At This Moment

I am joining Ali Edwards and many others... responding to a journalling prompt about “Currently,” “Around Here,” or “Right Now”.....

I am amazed at how quickly this year is going! We are well into spring already!  I have to really think carefully when I work out what the date is – and a couple of days ago I saw a reference to it being only 100 days until Christmas!!!  We are still having cool nights but the days are often warm enough for a T-shirt, and occasionally the evenings stay warm as well.  It is mid-afternoon and the distant hills are various shades of light grey with the smoke from back-burning hanging around.  The pergola with the grape vine is almost half green already with new shoots – and with the many dangling plumes of fat buds waiting to sprout into flowers.  And we seem to be home ground for about 15 or so magpies – they are everywhere (particularly the areas where new mulch has been spread) and their warbling is delightful!

I am looking forward to going to Mudgee in October for a friend’s wedding, and stopping off at the Hunter too.  And later in the month we will be having visitors from the UK, my cousin and her husband – it will be great to see them again.

I am so proud of our eldest grand-child – she received five awards at the Presentation Assembly last Friday – I do wish I could have been there to see it!  But there will undoubtedly be other chances… she is doing so well at High School.

I wonder how our eldest son will go this summer: he is looking for work, and has a much better chance of getting some now that things are picking up ready for summer.  But he is also looking much more seriously at what he wants to do in the long term.

I am surprised how much bouncier Mollie (our 14 year old Border Collie) is now that she is having the new medicine: it’s like HRT for older incontinent bitches.  We had her clipped and washed this week as well – her body is a lot greyer, but her face and feet are still black and white.

I went up to Ellenborough today, to deliver the canopy from the back of the HiLux now that the tray has been fitted for our younger son.  Good to see the cabin at Ewetopia is almost finished – the new railings around the balcony are almost complete.  It’s still a stepladder for access, but I managed it quite easily.  I hope we can stay there over Christmas – it will be good to be around early in the morning so the kids can open their stockings at the right time!

I am excited at our long term plans to move to further north, nearer to our two daughters and their families (I feel I should add D.V. here).  Today we were talking about the sort of duplex we would like to build, and how to make them just right for older people, and even allowing for wheel chairs and mobility scooters!  It was exciting thinking about the kitchen, and the layout, and the front porch and sun verandah….

I do hope that the auction on Saturday for the house over the road goes off without a hitch.  It would be so good to have a new family living there…..

I am looking forward to helping at Taree Mainly Music each week next term: it will be good to be involved again.

I am still concerned about the results of the mammogram I had a couple of days ago: I will feel so much better when I get the formal acknowledgement from the doctor… assuming it is all clear….

I am conscious that as we get older health concerns are becoming more of a reality.  We are currently praying for a couple of friends having chemotherapy, and their families and friends.

I am going to find it a lot easier to get into the daily exercise routine now that the mornings warm up a lot more quickly.  I’ve finally lost the extra weight I gained over winter…… as long as I stop buying the new yummy bread from Coles!

Hobbies more recently.....

In my fifties

Floral Art – Gael and I went to Floral Art classes once a week for about 5 years: Katrina and Marilyn came some of the time too.  It was an ideal activity – even though we were all busy with BCMA things – it was so relaxing to focus on the arrangement and then take it home afterwards!  Our teacher was so good at guiding and  encouraging us: we even did a demonstration one year at the Royal Easter Show!  As a result I did the church flowers once a term for quite a few years, arrangements for Emmaus Weekends and also helped with a number of wedding arrangements.

A groups of us who had become friends through the BCMA held our first meeting of ‘Serendipity’ on November 23^rd 1998. Then we met every Monday morning in term time: a number of us wanted to learn different crafts and each of us had a skill which we passed on to the others – it was great fun and we also raised money for Bear Cottage.  We dabbled in mosaics, cross-stitch, French-knot embroidery, ribbon embroidery, candle-wicking, folk art, decoupage and patchwork.  As a result of trying the folk art with Marilyn, I agreed to go with Gael to classes at Edgeworth David Hardware shop in September 1999.

Folk Art – I continued doing the classes for the next five or so years (Gael gave up after a term!): Jenny was such an excellent teacher and I really enjoyed her classes….. I was able to try lots of different styles of painting with Jenny’s patient help.  As well as paints, brushes and pattern books the Folk Art section of the shop also stocked decoupage papers, and we learnt how to include that into our painted articles: and I also found out how to do decoupage with good quality paper serviettes.

Patchwork and quilting – I did a course in machine quilting; experimented with a number of different blocks and made a quilt-as-you-go flying goose quilt.  In May 2003, I stayed with my parents in Frome as Mum recovered from a broken hip: during that time I used Mum’s little Husqvarna sewing machine and made a quilt for her to go with the cushions that were on the settee in their living room: it had hearts appliqued onto diagonal squares.

Photography – Vern bought a digital Kodak camera on one of his trips in 2000, but it only worked for a  couple of years.  I bought my first digital camera, an Olympus, duty free on my way to the UK in April 2003.   Before that I enjoyed taking photos, but with the instant feedback of a digital camera it was much more fun – and much easier to go on taking photos until you had a reasonable shot!  That was, as long as you weren’t trying to capture a special moment with one of the grand-children.  Although they caught on pretty quickly to the fact that the photo showed up on the back of the camera – so after a ‘big smile’ they’d say “show me, show me”!  Compare that with my parents’ reaction – Dad had been a very keen photographer since his late teens, but had slowed down considerably before digital cameras… when I showed him the image on the camera screen of him and my mum taken a few moments before, his comment was ‘Don’t believe it!”.

In my sixties

Interior Design – During the year that the house was being built at Wingham my painting, patchwork, wool etc were all stored away—just as well given the humidity of living on the coast at Old Bar.  (I did go to some classes though and learnt to do heat-embossing!)

About the only ‘hobby’ I had was the planning for the new house as we worked out bricks, roofing, tiles, windows, doors, curtains, blinds etc.  I also spent a few months working out the paint colours for the various rooms in our new home, using numerous sample pots testing them on small canvases—one for each room.

Sewing and Knitting—I did a bit of both of these as we settled in to our new house: made a quilt for Owie and also finished off a quilt-as-you-go log cabin pattern quilt for Jake’s cot.  However I had problems with my left eye in 2010 and found it difficult to sew for long periods of time.

Scrap-booking – I had started making Christmas gift tags in December 2004: then when I needed more supplies I went to the scrap-booking shop in Hornsby which offered a course in January: I didn’t have much else planned so I signed up!  (Despite having looked at my daughter’s albums the previous year and commented that this wasn’t something I wanted to do!)

It was so much fun so I did another course in North Turramurra at the Scrapbooking Burrow.  I ended up doing a number of courses there that year and thoroughly enjoyed them.  Looking back at those layouts now I wish I had been more disciplined with myself – I still like the competed ones, but I left a lot without journalling or titles, and now they seem so incomplete!  However during that time our friend Marilyn got married and a group of us made an album which we gave as a surprise present to Marilyn and Murray – and I had been in charge of organising that.  I think that was a good challenge to do because I set myself higher standards – doing it for someone else, and I think I surprised myself at how well it turned out!  (I even did a smaller version for myself using the same photos and similar layouts!)

After we moved to Wingham I was excited to find a scrap-booking shop in Wingham  and another couple of shops in Taree—as well as Spotlight.   Soon afterwards on one of my visits to Sydney I saw Beth’s scrap-booking album and found out she was a demonstrator for Stampin’ Up: I joined up in June 2009 and never regretted it—I found their combination of co-ordinating colours, stamps and punches made it so easy to make layouts that ‘worked’.  I did a few courses at Scrapsidaisy, but I also started having ‘classes’ in my craft room, teaching the basics.   I signed up to Big Picture Classes and found their courses very satisfying, and a great encouragement to develop my own style.

I have found this a very satisfying craft – combining design, journalling/story-telling, texture, colour, and photography – and family history, too.  It worked very well with my eye problems, too, since it doesn’t need you to be constantly focussing at the same object or focal length, so my eyes don’t get too tired.  But I have to confess that I have accumulated quite a lot of supplies…. I console myself that my daughters at least, will benefit eventually!!

Hobbies: When I was Younger

Hobby:  an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure

As a teenager

Reading – a wide variety of fiction books whenever I had a spare moment: borrowed books from the library at least every week and often every other day.

Knitting – I can’t remember what else I made, but I made a zipped Norwegian style cardigan with the yoke knitted on one long needle, in about three different blues and white.

Sewing – I started making my own clothes when we had to make a skirt and a blouse in Year 8 at High School.  Made lots of gathered skirts and also trousers and an anorak which I wore when we went skiing in Norway.   While I was at university I didn’t have a sewing machine with me but I still made a few dresses, hand-sewing them!

In my twenties

Sewing – in 1965 I made my wedding dress which also had a lace bolero.

 I can’t remember making any dresses when I was in Canberra, but I used to buy 2 cotton knitted tops and convert one to a skirt to give a sort of suit!  I also made a number of trousers and skirts.  In PNG I made quite a lot of A-line shifts which were great to wear in that climate.

In my thirties

Gardening – by the time we moved to Burwood in 1977 I was very interested in planting Australian native plants to encourage more birds into our garden.  We had a vegetable garden in Chadstone, and I planted a few bushes in the front garden there, but in Burwood I put in quite a selection of bushes in the front lawn area – mostly natives – to create a shrubbery which would also give some privacy for the front of the house.

Sewing – I can remember setting up my sewing machine in the air-conditioned lounge room at Burwood so I could make some more maternity tops when I was pregnant with Joe..… and in North Turramurra I had to make a second lot of tops with extra ‘give’ towards the end of my pregnancy  with Deb!

In my forties

Sewing – I did a Knitwit course which I thoroughly enjoyed – it was great to learn how quick and easy it was to use knitted material.  I made lots of trousers, shorts, skirts and tops for myself, and also the children – and for friends as well!

I think it was during this decade that I started patchwork and quilting – by doing the first of a number of courses at the Quilting Bee in Gordon. 

Gardening and garden design – I was very keen on gardening when we were living in North Turramurra and Wahroonga.  I spent hours going through gardening books and magazines looking for suitable plants for our climate and conditions, and I often visited the Australian Native Nursery out at Terrey Hills with lists looking for the plants I had chosen.  I did a course in garden design with Helen Adams at a garden in Lane Cove and redeveloped the back garden at Wahroonga after the micro-climate changed when all the gum trees came down in the storm of 1991.

Perfumes, Scents and Smells

THE PERFUME I WEAR NOW

I've used Estée Lauder's Beyond Paradise for years... so much so that eldest grandson mentioned to his mother recently that someone they'd just met wore the same perfume as his grandmother!

Recently I've been using 'Pure' by DKNY, which is more expensive, (because they didn't have the Paradise one in stock) but I think I'll go back to the Beyond Paradise because I'm getting far fewer compliments than I used to....

SMELLS I LOVE

Strawberries and raspberries, freshly picked basil, mint, gardenias, roses, lemons, limes and mandarins, chocolate, toast, freshly cut grass.

Osmanthus fragrans – very small flowers but highly perfumed

The crushed leaves of lemon verbena (Aloysia triphylla)

Roast lamb with a bit of rosemary, and some mint sauce!

That very young baby smell

Love the scent of a good Sauvignon Blanc

MEMORIES

Pine trees –we had small ones at Christmas… but walking past a fruit shop with them all stacked ready for sale is such a ‘Christmas’ smell….

Love the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans (reminds me  of standing in the bus queue outside Dewhurst’s in the High St, Slough when I was a teenager: they had a special fan which blew the gorgeous smell right where the bus stop was!  They also sold delicious ham carved off the bone, and had the leg sitting on its special china stand in the window….)

The scent of wattle (except it was mimosa in those days) reminds me of the markets that were in a big courtyard behind the Dewhurst shop: there was a fruit stall there and they often had branches of mimosa for sale – in the early spring I think it would have been.  I loved the smell and the bright yellow of the little flowers!

A strong garlic smell reminds of the very garlicky, strong cigarettes and male smell that hit us as we walked along an arcade of shops in Barcelona in 1957!

Eucalyptus reminds me of the storm we had in Wahroonga, January 21 1991: so many trees were stripped of their leaves, and the ‘mulch’ of fresh leaves (with twigs and branches) mixed with fallen power lines (and poles) and trees made streets almost impassable for several days….. and the scent of eucalyptus hung around for days too.

Tweed perfume – which I wore in my early twenties.

Badedas bath essence: this was the present of choice for my Mum when I didn’t know what to give her!  (She loved it!)

Carbolic – mixed with a stale beer and tobacco smell – reminds me of the New Inn, Clydach Vale (where my grandparents were managers in the early forties): the floors were washed down every morning….but it never really smelt ‘clean’!

When I was young, practically every week somewhere on my walk home from school there would be a place where they were digging up the footpath and there would be that distinctive smell of sewer…. I don’t know whether it was just the age of the pipes around Slough but those sort of road works seemed to be normal!  The flagstones would be stacked to one side; there would be ropes around the hole, and you’d often have to walk in the gutter for ten yards or so…..

I don’t know whether I really like the smell, but that hot dusty smell when it has just started raining after a hot spell is pretty distinctive.  When I was young, the tar on the roads would melt a bit (or sometimes a lot even in an English summer!) – and there would be little bubbles in amongst the small stones… we used to pop them by standing on them, and then the soles of our sandals would smell of the tar.

And a strong tarry smell, mixed with hydrogen sulphide: there was a pond of waste ‘water’ just the other side of the railway bridge on Farnham Road which I walked past on my way to the swimming pool, and it smelt disgusting!

And thinking of bad smells – we had such problems with the Jetmaster fireplace we installed in the front room at Westbrook Avenue: whenever we had a good fire going pretty soon there would be a baaad smell… a combination of stale dishcloth and hot dead mouse, and we couldn’t work out how to stop it – other than stop lighting fires!!

AND just after I had posted this...

Unplanned bout of domesticity:
Just making a second cup of coffee. 'Oh, what's that funny ring left on the bench from the milk container?" Tentative smell, fishy, like anchovies.... anchovies!!!! 
The little bottle of anchovies had fallen onto its side in the shelf above the milk and the orange juice (and further down were salad dressings etc) and dripped oil...drip, drip, drip.... amazing just how far it had spread!! And those door shelves are not easy to wash in the sink - water spurts out in unexpected places...

Listening.....

The melodious song of the magpies.  The squawking of the rainbow lorikeets in the grevilleas.  The short trills of the fairy wrens as they move in their group darting amongst the roses and cordylines looking for small insects. The quiet chugging of a tractor in the distance.  The sound of cows tearing up clumps of grass in the paddock next door.

I love the quiet of the country that lets you hear the small background sounds.  And then there can be the sudden outburst from a couple of kookaburras, competing to see which can be the loudest!

I love it when it is warm enough to have the door open to the courtyard.  Then I can hear the noises from outside – the calls of the different birds, the sound of the cows waiting at the dairy on the other side of the valley, the rustle of the leaves and the grasses, the tinkle of the water when the fountain is on.  I don’t have the fountain going very much when it is just me at home – because one of the sounds I like best is the splashing that the birds make as they bathe in the water of the main tier of the fountain – and they tend not to do that when the fountain is actually running.  The male Satin Bower Bird visits for a bath most early mornings and late afternoons.... and the young magpies at any time of the day.

I think a lot of my enjoyment in getting up early is actually because it is so quiet......  just the sound of the kettle coming to the boil... the ticking of the clock over the bookcase, and the rustle of the pages as I read my Bible. 

I remember as a child the pin-dropping quietness in winter which alerted you to the sound-absorbing quality of a thick layer of overnight snow—long before you opened your eyes and saw the glaring whiteness of the window..... although if you had slept in a bit, there would be the tell-tale scrape of spade and thump of broom as the early-risers cleared the path to the front door.

I listen for the wind rustling the cedars outside the front door – I can’t hear them from the family room but you can guess it’s happening when the leaves dance in little circles on the paving outside the window.  Those big trees can be very noisy when there’s a southerly change coming through, and the strength of the wind can come as a bit of a shock when you step outside the front door.

I listen for the sound of the school bus picking up the children who live over the road... and shortly afterwards the crunch on the gravel as the postman’s truck pulls in to the driveway to put letters in our mailbox.

Sometimes the sound of the drying cycle of the dishwasher comes as a surprise – if everything is stacked correctly there is so little noise when it is in the washing part of the cycle.....

I don’t listen to the radio very much at all... I have to confess I often get so cranky at comments made by people  when the ‘lines are thrown open’ that I’ve stopped listening even to sensible programs!

I listen for the sound of the timer when I am cooking... particularly when I am baking: I don’t seem to be able to just commit the time to memory and keep track of the minutes!  And I hear the sound of the timer that Vern uses to make sure he doesn’t sleep too long when he has a short nap after lunch.

I sometimes listen to music, from my iPod.... earlier this year I played a lot of BeeGees for a couple of weeks, which coincided with the death of Robin Gibb.  I still enjoy Celine Dionne and Eric Clapton unplugged..... and music from the Three Tenors.

I listen for the sound of the car door outside, and the key turning in the lock as Vern comes home after work.

I rarely use the fan of the range-hood – I hate the amount of noise that it makes.. although when we need to use it I am grateful that is it so efficient!

Now that Mollie is almost blind and pretty deaf she is a lot more tentative about coming in through the dog door... and often will wait outside and give a short sharp bark to let us know she is there... then we give a couple of loud claps preferably near the laundry, and she comes in... and usually expects a Schmacko treat as a reward!  She usually seems to notice when someone comes to the front door, and will bark before the front door bell rings... but not if she is in a very deep sleep.

Housework

I would so much rather do other things than ‘housework’!!

I am happy to do the household shopping – most times, anyway.  And planning and cooking the evening meal is something I enjoy doing most nights.

But I am not naturally neat and super-tidy (definitely not a tidy-tidy person like my friend Gael!).

Having places where things belong makes it much easier to tidy up.  Thinking back to the first few houses we lived in, I didn’t make sure that there were enough storage places.   I think I also got overwhelmed by the task of tidying up at the end of a busy day with four young children, when I was desperately tired.  As a result, when Vern came home there were toys and mess everywhere... which he found hard to cope with.

I did tidy the big downstairs room in the North Turramurra house at least once a week though(!), because we had a morning tea there every Tuesday.  I can remember being pleased to have a good reason to tidy....even though it needed to be done again by the end of the morning after maybe as many as ten small children had been playing there!

I tried having boxes where the toys belonged to make it easier for the kids to help.  I had a number of rectangular plastic washing-up bowls, and on the outside I drew a shape – a car for instance – and shaded it in using black texta, so that was where the cars went.  But this was only moderately successful.

There always seemed to be piles of washing to be done, and then clean clothes to be sorted!  I think it was soon after the children each had their own bedroom in Westbrook that I gave each one their own named laundry basket and treated each child’s clothes as a separate wash.  This way I didn’t have to work out which socks and underpants belonged to which child!  And as they got older they were responsible for their own washing and ironing.  Vern was very good – he looked after his own clothes too, and even ironed his own shirts.

Once the children started school they had to wear lace-up shoes which needed cleaning.  Without actually discussing it, I waited for Vern to do this – and he waited for me.   It took us a while to work out that in his house his mum had cleaned the shoes – whereas in mine, it was my father!

I have to confess I am not very good at making the bed every morning, nor remembering to wash the towels and sheets every week!  I can remember that when our house in Wahroonga was for sale and we had to keep the whole house clean and tidy – and the beds made every day, I said that maybe this would help me develop better habits!  I am much better at doing a ‘spring clean’ when I move a bit of furniture in a room than following a routine cleaning schedule!

I was certainly spoilt by those years in PNG when we had someone who would come and clean, wash and iron every day....  (When we first arrived we weren’t going to employ anyone because we thought it was the ‘wrong’ thing to do!  But after we had about seven different people come to our door in the first week asking, pleading for work we decided to take the next person... who turned out to be Leo, who was young and inexperienced and ended up being trained by John, who was our neighbour’s house-boy!).  And then for 15 or so years in Wahroonga, when I was very busy doing volunteer work we had Mrs Kim (who also cleaned for Gael) come every week – she cleaned upstairs one week and downstairs the next.  She wasn’t the most brilliant cleaner – but she was exceptionally honest and I was very happy to trust her with our house key.

I am very fortunate that now we live in Wingham Vern has taken on the responsibility of doing the vacuuming each week.  I feel a bit guilty that I am not doing the dusting as regularly as I ought.

But I am getting a lot better these days at making the extra effort to pack the dishwasher with the dirty dishes after the evening meal – most of the time, anyway.  I am finding that I do enjoy seeing a tidy kitchen first thing in the morning....  and helped by the fact that when the sun shines in to our kitchen every single little spot of dust shows!

Ten Things About Me

Favourite part of my day:  First thing in the morning when I get up and make a strong cup of tea.... that tastes so good!  And then later, about an hour after sunrise, when the sun has reached all the corners of the valley, and the edges of the mountains are crisp and clear against the sky..... I love standing on our terrace near the pavilion and looking down the hill, seeing the glistening dew drops on the grass, watching magpies wandering around while kookaburras perch on the fence or the bird table; counting the ducks swimming on the dam or feeding on the grass, noting whether there are cows on the river flats, looking to see if the wrens or fantails are flitting around.....

Loving:  The friendship, support and discussion at our Friday Night Bible Study Group – and the meal-times too!

Needing to:  train my body to sleep through a whole night so I wake up feeling really refreshed and only need the smallest of nana naps in the afternoon!   

      Oh – and I need to be more diligent in doing my household chores BEFORE I have fun doing other things!

Struggling with: Daily exercise!  I have been enjoying the treadmill when I can watch something interesting on the DVD player – musicals seem to be the easiest to ‘walk to’.  

Knowing:  that I need to persevere, possibly for a couple of years to get down to my target weight – and then I’ll need to stay disciplined so I don’t put it on again!

Planning:  we’ve already had various celebrations this year.  At the end of June it was 43 years since we first went out together: we’ve just finished celebrating Vern’s 70^th birthday at the end of July, and in a week’s time it will be 5 years since we moved into this house. 

       On November 20^th it will be exactly 20 years since we got back together again – and that will be well worth a big celebration!

Looking forward to:  The time when my husband Vern has his ‘second’ retirement!  It will be good to be able to do things together each day – even if it is just having a lazy coffee together – and see him relaxed and enjoying a slower pace of life – but more importantly have him able to choose what to do and when.

In the meantime:  I have been thoroughly enjoying having the time to focus on scrapbooking.  I’m one-fifth along the way towards my goal of 144 double layouts in the year 2012.  In fact, I’m enjoying it so much I feel guilty at doing something so self-absorbing! 

  However I think it is very important to avoid having too many regular commitments, so that when my husband does retire (again!) I am not too busy to enjoy it!

In the distant future:  I hope that we will be able to choose the right time to move to a smaller house and garden in Wauchope while we are still active enough to be able to enjoy frequent visits from our grandchildren and maybe even some baby-sitting… although it will be more ‘child-sitting’ by then…... 

Hoping:  I do pray for the blessing of growing old together.....  I pray that we can get to see all of our children happy in their relationships and their daily lives and work.  And I look forward, God willing, to watching our grand-children as they grow up.  I am so impressed by what a great job our daughters and their husbands are already doing bringing up their children.