new creations

Well I have actually done a little scrapbooking recently. In that time when Mum is on the computer or I have just spent too much time doing nothing on the ‘net.

My life at the moment is geared around one objective and that is do get a job, a real job. Not that working at a grocery store isn’t a real job. It just isn’t the real job I want for me.

Matthew likes to bait me by repeatedly asking “Do you have job yet?” and other questions/comments in that idea. I don’t have a job yet. Not all of us can be like my brother who was given a pretty cushy job in Silicon Valley before he had graduated. Though he of course didn’t do an arts degree like me did but a much more revered degree, an engineering degree. I know the jobs I want. I know that I don’t have the experience for a fair few of them. It’s just a matter of getting that experience, that foot in the door.

School went back this week and that means that I now have to start paying board. 20% of what ever I bring home for the week goes into Mum’s hand until I find my own place. Which is the first thing on the list when I find a job.

Back though to the where this post was going in the start. Scrapbooking. I have about 10 pages scanned and on the computer which means I should be able to post a couple every couple of days or so πŸ™‚

1)
element

6 of the things that very much defined Helen at this stage in life.

A familiar photo some of you. This would be how I look part of the time when “in the bush”/”in the great outdoors”. All purpose shorts made from colorful fabric which serve as PJ shorts in summer at home. Thermals (stripy of course) to either keep warm or to form a mozzie suit.

The hat I am wearing in the photo was actually retired just before the canoe trip the other week as it was getting a wee bit small. In my ten years as a Brownie/Guide/Ranger Guide I had two Guide hats. One is the one I got as young Brownie and way too small for my head now and now has all my various camp name tags and crafts pinned onto it. The second one is the one in this photo. I now have a hat though which used to belong to Grandmum, so go having hats that have a memory πŸ™‚

2)
Victoria Tower

I don’t know about you but how I explore a new town is to just start walking and hopping on and off public transport on a whim. I did this in San Fran, London, Jever, Wilhelmshaven, Hohenkirchen. Just exploring. Seeing what you see and exploring what you find. I am lucky to have inherited a pretty darn fine sense of direction from Mum. I can sit down at the end of a day exploring a town and draw my route on a map and even now years later I can still draw where I have gone on maps by memory.

When I arrived in London of the morning of the 20th, I did what I have done in the past. I checked my baggage into a storage locker, picked up a travel pass and started walking down streets, roads and lanes, hopping on buses or the Underground if I passed a station and just generally wandering the streets of London town.

Sam and I are going out tonight. First up we are going to see Women in Docs and Sally Dastey (whom I also went to see last night with Andrea) and then well who knows where we will end up. πŸ™‚

Musical dreams

I had a dream last night that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were doing a gig at The Zoo and tickets were $36. Which is a pretty decent price for an international act at The Zoo. Somehow I don’t think that gig would be happening any time soon. I can still dream though.

We received a Christmas package from Karl yesterday and I got a CD that has quite possibly jumped straight into my top handful of all time albums. That is a pretty impressive jump for a new CD, normally they hover round the “this is cool” level for a while before I listened to it a few more times and it either floats up the list or sinks down the list.

Thirty seconds into the opening track Mojo Love and I was drumming my hands on the desk and grooving in my chair. The CD is the debut album from an Icelandic girl who goes under the stage name Lay Low called Please Don’t Hate Me. You can listen to four tracks off the CD on the Lay Low webpage or you can hot tail it onto a plane to Iceland, pop into a record store and pick yourself up a copy or find your self a loving family member who resides in Iceland. This is the video clip for the title track off the album.

If this CD is anything like the Benni Hemm Hemm CD that I received from Karl last Christmas, Time Off should review it in November. I was reading Time Off (a local street press) at work one day and flicking through the CD section I saw Benni Hemm Hemm mentioned and I just about fell off my chair at seeing an Icelandic group that is not Sigur Ros, Bjork or Emilíana Torrini reviewed. I will be keeping an ear out to see what Lay Low does next because I like what I hear.

Vegemite Gelato

Vegemite Gelato

Australia + Italy = Vegemite Gelato. Just for the Australia Day weekend. Just for the sake of it and the fact that someone in a kitchen said why not?

The colour was a lot lighter than I expected but I guess that is because not everyone likes their Vegemite as thick as I do and therefore not a lot of Vegemite is used in the process.

The taste was totally not what I expected. That also I guess comes back to the above statement that I will every so often grab a teaspoonful of Vegemite and lick it off the spoon when I feel like it.

My first tasting note is that it tastes like salted nuts as the first taste is quite nutty and you are left with a salty aftertaste.
My second tasting I started to notice how it tastes like a dark ale. I guess that would be the yeast extract part of the Vegemite coming though.

This isn’t Vegemite Gelato it is Pub Gelato! Beer and nuts in Gelato.

I managed to talk Mum into tasting a little, little bit of it and her comment was that very first taste you get is Vegemite. I then went for the itty bitty spoonfuls and you really do taste straight out Vegemite then.

πŸ™‚ I am more of spoonful girl though so I am eating a spoonful of Gelato and chasing it with a Vegemite lick. Now it tastes just like I imagined.

I am quite surprised that the Courier Mail did not have an article about it and instead I found out about via Slashfood and the Sydney Morning Herald. When I first saw it on Slashfood I thought for sure it would be in Melbourne or Sydney. I nearly dropped off my chair when I read Brisbane in the article.

Gelateria Cremona, I hope you have Vegemite Gelato next Australia Day as I will be back πŸ™‚

Mum and I went up to a friends property for Australia Day for a bit of tree planting. The whole team which was probably easily 20 adults plus kids built tracks, planted 500 trees, cleared Lantana and other weeds. Mum and I each ended up with a mattock which we swung and swung and swung some more digging holes for the kids to come behind us and plant the native trees in. It was a nice day out “on the land” and we were given a very impressive spread for morning tea and lunch.

Lunch

This was our lunch yesterday.

Lunch

Simple, easy and oh so yummo.

I made the bread, not the best effort as I sort of forgot till it was too late the lack of gluten in corn flour. This meant that it was slightly lacking in the bread department and more in the chewy department. Nice but not what I wanted. Maybe next time.

I made the pesto as well (of course :)). I had been on the eye out for good looking basil at the fruit shop for quite a while now and it was always wilted and sad looking. On Sunday Mum and I went to a local farmers market where I picked up the freshest bunch of basil I have ever seen. The smell was gorgeous.

The grape tomatoes came from the markets for something like $2 for a large bag which was a total bargain.

To day Mum, Matthew and I are off to the Brisbane markets at Rocklea to explore and to pick up some gorgeous bargains in the way of fruit and veg. I know last time we picked up 5kg of cherries for $20 at a time when they were selling for $20/kg in the shops. πŸ™‚

Tonight I am off to see Madeleine Peyroux. Ohh it will be a delight. I was so delighted when I saw the ad in the paper back in October advertising the tour. I bought my ticket the day they went on sale I think πŸ™‚

Banksia robur

The robur probably provided the most delight for as their colours were just so gorgeous. So let us have an almost complete flower time line of the Banksia robur. It was also one of the most visible plants of the heath due to its general size and colours.

Banksia robur

This green so reminds me of our school uniforms
Banksia robur

Banksia Flower DoF goodness I

Bankisa in Bloom

Banksia robur

Dead

Then it looses the tips and starts to look like a seedpod though I don’t seem to have a photo of that stage.

Wallum Heath

back of "campsite 3"

I spent two afternoons exploring the wallum behind the campsite. The first afternoon was a botanical “walk” through the heath with 2/3 of our party where we were scratched to near an inch of our life. However, the scratches were relieved with a dip in the river afterwards.

The first plant that I spied were some Christmas Bells (Blandfordia grandiflora). Which were of the yellow variety and not the red and yellow as I am used to seeing.

Christmas Bells

Just as you entered the wallum from the campsite there is a clearing for helicopters to land when needed and covering the ground there was scores of Trigger plants (Stylidium graminifolium) and baby grasstrees.

Trigger Plants

Past the clearing we entered the area that you can see in the first photo of the post, the main plants you can see in that photo are the Banksia robur and Grass Trees (Xanthorrhoea sp.)

Banksia robur.
Banksia robur

Grass tree (Xanthorrhoea sp) with Banksia robur in the background.
Grass Tree Dead

As you started to get to closer to the heath however you could hundreds of other plants from Boronias to Leptospermum to Yellow pea flowers (that Mum has always said there is way too many to be bothered identifying them all) to more Drosera (sundew) to Hibbertia sp and a score to two more but I can’t recall or find the names at the moment. There was at least two species of Boronias and a score of different Leptospermum.

Leptospermum are such gorgeous plants and whilst the various species are similar in many ways they still all look so different.

Leptospernum?

This is Cathy with one of the pea flowers.
Cathy and a pea flower

The second afternoon it was just me, however it was relatively still which meant that you could smell the plants and it was the most delightful scent I have ever smelt. It was floral and delicate yet still bushy and oh so very Australian. I wonder when I will see it on the shelves in Myer and more importantly which “celebrity” would they use to advertise it?

I didn’t just go for a walk in the heath but also through the dry eucalypt forest that bordered it and just had to smile at the Scribbly Gums. 99.999999% of all scribbles you see on a Scribbly Gum are made by the larvae of a wood-boring moth. However, in places where humans, generally of the young male category frequent you often see scribbles that were certainly not made by larvae πŸ™‚

Scribbly Gum

One of the other ladies on the trip went to school with Mum and she said that a couple of places reminded her of poems they had learnt in primary school. For me however, there was many places where I just paused and said “This is Australia”, I truely do love a sunburnt country. Which of course comes from my favorite poem, is a poem that many Australians know well and I discovered recently that the author was only 22 when she wrote it. I am 21.

My Country.
Dorothea Mackellar (1907/8)

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Isn’t it beautiful?