It is rhubarb season now. Mine was taking over the raised bed at my unit like a large leafed trifid getting in the way of my tenants desire to grow vegetables. I harvested its pinkening stalks and then the big D hacked it out of the soil and we brought it home in a pot. More
The shortening days and chill breeze have my thoughts turning to things to cosy up with this winter. I’ve been trawling Etsy for gorgeous floral things to warm up winter for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere. More
I have a Saturday morning ritual that is quite important to my sanity. I usually get up before the big D, put on my track pants and a comfy top and head on out to the lounge. I make myself a hot chocolate and some toast and curl up on the couch to listen to Saturday Morning with Kim Hill on National Radio. Once bolstered up by hot chocolate and edified by Kim Hill I feel sufficiently recovered from the working week to get on with my weekend. More
I listened to a radio interview with poet, essayist and teacher Mary Ruefle on Saturday Morning with Kim Hill. In it she talks about doing the things you love and the presenter challenged her with the need to earn a living. She responded by saying that 80% of adult life is maintenance and talked about spending the remaining 20% doing things you love. More
A couple of weeks after doing the final decant of this flavoured vodka, all hell broke loose in our liquor cupboard. Either the other bottles were super jealous of the Apricot and Lavender Vodka and beat it up or some serious fermentation was going on which resulted in the bottle breaking open. Possibly using honey instead of sugar in this recipe caused this to happen so it is back to the drawing board for this one! More
This one is for the Earth Mamas – the wood nymphs who like the smell of leaf litter in their nostrils and the earthen sprites who like the feel of mud between their toes. I say this because this gel has a very distinctive odour. A decidedly unfloral and earthy odour. When I was receiving my nightly tucking in… More
The Big D and I spent the afternoon at Te Henga (Bethell’s Beach). It was a warm early autumn afternoon and the blue sky was dotted with white clouds, similar to the photograph below. We walked along the edge of the lagoon with the warm water lapping at our ankles and played in the mouth of the Waitakere River where the retreating tide pulled back out to sea creating pint-sized rapids which rushed past our calves and sucked the sand out from under our feet. Walking barefoot on the wet sand has smoothed the bottom of my feet and calls to mind many a summer where I grabbed handfuls of wet sand and rubbed them over my legs and feet to exfoliate them. More
You need in your life a cheerful orange soup you can throw together when things are dark. A soup that brightens the room just by being in it. A soup that warms you from the first swallow. A soup that is a nutrient powerhouse. This is such a soup.
The bright orange of this soup is enhanced by the flecks of deep orange calendula petals so it is as beautiful to look at as it is to eat – soulfood for your eyes. More
I have a hankering for a rich and sweetly scented hand cream that I can also slather with gay abandon over my legs and feet should I so choose. This cream is close but not quite there – hence the WIP (work in progress) in the title of this post. The combination of essential and fragrance oils I chose did not work well together (jasmine, coconut, cypress and ylang ylang) and think I can smell a hint of fishiness in the final product. For hygiene reasons I’d rather have a less viscous cream that I could pump out of a bottle rather than scoop out of a jar with my fingers (which have probably been fondling pugs or dipping into the Big D’s dinner).
Salad Sprinkles can be used to try to convince the non-vegetable lover that salads are delicious. Another use for them is to bump up the nutritional content of a salad. Now these salad sprinkles, sure they taste good and pack a decent nutritional punch but more importantly, look how damn pretty they are! More