It's Show Time!

Banquet Night  
by Rudyard Kipling

"ONCE in so often," King Solomon said,

Watching his quarrymen drill the stone,

"We will curb our garlic and wine and bread

And banquet together beneath my Throne,

And all Brethren shall come to that mess

As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less."

***

What a day.  If I were Julia I'd need to break my Lenten commitment to forsake alcohol.  I haven't given up coffee though and I'll bet the coffee machines at Parly House were on overdrive today.

I love my new pretend paper cup from the two dollar shop.  I've taken to using the Italian expresso pot on the stove and pouring myself a double-shot flat white.  I can pretend I'm a hot shot executive too busy to breakfast when in fact I'm drinking from it in my jarmies at the kitchen bench while stuffing carrot sticks and frozen banana cake into plastic lunch boxes designed like miniature space shuttles with flaps that open in all directions.  The kids think the cup is 'awesome' too and have visions of taking hot chocolate to soccer in one.  They've got another thing coming.

We had a busy weekend what with a go-karting birthday party, the usual cricket match, World Thinking Day for Girl Guides on Aspen Island (in the rain) and a trip to the Royal Canberra Agricultural Show for the littlest gull and me.   The coffee injections were indispensable to enable me to get from this:

to this:

Fabulous from start to finish!

It's Curtains.

The King's Ring

by Theodore Tilton

I.

Once in Persia reigned a King,

Who upon his signet ring

Graved a maxim true and wise,

Which, if held before his eyes,

Gave him counsel, at a glance,

Fit for every change or chance:

Solemn words, and these are they:

“'Even this shall pass away!'”

II.

Trains of camels through the sand

Brought him gems from Samarcand;

Fleets of galleys through the seas

Brought him pearls to rival these.

But he counted little gain

Treasures of the mine or main.

“What is wealth?” the King would say;

“'Even this shall pass away.'”

III.

In the revels of his court,

At the zenith of the sport,

When the palms of all his guests

Burned with clapping at his jests,

He, amid his figs and wine,

Cried, “O loving friends of mine!

Pleasure comes, but not to stay:

'Even this shall pass away.'”

***

This week I seem to have been pacing through my working hours waiting for the factory siren to signal knock-off time.  It's been tediously slow, and just as well, because we've been captivated by the Machiavellian twists and turns in federal politics.   Good old ABC 24 News live broadcasts have been keeping us informed as we gather around wall-hung television sets to watch the succession of media conferences. 

Lyndall Curtis has been t'rrific on the telly and Latika Bourke unstoppable on Twitter.   There's no waiting for press clips as we've been able to hook-in minute-by-minute with online coverage and social media commentary.  I'm no political junkie, but the outcome of the ballot on Monday will have direct repercussions on my paid employment, being a loyal public servant and all.  So I come at it from the perspective of a Canberra insider (which makes it all the more gripping) and a voter (which makes it all the more tedious). 

But what is really bothering me this weekend, getting down in the micro-world of my daily life (!), is the choice of blinds for the "side room" (pictured). I never like the fabric samples I bring home to suspend from the window sill on their coat hangers. They looked so promising in the show room. I don't know whether to go custom-made with exquisite Warwick materials or buy ready-made from BQ Designs. The proprietor of the local curtain shop must despair of me as I've been on her books since 2008, unable to make a decision.   Like the Labor Party, I just need to get it over and done with, make a choice and accept the consequences.  There seems to be a strangely apt analogy here!

 

It will all pass ... eventually.

Denzil, Apprentice Wizard

Another rollicking book series which has captivated my nine year old son is The Adventures of Denzil, Apprentice Wizard written by New Zealand children's fantasy writer, Sherryl Jordan. We have been progressively working our way through this charming and funny set of books about the exploits of Denzil, the boy wizard, and his master, the great wizard Valvasor.

Unwittingly transported to modern times, Denzil finds himself entangled with the MacAllister family, a lovable lot despite their flaws, and entranced by modern conveniences.  This is a familiar but captivating premise on which to base a children's fantasy novel and one which encourages young readers to think about history, time and place. How would it feel to go back or forward over seven centuries and witness life first-hand?

The first Denzil story, The Wednesday Wizard, was published in 1991 (way before Harry Potter was created), and the final novel, The Silver Dragon, in 2007.   We have the entire boxed set which includes Denzil’s Dilemma and The Great Bear Burglary.   It's been loads of fun to read aloud and the stories have had plenty of magical twists and turns to sustain our interest.   This little series has become one of our firm favourites.

Recommended for 8-10 age bracket.  Both boys and girls will enjoy the series.  Girls will identify with the headstrong protagonist, young Sam(antha) MacAllister, and boys, of course, will become Denzil in their mind's eye.  Mrs MacAllister and I also shared some common traits (a mother's exasperation with circumstances beyond her control mainly, and wry humour), so I found myself travelling in her shoes.

Berry Delicious Summer.

Blueberries 

by Robert Lee Frost

"You ought to have seen what I saw on my way

To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day:

Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,

Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum

In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!

And all ripe together, not some of them green

And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!"

***

What is it with berries?  The supermarkets are full of them.  Raspberries, blueberries and blackberries are standard fare in the big chains not just the farmers markets or roadside stalls.  Not so when I was growing up.  There was a time when they were a rarity. I'd pick mulberries from the tree in my grandparent's back yard and we had a few measley strawberry plants in our own vegie patch.  These days however, we can recreate some an English pastoral scene in the kitchen with bountiful punnets of berries... at three dollars a pop, or less.  (Perhaps not so cheap for raspberries, the most delicate of all the Rubus genus.)

In fact, our 2011-12 summer dessert hit has been pavlova shells stuffed with mixed berry goodness and chopped kiwi fruit, topped with Gippsland double cream and syrupy passionfruit.  Look what Not Quite Nigella has to say on the topic.  I haven't been brave enough to make my own pavlova just yet but I feel the need to do so some time soon.

Our smoothie of choice this season has been a creamy concoction of frozen berries, milk and yoghurt.  It makes an impressive sight in a long, tall glass with a couple of bent straws and a parfait spoon.  Yum.  Sluuurrrrp-able! The folk at Creative Gourmet (Australian suppliers of frozen berries)* have a neat website with plenty of mouth-watering recipes the kids would go ape over.   Just as well we keep the freezer well stocked with the frozen variety so we always have a box on hand when we feel a berry craving coming over us.

* Not sponsored.  My own views. :o)

School

Gratitude To The Unknown Instructors 

by William Butler Yeats

WHAT they undertook to do

They brought to pass;

All things hang like a drop of dew

Upon a blade of grass.

***

Parent Information Night.  It's amazing how, still, to this day, teachers make assumptions about what parents know about school routines, reporting, educational acronyms and the curriculum.    Bless them though.  They probably rightly focus on communicating with the children and do it very well. But my impression is that they aren't great shakes at communicating with parents.   It's a tough ask, I know. There are lots of diverse opinions, needs and interests.  As an old primary school principal once said to me "there are as many hats as there are heads".

Maroc in the Mail

She very much liked Marrakech, its easy feel, the quality of its light, its pinkish earth and rose-coloured walls. In Fez life seemed concentrated and intense, contained beneath and within the jagged mountains enclosing the city. The mountains seems to turn Fez in on itself...

Extract from Larabi's Ox, by Tony Ardizzone

***

Guess what came in the mail the other day?  The boys' member's pass and 2012 season tickets to the Brumbies rubgy team matches and a post card from Morocco!  Every-one was doing cartwheels.  Me especially.  The card was from the 'awesome' (as we say around here, or 'epic'), and peripatetic, Jeanne from Collage of Life.   Frankly the post card easily pipped the Brumbies.  Every-one ooh-ed and ahh-ed and marvelled that this virtual friend from across the oceans should send something tangible in the mail.   Thanks a bunch Jeanne  *waving*.  I can hear the soundtrack to The Sheltering Sky in the background; it's a wonderful piano piece by Ryuichi Sakamoto.  It also reminds me that I must read the book. 

Love 'ya. See ya'.

St. Valentine's Day

By Wilfred Scawen Blunt

TO-DAY, all day, I rode upon the down,

With hounds and horsemen, a brave company

On this side in its glory lay the sea,

On that the Sussex weald, a sea of brown.

The wind was light, and brightly the sun shone,

And still we gallop'd on from gorse to gorse:

And once, when check'd, a thrush sang, and my horse

Prick'd his quick ears as to a sound unknown.

I knew the Spring was come. I knew it even

Better than all by this, that through my chase

In bush and stone and hill and sea and heaven

I seem'd to see and follow still your face.

Your face my quarry was. For it I rode,

My horse a thing of wings, myself a god.

***

Valentine's Day is no big deal really in this household. An imported custom that doesn't seem authentic and besides, there's no-one here experiencing the first blush of young love.   Yet. Thanks heavens.

No time for luvvy-duvvy stuff either between the old marrieds, what with an early start and late finish respectively.  His steed is a hulking late model SUV. She canters in a city runabout with a child-proof rear seat protector.  The 'chase' is a drive up and down a major city thoroughfare multiple times to deliver and collect children.  Phone calls are made, not to whisper sweet nothings, but to synchronise transport arrangements. 

A love affair of a different sort.