fiveandtwo

Books 2007

Jumping on the "books of 2007" bandwagon. I feel that I don't read much any more. It worries me - don't want my brain to turn to mush (scary and ever present thought).

I try to anticipate, and make the most of, any opportunity to read. On the train to and from Melbourne is the best = about six hours reading time = a whole book. In bed at night if I'm not knackered is a great pleasure, also early in the morning. A lovely quiet time.

Any time spent waiting is excellent, providing it's known of in advance. In Mooloolaba I managed a lot of reading waiting for the Sunbus (local public transport). Holidays are another golden opportunity. Six books read in Mooloolaba (had only three kids with me, and no husband). Only managed three at Cunjurong Point last Christmas (full complement of spouse and offspring).

After enjoyably reading a number of blogs, and checking out what they'd read last year, I decided to peruse the bookshelves and see what I'd actually read. Surprising.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J.K. Rowling), yeah, yet to read HP7! F

Beautiful Lies (Lisa Unger)F

Three Dog Night (Peter Goldsworthy)F

The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak)F

Love is a Mix Tape (Rob Sheffield)NF

Hungry Ghosts (Susan Johnson)F

Conversations With The Fat Girl (Liza Palmer)F

Toast (Nigel Slater)NF

Queen Bees and Wannabees (Rosalind Wiseman)NF

Home Truths (Sharon Gray)NF

Running With Scissors  (Augustin Burroughs)NF?

Mister Pip (Lloyd Jones)F

Avalon: Art & Life of an Apartment Building (Ricardo Felipe)NF

Handmade in Melbourne (Jan Phyland, Janet De Silva w. Dean Cambray)

Hamlet's Dresser (Bob Smith)NF

The Gentle Art of Domesticity (Jane Brocket)Nf

Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939 (Virginia Nicholson)NF

Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden (Quentin Bell, Virginia Nicholson)NF

The Art of Bloomsbury (Richard Shone)NF

Postsecret and Mysecret (Frank Warren)NF

Art and Fear (David Bayles & Ted Orland)NF

Lump:the Dog Who Ate a Picasso (David Douglas Duncan)NF

Friedensreich Hundertwasser (Ed. Paco Asensio)NF

Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt (Ed. Paul Arnett, Joanne Cubbs, Eugene W. Metcalf Jnr)NF

On The Jellicoe Road (Melina Marchetta)F

The Simple Living Guide (Janet Luhrs)NF

The Complete Tightwad Gazette (Amy Dacyczyn)NF

Pigs in Heaven(F), Prodigal Summer(F), Poisonwood Bible(F), Small Wonder(NF) and Animal,Vegetable, Mineral(NF) (Barbara Kingsolver)

The Earth User's Guide to Permaculture (Rosemary Morrow)NF

The Holistic Life (Ian Lillington)NF

Talk to the Hand (Lynne Truss)NF

The Trout Opera (Matthew Condon)F

How I Live Now (Meg Rosoff)F,YA

Buddhism for Mothers (Sarah Napthali)NF

Food Not Lawns (AC Flores)NF

On Beauty (Zadie Smith)F

Inconsolable (Marrit Ingman)NF

If Not Dieting, Then What? (Dr Rick Kausman)NF

Still concerned about the brain...it takes more than reading to keep the grey matter in trim. I'm destroying it in other ways.

However, there's vastly more there than I expected. Loads more books have passed through my hands, but I've only skimmed them, ditched them, or just enjoyed the pictures therein. Roll on reading in 2008!

Winter Flowers

For some reason, at this time of year, my thoughts turn to the garden and I start brooding over seed catalogues, looking through garden books and wandering around the garden plotting changes. If the weather ever clears I'll embark on a frenzy of digging up and shifting the plants that turned out to be in the wrong spot and changing garden beds. Last winter I changed the back yard around entirely, well, except for established things like fruit trees.

Seed trays appear in the chimney breast in the kitchen (warmth filters through from the wood heater in the lounge - shared chimney). Things get pruned haphazardly. This year I'm going to try an idea I think I first read of in one ofJackie French's books. Tying the tallest, most upright branches of fruit trees to a large stone or some other weight to gently curve them over,creating a more spreading tree with more fruiting spurs along the branch. I'm keen to try this on the double graft pear and the European plums, which're growing into very tall, upright trees.

Now rest your eyes on some winter flowers:

The first violets, sweetly scented. Very hardy here.

Good old pelargonium, reliable all year round. Bromeliad, don't know the name of it. Very striking, tough as old boots. I grow them as a ground cover, along with ginger lilies, under the Japanese (Satsuma) plum tree. Yes, harvesting the fruit is a bit tricky. Small price to pay, I think. Gotta cram it all in, in a small garden.

Lovely calendula. It grows itself after I planted some seed about eight years ago. My kind of annual. Along with forget-me-nots, Flanders poppies, an un-named poppy that came with us from our previous garden (small flower, single, a light orange, very hardy - anyone know of it?), cream californian poppies, love-in-the-mist; gosh, even parsley and rocket do it. They self sow. Sometimes so prolifically that I have to heave them out as weeds!

Another favourite that can reach weed proportions. Nasturtium. Only a leaf picture (with obligatory raindrops - is this a cliche photo?). There were some flowers, hiding coyly under the leaves, too hard to photograph. I do like how the water slides to the centre of the leaf, forming a quivering droplet.

All these garden thoughts have been spurred on by this book:

I have enjoyed a number of Barbara Kingsolver's novels (excellent train reading) and was interested in her non-fiction. This book delves into her endeavours (and those of her family) to produce much of their own food and source the rest locally. In addition there is much exploration of how food is produced in the US, and how it is adulterated. The bodies that govern this process, what we can do to bypass it, and pointers for how to create change. I've enjoyed it very much - it's certainly inspired my current garden thinking. As far as an Australian bent is concerned my vote goes to Linda Cockburn,  Rhonda ( + links from Rhonda's blog),jenny (+links). I'm sure there's many others. I've found loads of info. just from these three women which relates to people on basic incomes. This is stuff I had to do for something like ten years. You know, sometimes it's dire necessity, which means you do all the frugal, downshifting stuff which is all current now (no, I was not a student, I was a Mum-of-three). Sometimes people come to the environmental position from the freakin' poor position. But heck, everyone's got something to contribute. All different growing areas and experience, different aspects of frugality.  It's good. It's mighty good. And it's very important to disseminate this information.

Teenagers want computer time. Regards.