Tassie here we come!

We are off.. as soon as I pack. 

Tania, Riley and the Dancing Lion ... and Us

Foreign Lands
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Up into the cherry tree
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad on foreign lands.

I saw the next door garden lie,
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant places more
That I had never seen before.

If I could find a higher tree
Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips
Into the sea among the ships.

To where the roads on either hand
Lead onward into fairy land,
Where all the children dine at five,
And all the playthings come alive.

We met Tania McCartney, author of Riley and the Dancing Lion, at the Handmade Markets in Canberra after stalking err... I mean admiring... her blog for some time. We were delighted to make her acquaintance and convey our effusive enthusiam for her writing, and partake of a candy cane from her impeccable stall. But while we were busy declaring our fanatical addiction to her blog and revealing our mutual acquaintance with Shazza, and suggesting a Canberra sequel to her other book, Beijing Tai Tai, and putting our name down to buy a copy of her planned chapter book and heaping praise on her skill as a party planner, we completely failed to inspect the book or buy a thing! So, off to the official launch we shall go with every intention of putting our money where our mouth is, and requesting a signed copy.

Little Wanna had such fun that night colouring-in a sheet depicting one of the exquisite illustrations from Riley and the Dancing Lion. Which just goes to prove that the book is a winner with its intended audience. We look forward to reading it in full and flying off to a foreign land.

What a Day.

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

An Apple a Day

Sophie Uliano's Veggie Cleaner Spray

Ingredients:

1 cup water
1 cup distilled white vinegar
1 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda
20 drops grapefruit seed extract
Combine all ingredients in a large container. Then, transfer to a spray bottle with a pump. Spray mixture on produce, and rinse thoroughly after 5 to 10 minutes.

From Oprah's Earth Day

First week back at school and the final term for the year. Little Wanna will be a big school next year. Then it will be lunch boxes and apples for everyone; a veritable process line on the kitchen bench and what a challenge that will be. A boy who won't eat any fruit except strawberries but is quite happy with Vegemite sandwiches. A girl who won't eat sandwiches and prefers a narrow range of hot noodles, pasta or rice in a thermos. Food that needs to stay fresh hanging in a school bag in a hot corridor all morning. Ice block coolers in insulated bags. Cupboards full of various shaped containers, dry foods, vacuum-packed foods, snack foods, cling films, lunch wrap and plastic straws. Then when they come home, there is only one tiny nibble on the corner of a sandwich round and you wonder how many times that apple can keep going between home and school.

Happy Birthday

Here I Love You
by Pablo Neruda

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.

Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

Happy Birthday Dear Heart. xxx

School Holiday Bear Hunt

We're going on a bear hunt,
We're gonna catch a big one,
What a beautiful day,
We're not scared.
Oh ,oh!
Grass,
Long, wavy, grass.
We can't go over it,
We can't go under it,
We've gotta go throught it!
Swishy swashy, swishy swashy.

....OH NO IT'S A BEAR!!!

Quick!
Through the cave, tiptoe, tiptoe,
Through the forest, stumble trip, stumble trip,
Through the river, splish splosh, splish spolosh,
Through the mud, squelch squelch, squelch squelch,
Through the grass, swishy swashy, swishy swashy.
Run to the house, run up the stairs,
Oh oh forgot to shut the door!
Run back downstairs, shut the door,
Run back up, to the bedroom,
Jump into bed, pull up the covers,

WE ARE NEVER GOING ON A BEAR HUNT AGAIN!!

My Boy

Lullaby

They didn't have you where I come from
Never knew the best was yet to come
Life began when I saw your face
And I hear your laugh like a serenade

How long do you want to be loved?
Is forever enough, is forever enough
How long do you want to be loved?
Is forever enough
Cause I'm never, never giving you up

As you wander through this troubled world
In search of all things beautiful
You can close your eyes when you're miles away
And hear my voice like a serenade


Lullaby by Dixie Chicks

Dancing queen

Three Cheers for Mrs Chips

Mrs Chips had a party, everyone was there
Little Gracie Garner wore a ribbon in her hair
Captain Pete, the pilot had a hot dog in his hand
BB, Myn, Champ and Darl were playing in the band

Nora Nodd saw Larry Lobb and promptly yelled out "Hello!"
He remarked, "Oh Nora you look wonderful in yellow"
Little coloured lights were flashing, candles were aflame
They bashed a great pinata and played that pass-the-parcel game

Mrs Chips looked stunning in her multi-coloured vest
The party was successful, everybody was impressed
"At four o'clock," the hostess smiled, "We set the white doves loose,
We'll celebrate with chocolate cake and fresh pineapple juice

The band played everybody's favourite funky children's tunes
Captain Pete inflated purple helium balloons
Little Gracie Garner pinned the tail upon the door
"I missed the donkey's bottom by a metre, maybe more"

Larry Lobb was busy serving guests their drinks and dip
But still found time to juggle, cart-wheel, somersault and flip
Nora Nodd tapped her glass and raised it to the ceiling
"Three cheers for Mrs Chips," she cried, "one more time with feeling"

Champ played his guitar and danced around just like a clown
Darl was singing beautifully whilst jumping up and down
Myn was rocking back and forth and spinning like a top
BB did the splits then limboed underneath a mop

Captain Pete did magic tricks while Nora Nodd assisted
"More!" the party-guests demanded, "encore," they insisted
"Watch me wave my wand and say the magic words with flair"
Then Nora Nodd just vanished, dissapeared into thin air

"Has anyone seen Charlie Fripp?" Mrs Chips enquired
He left at two o'clock 'cause he was angry, bored and tired
He said he hated children's songs, they made him blow his top
As far as Charlie Fripp's concerned the party was a flop

But Champ and Darl, Captain Pete and little Gracie Garner
Showed their party-spirit as they shared the last sultana
Larry Lobb chucked a streamer, Mrs Chips threw more
Soon there was a multi-coloured tangle on the floor

"Thankyou all for coming but I'm afraid it's time to go,
Thanks for all the fun and dancing and the magic show
We were right as usual and Charlie Fripp was wrong
Now the band will play their final funky children's song"

By Dave Bray

For Charly on her ninth birthday, remembering the fun-filled disco party with five fabulous friends and two darling cousins. A room full of bright, sparkling girls, metallic balloons, party poppers, Glo-sticks and a revolving disco lamp (thank YOU Aunty Deb). The dancing queens and princesses sipped lemon fizzy and apple juice from turquoise champagne flutes and nibbled sausage rolls and party pies, mini-lamingtons, S&V potato chips, BBQ shapes, grissini sticks and dips, fruit platter and snakes. The finale was a round, home-made, classic butter cake with maple syrup icing and silver cachous. Sparklers heralded its entrance. Ta-da!

Dancing was the main show, but there was an amusing break-out session in the back garden to bounce on the trampoline, and apply coloured hair spray and Camp Rock tattoos (including on Uncle Paul's bald head). The cousins stayed for a sleepover after roast dinner for the rest of the family. We ate fresh home-made pancakes for breakfast before heading out for a short walk to the local playground and then off for the usual swimming lesssons and to drop the cousins home.

All ends with a totally exhausted Mum but, my, what lovely memories! Last single digit year.

Happy birthday darling girl! xxx

Party Preparations

Children's Party

May I join you in the doghouse, Rover?
I wish to retire till the party's over.
Since three o'clock I've done my best
To entertain each tiny guest.
My conscience now I've left behind me,
And if they want me, let them find me.
I blew their bubbles, I sailed their boats,
I kept them from each other's throats.
I told them tales of magic lands,
I took them out to wash their hands.
I sorted their rubbers and tied their laces,
I wiped their noses and dried their faces.
Of similarities there's lots
Twixt tiny tots and Hottentots.
I've earned repose to heal the ravages
Of these angelic-looking savages.
Oh, progeny playing by itself
Is a lonely little elf,
But progeny in roistering batches
Would drive St. Francis from here to Natchez.
Shunned are the games a parent proposes,
They prefer to squirt each other with hoses,
Their playmates are their natural foemen
And they like to poke each other's abdomen.
Their joy needs another woe's to cushion it,
Say a puddle, and someone littler to push in it.
They observe with glee the ballistic results
Of ice cream with spoons for catapults,
And inform the assembly with tears and glares
That everyone's presents are better than theirs.
Oh, little women and little men,
Someday I hope to love you again,
But not till after the party's over,
So give me the key to the doghouse, Rover

Ogden Nash

Illustration by Amy Luhrman

Preparations are underway for Charly's ninth birthday party next weekend. Much to do to organise THE cake, music, games, eats, room decoration and party bags. We are working on a disco theme - girls only - with a turquoise colour code. Trying to keep it simple without succumbing to the temptation to imitate a Donna Hay/Martha Stewart feature spread. A lot of effort for two hours of entertainment, but also years of enduring memories. Let's press on.

The Australian Guide Promise and Law

Guide Promise
I promise that I will do my best:
to do my duty to God, to serve the Queen and my country;
to help other people; and
to keep the Guide Law.

The Guide Law

A Guide is loyal and can be trusted.
A Guide is helpful.
A Guide is polite and considerate.
A Guide is friendly and a sister to all Guides.
A Guide is kind to animals and respects all living things.
A Guide is obedient.
A Guide has courage and is cheerful in all difficulties.
A Guide makes good use of her time.
A Guide takes care of her own possessions and those of other people.
A Guide is self-controlled in all she thinks, says and does.

Evening Taps

Day is done, Gone the sun,
From the sea, from the hills, from the sky.
All is well, Safely rest.
God is nigh.

For Charly on her first guide camp. Harry Potter's birthday!

An End of Winter Mirage

Winter Time

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit,
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap,
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

.

Illustration by Nick, an Australian Expeditioner, Mawson Station, Australian Antarctic Division, October 2008.

Mawson is situated on an isolated outcrop of rock on the coast in MacRobertson Land, at the edge of the Antarctic plateau at 67'36'S 6252'E. It is Australia's first continental station and the longest continuously operating station south of the Antarctic Circle. The station is the most westerly of the three continental stations, lying about 5,200km south-west of Perth, Western Australia.

The Mawson region is one of the richest areas for seabirds in the Australian Antarctic Territory, and supports breeding colonies of emperor and Adelie penguins, snow petrels, Antarctic petrels (the largest colony in Antarctica with 158,000 breeding pairs), Wilson's storm petrels, cape petrels, southern giant petrels, Antarctic fulmars and skuas.

Cricket - How the Ashes got its name. Thank you Miss Morphy.

The Ashes is a biennial Test cricket contest played between England and Australia . The series is named after the trophy, which is a small terracotta urn said to contain the burnt bails from a game played in 1882 at The Oval . An Ashes series typically consists of five Test matches, and the host of the series alternates between the two countries.

England v Australia - The Oval Meeting

The August 1882 cricket match at the Oval cricket ground in Kennington, London, was recorded as the most exciting cricket match of all time. It was a match played between two great sides: the home side, lead by the Honourable Ivo Bligh, and the tourists by William Lloyd Murdoch.

The tourists started off badly - 63 all out in the first innings. After the tea break and regaining their composure, they secured a miraculous victory in just two days. The Aussies wrapped up their victory by just seven runs.

This was a blow to the English side - their country being the birthplace of the sport, and also being one of the best sides of their time, their defeat proved that they weren't invincible. The Australians saw it as a breakthrough. They were the side that stood a healthy chance of beating the English side in future meetings.

To rub it in, The Sporting Times published this on 2 September 1882:

In Affectionate Remembrance
of
E N G L I S H C R I C K E T,
which died at the Oval
on
29th A U G U S T, 1882,
Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances
RIP
NB - The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.

England v Australia - Down Under

The English media played up the subsequent tour to Australia in 1882/83 (which had been arranged before this defeat) as a quest to "regain the Ashes".

Before England's defeat at The Oval, by seven runs, arrangements had already been made for the Hon. Ivo Bligh, afterwards Lord Darnley, to lead a team to Australia. Three weeks later they set out, now with the popular objective of recovering the Ashes. In the event, Australia won the First Test by nine wickets, but with England winning the next two it became generally accepted that they had regained their pride.

A group of Victorian ladies headed by Lady Clarke burned what has variously been called a ball, bail or veil, and presented the resulting ashes to Bligh in an urn together with a velvet bag, which was made by Mrs Ann Fletcher, the daughter of Joseph Hines Clarke and Marion Wright, both of Dublin . She said, "What better way than to actually present the English captain with the very 'object' — albeit mythical — he had come to Australia to retrieve?"

Bligh later married another of these Melburnian ladies, Florence Morphy. When he died in 1927 his widow presented the urn to the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). It can be seen in the cricket museum at Lord's, together with the velvet bag, made specially for it, and the scorecard of the 1882 match. It is never physically awarded to either England or Australia, but is kept permanently in the MCC Cricket Museum at Lord's Cricket Ground

With assistance from the BBC and Learn English Online

Image: Robert Simpson Australian, 1955- ): Original artwork "Batsman and Keeper", crayon/gouache on paper

Back to School: Term 3

or playing Super Mario on the DS.

Back to the packed lunches, lost hats and hoodies, and brooding discontent over the state of public education.

Cartoon by Pat Bagley of the The Salt Lake Tribune

So close, so far

A walk, scooter and bike ride in Commonwealth Park, Canberra, on Saturday.

This poem is by Taufiq Ismail (born 1937), a student writer and activist in 1966.

Kita adalah pemilik syah republik ini

Tidak ada pilihan lain. Kita harus
Berjalan terus
Kita adalah manusia bermata sayu, yang di tepi jalan
Mengacungkan tangan untuk oplet dan bus yang penuh
Kita adalah berpuluh juta yang bertahun hidup sengsara
Dipukul banjir, gunung api, kutuk dan hama
Dan bertanya-tanya diam inikah yang namanya merdeka
Kita yang tak punya kepentingan dengan seribu slogan
Dan seribu pengeras suara yang hampa suara
Tidak ada pilihan lain. Kita harus
Berjalan terus

The Republic is Ours

There is no other choice. We must
Go on.
We are the people with sad eyes, at the edge of the road
Waving at vans and crowded buses.
We are the tens of millions who live in misery
Beaten about by flood, volcano, curses and pestilence,
Who silently ask for freedom
But are ignored in a thousand slogans
And meaningless loud-speaker voices.
There is no other choice. We must
Go on.

Translated by Harry Aveling,'Secrets need words: Indonesian poetry 1966-1998', Ohio University Press, 2001.

With sorrow for the lives lost. Jakarta, July 2009.

A Thumbnail Dipped in Tar.

Clancy Of The Overflow

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just `on spec', addressed as follows, `Clancy, of The Overflow'.

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
`Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving `down the Cooper' where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of `The Overflow'.

Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson (1864-1941). Poet, ballad writer, journalist and horseman.

'Banjo' Paterson, known as Barty to his family, was born Andrew Barton Paterson at Narrambla, near Orange, on 17 February 1864. His parents, Andrew Bogle and Rose Isabella Paterson were graziers on Illalong station in the Yass district (near Canberra).

Image: Office in a Small City, 1953
Edward Hopper (American, 1882–1967)
George A. Hearn Fund, 1953

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Submitted for my American poetry blogger friends who allow me to lift my head occasionally from 'the round eternal of the cash book and jounal' and enjoy 'the vision splendid'.

WAGs

Song in a Minor Key

There's a place I know where the birds swing low,
And wayward vines go roaming,
Where the lilacs nod, and a marble god
Is pale, in scented gloaming.
And at sunset there comes a lady fair
Whose eyes are deep with yearning.
By an old, old gate does the lady wait
Her own true love's returning.

But the days go by, and the lilacs die,
And trembling birds seek cover;
Yet the lady stands, with her long white hands
Held out to greet her lover.
And it's there she'll stay till the shadowy day
A monument they grave her.
She will always wait by the same old gate, --
The gate her true love gave her.

Dorothy Parker

Seagulls: First post homage to Distracted by Shiny Objects who introduced me to the wonder of it all.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune - without the words
And never stops at all.

- Emily Dickenson -

Photo: Sculpture by Susie Marwick, Winner of 2009 Castaways Sculpture Awards, Rockingham Beach, Western Australia.

Inspiration: A Tidings of Magpies