Growing Herbs and eating them

I've been checking out other peoples' blogs, as you do and I've found this delightful blog.

Great photos, with very practical information and sensible advice about growing herbs indoors.

There's even suggestions of ways to use the herbs.

Have a look.

Sydney Road, Brunswick

I am working two days a week in Sydney Road Brunswick. It’s a drab street with fusty and cluttered strip shops.

I found this stunning dish there. It’s bright clear colours are the very opposite to the street colours.

I have it on my table and smile every time I see it. It lightens my mood. It’s made in China and I would love to tell the people, who will have earned a pittance making it (it was ridiculously cheap – the cost of a pizza) how much pleasure it is giving me.

An up-date on the toadstools - they have all died and left a greyish mess around the plant. I am now wondering if I will get any more.

More beautiful yellow Toadstools

When I came home from work today there was another crop of toadstools.

I didn’t notice them in the morning. I was rushing to get ready for work but I did pass the pot on several occasions and I didn’t notice anything.

During the day there was a lot of activity in the pot because after work the moment I walked into the room I saw these brightly coloured toadstools. They had pushed their way up through the dead ones that were lying on top of the soil.

People say you can't see plants growing but I believe if I had been home I'd have seen these sprouting and pushing their way towards the ceiling.

I’m betting these spectacular fungi will dead when I wake in the morning which is such a pity because they are quite beautiful

Australia Day weekend

It is ‘Australia Day’ long weekend with a bank holiday today, Monday. This is the time when Australians ask each other what it is to be an Australian. The news media is helping in this with questions and answers and copious opinions.

We read in the paper and hear on the radio moving descriptions of peoples’ ‘voyages’ to the citizenship ceremonies that were held throughout the country on Friday.

I am not an Australian and at times like this I feel it’s an enormous privilege and an enormous piece of luck to be able to make my home here. The news media tells us, that out there, in the big wide world, hundreds if not thousands of people want to do just what I am doing. They put their lives and often their families’ lives on the line to make Australia their home.

This weekend the weather smiled on us all. It’s been, perfect. The sun’s shone and the temperatures have been in the early twenties.

I, too, have had a perfect weekend. On Friday a friend and I spent a couple of hours having a spa and a massage and then lounging in the “Dreaming Room” watching yachts in Port Philip Bay glide past as we sipped on herbal tea. We followed this with a late lunch and a bottle of wine at a table on the edge of St Kilda beach.

During the weekend I have been to the gym, lunched with another friend, wandered around the Albert Park Shops and lazily reclined outside and read the papers.

When I was driving back from the gym my car radio told me how lucky Australians were to be born here considering that a baby is born somewhere in the world every minute.

One of the announcers’ examples of our privileged lifestyle was the way we conduct our parliamentary elections and the smooth transition when a new government is voted into office. A glance around the world and the recent elections that have been held elsewhere and we have to agree. It is another thing that we take for granted.

It is easy to become complaisant and get used to good fortune.

I needed a wake-up call from the Australian media.

I have become used to breakfasting in my courtyard, to having the choice of shows and movies, to having variety and buzz in my life and to be able to find work.

I have become used to things that astounded me and left me exhilarated when I first made my home here. I no longer think of them. They are just there.

Every now and again we need a reminder. Australia Day is a good time for that.

Toadstools that grow inside

I have always seen toadstools outside and under trees. These strange yellow and rather beautiful toadstools grew in one of my inside planter pots. They were just small bumps in the morning but I when I came home in the late afternoon they had transformed into this yellow cluster of toadstools.



The next morning they were dead and were just a fawn mess around the base of the plant. I can only suppose that some spores were in the potting mix. All very unusual and odd but rather fun.

Lavender Farm Daylesford

These photos should give you an idea of the relaxing and soothing day we had at the Lavender Harvest Festival.

Lavender Farm Daylesford - Mentor

A beautiful day and a beautiful Lavender farm. The Lavender farm is called Lavendula and is outside Daylesford in Victoria. It has the quaint address of, 350 Hepburn-Newstead Road, Shepherds Flat. The road has a couple of farm houses but there is no way of checking a number. The farm is identified from the road with a large sign.

I seldom leave Melbourne – the city is my stamping ground. The people I was with said it felt as if we had stepped into France or Italy. The smell of Lavender was everywhere and the day was enhanced by stunningly tender steak and chip potatoes cooked on an outdoor wood fired kiln and washed down with an Italian style local wine. We ate this under a canopy of shady trees. Grape vines wound their way around veranda poles and we looked through bunches of fattening grapes to view the geese. They weren’t fenced in. They just seemed to want to stay in ‘their spot’. This is an arts and craft area of Victoria where many artists live and there were stalls displaying their work.

One of our party was rekindling a dream she has about living in the country and how she could make it happen. I mulled over my goals and achievements as I sat in the dappled sunlight. I still haven’t got this sorted but I did realize that there were a number of tasks around the house I have talked about doing but haven’t started and I think getting them done may be a way to begin. That is: Stop Procrastinating!

I felt the presence of a dear friend. She does that sometimes: pop into my consciousness. When she was alive I had the warmth of her presence and now I have the legacy that she left. She is a mentor for so many things. She didn’t procrastinate!

There is so much about her that I admired and benefited from. She came to mind while I thought of tasks not completed or even started. Was it the French feel – she was a great Francophile? Or do people come back to us to jog us along? I’m never sure about this.

I am beginning this week with a list of tasks to get under way and positive vibes from her to motivate me to get started. I have already made progress on two of them!!

The sight and the smell of Lavender have stayed with me.

Goals and Motivation

I said that I would come up with some goals within 24 hours. This was harder than I thought. I am still working on it.

I am not only one wondering about moving forward and hoping to make changes this year –“I thought I would quote from Leslie Cannold’s article in The Age Newspaper today.

It’s titled ‘Look at yourself, before it’s too late to change.’

This is how she sums up, “No matter our age, or the things we’ve said or done in the past, it is never too late to live the examined life. To remember the dreams we had for ourselves – the talents we sought to develop, the contribution we wished to make during our lifetimes and to put them into action.”

There is a question I have been asking myself and I think it goes hand in hand with setting goals, it is 'how to motive myself'.

Success and Goal Setting

My wonderful horoscope for 2008 (see my last blog) has made me think about how I am going to make it come true.

How am I going to take these good aspects and “spin them into gold”?

I’ve decided it’s a good time to review where I am in life and where I am going and where I want to go.

This is something I believe we should all do every now and again – review where we are and where we are going. It is very easy to drift along and then later think, “I wish I had….”

To get started I need to identify exactly what I want to come true, in other words what my goals are.

To make it easier I’ve worked out a few headings and sub headings. You may have different headings.

Work - Salary
Job
Where

Personal friends
Relationships
Changes to myself eg spiritual
Beauty treatments/massages/gym

Material New car
Clothes
Mortgage
Renovations and up grades to my house

I don’t feel I have to put something under each heading. I’m just trying to organize my thoughts.

I’ll spend the next twenty four hours thinking about these areas and making lists – brain storming - just writing anything that comes into my head. I’ll give myself 24 hours so there is time limit and I can start to prepare for the next step.

Then I’ll come back and talk about the goals I’ve sorted out and how I’m going to start working on them.

Horoscopes and New Starts for 2008, Capricorn

Anyone who has been reading my blog will know that I read my horoscope every month and over the last few months the good luck that has been promised has not always eventuated.

I won’t go over all that again but a number of things I was hopeful about haven’t worked out. My new job was one of those as mentioned in my blog on my October Horoscope.

January horoscope is the horoscope to beat all horoscopes – I haven't read a better one and I am going to believe everything it says. If you're a Capricorn read it!!! It starts:-

“The year 2008 is just made for you!” http://www.astrologyzone.com/

Last month was pretty good too but as I was in NZ until the middle of the month with little access to the internet I didn’t read it until I was home again. It suggested I may win some money if I took a lotto ticket – something like that.

My lucky weekend was that of the 22nd and 23rd of December. I bought a ticket for the Saturday lotto. Nothing! Perhaps I should have bought it on the Saturday. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong.

However I am a firm believer that some people win raffles and games of chance and some don't. My mother-in-law was a winner. She won a number of useless things. She lived in England and never ever did the pools so we don’t know is she could’ve won big there. She used to say that she didn’t believe in them – whatever that meant. Perhaps if she had believed and done them every week all us would have benefited.

I’m not like her. I don’t win. I can take a ticket for things I don’t want, like a dressed doll, without the likelihood of having to give it house room. This also makes me worry that if once in my life my number comes up it would be for a dressed doll and not a car or some other big ticket item that I would love to own.

January 2008 is definitely the month for Capricorns and I am going to continue to take lotto tickets – you just never know.

I also have this from my lovely friend who is another astrology guru,

“that the Jupiter transit over your Sun has warmed your soul, and eased the way forward for you to make useful changes over the coming year."

"I hope that the Jupiter transit over your Sun has warmed your soul. What a lovely expression that is."

I am going to follow this advice from Susan Miller –

“it will be up to you to take the opportunities presented and spin them into gold”

Although I’m not quite sure how I’m going to do it! I'm working on that.

Any ideas are welcome!

Looking for something to read - check out my other blog.

http://dogsofmelbourne.blogspot.com/

St Kilda Beach - New Year's Morning

The Rubbish Collectors assembling for a major clean up.

Who cleans up after you at home?
At St Kilda Beach some one else does it for you.

The mess left on St Kilda Beach after the hot New Year’s Eve was unbelievable. I’ve seen mess on the beach before but nothing like this.

Scavengers were there, too. Could there be a full can of beer missed in the dark or a packet of cigarettes not finished? I saw people with plastic bags walking away with their finds. There was a pink blanket that will serve someone well later in the year and a chance to rescue an esky that had been forgotten. People were still asleep on the grass surrounded by their rubbish.

The rubbish was everywhere. However it was quite clear that Port Phillip City Council did not supply enough rubbish containers. The ones that were there were over flowing and rubbish was piled beside them. So many people did try to do the right thing but hundreds of others walked leaving someone else to clean up their mess.

The council was on the job and teams were assembling to get the place right for us to enjoy the beach again and leave more of our rubbish for the next day's clean up.

New Year's Morning was hot and sparking but it was NOT a good day for an early morning walk at St Kilda Beach.