Books bought and borrowed: Alice-Miranda At School

Meet Alice-Miranda Highton-Smith-Kennington-Jones, possibly the bravest, most positive seven and one quarter year old you’re ever likely to encounter.   In her first adventure, Alice-Miranda At School Alice-Miranda quickly learns that not everything is as it seems at Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale Academy for Proper Young Ladies. The Headmistress, Miss Grimm hasn’t been seen for ten years. The prize winning flowers are gone and a mysterious stranger has been camping in the greenhouse. Alice-Miranda must complete a series of impossible tests to prove she is worthy of keeping her place. Join her on this rollicking adventure as Alice-Miranda proves that no matter how young or how small, there’s nothing can beat a tiny child with a true optimistic spirit and sheer determination.

(From the author, Jacqueline Harvey)

Little Wanna and I have just finished reading the first Alice-Miranda book.  There's nothing like a book about an all girls' boarding school to provide a captivating plot-line and a complex set of relationships.  We enjoyed barracking for Alice Miranda and snarling at toffy-nosed, head prefect Alethea, but some of the adult characters were hard to comprehend.  The improbable arrival of Miss Grimm's forlorn suitor, like Grizzly Adams emerging from the bush, and the twists in the tale of their relationship was too much, too late in the book.  That part lost us.  Still, I was reading to a six year old and I think this is pitched at the older self-reader who may throughly enjoy the dramatic unfolding of events close to the end.   We did fall completely for Alice-Miranda herself though, and will be on the look out for the sequels, Alice-Miranda On Holiday and Alice-Miranda Takes The Lead.   It is the sort of story that lends itself to a series where the characters can mature.

As an aside, I was completely distracted by all the derivative English stereotypes imposed on an Australian boarding school.  I suppose that's what these schools are like around Sydney and the Southern Highlands where the author has taught, but I'd like to read about a regional boarding school where there are no quadruple-barrelled surnames or aspiration for girls to become "prim and proper".  Wouldn't that be fun!    

My Place

This holiday weekend we've watched the first series of this magnificent Australian childrens' television series.  It is thoroughly brilliant. 

My Place, based on the children's picture book of the same name by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins, is the story of one spot in Sydney over a period of 130 years. Starting in 2008, and taking us back to 1888, the series introduces 13 children, all with a talent for some kind of trouble, each attached to the same ancient fig tree, and each with a story to tell. It's a rare view, through a child's eye, of the history of Australia. The stories are told in 13 half-hour episodes and supported by an interactive website.

All hail the Australian Children's Television Network.   Check out the series here. 

Sea of words

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

~ Lord George Gordon Byron (1814)

We had a long, indulgent phone conversation with Wanna's godmother in Brisbane last night.  Passed her round so every-one could have a chat and managed to cook meat and three veg at the same time.  L. and I go back to university days and have one of those relationships you can pick up where you left off after long breaks.  She's assumed legendary status in our family as that distant person Mum talks about and who sends presents.  Her image stays real through the christening photographs.  I grew up with a distant aunt like that, who lived in England. It's sort of fun as a kid to have a real, but imaginary, friend.  L. may be coming to visit in May.  Roll out the carpet! 

I'm dragging myself towards the end of tomorrow when I start my school holiday/Easter/ANZAC day break.  I'm feeling an information overload at the moment.  Primarily due to escapades into the Twitter-sphere trawling for information about its use in the public sector and by institutions.  Social media is a busy, crowded space.  Invigorating and depleting at the same time.  There should be licences for Twitter accounts, granted only after potential users pass a test guaranteeing that they will post interesting content.   If you don't hear from me I'm probably lost at sea, clinging to the flotsam and jetsam of tweets and hashtags.

Autumn

Autumn Fires

~ Robert Louis Stevenson (1913)

In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!

I'm still having computer problems.  This time downloading from my camera.  Not happy.  The IT Help Desk is busy preparing Power Point presentations (I tell him, "No! Just talk", but he does like a diagram or two and some bewildering flow-charts as props) and travelling for meetings in airport conference facilities, so I daren't press him to investigate the problem.  

I found this terrific photo blog called Canberra Vistas which provided the perfect image of a typical autumn scene.  It's of the Japanese Gardens in Lennox Gardens, Yarralumla.   A great spot for a bike ride and an opportunity to be chased by swans.  What I'd really like to show is an image of the street trees down Monaro Crescent in Old Canberra resplendent in orange and brown tones and almost meeting overhead like a canopy.   I'm longing to go for an autumn walk this weekend and crunch in some leaves.  I'm even contemplating dragging everyone for a wander up Mt Ainslie after a visit to the War Memorial.

Not sewing, but dreaming

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feed:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

                                                             ~ WB Yeats 

No progress on the creative front this weekend.  Don't know where the time went.  That thief called 'housekeeping' probably was responsible, and not the old-fashioned felon who gently stole hours dedicated to finer domestic arts like embroidery and silver-polishing, but that modern rapper-type who plays a beat on shiny electronic devices.  Curse him.

B-Well Report: Up National Circuit

What a week.  Again.  Yesterday was one of those days when I may as well have stayed in bed.  Technology failed me.  Or I failed it.  A document I was working on wasn't saved to the right folder, in fact wasn't saved at all.  Whoosh.  Disappeared into the greater vaporous space of the Electronic Data Record Management System.   A case of too many tabs open and too big of a rush to pay attention to detail.  I also had to bail out of a course next week which did not make the Training People happy.  Gulp.  Fortunately everyone else seemed to have a great day.  The whole school wore pajamas and crazy hair for the last day of term 1 and to raise money for Japan. Can't imagine my teachers ever wearing their pajamas to school, least of all out in public on traffic duty.  But there was Mrs X in her flannalettes directing cars like a circus clown.  Made me smile. 

I also had a leisurely walk to work one day last week (or maybe it was the week before, so lost am I in the vortex of work, home, school, supermarket I never know where I am), and took some hasty pics of familiar places along National  Circuit.  There are lots more leaves to kick these days, and with the turn in the weather it's time to bring out the coats and jackets.   On my not so leisurely pelt back at the end of the day, I have discovered that a mass of fallen acorns on the ground can be hazardous in high heels.  One of these days I'm going to twist my ankle on them.  So not very dignified.  Fortunately there never any people around.  Just as well it is Canberra.  Peak hour, major thoroughfare, opposite the national parliament and nary a soul about.  Is that good or bad?

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

Well. It is still Friday in the northern hemisphere.

Boy

A Boy's Song

~ James Hogg

Where the pools are bright and deep,
Where the grey trout lies asleep,
Up the river and o'er the lea,
That's the way for Billy and me.

Where the blackbird sings the latest,
Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest,
Where the nestlings chirp and flee,
That's the way for Billy and me.

Where the mowers mow the cleanest,
Where the hay lies thick and greenest;
There to trace the homeward bee,
That's teh way for Billy and me.

Where the hazel bank is steepest,
Where the shadow falls the deepest,
Where the clustering nuts fall free,
That's the way for Billy and me.

Why the boys should drive away
Little sweet maidens from the play,
Or love to banter and fight so well,
That's the thing I never could tell.

But this I know, I love to play,
Through the meadow, among the hay;
Up the water and o'er the lea,
That's the way for Billy and me.

Autumn

AUTUMN

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,

With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,

Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,

And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!

Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,

Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand

Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land,

Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!

Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended

So long beneath the heaven's o'er-hanging eaves;

Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended;

Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;

And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,

Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!

Confessions of a Juggler

Myself 

~ Edgar Albert Guest (1919)

I have to live with myself and so

I want to be fit for myself to know.

I want to be able as days go by,

always to look myself straight in the eye;

I don't want to stand with the setting sun

and hate myself for the things I have done.

I don't want to keep on a closet shelf

a lot of secrets about myself

and fool myself as I come and go

into thinking no one else will ever know

the kind of person I really am,

I don't want to dress up myself in sham.

I want to go out with my head erect

I want to deserve all men's respect;

but here in the struggle for fame and wealth

I want to be able to like myself.

I don't want to look at myself and know that

I am bluster and bluff and empty show.

I never can hide myself from me;

I see what others may never see;

I know what others may never know,

I never can fool myself and so,

whatever happens I want to be

self respecting and conscience free.

***

I love Tina Fey. Who doesn't?  A passage in her piece “Confessions of a Juggler" What’s the rudest question you can ask a mother? in The New Yorker magazine (14 February edition) strikes a chord, minus the dream job (comic talent, Teutonic will and army of stylists). 

“How do you juggle it all?” people constantly ask me, with an accusatory look in their eyes. “You’re screwing it all up, aren’t you?” their eyes say. My standard answer is that I have the same struggles as any working parent but with the good fortune to be working at my dream job. Or sometimes I just hand them a juicy red apple I’ve poisoned in my working-mother witch cauldron and fly away.

Her memoir, Bossy Pants, was released this month.  I wonder how long it will take to hit the shelves of the Kingston Library?   And she's having her second baby.   She was nervous a second pregnancy would make her unemployable. 

"Science shows that fertility and movie offers drop off steeply for women after 40," writes Fey, 40. But, she rationalized, "What's so great about work anyway? Work won't visit you when you're old. Work won't drive you to get a mammogram and take you out after for soup.”

"Hollywood be damned," she writes. "I'll just be unemployable and labeled crazy in five years anyway."

Somehow I doubt it.

Image: American Express advertisement, 2008.

Morning Glory

Morning Glories

~ Mary Oliver

Blue and dark-blue

rose and deepest rose

white and pink they

are everywhere in the diligent

cornfield rising and swaying

in their reliable

finery in the little

fling of their bodies their

gear and tackle

all caught up in the cornstalks.

The reaper's story is the story

of endless work of

work careful and heavy but the

reaper cannot

separate them out there they

are in the story of his life

bright random useless

year after year

taken with the serious tons

weeds without value

humorous beautiful weeds.

Last week of Term 1.  Crawling towards the school holidays.  Lots of unfinished projects, rather like weeds in a garden at the moment, which need completing, including a modest re-vamp of a hall table involving Dulux Magnolia.  Heavens, we might even get into some Easter craft and bake from the latest Junior MasterChef cook book, which I recommend for its useful recipes and intriguing layout.

Image: Peta Reilly

Hardware Store Plants

As I typically have an hour to fill while waiting for ballet lessons to finish, I've been exporing the commerical neighbourhood of Phillip in Canberra.  

I have a soft spot for Phillip but not so adjacent Woden with its shopping plaza concrete edifice, an alarmingly ugly apartment tower and a maze of hollow office blocks.  Just my opinion, of course, but it always seems to be a grey and windy urban space.  

Phillip, on the other hand, rolls its sleeves up and gets down to work in a no nonsense low-rise way, with a mix of amazing little shops, car yards and auto repair joints and sundry other venues ranging from music stores, sewing shops and fitness studios.  Plus Magnet Mart. 

Upstairs is the garden nursery.  Last week I found some potted plants which I thought might be suitable for our garden.  So I jotted scant details on the back of a docket in my handbag.  Here's what I found:

Anthropodium Cirrhatum "Matapouri Bay"

Arthropodium 'Matapouri Bay' is a new hybrid form of New Zealand Rock Lily prized for its good looks and easy care. Upright, broad, glaucous green foliage is a year round feature that in summer is crowned  with lovely panicles of starry white flowers.

Dietes Bicolour "Spanish Iris"

A clumping plant with long arching leaves and a prominent midrib to 0.9 m long. Lemon, iris like flowers with dark brown basal blotches, appear predominantly in summer.

Then, the cordyline (thanks to the splendid Faux Fuschia, and Magnet Mart, for reacquainting me with this species).

I wondered whether they would suit Canberra's cold climate.  But advice from the helpful International Cordyline Society indicates they would.  I shall leave the last word to those knowledgeable folk:

Whilst Cordylines grow in the tropics and are certainly beautiful, they are definitely not tender. They’re as tough as the proverbial “ old leather boot laces”, growing happily in the tropics and sub-tropics down to New South Wales, provided they are protected from direct frosts. The cold loving New Zealand species, (australis) will grow in the cooler parts of Australia. Cordylines are at home in the garden, some even prefer almost full sun to show their best colours. Most prefer good light with protection from the direct sun, under the canopy of palms or trees is perfect. While Cordylines like regular watering for optimum growth, once established they will tolerate dry spells better than most plants.

Twelve Project Photo idea from Mocking Bird

The theme for April is: Our Changing Seasons

April Colour Inspiration: Bright Spring colours/Autumn Oranges and Reds

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

{whew. made it.}

Rockets

The Aurora Australis

~ Mary Hannay Foott


A radiance in the midnight sky

No white moon gave, nor yellow star;

We thought its red glow mounted high

Where fire and forest fought afar,

 

 

Half questioning if the township blazed,

Perchance, beyond the boundary hill;

Then, finding what it was, we gazed

And wondered till we shivered chill.

And Fancy showed the sister-glow

Of our Aurora, sending lines

Of lustre forth to tint the snow

That lodges in Norwegian pines.

And South and North alternate swept

In vision past us, to and fro;

While stealthy winds of midnight crept

About us, whispering fast and low.

The North, whose star burns steadily,

High set in heaven long ago:

The South, new-risen on the sea,

A tremulous horizon-glow.

We mused, “Shall there be gallant guests

Within our polar hermitage,

As on the shore where Franklin rests,

And others, named in Glory's page?

And, “Shall the light we look on blaze

Above such battles as have been,

In other countries, other days,

The giants and the gods between?”

Till one declared, “We live to-night

In what shall be the poet's world:

The lands 'neath our Aurora's light

Are as the rocks the Titans hurled.

“From southern waters, ice-enthralled,

Year after year the rays that glance

Shall see the Desert shrink appalled

Before the City's swift advance.

“Shall see the precipice a stair,

The river as a road. And then

There shall be voices to declare

This work was wrought by manly men.”

 And so our South all stately swept

In vision past us, to and fro;

While stealthy winds of midnight crept

About us, whispering fast and low.

What a week people.  Flu, mad frenzy in the big open plan office (I mean really mad, frenetic, crazy, led by jet-propelled, 'intuitive decision-making' - to borrow from Kerry) and three sprogs to feed.   Just when I have a half hour to spare, the computer won't upload photos so I have to use more images from our mega road trip this summer.  Hence the ute on a stick above taken in none other than Deniliquin in New South Wales -- home of the Ute Muster.  Hopefully when the IT HelpDesk gets home from playing hockey tonight, I can get a quick solution in time for {this moment}.  We're off to swimming lessons as usual.  Cate take note! ;-)  It's all 'rocket' arms and tumble turns and butterfly kicks.   We're even models in an AUSTSWIM conference shortly.  That's dedication.

Germs

THE GERM

~Ogden Nash

A mighty creature is the germ,

Though smaller than the pachyderm.

His customary dwelling place

Is deep within the human race.

His childish pride he often pleases

By giving people strange diseases.

Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?

You probably contain a germ.

***

I'm propelling myself to work today despite waves of flu-like symptoms (which subside with a cup of coffee) and a deep-seated, toxic chest.  Bad I know.  By the end of the day, I'm ragged.  Fit only to curl up under a crotcheted rug with bed socks on and the remote control to hand.  Thankfully the latest edition of Inside Out arrived in time to offer some gentle reading. 

We are still working on body clocks set an our earlier.  I've managed to get to work early before the rest of the miners descend.  It's magic being the first one to turn on the lights and the photocopy machine.  I settle down and witness the morning unfurl.  Even manage to get some work done, or at least sketch out the day's priorities, before the hub-hub of office life gets distracting and the 'urgent' wheedles it's nosey way in to trump the 'important'. 

My Dream

My Dream

~ Author unknown

I dreamed a dream next Tuesday week,
    Beneath the apple-trees;
I thought my eyes were big pork-pies,
    And my nose was Stilton cheese.
The clock struck twenty minutes to six,
    When a frog sat on my knee;
I asked him to lend me eighteenpence,
    But he borrowed a shilling of me.

***

Gosh.  End of daylight saving and we gained an hour yesterday.  Wouldn't it be great to gain an hour EVERY week-end!  What a difference that one hour makes.   Better not waste it.  I'm off early to the coal mine and hope to leave at a respectable hour to collect the offspring instead of skidding in to After School Care at one minute to six, as I usually do.  Hopefully we can stay an hour ahead of ourselves all day.   This will be a test.

Little things

Little Things

~Julia A. Carney

Little drops of  water,

Little drains of sand,

Make the mighty ocean

And the beauteous land.

And the little moments,

Humble though they be,

Make the mighty ages

Of eternity.

So our little errors

Lead the soul away,

From the paths of virtue

Into sin to stray.

Little deeds of kindness,

Little words of love,

Make our earth an Eden,

Like the heaven  above.

Well gosh.  I've been having problems with using Internet Explorer 9 browser on Blogger.  It just doesn't work.  I logged a job with my IT Help Desk several times and begged for Firefox.  Finally got some action. That, coupled with the usual domestic mayhem and the huge chunk of life committed to paid employment, has meant no diarising of life in the Gull's Nest.  There's been nothing much to report though; perhaps infinitessimal progress on a number of fronts but with barely detectable results.  Ro-Ro has finally resumed piano lessons, now that we've found a teacher, and picked it up surprisingly well given that he has hardly played for six months.  We been swimming like little Olympians to let Charly get some extra training in for the South Canberra swimming carnival.  (How I wish we had our own backyard pool to save trekking to Civic or Tuggeranong public pools.)  But other than that, it's the usual grind of washin', cookin', cleanin' and launderin'.

I see there have been some terrific goings on among the gorgeous crowd on my favourites' list.   Creativity, travel and dedicated home-making.  I can feel a wish-list coming on.  It will be school holiday shortly so hopefully I can take some time off to break out of this repressive routine and dream a little.