It's time for Writers' Week again!

We are very lucky in Adelaide to have a wonderful Writers' Week around early March every year and it's all free.

Today was the first day and what a great day it was. We were blessed with absolutely beautiful weather too. As always the stages looked fabulous. The backings are made of seedlings grown by Trees for Life.

I was there for almost the whole day. I arrived just after the first sessions began at 9:30am and there were already many people there. I left just before the final session at 5pm. I heard so many great writers and those facilitating the sessions.

I think the crowd for Magda Szubanski's session was the biggest I've ever seen at Writers' Week. Many people were standing at the back. Other writers' I heard today were Etgar Keret, Fiona McFarlane and Jim Shepard, Drusilla Modjeska, Beth Yahp, Jesse Ball, Anna Smaill, Laura Van Den Berg, Lisa Genova, Laura Thompson and Robert Wainwright. High on my list of new books to buy are Fiona McFarlanes book of short stories, The High Places and Lisa Genova's, Inside the O'Briens.

I'm planning to go back tomorrow, at least for the late afternoon sessions. I'm excited that I should be able to make the poetry reading on Monday afternoon. I need to wait and see how my week pans out to see whether I can make it to any more sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

I was enjoying the day so much that I didn't take many photos. I did get one of a new addition this year - a display of author portraits.

My six words for Six Word Saturday -

It's time for Writers' Week again!

Finding treasures while I'm tidying up

I've been doing some de-cluttering this week. It feels good to reduce a little the amount of stuff in the house. As usually happens I have been getting distracted fairly often. Especially when sorting out old paperwork and making decisions about what to keep and what should go there are so many things that trigger old memories. One of the things I've been going through are my daughter's old books. Finding a few books reminded me of how, at one stage, she wanted workbooks so she could do some practice at home. I showed one of them to her and she noticed something that gave us both a giggle. On the front cover were some problems where she had to write the name for the female next to the male animal. For dog she had written 'nate word' Translation - naughty word. For drake we couldn't work out what she had written but just now I've worked out it was 'dot now' for don't know.

Something else I found while sorting things out was a long stitch of Bananas in Pyjamas. I made it 1999 when my eldest daughter was 3 and loved the Bananas in Pyjamas. I had planned to put it in her room but never got that far. I find it every time I tidy up but never have the heart to throw it out. It has such a lot of memories attached to it. Plus it's the only long-stitch project I've ever completed. My children are long past the stage of liking the Bananas in Pyjamas so maybe it's time to pass it on to someone else. Or maybe not just yet ...

This is a Six Word Saturday post. Go to www.showmyface.com to see how other people describe their week or part of in six words.

My neighbour gave me some peaches

Last Sunday morning one of my neighbours brought over some peaches from their tree. They are really big ones and I'm sure they will be delicious. I'm just waiting for them to ripen a little more.

Unlike my apricots a few weeks ago, the birds didn't manage to get many of the peaches. I'm not sure that these ones will last long enough to make a cake!

This is a Six Word Saturday post. Go to www.showmyface.com to see how others describe their week or part of in six words or why not join in yourself.

Nectarine upside-down cake - a new favourite!

I have a new favourite cake recipe. It's for a nectarine upside-down cake and I've made it a few times now. I came across it in the way that I've come across a few of my favourite recipes. I had quite a few nectarines just before Christmas and needed to use them up. As I was taking a dessert to share on Christmas day I decided to try and find a recipe to use them. A quick google search and I came across the recipe for nectarine upside-down cake. I made it and took it for lunch on Christmas day. Not much of it got eaten on the day; there was so much other food. I tried a small piece and it was quite yummy. I gave some away and took some home. The next day I had a piece and it was absolutely delicious. Even better after being in the fridge overnight. I bought more nectarines so I could make another one.

A couple of weeks later I had quite a few peaches so decided to give it a go substituting the peaches for the nectarines. Delicious again!

Peach upside-down cake

Yesterday I was given some lovely ripe nectarines from a friend's tree so I've just made another cake. I've just had a piece while it's still warm and I'll enjoy some cold tomorrow I'm sure. I'll be giving some away so I don't eat all of it.

A slice of warm nectarine cake

This is a Six Word Saturday post, the idea being to describe your week or part of in six words. My six words this week -

Nectarine upside-down cake - a new favourite!

Update: Thanks to one of my commenters I remembered I was going to put a link to the recipe. Another thing I love about it is that it is really easy!

http://recipes.coles.com.au/recipes/207/nectarine-upside-down-cake/

Fun spotting flowers while walking home

Yesterday I decided to walk home from my daughter's house. We share a car at the moment and she was tired after work and didn't feel like driving me home. I could have taken the car but that would have meant getting up early this morning to take her to work and as my other daughter is away for the weekend I wasn't keen to miss out on the opportunity to sleep in. So, although I wasn't especially keen I decided to walk home.

I'm participating in Joyful January at the moment, which has been a great way to start the year. I thought I'd take the opportunity to take a photo of some flowers I saw on the walk home as my photo for the day. At the moment there are not a lot of flowers around with it being Summer here. There are quite a few dry ones which contribute to some great shadows.

A photo I took a few days ago.

Despite there not being a huge amount of flowers around at the moment I felt sure I would be able to get a good photo before I got home.

I wasn't wrong. I saw these purple beauties early on.

Soon after I saw quite a few Hibiscus flowers. There were lots of red and pink ones hanging over a fence but I couldn't get close enough for a decent photo. Then I noticed some of a more unusual (at least to me) yellow colour.

Just as I was thinking I'd use one of those photos for the Joyful January shot I looked across the road.

So bright and happy! This was the only one still in bloom. I wish I had seen the others before they dried up. The dried up ones were also quite beautiful though. I took a picture of the biggest one.

Spotting the flowers along the footpath and in front yards made the walk home that bit more pleasant..

This is a post for Six Word Saturday. It's good to be back again after a bit of a break. To see how other people describe their week or part of in six words go to www.showmyface.com.

Fun spotting flowers while walking home.

Pandemic - is it possible to win?

I'm joining in with Six Word Saturday again. My six words are 

Pandemic - is it possible to win? 

Last week my daughter's boyfriend bought the board game, Pandemic, and the three of us have enjoyed learning how to play and trying to win. We've had five attempts so far and felt like we've come close a couple of times but haven't achieved success yet. It's a different way of playing a board game in that instead of playing against each other you work together to try and save the world from four different viruses. It took a little while to learn and each time you play it is different as part of the game is to have a particular role which changes each game. You have to use your skills to help the team and though you take turns individually there is lots of talking about what each person should do. It's certainly held our interest so far and we're determined to win. Maybe on our sixth attempt? 

First time painting a stobie pole

This week was a particularly creative one for me. I finally made it to join a group of people who are painting stobie poles around my suburb. They are doing a fabulous job and gradually more and more are appearing and looking great! Here are a few examples - 

I have been meaning to go along and paint as well but until yesterday haven't been able to make it. I was glad that I had the morning free and was able to paint my first stobie pole. 

It was a little scary at first putting the paint on the pole but I soon found myself enjoying it. The inspiration for my design is a picture book - 'Windblown' by Edouard Manceau. This gorgeous picture book is about 7 pieces of paper that are blown around by the wind and then transform into animals. At the end the reader is challenged to think of what they can make from the shapes. I made the little bird which I painted on the pole. 

Here's a few of the pictures in the book - 

I have read this book to a number of classes and then the students have made their own designs from the seven pieces of paper. The variety of ideas and the creativity has been amazing each time. It's certainly one of my favourite picture books. 

This is a Six Word Saturday post. To see how other people describe their week or part thereof go to www.showmyface.com. 

Brianna has joined the colouring craze

I have been quite busy lately so there hasn't been a lot of opportunity to use my new colouring pens and pencils. I have enjoyed some in little pockets of down time, usually while half watching something on television. It's fun to choose the colours and I love the brightness of the Stabilo pens so have mainly been using them.

I've been without them for a few days lately as 

 

Brianna has joined the colouring craze

 
We took a special trip to the shops to get her own book and she chose 'The Little Book of Calm Colouring' by David Sinden and Victoria Kay. I love the combinations of colours she has chosen. 

 First page coloured by Brianna (14)

The one she is working on now

One of mine - nearly done!
 

This evening I began a page in The Secret Garden book. Very happy with the thick paper in this book - the colour doesn't bleed through the paper
 

Lots of journals on the go...

I've been journaling quite a lot lately. I have always written quite a lot but since beginning to do zentangles I'm doing a lot more visual journaling too. Then there's also the online things like this blog and my other one, www.pausingforsmallstones.blogspot.com. I'm a regular rather than a daily journaller. Some days I write or draw more than once a day, other times it might be days (or longer) between journaling. I began thinking about how I journal this morning as I have signed up for an online course (Lisa Sonora's FLOW: 30 day journal project). I printed out the first three days of prompts this morning. What wonderful and inspiring ideas! I will be dipping in and out of these wonderful ideas and choosing some to explore deeper. I would love to do it all but life is rather busy at the moment and it's not feasible. That doesn't mean I have to miss out altogether though!

I've been journaling (on and off) for quite a long time. At the moment I have 4 journals that I am using regularly (almost daily). I was thinking about all this as well as what my six words would be for Six Word Saturday and came up with

 

Lots of journals on the go...

 

 

 

 

Some of my writing/drawing is for my eyes only and this is really valuable. The green spiral book and the visual journal are more public and I do show others what I have done in them. I use the green one for drawing ideas and practising tangles while I am learning them. The visual diary is mostly zentangle 'tiles'. Here are a couple of my latest ones -

 

 

For Adele Bruno's It's a String Thing #99

 

This was going to be part of a bigger piece but after drawing this I wanted to stop.



 The brown book is mainly used for writing poetry. It's where I scribble down ideas and work on poems. There's lots of repetition and lots of crossing out, rearranging. I feel like I need an A4 size book for this. I bought a smaller one recently as this one is nearly full but gave it away as it felt too small. I also really want it to have the elastic closing. The butterfly book was given to me by my daughter late last year when I needed a new journal. It's my main writing journal and also contains ideas for poems as well as various other things - lines I love in books, things I've done, feelings, etc. It has blank brown pages. I like to change what type of journal I write in. Sometimes lined (although often I don't keep to the lines) and other times blank like this one. I tend to doodle more in the blank ones.

I'm looking forward to receiving the next email prompts for the journaling course and continuing to enjoy all the creativity.

 





Getting the garden growing once again

Getting the garden growing once again. 

There hasn't been a lot of action in the garden patch of late. The tomatoes, zucchini, strawberries and cucumbers didn't do so well over Summer with some bouts of heat and less water when I was away for a couple of weeks. Today, the unseasonably warm weather of the past week has gone and been replaced by rain. With the rain has come the appearance of a few snails as well. I have planted a few things in the last couple of weeks so this bout of rain should really help, provided the snails don't get too greedy. 

The last remaining zucchini plant. I have had a few zucchinis from this one, the only plant of a few that survived the couple of weeks in January with little water. 

My latest rescue mission from Bunnings - Thai Basil. After a slow start these seedlings are starting to look quite healthy. 

The Silverbeet and Joi Choi have settled into their new surroundings quite well, although the Joi Choi seems to have had some visitors. 

The Kale hasn't settle in quite yet. 

The lettuce is growing very well. 

With the rain, comes the snails! Last year they had quite a feast. I hope to save more from their munching this year. I have removed a few of them today. Keeping on top of the weeding around the garden beds should help a lot too. 

Meeting Selena - easily this week's highlight!

Meeting Selena - easily this week's highlight! 

What a week that was! The highs were higher and the lows were lower. There is no competition though for the highlight of the week. Easily, it was getting to meet my brand new niece, Selena. She was born on Tuesday and weighed 6lb 12. The girls and I got to meet her on Wednesday and we have just got back from another visit. She is so absolutely adorable. Here's a photo taken today - 4 days old. 

Congratulations to parents Kate and Roberto and to big sister Teya! 

A new garden and a snail

A new garden and a snail. 

Today I enjoyed some delicious wood oven pizza at the launch of the 2012 Magic Harvest Program in the Hackham area. Yum! Magic Harvest is a program based on the book One Magic Square by Lolo Houbein. A group of people meet regularly in hubs to learn how to grow their own food at home and share their skills and produce. I will be in a group which will meet fortnightly for about an hour to share our gardening adventures and also establish and maintain a small community garden. There will also be workshops throughout the year to learn gardening and cooking skills and we will have the opportunity to visit each others gardens. It feels like it's going to be a lot of fun. 

Today, as well as the yummy pizza, a couple of members of another hub gave a small demonstration on planting a garden in a polystyrene box. Then it was raffled off and I was lucky enough to win it! Yay! I was planning to go to Bunnings to see if there were any seedlings I could rescue but I was saved the trip. The box contains lettuce, celery, silverbeet and chives seedlings. All things I had been planning to get in the garden soon. I've told my daughter the snail she got at the community market we went to this morning is not welcome in the garden! 

Mistakes provide great opportunities for learning

Mistakes provide great opportunities for learning! 

Today I learnt that if you cut a tube of glue open with scissors, it is a good idea to ensure there is no glue left on the scissors. My daughter got some fake nails and asked me to cut open the small tube of glue that came with them. I did so - with my good pair of kitchen scissors - I have a tendency to grab whatever is the closest and easiest option. A couple of hours later I picked the scissors up to cut open a packet of icing sugar and the blades would not budge. Very well stuck together! Oops. 

Now just to hope that the scissors will once again be usable after some hot water, force and maybe a knife. 

Blogging challenge preparation is under way

Blogging challenge preparation is under way. 

I'm referring to the April A to Z blogging challenge. People all over the world will be blogging each day in April (except most Sundays) with each post covering a letter of the alphabet starting at A and finishing with Z. You can find more information about the challenge here. 

I participated last year and did find it quite onerous posting 26 times in a month. To counter that I have begun preparations earlier this year. I have already written the posts for A, B, C and D and scheduled them to begin on the appropriate days. I have a theme this year - sharing books with children. I will be posting about many of my favourite children's books and ideas for sharing them. Already I have enjoyed reminiscing about old favourites and learning about new ones. I will be finding out lots of information and have already discovered some new favourite websites. It will be exciting to share what I learn. Soon I will be writing the E post about "Hunwick's Egg" by Mem Fox! A great book for sharing at Easter time. What good timing with the 5th of April being just before Easter. 

I realised today that my love of children's literature seems to have also influenced my writing of poetry. Children's books often contain a lot of repetition. More than once I have written a poem with a line (or two) that repeats throughout the poem. A couple of times that has turned out to be a good thing but more often I have gone back and taken out the repetition!

I'm definitely in the A to Z April blogging challenge. I'll have posts at least for the first four days! How about you? Are you interested in joining the challenge? 

 

C is for Caterpillar. Read what I have to say about this book, here on the 3rd of April, 2012. 

This week is Adelaide Writers' Week

This week is Adelaide Writers' Week 

Yay! Adelaide Writers' Week began today. I haven't been yet but have already enjoyed listening to a couple of sessions thanks to the LIVE broadcast through ABC radio. The first 3 days can be listened to via online streaming. You can see the program and details of how to listen here. Today I listened to a great session - "The Art of Biography with Selina Hastings and David Marr". A fascinating discussion about writing biography - what to put in, what to leave out, the use of private letters including letters which the author had asked to be destroyed, what can be written when the person being written about is still alive and how much the writer can be in the story (their values, beliefs etc). Very thought provoking! 

Tomorrow is Kids day. As well as the usual East and West stage there will be lots of activities for children. My children are too old for those type of events now (Brianna is right at the upper end of the age range probably) but I'm looking forward to seeing what goes on. It's the first time there has been a day dedicated to young readers. Plus, you're never too old to enjoy good children's books! 

I would love to go every day but unfortunately I can't. I hope to stay for quite a while tomorrow and then go again on Wednesday. Looking forward to a session about Unhappy Families with Fiona McGregor and Favel Parrett and a session "Dream a little dream: On getting published" amongst others. 

I've been looking forward to this week since the last Writers' Week two years ago. Every time I've been has been very inspiring and has resulted in me finding out about some fabulous books. I'm confident this year will be no different. And more good news - it won't be such a long wait until the next one as it is to be an annual event now! 

Immense beauty...where was my camera?

Immense beauty...where was my camera?


Sometimes it can feel scary to really look. When you actually do look though and get over the bump of initial dizziness, the fear eases and you notice the raw beauty in the immenseness before you. 

Well, almost. I didn't quite get to that point. A few days ago I went to the beach with Alysha. She was keen to go for a walk and climb over some rocks. I was keen for the walk part. Go me - following that intention to walk more! I wasn't so keen on the climbing over rocks part but I gave it a go. Well, I'm not as used to climbing over rocks as I was once. I was feeling a little dizzy and it was hard to look down. I made it from the beach to the path at the top. We walked along the path for a while and then Alysha thought it would be a good idea to sit on the rocks and look out at the sea. "No way" was my first thought (along with the worry of her sitting out there). I sneaked a little look and recognised the immense beauty. I thought that perhaps it would be nice to sit there for a while. I struggled to get there though and after scraping my toe on the rock gave up, along with lots of (over) complaining about my slightly bleeding toe. The view was quite breathtaking and I started to wish I had my camera. Actually my iphone. I have been taking lots of photos lately and posting them on instagram. I am particularly fond of Hipstamatic and trying out different lens and film combinations and recently discovered a great community (Hipstaroll) where you can share shots each week using certain film/lens combinations. Fun! 
That time though I'm glad I didn't have my phone/camera because sometimes it gets in the way of just enjoying the view. Sorry I can't share it with you. 


Here's a different Hipstamatic shot of the beach though - from yesterday. The beach makes a great subject for taking photos and I am enjoying it much more as a result. I never considered myself a beach person but perhaps that is changing. I've even been swimming a few times lately. 

Time to rest - writing can wait

Time to rest - writing can wait 

Unexpectedly, I find myself alone on this Saturday night. Yay! Both of my daughters are at sleepovers. When I found out I would get some time to myself my first thoughts were along the lines of 'I can get stuck into all the writing I plan to do'. I have quite a few plans swirling around in my head at the moment. "The week of inward looking" had some fantastic prompts which I have written quite a lot in response to and would love to polish up and post here. There's a creative non-fiction competition I discovered recently and would love to enter. I also discovered "A year with myself" this week and there are fantastic prompts there too. So many plans! I do grab time to write quite often but thought a solid block without interruption would be great. But then I got home and I'm really tired. It's been a long time since I have been alone in the house. So I changed my plans and am going to relax and get a good nights sleep. Maybe I will find some time to write in the morning? Just not tonight. (Except maybe a few scribbled words in my journal...) 

Oh, and one more thing before I go and sit on the couch for a while. I attended the online launch for Patti Digh's new website 37days yesterday. A fabulous way to spend 75 minutes! I'll tell you more about it later! In the meantime, I highly recommend taking a look at the website! www.37days.com 

...and when I've finished resting I'll tell you about how I have decided to participate in The Sketchbook Challenge and how it's going. 

Happy Six Word Saturday everyone! 

Six Word Saturday - December 24th, 2011

Cucumbers! Just in time for Christmas. 

A couple of months ago I bought a punnet of four apple cucumber seedlings. Three didn't survive due to the abundance of snails around the garden this year. The fourth plant was almost eaten. The snails had a good munch of the stalk but it managed to hold one. I have eaten a couple of cucumbers already. They were very tasty, just a little bitter. Today these four were ready to pick. Yum! 

and a bonus six words from me for today: 

Sending Merry Christmas wishes to you! 

I hope you have a good day tomorrow however you spend it. 

Six Word Saturday - December 17th, 2011

I am going to walk more. 

I'm getting in a little early with a new year's resolution. Actually I'm not much of a resolution maker, preferring instead to set a theme for my year. Recently, I have been doing a bit of thinking about next year's possible theme. More of that, though, in a later post. When thinking of what my six words would be today I was thinking something like, 'I plan to do more walking' but then thought more definite would be better. It's not hard really and doesn't have to involve huge changes. Even a short walk around the block or parking the car a bit further away at the shops. I have been motivated this week to also include longer walks into my life. 

On Tuesday morning a friend asked if I would like to walk to the beach where her daughter was doing aquatics. I offered a lift but she said she felt like a big walk. Well, I was a bit reluctant. It really was a big walk. We did it and I was TIRED afterwards. I felt quite unfit, as well as rather uncoordinated when part of the 'walk' involved me on hands and knees climbing over rocks. My friend walked over the same rocks with a dog, her bag and my bag too. Despite being very tired (and sore the next day) I felt quite good and motivated to include more walking in my life. Plus, I live a good walking distance from the beach. It takes around half an hour to get there. I can combine walking with taking photos and maybe even some writing. I have a favourite place to write near the sea. 

Here is one of the many great views during our walk on Tuesday. Another great reason to walk more! 

Six Word Saturday - December 10th, 2011

Reading instructions can be quite useful! 

I was reminded of this earlier today. It was the last meeting of our poetry group and I decided to make some little banana caramel pies to take along. Everything started off going to plan. I can't buy the small pastry cases I used to buy but have discovered some frozen ones which I have used successfully once before. I bought them along with the banana, caramel filling and cream. I've made them before so when I got home I quickly got to work filling the cases with small pieces of banana and the caramel filling and topping them with whipped cream. They looked great and nine fitted nicely in the container I was taking so I decided to keep three of them. I ate one straight away. It seemed a bit strange that the pastry wasn't coming out of the case easily. I remembered them coming out easily before. It didn't taste quite right either. I started to wonder if I was supposed to cook the cases before filling them. I dug the packaging out of the bin. Yes, that was the part I had forgotten about. They were supposed to go in the oven for 10 minutes. By then I was running out of time but was still determined to take them along. I scooped the filling out of each one and put them in the oven. After they cooled for a while - not nearly long enough - I put the filling and cream back in each one. The cream melted a bit as the cases were still warm. By the time I got to the group, just in time, they didn't look anywhere near as nice as they had originally but by all reports they were very delicious! 

the cases after 10 minutes in the oven

filling and cream waiting for the cases to cook!

The lesson in this for me today - 

Even when you are confident in what you are doing, a quick skim over the instructions can't hurt and may help!