We are on vacation this week staying at a small dairy farm that has a B&B and a cheese-making facility. http://www.locheilan.com.au/ So far we've sampled double cream brie, a light blue and cheshire cheeses, walked along dusty roads and visited small farms and roadside stalls along the way. We've come back with almonds in honey, mixed berry jam, apricots and nectarines. I love Australian summers with stone fruits galore!
It's also a great time for reading books and getting organised in the mind about the Christmas to come. Just taking time to sample some more Cheshire cheese!
I've just finished reading Anne Sommer's book about the portrait of her mother by Constance Parkin. http://annesummers.com.au/books/the-lost-mother/ It's amazing how someone can build a story around disparate events in several people's family histories. It was an OK read, but I'm now on to Don Watson's American Journeys.
Last week I attended the Parliament of World Religions in Melbourne. http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/ I particularly enjoyed the sessions by Joan Chittister a benedictine nun from Pennsylvania and especially the session shared with Immam Fiesal Rauf and Rabbi Brad Hirschfield about Sacred Envy: what I most like about my own tradition and yours and what I find most challenging. Good interfaith dialogue by three wise and well educated people. How heartening to find some good discussion on issues close to my heart! This was money well spent.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Grey and cold
Not the sort of weather one would wake up to in Juba, but it's good to be back to a routine of early rising for a spot of knitting in bed while reading and using the internet, instead of wondering when I have to get up to be ready for the bathroom, breakfast and a ride to work in the container in Juba. Melbourne is so easy and so available after Juba.
I've been home three weeks today. I flew from Juba to Nairobi straight after work July 3, and then from Nairobi to Bangkok. My luggage. of course, decided it was too soon to leave Africa and followed on later. As a tradionally built woman, buiyng any kind of clothes in Bangkok while waiting for one's luggage is downright embarassing. Diminutive shop girls in Robinsons snicker and look the other way. YOU want to be clothes for YOU? said one unhelpful sales assistant. Now Michael has two extra shirts...big ones and a couple of tees. It was good to catch up with Jacqui and David Purnell, and Sheldon Shaeffer and Ni in Bkk before getting onto the flight home and retrieving my recalcitrant luggage at Tullamarine. What a 60th birthday!
Michael met me at the airport gift in hand...a wonderful CD he had recorded at a recording studio for my birthday..three tracks of love. He's a keeper!! Then there was the coffee machine and the barista classes, the two novels and the promise kept of no big celebrations.
Since then it's been the daily grind of breakfast in bed, big reads, lots of gardening and catching up with friends both at Taggerty and in Melbourne. We also realised that having the Melbourne house is just an extravagance, and have put a deposit on a small old fashioned seventies unit closer to the city. (more renovating!) When the tenants vacate next year, we'll be inner city dinks! ( as well as serious prickle farmers at Taggerty). Number 10 delivered our first calf last week: now labelled M1 2009, and al's well on the bovine front. Possum had another dose of antibiotics to stop mastitis when she delivers in two months time.
The renos are fantastic! I arrived home too soon after the double glazing was put in place. This week the plastering will be done and the kitchen will be done in another week. We've been brave enough to have guests to stay and to dinner...using my study and the ensuite as a kitchen. Next week Hoa Binh arrives, so we'll be enjoying her company and her cooking!
Oh! The sun is up! Must get up and explore the day! At present I'm reading Six Months in Sudan. I just can't get Juba out of my system! Khalas!
I've been home three weeks today. I flew from Juba to Nairobi straight after work July 3, and then from Nairobi to Bangkok. My luggage. of course, decided it was too soon to leave Africa and followed on later. As a tradionally built woman, buiyng any kind of clothes in Bangkok while waiting for one's luggage is downright embarassing. Diminutive shop girls in Robinsons snicker and look the other way. YOU want to be clothes for YOU? said one unhelpful sales assistant. Now Michael has two extra shirts...big ones and a couple of tees. It was good to catch up with Jacqui and David Purnell, and Sheldon Shaeffer and Ni in Bkk before getting onto the flight home and retrieving my recalcitrant luggage at Tullamarine. What a 60th birthday!
Michael met me at the airport gift in hand...a wonderful CD he had recorded at a recording studio for my birthday..three tracks of love. He's a keeper!! Then there was the coffee machine and the barista classes, the two novels and the promise kept of no big celebrations.
Since then it's been the daily grind of breakfast in bed, big reads, lots of gardening and catching up with friends both at Taggerty and in Melbourne. We also realised that having the Melbourne house is just an extravagance, and have put a deposit on a small old fashioned seventies unit closer to the city. (more renovating!) When the tenants vacate next year, we'll be inner city dinks! ( as well as serious prickle farmers at Taggerty). Number 10 delivered our first calf last week: now labelled M1 2009, and al's well on the bovine front. Possum had another dose of antibiotics to stop mastitis when she delivers in two months time.
The renos are fantastic! I arrived home too soon after the double glazing was put in place. This week the plastering will be done and the kitchen will be done in another week. We've been brave enough to have guests to stay and to dinner...using my study and the ensuite as a kitchen. Next week Hoa Binh arrives, so we'll be enjoying her company and her cooking!
Oh! The sun is up! Must get up and explore the day! At present I'm reading Six Months in Sudan. I just can't get Juba out of my system! Khalas!
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