of my car when I approach our house. He tilts his chin up then, because I’ve woken him, then jumps down and races me to the steps, bumping against my shins and weaving through my legs.I do my level best to wiggle the key into our security door and pull it open without tripping on Bruno, then open the front door retreating enough to let him surge purposefully indoors. Sometimes cats remind me of seals, you know? The way they move … it’s very seal-like. Pushing through the world and dipping about …  I put the shopping bag on the table and Bruno immediately jumps up and pushes his nose into it, keen to see and smell whatever treats might lie within. I wrestle past him, retrieve the groceries one by one, put everything away. When I put the empty bag on the dining room table, Bruno kneads it into an acceptable cat nest and settles in. We’re all pleased.

image above: neighbourhood hibiscus and flat – yet delicious – overnight rise bread.

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Yesterday in the late afternoon I threw all the seeds I bought (except the snowdrops) into the empty garden beds I’d weeded on the weekend. I’m hoping that some of them will pop up. There is plenty of margin for error because there are HEAPS in there. When they do arrive, there’ll be poppies aplenty! Imagine it! I can’t wait.

Today I am going to plant the snowdrop seeds into a tray and put it in the fridge, as the packet directions for warmer states say. Apparently we are going to get a warmish Winter here, so I think chilling the snowdrops is the way to go for best results and for optimal making-them-feel-like-it’s-Winter vibes.

I raided the seed stash and found some other flower seeds to scatter, so I did a bit of ‘broadcasting’ into the garden with those. I also put some Asian greens seeds in between the snow peas and silverbeet, just to see if they do anything.

I’ve been studying for four hours straight, so I think I’ll take a break and watch Walks With My Dog. I’m excited to watch it as I haven’t before. It’s about … people walking with their dogs in picturesque British surroundings. What could be better?! It’s on a free and new-to-me app called Plex (it’s ad-supported and you can download the app in your usual way.). One segment in the first episode is shot in Kent and host Phil Spencer and his two dogs (Jessie and Scout) have a gallivant along the river. After that we meet up with actor Robert Lindsay and pups Billy and Lola for a walk along the famous Cornwall coastline. Also in this ep  is actor Angela Griffin and her dog Smith adventuring All Creatures Great and Small-like together on the Yorkshire Dales and talking about James Herriot. Gosh. This is all exactly my cup of tea, pals.

image above: Jaffles for dinner

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Wednesday 17 April

Baked beans on toast for breakfast, and it’s all thanks to yesterday’s Baked Bean Walk! I was thinking, as I was heating them up and toasting the low, wide bread this morning, that a lot of what I love to read in both fiction and memoir is SPECIFICITY. It’s details. It’s the little human things that fill out a scene and help me fully immerse. It’s the detail that helps to craft a story world that encourages the suspension of disbelief and then lures the reader in.

I mentioned Rosamunde Pilcher here recently (in this post) and she’s very, very good at this kind of thing. Here’s the bit about “a tin for Horace” that I wrote about … I think of it every time I buy dog food and in my head I say “a tin for Horace” or “some tins for Horace”, depending on what’s appropriate. Horace is the rescue dog of Elfrida Phipps, the book’s main protagonist.

“But first, of course, before even reaching Poulton’s Row, Elfrida knew that she must do some shopping. There was no food in the cottage and she had cleaned out the refrigerator before she left. Her first port of call must be Mrs Jenning’s mini-market. She began to make a mental list. Bread and milk. Sausages, eggs and butter. Coffee. Biscuits and some tins for Horace. Perhaps some soup for her supper. Something sustaining like Cullen Skink …” – from Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher

I watched this lovely video about BULBS this morning.

images above: This post’s op shop cookbook is Paris, Boulangerie, Patisserie: Recipes from Thirteen Outstanding French Bakeries by Linda Dannenberg, photos by Guy Bouchet.

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I went to Bunnings to buy some compost for the garden and treated myself to some tulip bulbs (after watching the above video!) Then I went to Ari’s house and we had a two person study group together. After that I nipped into Saver’s for 10 minutes and picked up 5 good books. Then I got some groceries and now I am home and absolutely knackered. I am going to stay home all day tomorrow. Well. I might go for a short walk to blow the cobwebs out, but apart from that Thursday and Friday are home days. I can feel that I need to rest and I know I have pushed myself a bit too much. Just because you WANT to do things, doesnt mean you SHOULD. That said I am sure I will be much finer after a bath and some medication and a nice dinner and a huge sleep. 

Dinner tonight is a Korean-ish Chicken Stew I used to make when we lived in North Balwyn. I’m looking forward to having it again. It’s super comforting and perfect with rice – or even noodles would be nice. I actually shared the recipe for it back in the Balwyn days. You can find it here.

image above: Korean-ish Chicken Stew

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Thursday 18 April

I’m going to make jaffles for dinner. And after that? Banana splits! I have some mashed potato, steamed carrots and steamed cauliflower in the fridge (from Tuesday night’s dinner), so I’m going to fry up some diced bacon and add the veggies to it, to make an excellent Autumn jaffle filling.

Getting dressed: A grey and black checked dress (old!), my woolly vest (bought at Saver’s last week), leggings, socks with flowers on them, Blundstones. I’m so cosy!! But I have a sore eye … (a milium?)

I watched a YouTube video (this one) and then Max and I nipped up to the local shops for a quick supply run. I know. I know. I said I was going to stay home, but I had to pick up something at the chemist and also a loaf of bread and some bacon for dinner. We saw a bunch of high school boys sitting in the window of the bakery, chatting noisily and wolfing down breakfast and energy drinks. Then, further down the street outside the supermarket, a younger boy sat on a bench by himself concentrating intently on eating a freshly baked borek. Honestly, he was enjoying it so much. It was a delight to see.

Images above: More op shop books … Lee Bailey’s The Way I Cook, Katie Stewart’s Cookbook, The Borrowers, A Literature of Their Own

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Just as an aside, going back to before we went to the shops, back when I was at home, sipping tea and clicking through YouTube …  I find that when I watch a gentle, cosy and/or helpful video in the morning, instead of news television, my day is better for it. That’s not to say I ignore the news. I don’t. I look at a reputable news site each day to ensure I’m informed. But I am aware that you need to set the tone for the day, and cosy and/or helpful videos do that brilliantly. They help me to focus on small things that will make life less challenging and give me ideas on what I might want to aim for/do when the time is right. So maybe that’s a good to know thing.  Mostly I watch gardening, daily routine or journaling videos because those are my interests. I try to have a good balance of viewing, meaning I try not to watch too many ‘buy this, buy that’ clips. 

All that said, you’re probably clever and know all that already. But I grew up with the news on in the background, and until recently have continued to do the same. As the 24 hour news cycle has become more and more outrage and virality-driven, I’ve realised it’s just not good for me to be plugged into this discourse so relentlessly. So I’ve changed that up. I’m being more careful about what I watch and know that if I concentrate on gentler things, life feels much more gentle too.

Today (after that quick pop-out) is for studying. I worked on my Honours manuscript, drafted an assessment and am about to go into an online meeting with the other Honours students at 4pm. I am feeling like I am finding my feet at last! I am understanding things (kind of!) and settling on things and finding out things. The jigsaw pieces are slowly edging towards each other. These are all very good feelings. I’m so lucky.

I hope you are managing okay where you are, whatever the circumstances. Have the best day you can, if you can.

xoxo Pip

PS … I made you a new playlist!
PPS … More I Leap Over the Wall in my next update, I promise!
PPPS … I have written in my Woolf journal every night this week, so far!