October Miscellaney

September and October were busy, busy months as my post on Solo Lentil Soup alluded to. On having a wee think about October I realise:-

1. October opened and we were in Ireland. Prior to that I had been away for a conference on the weekend. Law conferences are mean.

Dandelion Clock from Mean Law Conference, Oxford.

2. We came back (from Ireland) and started a language course – my first formal learning environment since finishing my law degree. Studying again is disconcerting and makes me rather nervous.

Raindrops on Crocosima, Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, Oct 2009.

3. We went to London for a weekend and a couple of weekends later, I went to London again. Although I have traipsed to London on quite a few occassions while living here, I very rarely take photographs. This time, I tried a bit harder to take photographs but even still, we did not have many. Partially, it seems as if everything is over photographed. Partially, the crowds bother me and I just want to escape them. And now, there is the added annoyance of wondering whether I am taking a photograph of something that I am not allowed to photograph because I might use that photograph for my terrorist plots.

Japanese Windflower. The photos are tangentially related to the immediately preceding paragraph. Except for this one. I just like this one. (And I have not sorted my London photos yet.)

4. On our first free weekend in about 2 months, we filled it to the brim with cycling. As we had house guests, we had not been for long rides; so we went for a long ride. Except that the long ride ended up being stop-start-abortive because I got two punctures (or one puncture not fixed correctly the first time).

The first puncture we fixed at a roundabout junction of two A-roads, with many passing cars, motorbikes and pedestrians. That sure was fun.

The second puncture we did not bother fixing, but instead changed the inner tube. Thankfully, the second puncture occured on the bike path, so we were surrounded by trees and it was blissfully peaceful. The only sounds were my grunts of annoyance as I struggled to (1) remove back wheel; (2) remove tyre; (3) replace inner tube; (4) replace tyre; (5) re-affix back wheel.

Naturally, the next day we had to go for another ride (plus the weather was glorious – my favourite crisp cold blue skies). We went for a less long ride but together, both rides made for a lot of riding plus one lovely long lazy Sunday lunch at a fabulous pub in the English countryside.

Gentian or Campion? I always mix those two up. I think it's a campion. The Burren, Ireland, October 2009.

5. Our next free weekend we ruined by staying up way too late at a friend’s place, nattering, playing computer games, watching silly Youtube videos (you know that party game, Have you seen, “Charlie bit me?” No? It’s on Youtube, you must see it. And so it goes.) On Saturday, we woke rather late.  Sunday was miserable weather. I spent the weekend crafting, cleaning my bike chain and, surprisingly, whooping my partner’s ass in Carcassone. Yay me!

Carcassone is a board game, in which you place tiles that have roads and city parts on them. You have a set of characters – known as Meeples – which you place on the tile to claim it; once placed the Meeple can become a Knight (city piece); thief (road piece) or Farmer (land piece). The aim is to gain points by building cities, roads and farms. Cities and roads are scored as they are completed and farms are scored when all tiles have been placed.

I don’t really have a strategy for Carcassone and what “strategy” I do have would not be called a strategy as such by more serious players. Usually, I try to place my Big Meeple (what my partner and I call a Beeple but I don’t think that’s orthodox) as a farmer as soon as possible because his continued presence in my ranks of Meeples stresses me out. Mostly, I play with an eye to aesthetics and how the land is developing. Sometimes I decide, “This game, I’m going to make lots of cities.” Often, I play and develop the land physically closest to me. I try to resist these tendencies but I’m not very good at it.

I never was very good at chess; I could not help wanting to save all my pieces. Losing even a single pawn would get me quite upset. As a war leader, I would more likely retreat or negotiate a peace settlement than make a, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead,”* type speech. My chess strategy involved dodging around evading capture until I did something stupid like expose my king to check and, sometimes, to checkmate. Conversely, when I used to play Lemmings (the computer game) I would rescue just the percentage I needed to get past that level and then blow all the rest up because their posture with the bomb above their heads and increasing panic as the numbers counted down made me giggle. Every. Single. Time.

Dear Partner, if you read the two preceding paragraphs, please erase all memory of it. In truth, I have excellent game strategies with multifarious strands and clearly developed endgame manouvers, which you will never learn. Never.

And, as of this weekend, we are off to France to cycle in that alleged cycle-touring mecca. In November. (We like cold weather.)

* Henry, from Shakespeare’s Henry V.

Did a lemming go down there? Me at the Cliffs of Moher, Ireland, October 2009.

House Martins

I don’t think I remembered to show you this picutre.

Papa feeding his babies: House Martins, Corniglia, Italy, June 2009

They were terribly noisy.  In a narrow laneway, this neat nest filled with ravenous baby birds caught my attention.  I stood in the doorway opposite and watched.  I was no more than a body length away.

No one else paid them any mind until they saw me craning my neck and fiddling with my camera, taking shot after shot.  Unhappy, I switched cameras trying to get it right.  Eventually, I handed the Fuji to my partner, who wanted to have a look at the scenery or something ridiculous like that, while I stayed there and watched Papa’s amazingly accurate flight from nest to foraging ground and back to nest.  Papa left and returned at least 15 times while I stood and watched.  Equally, the faces around me changed at least 10 times.  People came and stood next to me.  A few would, “Ooh!” and some would, “Aah!”; most took a snap and wandered off.  I wanted to grab onto some of those people and say, “Just stay a bit.  You should see the way he flies.  And oh, the way that front one pokes its head out when Papa’s gone and checks us out.”  But they were off to the next thing.

I had to be dragged away, stumbling along the cobblestones and looking over my shoulder .

Bonny

I cycle to and from work through The Common – a large expanse of park, not privately owned (hence its name), and used by joggers, cyclists, walkers, families and animals.  Apparently, deer even reside somewhere in its depths, but I have not spied any.  Although I am reasonably alert for most of my cycle ride, I am actually more alert cycling through The Common, than I am cycling along the road.  This is because cars behave mostly predictably (I can often tell when a car is going to turn out in front of me, turn across my path or just plain hasn’t noticed me) but joggers, walkers, dogs and kids do not.  Dogs and kids are particularly unpredictable; their perpetual wonderment and joy results in sudden stops, turns and changes in direction.  As a cyclist, one just has to keep a wary eye out.

One day last week, I entered The Common’s main path and pedalled merrily along, looking forward to being home and having dinner.  I passed two walkers, giving them a wide berth and not bothering to ding my bell.  I saw a young man walking a dog on a lead.  Ahead, a light brown dog ran madly alongside the path.  I watched her come towards me.  She was near the trees so not in my path, but I looked around to see if I could see her owner.  It is quite easy to tell who owns which dog, especially as the dog nears me.  Some owners bristle and glare at me suspiciously; others get nervous and try to control their dogs, while looking at me apologetically; many keep an eye on me as I keep an eye on their dog.  I saw no one to whom this brown dog could belong but it barrelled happily past me and I cycled on.

About three-quarters of the way along, I passed a young woman jogging.  Her breathing was ragged and irregular and I thought, “Well, good for you getting out and  running but perhaps you should walk a bit if it’s that difficult?”  I then heard her call out, “Mum! Wait!” and saw a woman up ahead turn and bring her arms up in a, “I don’t know” gesture, turn again and walk on, away from her daughter who wanted her to wait.  Naturally, I started making up stories about what was going on.  It was barely a minute later when I caught up with the mother.  She was walking in the middle of the path and looking left and right.  As I pulled level with her, she cupped her hands to her mouth and called out, “Bonny! Bonny!”  Her voice was hoarse.  I cycled on but continued to hear both her and her daughter calling out, “Bonny! Bonny!”; their voices getting more desperate on each cry.

Wondering if they might be looking for the brown dog I saw down the other end of The Common, I wheeled my bike around and said to the mother, “Are you looking for a dog?”

“Yes! A golden labrador! Have you seen her?”

“Um, I’m not so great with dog types but maybe.  Except, she was down the other end of The Common, not up here.  Could you have lost her down there?”

“We don’t know when we lost her!”  The woman’s daughter caught up with her mother and the woman turned to her daughter, saying, “This lady says she saw Bonny down the other end of The Common.”

“Well, I’m not sure it’s definitely Bonny, I just saw – “

“But mum! You told me to run up this way!”   The daughter looked worn out.  She turned to go back the way she came, though hesitantly.

“I’m not positive I saw Bonny.  Just a brown dog that looked like it was on its own.”  They both looked at me apprehensively, trying to decide whether to keep searching where they were or to head back down the path.  “I can cyle down there and see if she’s still there for you.  Bonny, did you say her name was? Will she come if I call?”

“Oh, definitely,” offered the mother, “Would you? You don’t mind?”

“She’s got a dog-collar with her name.  And she’s a good dog, she’ll come,” the daughter said at the same time, “And you really don’t mind?” but I was off and cycling back down the path so I threw back a very Australian, “Yeah, no worries.”

It took me only a few minutes to get back to the beginning of the path and there was the brown dog I’d seen.  She was standing on the edge of the road, watching the traffic and deciding when to cross (I surmised).  “Bonny?” I called.  The dog turned to look at me but looked back to the cars, uninterested.  “Bonny! Come here!” I tried a more assertive tone.  The dog looked at me again and then trotted towards me.  She stopped short about a metre away and cocked her head to one side.  “Come on Bonny! Let’s go back to – um your people.”  I got off my bike to try to look at the dog’s collar, but as I did so, she  backed away from me.  I don’t trust dogs and I’m not good with them, so I re-mounted my bike and tried, “Bonny! Follow me! Come one!” I pedalled slowly away, looking back towards the dog.  She would follow me for a bit and then stop, look at me and then look back the way she had been going.

In this way, we advanced back up the path.  I was a little worried that she was not Bonny and I was coaxing someone else’s dog away from them.  Worse, I became one of those unpredictable people on the path – I was cycling slowly and veering off to one side every time I turned around to check that ‘Bonny’ was still following.  And I was cycling on the right hand side of the path, and not the left.

It felt like ages but was probably no more than 5 minutes, when I met up with the woman and her daughter.  I barely said, “Is this Bonny?” before both were down on their knees rubbing her back and hugging her.  “Oh good. I was worried I was stealing someone else’s dog!”

“Oh thank you!” both said and, “You’re lucky this lady likes dogs!” the mother said to Bonny, to which I smiled an unseen half smile because it was not exactly true.

“Glad she’s back with you.” I went to cycle off and both mother and daughter started to thank me, “So kind – We don’t know what we  -” etc.

“No worries. Take care,” and I pedalled away, with the happy noise of reunion behind me.

I don’t even remember what mother and daughter looked like, because it was dusk and I did not really look.  I might remember Bonny, though, if I see her again.  All the way home, I sung to myself:

My Bonnie lies over the ocean

My Bonnie lies over the sea

My Bonnie lies over the ocean

Oh bring back my Bonnie to me

Bring back my Bonnie to me

Bring back, bring back

Bring back my Bonnie to me, to me

Bring back, bring back

Eating Solo

September has been a weird, and busy, month. My house would go from full of people all trying to share the same space at the same time – my partner’s parents have been a-visiting – to just me all on my lonesome – September is the month of conferences, so my partner had a few and disappeared during the week, and I had one and disappeared on a weekend.

I don’t mind being on my own. Actually (don’t tell anyone), I rather like it. And sometimes, I desperately need to be on my own because I am either not fit for company or won’t be, if I’m not allowed to be somewhere by myself for a while. Sometimes people laugh when I tell them I’m an introvert, because I am confident, sociable, talkative and loud. It’s true, however. Interacting with people drains me. I like it, and I’m good at it, but it still enervates me.

I have a family full of extroverts, so I do not know how I turned out this way. No where in my childhood home was private space. It was very unusual, until most of us hit our teens, for the toilet door to be shut. I made my own space by being outside, usually up a tree. I think this is where my love of the outdoors stems from, and why I prefer it empty. That’s MY outside, not yours. (Although we can share if you’re real quiet-like.)

What I don’t like doing on my own is eating. Surprising to me, I have ended up in a long-term relationship that doesn’t really look like winding down. I always just expected I would spend most of my life alone and yet, here I am, eating most of my meals with another person and looking like I will keep on doing that for a long while.

Occassionally, he goes away and I am left at home to fend for myself. I start with grand intentions of cooking and end by having slap-dash meals not quite worthy of the title. I am so bad at eating on my own that I don’t even make a sandwich for dinner: I just eat the individual ingredients directly out of the ‘fridge (except the bread, of course, which I frequently toast – ta da! hot meal).

I promised myself to be better this September, when my partner and I passed each other, like ships in the night, going to and from our respective conferences; we saw each other only one evening out of an entire fortnight and I got to joke (oh I am so witty), “Who are you? What are you doing in my house?” to which he replied, “Who are YOU? What are you doing in MY house?”  The fun times we have.

My first week alone, my dinner menu was:-
1. Ate out
2. Lentil soup;
3. Lentil soup;
4. Sausages with lentils (the very last of the lentil soup).

My second week alone, my dinner menu was a bit more varied:
1. Rice, with stir-fried vegies;
2. Fried rice with kim chi;
3. Leftover fried rice with kim chi and a fried egg;
4. Ate out.

So, I did alright.

Here’s my lentil soup:

Eating Solo Lentil Soup

The recipe is inspired by Heidi of 101 Cookbooks’ Lively Up Yourself Lentil Soup, which my partner made one day and, with variations, is a regular in our eclectic repertoire.  It can be made in huge quantities and keeps for, like, ever.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Garlic (a few cloves, roughly minced)
• Onion (small, diced finely)
• Potatoes (two small or one large, diced finely)
• Lentils (a cup of; any green is good; puy is best)
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes (400gms)
• Sun dried tomatoes (4 or 5, finely diced)
• Greens (2 big handfuls once chopped; any will do: kale is great; spinach and cabbage are good; zucchini/courgette/broccoli will do just fine in a pinch)
• Seasoning: salt and pepper; good powdered vegetable stock (I have Gallo Organic and Marigold Bouillion); mixed herbs (I alternate between a mix of oregano and basil and a blend of ’spaghetti’ seasoning that we picked up from Italy)
• Water (quite a few cups)
• A nice big saucepan / stockpot.

What to do:

• On medium high heat and in a small amount of olive oil, fry the garlic and onion for a few minutes until onion is translucent.  You can do both together or add the garlic after a minute or two, depending on how finely you have minced your garlic (if fine, add garlic later; if pretty rough, add it the same time as onion).
• Toss in your finely diced potatoes and a teaspoon of powdered vegetable stock, some cracked pepper and a teaspoon of herbs.
• Give everything a good stir until the powdered stock covers the potatoes.
• Toss in the lentils and stir.
• Toss in the sun dried tomatoes and stir.
• Don’t worry if things get stuck to the bottom.
• Empty the tin of chopped tomatoes into your mixture and another two cans full of water.
• Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and let it simmer for about 20 minutes to half an hour.  The time will depend on the type of lentils you have used (puy cook faster) and how finely you have diced your potato (the finer, the faster).
• When the potatoes and lentils are soft-ish (I like my lentils a little al dente, but you can cook your soup however you like your lentils.  If you like them real soft, you might want to pre-soak but I have never, ever pre-soaked lentils because I’m just not that organised), add your greens until they’re cooked.
• Greens are usually cooked when they turn a bright deep green.  Obviously, this time will vary depending on the types of greens you’re adding.  I find spinach is pretty speedy (a minute); cabbage is quite slow (5 – 10 minutes depending on the type of cabbage); and kale halfway between the two although I do add the stems first and the leaves a few minutes later but about 5 minutes usually does it.
• Add more seasoning if needed.
• Serve as soon as the greens are cooked.
• Make sure there is heaps of leftovers.

To eat the leftovers, re-heat.  I like to add more fresh greens when I re-heat this soup (usually because in my first eating I have eaten all the greens …).  If adding more liquid, also add a little tomato paste.

On its third outing, there was barely any liquid left so I decided to make my sausages with lentils, using the remainder of the lentil soup.  I fried some pork sausages, until they were nicely brown (and in some places, black), then poured the remainder of the soup onto the sausages and set the mixture to boiling before turning the heat down to a simmer.  Dinner was ready when what little of the liquid that was left had evaporated.  Then I ate it with toast.

It’s important to have toast at least once if you’re eating on your own for a week.

Love you, Brisbane

The Business End of Brisbane City, from Kangaroo Point Cliffs. November 2007.

This time last year, my head space was thinking about my return, on holiday, home to my and my partner’s families in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The trip was scheduled around my best friend’s wedding, so the timing was not what I would have chosen. It also felt that it had not been so long ago that I had just been home.

Two years ago, around about this time, I was probably organising myself for the trip home in December, when we had to return home because our return tickets expired. Again, it was not timing I would have chosen and it felt as if we had only just left.

This year, we are not returning home for a visit. For this reason, it seems that I have been longer away, though I have not. I am hoping that my next visit home will be on my own terms and not dictated by someone else’s plans or the vagaries of an expiry date on an “open” ticket.

So, I am feeling all nostalgic.  I miss Brisbane. I miss my family. I miss my friends.

Sunset over the Captain Cook Bridge and Brisbane River. November 2007.

There’s a dust storm happening in Australia at the moment.  Its greatest effect is on Sydney but it’s also bothering my home town.  I loved the way the dust would blow in from the desert and Brisbane’s pretty darn cool sunsets would get that much more dramatic.

The Brisbane Wheel! December 2008.

I was a bit taken aback to see The Eye in Brisbane.  Brisbane calls it the Wheel and it’s much cheaper than the London Eye and there’s no silly British Airways announcement pretending one is going on a flight when one is just riding a glorified ferris wheel.  I decided to tourist it up when I was in Brisbane last year and with a friend, who came down all the way from Bundy just to hang with lil’ me, rode the wheel as the sun set, exclaiming at things we had been familiar with during our university days together.  There was not that much to see, however, and the view from Mt Cootha is better.

City Cat and William Jolly Bridge, from a City Cat. December 2008.

Oh dear.  I just noticed that the river horizon is a bit crooked.  It’s just a talent, you know?

I was so happy to ride a CityCat to visit friends who were at the university.  As I alighted from the CityCat and walked up to meet my friends in the Great Court, I passed a whole bunch of new graduands, many struggling with their gowns.  I used to work for the Uni during graduation ceremonies.  One particular individual was struggling so much with her Masters’ gear, to the bemusement of her proud parents, that I intervened, righting her hood, fixing her hat and generally helping her to wear the anachronistic gown proudly.  Someone saw me helping and asked if I would help them, too.  Then, someone else asked me for directions.  So I gave them, surprising myself that I still remembered the path so clearly.  I guess I did spend 8 years of my life there.

Brisbane is a real place but My Brisbane is a place that resides only in my memory.  Even when I was there last year, it had changed enough that it was not mine anymore.  I did not belong to it (although I suspect if we moved back there I would belong again pretty quickly).  I don’t really belong here either; at least, I don’t feel any affinity for here.