Month: July 2010

advice · Australia · basics · challenges · gardening · inspiration · Tweed Valley

A Local Discovery

Joanne4 Comments

Over the past few days, I have begun the task of scouring my local area for inspiration, namely the inspiration for food. The urge to do so was firstly inspired by watching such television shows as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s “River Cottage” series, Rick Stein’s “Food Heroes”, both British shows, along with Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant, host’s of the Australian TV show, “The Cook and the Chef”.

What these three TV shows have in common, apart from all being highly entertaining cooking shows, is the chef’s recommendations throughout the shows to purchase locally grown produce.

If you care to read through some of my previously posted articles, listed under the “gardening” category, you will note that I am a keen gardener and cook. My ultimate goal in the garden, hands down, is definitely to have the know-how and the means to grow all of the fresh produce for my own family’s consumption. While the task is not impossible, it is a work in progress. And we do have to eat in the meantime!

My home overlooks the Tweed Valley in New South Wales, Australia. From the back of our home, we look over hectare upon hectare of farmland, mainly growing sugar-cane, which is a major industry of the area.

Each year, a nearby town called Murwillumbah hosts the annual “Banana Festival”.  Yes, bananas are grown in my area too. But what it really comes down to, regardless of my home being surrounded by farmland, is the fact that it is not blaringly obvious what our local produce is, apart from sugarcane and banana growing!

I don’t know what you think, but I personally believe that a staple diet of bananas and sugar would be downright boring!

Further inspiration to take the matter further, in search of my own local produce arrived in an article written by a lovely lady called Robin, who lives in Ohio in the U.S.A. In her recent article, “The Chains That Bind”, Robin urges us all to discover what our own local areas have to offer, not only in regard to fresh produce, but also by investigating the local small businesses in our area. As Robin points out, supporting the economy begins at home.

Taking Robin’s advice on board, I set out on Tuesday, shopping list in hand, and, rather than making my first and only stop at the local supermarket, I headed into South Tweed Heads. A number of years ago, a bulk food warehouse had opened, and it had always been my intention to call in there…one day.  I never seemed to find the time. So, on Tuesday, I made time. (Rather than lack of time, in all honesty, I believe my tardiness was more so due to my being a creature of habit!)

Once inside the bulk foods store, I felt like a kid in a toyshop! Lines of tubs and containers of bulk food held every type of flour, sugar and legume imaginable…dried cranberries and blueberries, figs, dates, raisins, currants, dried pineapples, apricots, bananas, and the size of the glace cherries…can’t wait to make my Christmas cakes this year with the cherries they have there!

They sell both whole and shelled nuts, including pecans, walnuts, cashews, pine nuts, peanuts and almonds. There’s oats, honey oats, muesli’s, cornflakes, pepitas, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, tahina, molasses, the list goes on and on.

Although it was extremely tempting to buy a bit of everything, I showed amazing restraint and followed my shopping list. Amongst other items on my list this week, I had caster sugar, honey, borlotti beans and crystallised ginger, all of which they sold. My one and only purchase of temptation was a few soy crisps, just to try, as I know my children usually love the plain flavoured crisps. In this store, I could choose from three flavours ~ cheese, sweet chilli and Dijon mustard.  They were a hit! I’ll be back for more this weekend.

Imagine my amazement when I discovered not one, but two Tweed Valley honeys to choose from! The one I chose is a beautifully rich brown coloured syrupy delight, with a tea-tree flavour.

Not only is the range of food available at this store the most extensive I have found in years, it is much cheaper to buy, per kilo, than at the supermarket! Another bonus!

If you haven’t already done so, why not investigate your own local area to see what treasures you may find?

For me, it is just the beginning of this adventure. I can hardly wait to see what else is here, right on my doorstep and yet to be discovered. 🙂

This weekend, my adventures will continue, at our local Farmer’s Markets!

basics · Changes · gratitude · happiness · knowledge · music · nostalgia

Do You Remember…?

Joanne3 Comments

Now I’m really feeling nostalgic! I received an email from a very dear friend this morning. He and his wife live in England and we often forward amusing emails to each other after we receive them.

Following my post yesterday, “Recycle, Reuse and Repair”, which found me lamenting to the tune of “whatever happened to the good old days when broken items could be repaired?” this email now has me thinking even more about “whatever happened to the time when…?”

Take a walk along memory lane yourself! Here is the email I received, along with a few interjections from me. 🙂

The email begins ~

“Someone asked the other day, “What was your favourite ‘fast food’ when you were growing up?”

“We didn’t have ‘fast food’ when I was growing up,” I informed him. “All the food was slow”.

“C’mon, seriously, where did you eat?”

“It was a place called ‘home’,” I explained. “Mum cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat together at the dining room table, and if I didn’t like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.”

(Once every blue moon, my Mum would buy me a treat of hot chips, wrapped up in newspaper. But they weren’t fast; I waited forever for them to cook!)

“By this time, the lad was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.”

(I remember this very well; I had to ask, ‘please may I leave the table’, without interrupting any adult conversation!)

“But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I’d figured his system could handle it:

Some parents never owned their own homes, wore jeans, set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a credit card.”

(Credit cards weren’t even invented! When you wanted to buy something, you saved up to pay for it!)

“My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only one speed, (slow).

We didn’t have a television in our house until I was ten. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off air at 10pm, after playing the national anthem and epilogue; it came back on air at about 6am. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people…”

(Oh yes, I remember the black and white TV days; my kids think it’s hilarious that TV’s weren’t in colour!)

“I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn’t know weren’t already using the line.”

(We didn’t have a phone in the house at all!)

“Pizzas were not delivered to our home…but milk was.”

(I had my first taste of pizza at age seventeen…boy oh boy, did I ever lead a sheltered life!)

“All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers…my brother delivered a newspaper, seven days a week. He had to get up at 6am every morning.

Film stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the films. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or almost anything offensive.”

(Those were the days!)

“If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don’t blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn’t what it used to be, is it?”

The email continues, asking do you remember the following ~

  • Bottles with holes punched into the lids, for sprinkling water onto clothes before ironing them, because we didn’t have steam irons. (My Mum had one!)
  • Using hand signals for cars without turn indicators. (Yes!)
  • Sweet cigarettes. (Thinking he’s talking about lollies, and yes, I remember them).
  • Coffee shops with juke boxes. (They had one in the café next to where I worked at age 16!)
  • Home milk delivery in glass bottles. (The magpies (birds) liked to peck the silver foil lids off them, and the bottles were recycled!)
  • Newsreels before the movie. (Hmmm…Can’t say as I do).
  • TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning (there were only two channels, if you were fortunate). (Oh yes, this I do remember!).
  • Peashooters. (They were a boy thing…I remember boys having them confiscated at school!)
  • 33rpm records. (Still have some!)
  • 45 rpm records. (Yep, still have some 45’s too!)
  • 78rpm records. (Yes! My parents had a few! Wonder whatever happened to them?)
  • Hi-fi. (My parents had one; lasted for years!)
  • Wash tub wringers. (Funny…Mum had one and always told me not to stand too close, in case my hair got caught in it!)

Yes, I know…now I’ve ‘dated’ myself something shocking, and you have probably done the same thing! But would you have it any other way? We lived in an age when the world was younger and much more innocent. Those days cannot, and will not, ever be replaced…and we were lucky enough to have lived them! 🙂

The technology in the world advanced suddenly and with such a great volume of speed that at times it left our heads in a spin. Our children missed out on our ‘good old days’.

I wonder what stories will be told by our own children, when they tell their grandchildren stories of their own ‘good old days”?  😉

Australia · basics · challenges · knowledge

Recycle, Reuse and Repair

Joanne9 Comments

As a general rule, I’m not much of a one for standing on my proverbial soapbox and trying to convert the world, one way or another, on any given issue, nor do I write today with the intent of converting anyone’s beliefs.

However…once in a while, although only occasionally, an incident will leave me uttering certain statements and questions, such as “What the …”, “Why?” and “I really don’t see the point!”

Such an occasion has just reared its ugly head. Let me set the scene for you….The Man of the House (MOTH), decided the time was right to begin some outdoor house painting. At the back of our house, we have two fairly wide and rather long verandas, which look out over our incredible views of the Tweed Valley. The ceilings of these verandas are his latest target with the paint brush.

We have a total of four ceiling lights along the verandas, each light covered with an enclosed glass light shade (enclosed to keep the bugs out of the inside of the shade). The shade sits into a metal surround, with a rubber seal between the metal and the shade, to hold the shade securely in place.

We removed the light shades for ease of painting around the lights, only to discover that the rubber seals have perished, no doubt due to being subject to the elements for the last four years since we put them up.

Today, the MOTH has taken one of the old perished seals to various local stores to find replacements, as without the seals, the shades won’t hold in place on the metal surrounds, only to be told he will have high hopes in finding them.

Okay, so what are they suggesting? That we go out and buy four new replacement light shades, just because the seals are perished??? And what exactly do we do with the old shades? Oh, of course, throw them away!

A similar incident happened recently, although with a happier ending. The electrical lead on our son’s laptop wasn’t working; we had to buy him a new one. An initial price check revealed that once we had parted company with $80.00 we would become the proud owners of said lead. $80.00?!! The MOTH dismantled the point of the lead (yes, he has electrical expertise!), found the broken “bit” and bought a new one. Twenty five cents worth of parts and ten minutes labour on the MOTH’s part, and it was all fixed!

What is it with our consumer driven society these days? What happened to the good old days of “repairing items, when broken”? That’s if they ever did break down. I owned the same refrigerator for over twenty years. It didn’t miss a beat; however the doors were beginning to show spots of rust, all over, apparently caused by our use of magnets on the metal, when holding up our children’s works of art for all to enjoy.

For years, I waited patiently for that fridge to die, only to be eventually told, by a man in the know, that old fridges never die! Finally, I bit the bullet and bought a beautiful new refrigerator, only to be told I should get five years wear from it, perhaps seven, and ten if I was extremely lucky!

How society has changed over the years. It is sad to say, but I do believe that we are living in a disposable world. No sooner have you left the car yard with a shiny new vehicle than it has lost value and become superseded! The same applies for computers, mobile phones, television sets and CD players.

Advertisers prey on the vulnerability of consumers at large, especially the young, displaying the latest and greatest “got to have it” items. Just bring your credit card along!

Hmmm….the credit card….Australia has a population of over 22 million people. Our national credit card debt is at $40.4 billion dollars. Let me take that one step further ~ Australia’s national debt, including mortgages, credit cards and personal loans is currently at $1.2 trillion, which is up by 71% over the last five years. And, it gets even better…that equates to $56,000 debt for each and every man, woman and child in the country!

Quick, pass me the scissors; I’m cutting up my credit cards!

Just when you’re thinking it can’t get any worse, I have found even more statistics…each Australian produces, on average, a total of one tonne of rubbish each and every year!

Whatever happened to the idea of recycling, reusing or repairing? We are going further and further into debt, all in the name of owning the latest and the greatest, or being forced into buying new, when the old could be repaired. The old is tossed out onto the rubbish dump and we are burying ourselves in the waste!

Help!!! Am I missing something here?

Being a firm believer that every little bit helps, for years now I have encouraged my family to recycle, reuse or repair old items. We have a compost heap down the back yard, we use the recycled items garbage bins for glass, paper, etc. I take old clothing to the charity shops and believe that repairs and a good coat of paint gives renewed life to all walls and furniture.

The World Wide Web is a big place, so how about we all start sharing our own ideas on recycle, reuse and repair? I’m open to ideas on the three R’s; how about you?

Oh, and about those broken seals on our four light shades? The MOTH is working on improvising ~ he’ll come up with an idea! 🙂

~ All statistics information contained on this post was obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. ~

challenges · Changes · daughter · freedom · gratitude

Miss Seventeen

Joanne12 Comments

Yesterday, I had a complaint about my website.

“How come you always say something about “Master Twelve”? What about me? Why don’t you ever talk about me?” bemoaned my youngest daughter, Miss Seventeen.

“You’re hardly ever at home these days”, I replied.

And it’s true. I see my youngest girl for fleeting moments, as she dashes home, to change clothes, leave her dirty washing, and then she’s off again.

What can I say about her? Remember Maria, the nun, in the movie “The Sound of Music”?  Maria’s personality reminds me so much of my daughter.

“How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o’-the wisp! A clown!”

How, exactly, do you catch a cloud and pin it down?  For many years, I tried, and upon realising the futility of my trying, I stopped. Take it from me; if you should ever feel the urge to try ~ don’t bother. You simply cannot pin a cloud down.

All in the name of trying my hardest to be a responsible mother, in years gone by I have advised, cajoled, pleaded, demanded and coaxed this girl to become, well, something that perhaps she is not.  And did she ever listen? Not on your life!

“Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a wave upon the sand?”

It’s not really that she doesn’t want to listen, it’s just that she has so many other interesting places to go, fascinating people to meet, rivers to cross and mountains to climb!

Again, in the name of being a responsible mother, I set my daughter free. And oh my, the lessons she has learned…

Here I can talk about the wonderful human being that my beautiful daughter has become. She always has been a beautiful person, and by setting her free and allowing her the freedom to spread her wings, she has become more of what she already was.

This is the girl with the amazing smile and the sparkling eyes. She is approachable and friendly, to people of all ages. Easy to talk to, a problem solver and shoulder to cry on for her friends, her loyalty to them has no boundaries. Befriend her and return her loyalty and you have a friend for life. She’ll walk over hot coals for you. Stifle her, try to tell her what to do, or lie to her and she’ll drop you like a hot potato. Your name will be forgotten in an instant.

“When I’m with her I’m confused
Out of focus and bemused
And I never know exactly where I am
Unpredictable as weather
She’s as flighty as a feather
She’s a darling! She’s a demon! She’s a lamb!”

There are days when I convince myself that she has forgotten she even has a mother. Next thing, she’s arriving home with a “special treat” for us to share, perhaps a creamy cake, block of chocolate or marshmallow biscuits. While I make us both coffee, she sets up her treat for us on a pretty plate and off we go to my quiet room, where she tells me everything I always wanted to know (and didn’t want to know!) about what she’s been up to of late.

Without warning, her phone will ring, and my flibbertijibbet is off again, engrossed in yet another highly animated telephone conversation.

She trusts too easily and has fallen hard when a friend has let her down. And the school of hard knocks has taught her many lessons. She is stronger and more resilient and at times shows wisdom beyond her years. And it’s all due to my daughter living the life she has chosen ~ the no holds barred freedom of learning by making her own mistakes and wearing her heart on her sleeve.

“She’d out pester any pest
Drive a hornet from its nest
She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl
She is gentle! She is wild!
She’s a riddle! She’s a child!
She’s a headache! She’s an angel!
She’s a girl!”

This year my daughter is in her final year of school and on the back of her senior school jersey is the word “Angel”, and yes, she is an angel, and she is also my wild child. She is gentle, and a party animal, she enjoys quiet time to herself, but talks nonstop to anyone within hearing shot. She certainly is a riddle and never boring.

I have lost count of the number of boy’s hearts she has broken, and she has cried rivers and nursed her own broken heart, but only once. It takes a very special boy to win my daughter’s heart and it is no longer the fragile, delicate little heart it once was.

“Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?”

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? I don’t want to. My moonbeam has become far more bright and sparkly, since letting her out of my hand. And every once in a while, my moonbeam comes home to me and smiles her sparkly smile, and gives me her ever so special moonbeam hug, she sings her happy moonbeam song whilst dancing her crazy moonbeam dance.

And she makes my heart dance and sing, just as she has since the day she was born.

Footnote ~ As I write this, my free spirited girl is already two hours later home than she said she would be, (Mum, you know I don’t wear a watch!). In the morning she will have no end of trouble waking herself up to go to school, (you know I don’t do mornings, Mum) and when I try to coax her into eating breakfast, she won’t (you know I don’t like cereal, Mum!)

How, exactly, do you solve a problem like Maria?

advice · freedom · gratitude · happiness · inspiration

A Sumptuously Sunny Sunday

Joanne3 Comments

The warm winter sun has promised yet another deliciously delectable day. The birds are chirping their happy little morning tunes while the trees are luxuriating in a gently blowing breeze.

No more appropriate words could describe the day. It’s just another Sumptuously Sunny Sunday!

And what words spring to your mind at the mere mention of the word Sunday?

Rest, recreation, relaxation.

Family, frolicking, fanciful.

Carefree, casual, children.

How will I spend my day? Maybe I will read for a while, after I have completed a few rows of knitting. I will drink coffee, whilst reading and knitting.

A drive to the beach would be nice. I’ll see if anyone wants to take the trip with me. Maybe we’ll go to the beach with the lighthouse.

During the afternoon, I could bake a cake. I’ll choose one that the whole family enjoys.

We’ll have something nice for dinner tonight, maybe roast meat, with roasted vegetables and crispy potatoes.

I’ll look through my dessert recipes and make something special for us all.

Master twelve’s winter holidays will be over this week. He goes back to school on Tuesday and will enjoy a family day.

Take my advise; help yourself, whenever possible, to your very own Sumptuously Sunny Sunday. 🙂

SUNDAY

S ometimes, every once in a while,

U (you) just have to have a day to yourself, a day when you

N eed to relax; to be selfish, a day to do exactly what you want to do. A

D ay for you! And when the sun sets on your day, when you have allowed yourself this break,

A nd you remember the challenges awaiting you in the week ahead,

Y ou will be feeling relaxed, confident and ready to take on the world!