fiveandtwo

William Kentridge.

Yesterday Clare, Ally and I took the train to Melbourne to see the William Kentridge Five Themes exhibition at ACMI. A major retrospective of Kentridge's work. I'd been meaning to go since the exhibition opened in early March.

Reasons to see it: Unsettling and wonderful animation and artwork; Linsey urged me to see it; it closes on Sunday; children travel fee mid-week on the V-Line train from Bairnsdale (providing they're accompanied by an adult); Linsey finishes Uni at 1:30pm on Wednesdays (so we'd be able to catch up); I'll regret it if I don't see it.

Reasons not to see it:  Money. It's never just the cost of a train ticket and exhibition entry. I can take some food, but not enough for 3 people for what amounts to a 17.5 hour day (and I like having coffee/cake/food different to what's on offer in Bairnsdale). I like the shops, looking at all sorts of stuff, sometimes tempted to buy...

So, the twins and I went, in spite of the minuses. And I am so glad. William Kentridge's work...I've never seen the like of it. Sorry to use a hackneyed word, but it was awesome. As in inspiring awe.  We hung out with the eldest, which for me involves new stuff to talk about : books read, issues from ABC Insight TV program and other current affairs, how the work's going at uni, people she and I know and people unknown to me. Splendid, as always, to talk with Linsey. Splendid, too, to hang out with Clare and Ally and experience the William Kentridge exhibition with them.

I didn't take a camera, obviously. So, words without photos.

Making, But No Photos

I've made seven rabbits, a new toy after much prototyping; lots of Baby Owls (fourteen?); eight scarves of sewn together wool fabric squares; three bags and sewn together the panels for five wool patchwork bags. Hive of industry, I tell you. A photo session was meant to happen today but it was too gloomy. You'll just have to wait, with bated breath.

So, you get photos of tonight's tea instead.

Waiting for the soup. The bread looks all artisanal but it's from Coles, called Pane di Casa to sound handmade. It's pretty good for small town Australia when you can't be fagged making bread.

Pea and ham soup, recipe from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion, the big orange book. That book was published in the 90s, I think. It really got me going with cooking. Meals have never been the same at our house! There's Giles roughing up Cooper the pup in the background. It seems a house of many people and animals here sometimes. It adds such richness to my life.

Where's The Camera When You Want It?

The camera? Hundreds of kilometres away at home, that's where (insert sound of teeth grinding). I remembered when we were already two hours on the road.

We went for a long weekend to Canberra and Goulburn. This is what I did:

- drove many kilometres

- had horrible fish and chips at Cooma

- bought Clare and Ally a manga book each in Canberra (bribery)

- bought a pair of red rubber garden shoes (French!) fron a Canberra oppy

- had a truly ghastly meal at the Queanbeyan Bowls Club (frozen mixed veg, soggy chips, strangely flabby- textured steak). The other meals were equally bad.

- went to the Renaissance exhibition at National Gallery of Australia. If you have the chance - go and see it (buy your tickets beforehand though). I was so excited to be there, all that art...the general collection, the special exhibition, the sculpture garden. I kept exclaiming over paintings, kept telling the twins about famous works and those by artists I admire. We frizzed our hair in the Fog Sculpture.

- went to the War Memorial and was confronted once again, especially by the "hands on" Lancaster bomber exhibit.

- had a good meal at Goulburn

- spent three hours reading and ignoring Clare and Ally bickering while Mister 5&2 perused the merchandise at a "motorbike only" swap meet at Goulburn Showgrounds.

- finished Roger Deakin's Waterlog (loved it, along with his other books), read Marion Halligan's Valley of Grace (lovely, if you've been to Paris it will resonate) and Kate Atkinson's Started Early, Took My Dog  (I made the Mister do more driving than me on the way home so I could finish it, a page turner)

- caught up, briefly, with my oldest friend

- took no photos, obviously, but it was a good weekend.

Edited to add: While Marion Halligan's Valley of Grace is lovely it does have its darker aspects. The discovery of a child who'd been kept locked in an attic all its life, for instance.

Quick! Ring The CFA!

Clare and Ally made a "cupcake tower" birthday cake and managed to squeeze on 47 candles.

Here's the photo they took of me blowing out the inferno. Look at all that smoke!

The cake with all its candles.

The makers and I (yes, I'd been painting).

Thankyou for all the birthday wishes on facebook. As an aside, Clare and Al are watching season 4 of  The IT Crowd, borrowed from the library today, and it's just been called Friendface and then there's Gibber (I wonder what that represents...). When Linsey lived at home she had seasons 1 and 2 and we watched them a lot. I'm a big fan, obviously. We miss her copies of Blackbooks, The Mighty Boosh and The Young Ones (among others).

 

Grade 4-5-6 Disco

A disco, didn't they disappear in the 1980's? But no, the twins' primary school had a disco. With a DJ, fully supervised, sign in/sign out and all that. Clare and Al were very keen to go. They tried on clothes, "outfits", I gave them permission to look in Leah's cupboard (she was at work = what she doesn't know can't hurt her). After a bit of time the came up with outfits that were good. Flattering and not skanky.

They had a good time. I asked, "Did you dance?". Clare answered the she "shuffled" and Ally just mumbled.

In other news : I bought a new stove. Ten centimetres wider than I intended. All gas, but this one has a fan, which will make the juggling of quiche and roast veg. a bit more even, as well as all cooking on two shelves. Baking can be no fan but a bit more rotating of pans. This stuff I'll be working out and getting used to after Tuesday when the gas fitter comes to disconnect/reconnect.

This is "old trusty". A keeper except for the expired oven door hinges. Mr 5&2 has plans to turn this stove into a barbeque. "Don't let that gas fitter take it, it's mine!". I will post the finished project. The process of making a BBQ from a gas stove is achievable, according to Mr 5&2. And it is, if you dispose of  preconceptions regarding how a barbeque should look. However, I foresee much swearing and trips back and forth to the hardware shop. This is the way of the Mr's handyman projects.

He vowed never to do any plumbing again. So when the shower hot tap stripped (wouldn't turn off completely) I called a plumber. And asked, while he was here, to change all the tap washers which were on their way out. Cost money but saved my ears from burning and other stressy stuff.

I wanted to employ someone to put the benchtop and cupboard back in and do the 10cm docking. Because I want it to be straight. I don't want gaps. I don't want it to be bodgey. Cross your fingers for me because the Mr insists on doing it.

Fingers crossed.

Contagion

We've had a "gastric 'flu" making its way through the family. Called so because you have the horrible aches and incapacitation of the 'flu in combination with vomiting and diarrhoea...fortunately it lasts about 24 hours, followed by a further 12 hours of "what the hell was that" and not being game to eat anything, followed by that splendid sort of euphoria that comes with being sick in bed and now being well - "I'm not sick, I can do anything".  It's fleeting but it's wonderful. I think that must be particularly heartbreaking with chronic illness and pain, no "getting better", initially at least. I am fortunate to only imagine it to be like this. 

This lurgy struck Giles last week, Clare and Ally both in the wee hours of last Saturday morning. Clare I got to before...Ally came to me, "Mum, I vomited" . As I was swabbing up the far-travelling splat she said excitedly, "I vomited on my feet!", like it was some sort of special trick. 

I was struck, later, much later than 3am, how much I'll miss these kind of declarations when my 11 year old "babies" get older, like next year probably. All of the kids have made such remarks, it's just that Clare and Al are the youngest.

So, I got the dreaded lurgy next, hence my intimate knowledge of its symptoms and the aftermath description is what I felt.

Maker's Market tomorrow! Aren't those octopi (?) something? I've made a green octopus/whale/starfish as well and they're packaged, in green/yellow/red  as a Trio Of Sea Creatures. I will not make any more unless I can charge $50 for one octopus. Much as I love to hand sew, all those legs - cutting out as well as sewing - was the finish of me!

Wish me luck for good sales tomorrow!

 

In Progress And Other Stuff

Must be because it's Spring, sap rising and all that, but there's been a flurry of activity at chez fiveandtwo. Paintings languishing for over two years are being worked on.

 
The first two in a series based on the Old Laundry photos.

Two from last year are finished.

 
Scrap Yard 1, 28cm x 38cm, acrylic on canvas.

 
Scrap Yard 2, 28cm x 38cm, acrylic on canvas.

 
Scrap Yard 3, WIP. This series is based on the photos I took at the scarp yard last year.

Some more fruit paintings, I was on a roll after the two I did for the 10 x 10 exhibition. They're all 25cm x 20cm (quite small). I did an apple too, but I'm not happy with it, and I think the pear painting on the left is the most successful.

 

Three pears, three teatowels and a jar of lentils?

In other news: I've been planting out my seedlings. Too early, but we're going up north for 3 weeks and no-one will be here to water the punnets, so they've a "better" chance in the ground. A monstrous tree dahlia has been removed , the tank drained and cleaned and a new top for the stand put on. The tree dahlia was growing next too, and under, the tankstand and pushing it over. Would you believe it rained all that night and half the next day? Now the tank is full again!

I made a summer jacket!  Short sleeved, kind of 70's style, I think. Only needs buttons. Will blog about it when I return from Qld in late October. I'm jotting things down on my "lists for the holiday" as I think of them. Bags have been removed from the ceiling space. I tried the bathers on I bought only 2 years ago - they don't fit (sigh...), fortunately a pair, scarcely-worn, from the oppy recently will do the job. I do like to swim in the sea when it's not absolutely frigid (waters off Victoria  all year round, for me). 
 

Mr 5&2 had a birthday today. He is past his half century by two years now. Had all the kids for lunch - Linsey was in "the 'Dale" for the weekend, and Giles' girlfriend of 3 years came as well. No alcohol was consumed (this is for you Anna!). Splendid sitting out on the front deck eating that Pip Lincolne Teriyaki chicken - sooo easy, and very good.

Probably no posts now until the end of October.

Round Up

I cut back to ground level an enormous tree dahlia that was growing in a tiny space between the rainwater tank and the chook run. Why did I plant it there in the first place? I don't know, I didn't realise it'd turn into a monster. Weekend just gone saw Mr 5&2 and the twins dig out the monstrous tuber/root system the tree dahlia had developed and make a new platform on the tank stand...for the tank. Clare and Ally also bucketed around the garden the water from the tank as it was drained in readiness for the tank stand reconstruct. Those two are really good helpers generally, but this time we paid money due to the arduous nature of the work.

I've spread mulch and planted seedlings - too early really but we're going away for most of October and no-one will be around to nurture them in their punnets. More will survive in the ground, I reckon.

School holidays now and Clare has been sewing.

 
A skirt and a shirt. Only input from me was the "how to use the buttonhole foot and function" on my sewing machine.

 
She requested a photo without the skirt.

 Ally has been doing some very delicate weaving. Al showed me her method = sticky tape about 8 strands of wool to the shelf , then weave in and out with some other wool until you're finished.

 
Aww, look at that tiny, cute scarf.

I've been painting, making lists for going away and other house stuff.

 

 

Notes

I look at all the things my family and I write on the notebook next to the computer and phone (both live in the same place).Today I imagined a large artwork collage made up of notes and messages from that notebook. All stuck together in a random way. Here is a small example.

 
Pasted this together quickly. I might, or might not add some paint for contrast. I'd have to make one to see.

Do I need to save more bits of paper? In addition to the old maps, pictures of doll clothes patterns  (they are weird and creepy, particularly the knitting ones), those pattern thingys used with knitting machines (going to make something with them any day now), my Mother's anatomy and physiology textbook from 1953 (amazing illustrations printed in "olden days" colours), Mum's student notes from midwifery, old B&W photos come across in op-shops and at swap meets - so much inspiration, so little time.

Ally's Wurlie

Finally, I pruned the kiwifruit vines. It should have been done earlier in winter but I don't like gardening when everything is all wet. As happens every time something is pruned around here Ally or Clare, or both, make a cubby. Kiwifruit prunings are good for this, they're long and fairly flexible. An added bonus was jasmine that migrates over from next door and gets cut back as well.

 
There's the apricot tree in the background coming into blossom. Actually, I was a bit worried about this in the cold and wet weather we've been having - no bees. And I'm down to my last jar of apricot jam! Disaster has been averted, so far, by plenty of bee activity yesterday and today.

I got around to planting the seeds for summer crops, different varieties of tomato, chilli, capsicum, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber and pumpkin, some lettuce (which is sown successively from now on), celery, silverbeet and basil. I'll sow direct in the garden some more lettuce, rocket, mibuna and mizuna, carrot, beetroot, parsnip and coriander, maybe also some more peas. I need to get seed for leeks and Lazy Housewife climbing bean. The seedlings should be ready to plant out towards the end of October, though the lettuce, silverbeet and celery can go out sooner.

 
Trays accompanied by rhubarb that I need to plant out, and my little fig tree sending out new leaves. It has graduated to a bigger pot this year.

The winter garden is working toward producing seed...the kale, parsley and silver beet are starting to bolt. I can keep the broccoli in check by continuously picking the little florets that follow the main head being picked. Cabbages...nearly ready. Lettuces planted in autumn (as seed just scattered around and raked in where the trees were removed) are going great guns, which is good because I've reached the time of year when I actually crave a green salad! Like towards the end of summer when cold weather, a warm jumper and hot soup is yearned for. I do like the different seasons down here in Victoria now. I didn't at first because I was used to "The Wet" and "The Dry" of the tropics.