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Old Graves


Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the under-lying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
The seasons bring the flower again,
And bring the firstling to the flock;
And in the dusk of thee, the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.
O not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale,
Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom:

And gazing on thee, sullen tree,
Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,
I seem to fail from out my blood
And grow incorporate into thee.

Alfred Lord Tennyson


Have you ever visited an old graveyard and wondered about the lives of those who lie there?


Our church, which was built in the 1840s, is surrounded by old graves. Many have been moved to make way for an extension to the church building and are lined up together to one side of the church.

I often wonder about the people buried there, but especially the young women and little children who seemed to die so very often. Childbirth and infancy were such dangerous stages of life.

I wonder what these people thought and dreamed about. Could they have ever have imagined a future where Adelaide became a city of over a million people?



I wonder if these long dead folks are remembered by anyone. Or have their descendants moved far, far away?














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When is Busy too Busy?

Woman Has Been Very Busy Shopping So Much So That Her Helper is Hidden Under a Pile of Parcels


Let me ask you something. When is being busy fun and when does it turn the corner and become crazy and stressful?

At the moment I am quite enjoying being super-busy. I am feeling energetic and organised, which is a good thing. Because I now work four days a week, I have to fit everything that is not work into the other three days.

Here is an example of a typical Saturday (today) and you'll see what I mean by busy.

7 am: Get up, shower, breakfast (except I ran out of time for breakfast because I slept through my alarm.)

8 am: Arrive at basketball court with my eldest son

8.30 -10: Basketball-watching and chatting to the other parents. Being new to Adelaide, I ruthlessly introduce myself to people and they are usually lovely about it. Unfortunately the boys lost 43-18

10.30-12: My daughter and I canvassed a local shopping centre for donations for our Scout Group's trivia night

12-1: Took my sweet daughter shopping to look for the black pants she needs for her 7th grade production, in which she has a leading role (Note to self: Must remember to buy tickets this week)

1-1.15: home for lunch

1-15-1.30: Visited the beautician to have my eyebrows tweezed -- definitely necessary maintenance work, in my case, that I have put off for a l-o-o-n-n-n-g time

1.30-2.45: Visited two open houses that we are interested in

3-4.30: Attended my daughter's netball game with my youngest son, who loves to cheer the girls on (they won 23-9 today. Yay!)

4.45: Arrived home and encouraged my eldest son to study for the half-year exams that begin on Monday

4.50-5.15: Paid bills and did household paperwork. I have more to do but am taking a break to blog.

Hopefully, tonight -- after I cook the dinner -- I can put my feet up and watch a DVD or TV movie with the kids. At least I'm not going out again today. Hooray for a quiet night at home!

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The Perfect Lunch


"A good lunch is fresh. Your score is zero if you make up sandwiches the night
before. Keep a plentiful supply of fresh fillings in covered jars in the
ice-box, other necessities on the pantry shelf, and use the mass production
method of assembly." Culinary Arts institute Encyclopedic Cookbook,
1950

For years my husband and children have taken their lunches to work and school each day. I once wrote a blog post called Fabulous Ideas for Make-and-Take Lunches, and we use those ideas all the time. And despite the advice in the quote above, we always make our lunches the night before. There just isn't time in the morning when everyone is rushing around madly getting ready for the day ahead.

Now that I too am taking my own lunch to work four days a week, I make sure that there are lots of yummy things in the house that I like to eat too. Otherwise, the temptation to buy lunch is too great.

My favourite work lunch? It's rather extravagant, I'm afraid, but totally delicious.

My Favourite Made-at-Home Lunch Menu

Flatbread (any kind) filled with smoked turkey, cranberry sauce, brie, semi-dried tomatoes and greens

2 pieces of fruit (at the moment, Pink Lady apples or mandarins)

Yoghurt

a couple of squares dark chocolate, for energy

Mmmmmmm!

Although I love to bake, I don't usually take cake or biscuits for lunch as I find that the sugar and carbs make me sleepy after lunch.


What is your favourite packed lunch?



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Favourite TV Adaptation

Having spent Sunday afternoon watching period dramas whilst attacking piles of ironing, I have decided that, despite numerous excellent adaptations of books including Middlemarch and Cranford in the years since, the 1995 Jennifer Ehles and Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice is my favourite TV adaptation of a book, ever.

Even if P & P were not my favourite book and Jane Austen my favourite author, I think that I would still love this adaptation. I like it better than any of the film versions of Pride and Prejudice, including the recent Keira Knightley version.

Poor old Colin Firth has become typecast in Darcy-type roles ever since. I don't know what happened to Jennifer.




What is your favourite TV or film adaptation of a book? And why?

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1930s Dreaming

While the 1930s would have been a truly horrible time to be poor, it must have been a wonderful time to be wealthy.

Imagine having servants and motoring to one's country house. Or having a dressmaker or tailor to fit one's clothes. Eating dainty morsels at a long, polished table with footmen to meet one's every whim. Or picnics of ham and tongue sandwiches washed down with lashings of ginger beer. Think Enid Blyton and Evelyn Waugh. Or Agatha Christie with the butler killing the master with the candlestick in the drawing room. Or was that Cluedo?

Earlier this month we had the opportunity to visit and have luncheon (how could one have mere lunch in such a setting?) at Carrick Hill House, on the outskirts of Adelaide.

Carrick House was one of the homes of Edward and Ursula Hayward -- they had numerous properties including a townhouse in Mayfair, London.

"The beautiful Carrick Hill estate was the result of the marriage, in 1935, of
members of two of Adelaide's most prominent families. Edward (Bill) Hayward was a son of the wealthy merchant family that for more than 100 years owned John Martin's Ltd, once Adelaide's greatest department store. His bride, Ursula Barr Smith, was a daughter of an even wealthier family of pastoralists.

Ursula's father gave the couple the land on which Carrick Hill now stands as a wedding present. During their year-long honeymoon they acquired much of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth-century panelling, doors, staircases and windows from the demolition sale of Beaudesert, a Tudor mansion in Staffordshire, England.

A family friend, Adelaide architect, James Irwin, designed the house around these fittings, and while the overall appearance is of a seventeenth-century English manor house, it incorporates all 'the latest' in 1930's technology. Oak panelling and pewter light fittings happily blend with heated towel rails, ensuite bathrooms and intercom systems."

One interesting feature is that the kitchen is next-door to the dining room; a truly 'modern' feature in the 1930s. The maids must have been thrilled not to have to carry steaming dishes up stairs, down long corridors, or into the house from an outside kitchen.


Unfortunately, I was unable to take pictures inside the house as cameras were banned, though there are pictures on the website.







Another delight of Carrick Hill is the children's literary tour through the gardens. All visiting children are given a map and encouraged to find places from their favourite English children's stories.




Some of the sights on the literary tour were a hobbit house,




the bridge from billygoats gruff,



a Narnian lamp post amongst the trees,



Charlotte's web on which to climb (that's my daughter on the web)


and Mrs MacGregor's garden, from Beatrix Potter,




replete with Peter Rabbit.









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Getting Muddy

When I asked my 6 year old what he thought was the best thing about our weekend camping with the scouts, he answered immediately, "getting muddy".

And get muddy he did. Lots of times.

It was one of those weekends where kids could really be kids.

Some children barely left the water; others discovered a passion for archery and shot arrows all day long. There wasn't a Nintendo in sight.









Thanks to a shallow billabong beside the river and abundant life jackets, even really little children could take out a canoe and learn to row.


You couldn't have a camp without toasted marshmallows on an open fire, could you?











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Home Feels So Good

I Love Not Camping
"What I like about camping is you can get really dirty. Either you're all by yourself, so no one else sees you, or everyone you're with is just as dirty as you are, so nobody cares."

~Anonymous former Boy Scout, quoted in Highs! Over 150 Ways to Feel Really, Really Good Without Alcohol or Other Drugs by Alex J. Packer


This evening my whole body is aching for the moment I will slip between my clean, white cotton sheets and under my warm, Laura Ashley-covered duvet, which will hopefully be very, very soon. The reason for my craving? This weekend we went away camping with the Scouts up on the Murray River in north-eastern South Australia. And while everyone had a ball, it sure feels great to be home ... and warm ... and clean.


Tomorrow I'll share the pictures.

Sweet dreams everybody!


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Five Things I Have Learnt Since Returning to Work

Woman Working in the Hearst Accounting Office by Peter Stackpole
As regular readers of this blog know, I have recently begun paid work outside my home for the first time in over ten years. The last two weeks have been both exhilarating and terrifying. Fortunately, I only work school hours from Monday to Thursday, so I still have plenty of time for family life. I thought I'd share some of the things I have learnt over the past fortnight.

1. I need to get up early, which means going to bed earlier: In the mornings I have to feed the family breakfast, clean up, shower and dress myself and ensure everyone else dresses themselves, and make beds, all before I leave the house at 8.30 am. This requires some discipline. I can't do it all if I haven't had enough sleep, so it's lights out by 10 pm on work nights.

2. I need to be organised the night before
: Each night everyone makes their own lunch and pops it in the fridge. We make sure the house is tidy before we go to bed. In particular, I ensure that school clothes and shoes are in the right spots to be easily found in the morning. I don't have the luxury of a 15 minute shoe hunt!

3. I am capable of absorbing a great deal of information very fast
: After 4 children I thought my brain had turned into mummy-mush. It turns out that it hasn't. The first week at work was extremely difficult and overwhelming but already things are starting to fall into place. I still have lots more to learn, however, as the work I am involved in is very complex and challenging.

4. I can only do so much and can't blame myself for not being a Supermum: I'll let you into a little secret; our bathrooms haven't been properly cleaned in almost two weeks. I'll try to do them tomorrow (my day off), but if that doesn't happen, we'll survive. Tomorrow night we're going on a Scouts family camp for the weekend, so if the cleaning doesn't happen tomorrow, it'll have to wait another week till I get my next day off.

5. This is the most work I ever want to do
: Discussions about career development and my ambitions turn me cold. I am very happy with my part-time, 24 hour-a-week job. Any more than that and my family life would suffer. If I can't work hours that suit me, then I won't work at all. We were a one-income family for many years and I'd do it again in a flash if I needed to.


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A Tip for Transporting Cakes

I saw this tip at Grandparents' Day last Friday and decided it was a good one to share.



Have you ever transported a cake with soft icing or decorations covered in plastic wrap and found that the wrap squashed the icing?

A simple remedy is to stick a few toothpicks into the icing upright then spread the plastic wrap over them. The tiny holes left by the toothpicks are easy to smooth over when you need to serve the cake.

For more kitchen tips visit Kitchen Tip Tuesday at www.tammysrecipes.com.




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Things to Remember Forever

Good of Actress Jinx Falkenburg Having Breakfast in Bed While Reading Mail by Peter Stackpole


There are things that should be remembered forever.


One such thing was the glow on my 6 year old son's face as he brought me breakfast in bed this morning.

He made it all by himself. The tray held a glass of orange juice, an apple, and four buttered slices of raisin toast cut in half. He forgot to put the toast on a plate, but that didn't matter. His smile of achievement made my day.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.




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Cupcakes Galore at Grandparents' Day

Today was Grandparents' and Special Friends' Day at the school attended by my youngest three children. We were excited because, for the first time in many years, we had a grandparent in town who could do the honours. My mother flew all the way from the Central Coast of NSW to be here for this special event.

How proud my children were to show Grandy their classrooms, escort her around the school, and take her to the morning tea! And my, what a morning tea it was!

Four long trestle tables were laden with food, savoury and sweet. As the food was eaten, more and more food came out, for two hours. I think every family in the school and many of the grandparents brought plates of food. I have never seen such an impressive feast before, from home-made sausage rolls to pavlovas, cheesecakes to pastries, sushi to sandwiches. There were also beautiful cafetiere coffee and Twinings' teas, so our guests were treated in style.

Of course, my attention was immediately drawn to the cupcakes, and there was a wonderful selection. I drew some bewildered stares when I took photos of the cupcakes, but I was keen to share them with you.

whipped cream and jam butterfly cakes


orange poppyseed cakes with cream cheese frosting wrapped Cath Kidson-style


banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting made by Kerry, who reads this blog (and who contacted me after I moved here only to find that we have children at the same school)



pineapple muffins



raspberry cupcakes




a variety of cheerful creations



Have you ever noticed how the home-made cakes and desserts always disappear first at social functions? That was certainly true today.





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