Soup and snowdrops and The Secret Garden

Friday 5th April

It feels like a three cup of tea morning, and just like that, the seasons have now well and truly changed. I’m thrilled, dear reader. Autumn is my birth season (I was born in March) and it’s the time of the year I feel most myself, most hopeful, most happy, most at ease. There’s something about it, like a turning of the tide, the heat swept out and the crisper days and barer gardens seeping in, bit by bit.

First up, one of those cups of tea, two slices of Vegemite toast and a bit of watch of this Claire Fenby video … and then this video about Beatrix Potter and this video about a woman who spent her life savings on a rundown woodsy cabin in Sweden. And a bit of replying to emails (I am always struggling with this! Sorry if I haven’t got to you yet … I will get there eventually!)

Getting dressed: I’m going to wear the same thing that I wore yesterday! Jeans and a striped shirt. But I’m adding woolly socks my mum got me from Three Twigs in Cygnet, and pink Merry People boots (my friend bought those for me!)

I watched the first two episodes of Alone Australia last night. (Warning: themes of animal hunting.) I loved season one, and the follow-up is actually filmed in New Zealand even though it’s Australian contestants. It’s such a fascinating series. After watching season one i went back and watched a few of the non-Australian seasons. Some people are so clever and resilient! I would not last an hour out there. Did you watch last year? Do you remember Gina’s time on the first series? Wasn’t she incredible? She had been through so much in her life and she was still standing, still looking it all in the eye and having a cry, still hopeful and curious and clever. I love her!

Mid-morning, I drove down to Coburg and picked up a few veggies and a loaf of bread (the $5 a loaf woodfired kind that Max and I are liking a lot right now), then on to Golden Bowl Books (a favourite of mine on Sydney Road) and the two op shops nearby for a quick squiz. Now I’m home and feeling very, very tired so I might have a nap and then do some uni work. And then I’ll make some soup because my throat is very sore and soup is always helpful in such circumstances.

Today’s book finds

From Golden Bowl Books …
The Secret Garden by F. Hodgson Burnett (Puffin, edition published in 1964)
Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright (Puffin, published in 1966)
I Leap Over the Wall by Monica Baldwin (1950 edition)

From Vinnies or Sacred Heart op shops
Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica
When in French by Lauren Collins
A bunch of old The New Yorker magazines
A Women’s Weekly craft book with the cutest kids’ jumper patterns in it.

A friend emailed me to say she is all about the books at op shops now too, that when she was younger it was clothes she liked to scout and now it’s shifted to books. I am exactly the same as her. You will find me in the book aisle. In the book shop. At the book stall. By the book sale. My books are my favourite non-living things. There’s something about collecting a library of books that feels sturdy … like I’m shoring up my house for whatever may come, I’m investing in little pockets of future me’s time when I might need this title or that volume or edition. The books are full of promise and possibilities, and they line the house nicely … a sort of wordy insulation. Plus, a book stack is such a delight, marked in different colours and fonts, different words and names, different sizes teetering and piling up.

Stefano’s Minestrone (cooked by me!)

Stefano’s Minestrone con Bruschetta
From Modern Italian Food by Stefano de Pieri

Makes 6 to 8 serves

4 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, peeled and diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 stick of celery, diced
4 potatoes, peeled and diced
2 zucchini, diced
a handful of green beans, cut into 1cm pieces
a handful of fresh or frozen peas
4 tomatoes, diced
2 litres of chicken or vegetable stock

Heat the olive oil and fry the onion, celery and carrot until soft. Add everything else and some salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then simmer for an hour or so. Tweak in any way you like by adding beans or chickpeas or whatever takes your fancy. Serve with a sprinkling of fresh herbs and grated Parmesan, if desired.

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Reader … I did not have that nap. I just made a sandwich (red pesto and salami on sourdough) and got into the uni reading. Then I did make the soup. I also put some red peppers in the oven to roast, because they were on sale at Fresh on Young for $1 each. 

I was thinking about the book I’m reading and my Honours and I googled one of my first favourite writers … from when I was a young mother and started reading ‘grown up’ aka literary fiction. Her name is Marion Halligan and apparently she died earlier this year. I felt a little shock jolt when I read this. Death will do that to you. Lisa of ANZ LitLovers LitBlog writes of Marion’s books:

“My absolute favourites of them all are Spider Cup (1990) and Wishbone (1994) and I loved them because — as well as being wise and witty — they introduced me to her signature lyrical descriptions of artworks, books, porcelain and glassware; gardens and flowers; fabrics and design.  Halligan wrote on a variety of themes of significance, but few authors can match Halligan for domestic settings of beauty and style.”

Her obituary in The Canberra Times is here.  And here’s a piece about her at The Conversation.

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Saturday 6 April
Happy Birthday, Gemma!

Content note: Discussion of adoption

I’m having a bit of a creaky morning, so I took a cup of tea and toast back to bed and watched some cute Poetry of Slow Life videos on YouTube. Last night I found a list of Tasmanian-ish reads on GoodReads, so I’m going to see who and what I might like to read on that list as – as a result of advice from my supervisor – I’ve shifted my Honours project to be more local. (Perhaps I’ll do my PhD on those writers of the UK and Ireland! I am not sure!)

Then to get dressed and plan my reading and doing for the day …

Getting dressed: The same black floral dress from the other day, legging and Birkenstocks.

I need to get my winter dressing gown out of the spare wardrobe and give it a wash and an air. So I’m going to do that this weekend. It’s maroon and has a hood, which makes it super cosy.

I’ve been watching on as Will and Jessie work the lambing season on Will’s family farm. (You likely don’t watch Love Island like I do, but they are a couple from a recent season and Jessie is originally from Tasmania.) The lambs are so blinking cute! Their arrival is not so cute, but that’s the reality of birth, isn’t it?

I have been thinking a lot about the birth of my first kiddo recently (likely because fiction writing and life writing sometimes meld together.) It was in 1988 and I was 18. I gave birth at Melbourne’s Royal Women’s Hospital in a very sparse delivery room, then was taken to a shared ward (with 6 or so beds, I think … It’s hard to remember.) What I do remember was that in the furthest-away bed in the opposite row, there was a young mother who cried the whole time I was there. She was not keeping her baby, one of the nurses told me. It was such a conflicted situation to be in, so happily and yet disbelievingly bamboozled by the arrival of my own baby, but so saddened by what this other mother was going through. I still think of her often and wonder where she is, where they both are, how things ended up. 

“I’m just a being exploring life” … The beauty of an ordinary life 

I started reading I Leap Over the Wall. I’ve decided I’m going to read a chapter a day. It’s a book written by a woman who left a convent after 28 years. It went out of print for a while, but now it’s back in print. My copy is a 1950 edition. In the first chapter, she – and by ‘she’ I mean the author, Monica Baldwin – is met by her sister Freda at the convent as she prepares to leave. Freda brings Monica the civilian clothing she needs to replace her usual garb and the about-to-be-ex-nun is shocked at the undergarments she’s about to wear. Used to boiled wool long underwear, thick stockings, a heavy habit and various headgear, she can not understand why the wartime stockings are skin-toned and transparent. “They make my legs look naked!” she protests. Her reaction to seeing her first bra was similar. She quickly adjusts, however and then ventures out into the world to “splash about unnoticed, listening, looking about, experimenting, learning about things …” with Freda at her side.

After my nunny reading I did the dishes, put some laundry on to wash and made some tea. I am trying to have a super quiet day because we have a family dinner tonight and I want to make the most of the energy I have then, rather than now. Chronic illness very often means limited energy – at least that is the case with me – so one must learn to use this finite resource in the most optimal way each day. Hence the reading and tea-in-bed and such.

I spent a little while looking for snowdrop bulbs online and eventually found some (seeds, I think?) here. I bought two packs, which I’m going to plant into a container so I can take it wherever I might go. (The perils of renting!) I also bought some poppy and mignonette seeds, inspired by Dicken in The Secret Garden. On my last visit to Bunnings I noticed they have Daphne plants in stock at the moment. I’m thinking of getting one of those to keep in a pot too. I mean, who doesn’t love Daphne?! It’s so pretty and has the loveliest fragrance, doesn’t it?

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“There’s a lot o’ mignonette an’ poppies,” he said. “Mignonette’s th’ sweetest smellin’ thing as grows an’ it’ll grow wherever you cast it, same as poppies will. Them as’ll come up an’ bloom if you just whistle to ‘em, them’s th’ nicest of all.” – Hodgson Burnett, F. (1964). The Secret Garden. Puffin Books. (Original work published 1911)

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This time’s op-shopped cookbook is West of Ireland Summers by Tamasin Day-Lewis with photographer Simon Wheeler (published 1999).

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Sunday 7th April

Okay. Good morning. For some reason I was not aware that daylight savings ended overnight. I’m living in a bubble, clearly, although I did wonder why I was feeling slightly wonky when I got up this morning. I made a cup of tea while the dogs gambolled about, then stripped the bed and crammed the linen into the washing machine, then settled in to do some online reading ahead of a day of reading for uni stuff. After that, I watched a cute video on YouTube … it’s this one.

I spotted Scoop and Ripley on Netflix, both of which look worth a watch, so I might get to one of those later today, once I’ve hit my reading quota. (Close reading is slow reading! I’ve nearly finished The Labyrinth, though.)

Yesterday I gave the garden a bit of a drink and the sweet peas STILL haven’t come up. The other seeds are going great guns, but the sweet peas are being shy. I’m not sure why, but I do recollect that when I planted some in Tassie they took ages to sprout, so maybe it’s okay. They might be making themselves comfortable. They might be pondering their last wholly subterranean moments. It’s hard to know …

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Good things

The $10 eBay photo that turned out to be worth more than $2 million dollars.
This BBC podcast episode about ABBA was so good! So much to learn!
Are “interhuman relationships the path to happiness?” 
A FREE online mindfulness course (found via this BBC article)
Heidi’s vegetable pot pie recipe.
New York crumb cake via Smitten Kitchen
Such gorgeous photos here.
Local words for rain at The Simple Things.
Some excellent-looking photography book recommendations.

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Getting dressed: An op shopped gingham dress, leggings, socks with puppies on them, old Blundstones.

I nipped out to get some ingredients to make a favourite cosy chicken dinner, and now I’m back at my desk and that very dinner is simmering on the stove. All this before 10am! Thank goodness for the end of daylight savings! 

I was poking about on Pinterest earlier and found a link to Bloglovin’ … which led me to see if I still have the logins to my old Bloglovin’ account… and yes I do! So I logged in and was transported back to 2019, mindset-wise. I love blogs. Still. And there are still a bunch of people writing them, I am delighted to say. For some reason I have been using Feedly for the last five or so years, but I’m going to see if Bloglovin’ feels better. Maybe it will!

I Leap Over the Wall chapter two was all about the challenge of learning how to be … well … UN-nunly. While in the religious order, Monica was to keep her eyes down, hands clasped in front of her when walking, thoughts on holy things. Memories were discouraged, noticing one’s surroundings was discouraged, anything that might impinge on holy thoughts was discouraged. Apparently she did a lot of bumping into people during her years in the convent, due to her averted eyes. Once she was out, she found it hard to observe and remember, because she had “the life-long habit of ‘emptying the memory’ of everything one has seen or done.” 

Apparently I am the opposite of an olde-timey nun in that I am an over-noticer, a life-long memory filler, a swinging-the-arms type of walker, a looking-up sort of person. So that’s interesting to know. How nunny are you, reader?

Hoping your week ahead is all the things you want it to be.

Thanks for reading the bits you felt like reading!

See you back here soon,

Pip xoxo

PS: I finished my reading quota for today!