a tree, a tree, a glorious tree

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.” Mary Ellen Chase (1988-1973)

This year/last year (Christmas 08 is what we are talking about here), instead of getting a Radiata Pine from the farm, we got a farmed Radiata from Real Christmas Trees. Oh my lordy what a tree it was. It was just packed full of branches and it was shaped like a real Christmas Tree! In saying that in hindsight, we would have done some selective pruning as since the tree was so bushy, the ornaments were to a degree buried in the pine needles.

Karl, the girls and I decorated on the afternoon of the 23rd. Well perhaps it is more true to say Karl and I decorated the tree whilst the girls had fun with the tinsel and taking photos. What follows are photos, lots of photos. IF the photo has Silja in it, it was taken by Birta, if it has Birta in it, it was taken by Silja, that applies for most photos, but pretty much the first half were taken by Birta, the next half were taken by Silja and then the last handful and the first few were taken by myself and then a handful near the end were taken by Karl. Does that make any sense? probably not.

Eventually the tree was covered with ornaments and then out came the magic texters and the girls gave tattooed our legs. I went to the doctors that afternoon to see about my leech bite with one leg covered in doodles 🙂

Karl
Decorating the Christmas Tree 2008

Wrapping the tree in tinsel
Tinsel, Tinsel, Tinsel

Birta and I doing silly faces
Crazy Girls

Due to the sheer number of photos to share from this day, here is a slide show again 🙂

Australia Day 2009

I am currently packing for my move next weekend, listening to the Hottest 100 on the radio and listening to the screams from the cricket match that is currently been played on our street by the house across the road and down one.

This morning, I went out with the SES to a park in The Gap where there was a community recovery event been held which included a Citizenship ceremony, a sausage sizzle and lamingtons, along with a number of stands from various organisations ranging from Lifeline, The Salvos, Telstra, Police, Rural Firires etc. We handed out stickers, magnets and chatted to people whilst hoping that the rain would come to cool it down a little bit.

In the Big W catalogue the last week, they were advertising Australian Flag Holeproof Explorers . Score!!! I now have a pair and I wore them today 😀 They are so cool 😀

Socks for Australia Day

There is now only one song left in the Hottest 100 and I can hear the broadcast echoing down the street from at least two other houses 😀

Christmas Truffles

I’m moving house in a week today and one of the things I hope to have done by then is to have finished blogging about Christmas 2008. So here is another post to bring me a little step closer to the end of the 2008 Christmas Extravaganza.

I have wanted to make chocolate truffles for quite a while now and on more than one occasion I have brought cream with the intention of making truffles but ended up using it for something else.

For Christmas I made two types, the first where Peppermint Dark Chocolate and the second where White Rum, White Chocolate. They were rolled in a mixture of toppings, crushed Candy Canes (any idea how hard that is?), coconut, cocoa and sprinkles. I was not 100% happy with how they turned out so I won’t be sharing a recipe but here is a link to a search on FoodBlogSearch where I got my basic recipe from. My main problem was getting the consistency right and looking back now, I can also tell you that the Brisbane weather might have a little bit to do with it as well.

The truffles were rolled over two sessions. The night that I made the mixtures Karl and Matthew came over for a little gathering. We tasted one of Karl’s beers that he brought with him. By far the best tasting beer I have ever had, if I could get a case of it I would. We sampled different liqueurs and port with ice-cream and then we rolled truffles and we rolled till the mixture warmed up too much and the table warmed up as well.

When it comes to crushing candy canes, let me tell you the following things do not work; using the end of a rolling pin and a soufflé dish as a make do mortar and pestle, placing them in a plastic bag and whacking them with a rolling pin or placing the bag between chopping boards and whacking the top board, trying to grate them. I ended up chop, chop, chopping the candy canes till I had the pieces reasonably small enough to coat the truffles in. My “fun” crushing the candy canes resulted in Matthew buying me a nice beastly mortar and pestle for Christmas 🙂 What lovely brothers I have.

The next truffle rolling session was the day that we picked Erica and Ash up from the airport. Having learnt our lessons we knew how to roll them now and Mum’s house has air-con which made it a bit easier to roll them 😀

The following photos were taken by Mum.
candy canes!
Helen making truffles
Rolling truffles
and this is how we roll
roll

They were a lot of hard work but oh my they were pretty tasty and they do look pretty!
Christmas Truffles

FYI for the future though. Crushed candy canes absorb moisture from anything and turn into liquid candy canes. Eat them shortly after making them.

I’m thinking that this year truffles will be made for winter celebrations not Christmas!

Also you can read Karl’s account of the truffle adventure here – Food, truffles, sausages and possums

And speaking of Candy Canes, here are photos of the girls with candy canes they were given by the Station Master at Albion train station. Anna, the girls and I went into the city before Christmas to do some shopping and check out my office – the idea was to look at the view but I think they had more fun having their height and weight measured by one of the nurses who is my work mum #1 (I have two work mums at work :D) and listening to everyone gush at how cute they were. 😀
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a little noodle soup

a little noodle soup for dinner

This is what I made for dinner tonight. Partly cleaning out the pantry before I move next week, partly just feeling like a change. I was sort of inspired by the noodle soup that Nigella made on Nigella Express last night. The whole express thing was the best thing. I put a pan of water on to boil with a few strands of saffron and some vegetable stock, added some chopped up leeks, cauliflower and carrots, let that simmer and then added some broken up rice noodles, dried mushrooms and a dash of tamari. A few more minutes and then I had a lovely bowl of noodle soup (and two more bowls for lunches).

A perfect bowl of soup that was both light and full in flavour. Perfect to eat for dinner whilst reading the daily papers.

ATP 2009

ATP Crowds

ATP, ATP, ATP, it almost sounds like the name of a bank or an insurance mob rather than one rather rocking festival. Last Thursday saw the first Australian All Tomorrow’s Parties roll down to the Riverstage for one jaw dropping afternoon. I missed the first set by James Blood Ulmer but from what I heard of the last couple of songs it would have been great to see it.

The Necks
The first act that I saw the saw the complete set for was The Necks. I very much appreciated their music but it was a bit weird listening to at an improv set of one song at 3:30 in the afternoon! It was quite funny as since The Necks only played one song, the security was a bit unsure as to when we should leave the pit.

The Necks
The Necks

Robert Forster
Mr Forster was next and oh sigh, that was an incredible set. The highlight song for me was for sure Surfing Magazines, a song from The Go-Betweens era, that was just magical. At the end of the set, Robert pulled a few beers off stage and tried to give them to people in the front row, security went nooooooo, you can’t give the punters glass bottles and poured the beer into cups for the punters. Thought that was a really nice move by him.
Rob Forster
Robert Forster

Spiritualized
I had never heard of Spiritualized before and I actually really enjoyed the set. Will keep an ear our for them in the future for sure.
spiritualized

The Saints
This set was so cool but also really disappointing. I mean man, it’s The Saints. This is Brisbane in 2009 and I’m meters away from The Saints taking photos. If I hadn’t been so hyped up about the set I would have loved it but and a really big but is the fact that they didn’t deliver what they said they were going to do. All the press leading up to the event had said the following

“The most important Australian album ever made”. – Nick Cave on The Saints (I’m) Stranded.

Released in April 1977, The Saints (I’m) Stranded regularly appears in any poll nominating Australia’s greatest ever albums. To celebrate this fact – along with their inclusion in the inaugural Australian All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival series – The Saints (including original members Chris Bailey, Ed Kuepper and Ivor Hay as well as long time Saint Archie Larizza on bass) have graciously agreed to recreate the album (all 32 minutes of white noise, punk snarl and songwriting smarts) in its entirety – via two very special Don’t Look Back performances.

The poster for the event has in big, big big type (I’m) Stranded, The Saints. I can’t begin to describe my disenchantment when in Brisbane, their home town, the town where this band that gets billed for changing the music scene does not play their number one hit which got them all the attention. They didn’t even play all the other songs off the album but an assorted mix of their songs through the years. Days later, I still feel my stomach fall when I think about the gig.

Their were highlights and they would have to include the fact that Chris Bailey walked onto stage with a smoke in hand and smoked/drank through the set. Rock on.

Chris

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
As the curators of ATP 09 Australia, Nick Cave and co took to the River Stage last for a set that contained a wide range of songs, many from the recent Dig, Lazarus Dig! album. Photographing Nick Cave was interesting, we were limited to one song (no surprise there) but we were also required to stay low, very low and to limit our movement. This meant that we basically spent the song sitting on the inbuilt seats on the crowd barrier and trying to shuffle round to get other photos. Still it was pretty darn cool seeing Nick Cave.

Nick Cave

My highlight for the night was by far Robert Forster and The Saints (though I am still pretty ticked off at The Saints for not playing (I’m) Stranded, even though a) it was advertised in big type on all the promo material and b) dude, the song is like a Brisbane anthem, how could you not play it to a Brisbane crowd?

See the rest of the photos here – ATP 09 gallery

Australia

Mum and I went to see Australia yesterday and much to our surprise it was a whole lot better than we had expected it to be. We went to a 1020 session on a Sunday morning and the cinema was full. The movie has been out for almost two months now, that was pretty impressive.

What I loved the most was the clothes, oh such style. I would quite happily have a few of the blouses and a couple of the frocks and oh the skirts. I think you get the picture.

Also the landscape was just as mind blowing, all those sweeping landscapes and not a hazy sky amongst them..
Whilst the movie far exceeded my story expectations there were a few things that were weird including the child Nullah not growing over the three years or so the film was based on, also the fact that the Japanese landing they show in the film never happened, in that sense I have never been a fan of the movie title, Australia is a pretty big name to live up to. I think call it it Faraway Downs or The Drover or something else would have been just as epic.

It was well worth going to see and I could quite easily watch it again. It has a decent story line that has more than enough action it for those who want it and sweeping vistas and the fox dance for those who want something a little more dainty.

Go see it.