Sunday in Pictures

How nice was today? I don't think I've ever experienced a more blissfully calm Sunday. I cannot remember the last time I had a whole day with nothing on my schedule.
It's been a while, hasn't it? I hope you're enjoying a little pocket of stillness in your own lives.

Breakfast was scrumptious. There's nothing like getting up late and eating a lot of sweet delicious breakfasty things in a big pile. In addition to the croissant and pancakes I had strawberries and bananas with yoghurt, cheese and pickles, loads of toast, four glasses of orange juice and a cup of tea.
Roman and I went for a walk through the glorious streets of Northbridge. We played hide-and-seek. I won.

We visited my pet Woolworth's trolley, Stevie. He got lost one day and now lives outside our house. He's friendly. Say hi, Stevie!
I climbed a tree. It had nice hard, smooth wood and accomodating branches.

... Roman may have had to help me out of it.

We found real treasure!

and I rediscovered a treasure of my own from when I was young. It has sequins!

When the shadows grew long in the garden, I started to make dinner for my family and my brother's lady-friend.

Starting with an entree of garlic pizza...
And greek salad, the dressing of which is made from mixing sliced red onion with white vinegar and caster sugar.
I always thing it looks a little bit like a bowl of jewels. Rubies, emeralds, long shards of amethyst crystal and pearls...

Beef, beans, peas, garlic mash, and the aforementioned greek salad.

Followed by fried bananas and ice cream. Looks foul, tastes mind-blowingly delicious.

Now I'm just sitting on the couch, curled up in blogland, enjoying my 11th episode of the West Wing in twenty four hours.
Have a lovely week, all.

Sunday in Pictures

I had a very nice Sunday. A very nice Sunday, thank you my darling Roman.
The sun was shining...
We ate jaffles and pickles and tea on kitchy melamine plates that have brought me great joy throughout my life.
I made caramelised apples for desert and ate them with gluttonous amounts of cream.
And started getting my exciting Alphabet Swap package prepared for sending off!

Have a lovely week, all!

A Field of Poppies

This is a beautiful piece of speechwriting that is an absolute inspiration to me as a writer and as an Australian.

We do not know this Australian's name and we never will.
We do not know his rank or his battalion. We do not know where he was born, nor precisely how and when he died. We do not know where in Australia he had made his home or when he left it for the battlefields of Europe. We do not know his age or his circumstances – whether he was from the city or the bush; what occupation he left to become a soldier; what religion, if he had a religion; if he was married or single. We do not know who loved him or whom he loved. If he had children we do not know who they are. His family is lost to us as he was lost to them. We will never know who this Australian was.
Yet he has always been among those whom we have honoured. We know that he was one of the 45,000 Australians who died on the Western Front. One of the 416,000 Australians who volunteered for service in the First World War. One of the 324,000 Australians who served overseas in that war and one of the 60,000 Australians who died on foreign soil. One of the 100,000 Australians who have died in wars this century.
He is all of them. And he is one of us.
This Australia and the Australia he knew are like foreign countries. The tide of events since he died has been so dramatic, so vast and all – consuming, a world has been created beyond the reach of his imagination.
He may have been one of those who believed that the Great War would be an adventure too grand to miss. He may have felt that he would never live down the shame of not going. But the chances are he went for no other reason than that he believed it was the duty he owed his country and his King.
Because the Great War was a mad, brutal, awful struggle, distinguished more often than not by military and political incompetence; because the waste of human life was so terrible that some said victory was scarcely discernible from defeat; and because the war which was supposed to end all wars in fact sowed the seeds of a second even more terrible war – we might think this Unknown Soldier died in vain.
But, in honouring our war dead, as we always have and as we do today, we declare that this is not true. For out of the war came a lesson which transcended the horror and tragedy and the inexcusable folly. It was a lesson about ordinary people – and the lesson was that they were not ordinary. On all sides they were the heroes of that war; not the generals and the politicians but the soldiers and sailors and nurses – those who taught us to endure hardship, to show courage, to be bold as well as resilient, to believe in ourselves, to stick together.
The Unknown Australian Soldier whom we are interring today was one of those who, by his deeds, proved that real nobility and grandeur belongs, not to empires and nations, but to the people on whom they, in the last resort, always depend.
That is surely at the heart of the ANZAC story, the Australian legend which emerged from the war. It is a legend not of sweeping military victories so much as triumphs against the odds, of courage and ingenuity in adversity. It is a legend of free and independent spirits whose discipline derived less from military formalities and customs than from the bonds of mateship and the demands of necessity. It is a democratic tradition, the tradition in which Australians have gone to war ever since.
This Unknown Australian is not interred here to glorify war over peace; or to assert a soldier's character above a civilian's; or one race or one nation or one religion above another; or men above women; or the war in which he fought and died above any other war; or one generation above any that has been or will come later.
The Unknown Soldier honours the memory of all those men and women who laid down their lives for Australia. His tomb is a reminder of what we have lost in war and what we have gained.
We have lost more than 100,000 lives, and with them all their love of this country and all their hope and energy.
We have gained a legend: a story of bravery and sacrifice and, with it, a deeper faith in ourselves and our democracy, and a deeper understanding of what it means to be Australian.
It is not too much to hope, therefore, that this Unknown Australian Soldier might continue to serve his country - he might enshrine a nation's love of peace and remind us that, in the sacrifice of the men and women whose names are recorded here, there is faith enough for all of us.


The Hon. P. J. Keating MP

Prime Minister of Australia



For Remembrance Day.

Lemons Are Falling from the Sky

Tonight I made a three course lemon themed feast.

I am a great fan of the lemon. What an underappreciated fruit.

We began with a Lebanese style spinach and cheese pide.

I made it using no recipe but a lot of creativity.

Ingredients:

Baby Spinach

Mozzarella Cheese

2 tsps of Olive oil

A handful of sesame seeds

3 cups of flour

1/2 a sachet of dried yeast

1 cup of water

1 tsp of salt

Method:

Mix together the flour, yeast, salt, and water.

Need for 10 - 15 minutes, then leave to rise for up to 2 hours.

Roll out dough into a canoe shape and scatter shredded baby spinach and grated mozzarella in the cavity.

Pinch together the sides of the dough to seal up the cavity and sprinkle olive oil and sesame seeds over the surface.

Cook for 15-20 minutes at 180 degrees in a conventional oven.

Squeeze fresh lemon juice from wedges on the slices before consuming ravenously.

For the main course I made a light but nevertheless delicious lemon lamb salad.

The lamb was my dad's special secret marinade so I have no idea how it was made, but I just sliced it super thin and put it over a salad comprised of rocket, mixed darkleaf and iceberg lettuce, thinly sliced cucumber and cherry tomatoes, with balsamic vinegar dressing.

Dessert was lemon delicious, the most aptly named pudding in the world.

Ingredients:

3 tsps butter
3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup of caster sugar
1/2 cup of self-raising flour
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
1/2 cup of lemon juice
1 1/2 cups of milk

Method:

Beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick, then add the flour, lemon juice, lemon rind, milk, and butter, and stir through.
Beat the egg whites until they create soft peaks.
Fold the egg whites into the rest of the mixture and pour the whole thing into a 1.5 litre dish.
Submerge the dish in 2 or 3 cm of warm water in a baking pan, and pop the whole thing in the oven for around 40 minutes, until the top has a golden crust.
Serve hot with pouring cream and observe a very content family.

A very content family.

Sunday in Pictures

Today was a restful, peaceful, creative day. I woke up in my lovely blue wendybird nightie, feeling a slight bit under the weather...

I enjoyed a fruity breakfast at lovely Alexandra's house.

Strawberries, bananas, pineapple, passionfruit yoghurt, and delicious sourdough toast. Nom nom nom.
I spent a couple of happy hours at the Newtown Festival...

...where I bought this beautiful white dress for an absolute steal.
(I'm smiling because it cost me ten dollars).
I spent the afternoon in the company of my charming sister...
...who was my sous chef this evening as I prepared for my feast of a dinner.

Stay tuned for a recount of the feast!

Sunday in Pictures Sculptures

This weekend I went to Sculptures by the Sea with my adoptive (Roman's) family. It was a really lovely day and I thought I might show you all my favourite sculptures - both man- and naturally-made.

Happy November my loves.

My beautiful vintage leotard top. It is both exquisitely beautiful and practical.