Category Archives: Random

Morning Mists

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Back from Europe, under big skies again. A walk to the look out through the thick morning mist, a sense of space reverberating. The closeness of the natural world in the country: the turning of the leaves, a pack of wild goats startled and running, the odd kangaroo watching intently from beside the path.

sunrise through the mist

the miniature horses

The mist flattens the landscape, turning it into a Japanese painting. The world seems more like poetry at this early hour. Ethereal and mysterious. One of my favourite poems – ‘Cold Mountain’ – a hai ku of Han Shan’s by way of Jack Kerouac comes to mind.

through autumn trees

from the top of the mountain

‘Climbing up Cold Mountain path, Cold Mountain path goes on and on, long gorge choked with scree and boulders, wide creek and mist-blurred grass, moss slippery though there’s been no rain, pine sings but there’s no wind, who can leap the world’s ties and sit with me among white clouds?’

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Home Again

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Back from Istanbul and London; fresh on inspiration, creative batteries recharged. Can’t wait to get started again on the old schoolmasters house. Pulling out little bits and pieces gathered on travels. Nothing major just a few garnishes here and there…

Cushion from Folklore in London

Swan on Hamsptead Heath


In London visiting a friend in Islington, I passed a design shop window with striking Navaho style cushions. Going in the name of the shop ‘Folklore‘ seemed familiar- I realised I was following it on Pinterest! Surreal case of the real world intersecting with Internet land.

Bird cup from Lana & Curious in Shoreditch


A big movement in London for products made in England. Very noticeable at Luna & Curious; an inspired design collective shop in Shoreditch with a small barber shop attached. A British sensibility pervades their ceramics with woodland birds peaking out of cups and the “Steady as she goes” nautical collection. If I lived in London, this is the shop I would buy all my presents in. So refreshing to be among handmade and whimsical things.

Ikat cushion from Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar

Foam flower garland from Istanbul street vendor


At the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul I had to admit defeat on the first day I visited. Discombobulated by the charming but insistent vendors, the labyrinthine covered streets and the vast array of goods, I retreated into a non buying mode. Just too overwhelmed. The second time was easier. I learnt to keep my head down and move differently. When it came to bargaining – a tougher stance. Some wonderful Ikat cushions to bring home. One day I hope to return; armed with a rug buying budget and time for long negotiations and many, many cups of apple tea.

magnetised birds from a street vendor in Istanbul

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The Little House in the Woods

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inside the abandoned house in the woods

a neighbouring alpaca… or is that lama?

There’s a little abandoned house in the woods on the edge of the village that I like to visit with friends. A walk with a destination, not that far away.

going through the village

early morning mist


In the country it’s easy to step into a time warp – layers of history can get stripped back pretty fast- there’s no context of modernity to hold onto. Pushing through the creaky door to go into the shell of the old house is like stepping into a ghost version of early settler life. The old house has perfectly art directed distressed walls, layers of wallpaper and exposed bricks. If it could somehow be transported back to the city it would make a perfect backdrop for a hipster café.

the old house, outdoor toilet on left

nice spot for a latte


But the decay is really too far gone- it’s nearly beyond being salvageable. So much human energy and money would have to be poured into it. I would love to see it happen, in a sensitive way – the character and textures maintained, complimented with a spareness of furnishing; some colourful crocheted blankets, a vase of wildflowers on a simple paint stripped table. It may happen some time in the future. Or it may just stay here, a little vessel of the past floating in the woods on the outskirts of town.

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Evening walk through the village

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Walking down the deserted main street one evening with a friend visiting for the first time, ‘In Dreams’ by Roy Orbison comes floating out from the pub… the line between past and present in this village can blur at times like this…

road through the village

gum trees on the outskirts


You’d never know that this had been such a big town; there’s a lot of space between the old miners’ cottages now. The pubs, oyster bars and opium dens have fallen down, been burnt, abandoned. But in a way this allows the town to breath- it’s not all bunched up tight like other country towns. Plenty of grassy spaces for the kangaroos to graze on.

the General Store


There’s always some tourists around, but it doesn’t seem like a ‘ tourist town’. Not everything is signposted – there are still some things you can discover for yourself.

the letterpress/cafe

interior of one of the historic cottages


There is information about; little plaques next to historic mounds of bricks and holes in the ground. And signs with reproductions of paintings of famous Australian artists who came to the village in the 40s and 50s. You can look from the representation to the reality, filtered through the artist’s eye.

Nuns Picnic by Jeffrey Smart

the church from the painting


Opposite the pub is a rusting German machine gun- a reminder of Australia’s very high casualty rate in the first World War. You see these memorials in so many country towns. Reading the list of names of the men who died from the village, there’s sometimes 2 or 3 with the same surname, brothers, listed as among the ‘fallen’. Often killed by the same type of German machine gun, dead before they hit the ground, described by their companions as seeming to fall.

the captured WW1 German machine gun

sweet scented lavender outside of one of the cottages


Heading back to the old schoolmasters house, night coming on quickly – the sudden thump of the kangaroos by the side of the path bringing you straight back to the here and now – & into the magic night!

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House of Baby Wombats

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It comes so easily to say being in the country it is about ‘getting away from it all’. But after a week cut off from the Internet, I found I missed being in touch with the world & friends in far off places. I do like getting away from the distractions of the city – but it’s better with connectivity and a good coffee machine!

This week also bought one of the most magical country experiences, a visit to a house full of rescued wildlife. I’d heard about it from the local motel owner who, amazingly, had performed an emergency caesarian on a dead wombat. He cut open the stomach of the mother and there neatly inside, compact, was the baby. He pulled it out gently and took to the couple down the road, who look after motherless and injured animals with a little help from WIRES (Australian Wildlife Rescue Organisation).

grass attached to the pouch, so that she has something to nibble on


Entering their home, past some excited dogs and a collection of beautifully carved didgeridoos,out into the front room. There she was, Jess, a delicate little kangaroo in a make shift pouch, not yet 12 months old.

bought out of his trunk…

… the littlest wombat


Then the little wombat of the emergency caesarian was bought out of his box in his blanket. Later, like a magic trick, another wombat emerged from a trunk – I asked if there were small wildlife in all the containers in the room…

The second littlest wombat


Then outside to the corrugated tin enclosure of three older wombats, teenagers. These were rambunctious fellows- two came barreling over and tried to eat my sneakers, the third hung back, hissing, not in a mean way, more like he wanted to join in the fun but had to make his point. Apparently wombats are know as the “Bulldozers of the Bush”. They have a hard plate on their backside and like having it scratched. The effect is instantaneous – the wombat collapsing down on the floor, all limbs splayed, immobile and blissed out.

The hissy wombat

even more wombats were hiding somewhere in here


When wombats get older and are ready to go into the bush, the carers have to treat them aggressively to make them want to leave and be with other wombats not humans. Like the story of Mowgli, they have to depart the world they have come to know, with difficulty, to go off with their own kind.

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Bush Poetry & Sunlit Plains

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A winter’s afternoon, curling up with the latest kinfolk magazine, a poetry book and some homemade Bus Drivers Biscuits. Recently I’ve felt an interest in the Australian bush poets: wanted to know more about them- how they saw the country, how they lived. Nothing much seemed to penetrate from Australian history at school; I didn’t even know that Banjo Paterson wrote Waltzing Matilda.

On the drive to the old schoolmasters house, coming through the Blue Mountains and looking down over the valley- some lines of Banjo Paterson’s “Clancy of the Overflow” come to mind-
“And he sees a vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended”

Banjo Paterson, when he was a Boer war correspondent

road heading to the old schoolmasters house

I rediscoverd Banjo Paterson on a five day group horse trek in Kosciusko National park a couple of years ago. The first day, tired & low in spirit I started to feel dizzy and faint as we ascended through stony paths and grim eucalypts. All I wanted was an energy drink – it felt like a basic right. In the city you are never more than a few moments away from one, but on this ride there wasn’t even water. A nurse in the group gave me a lollypop and the sugar in that was enough to get me to the camp. I woke up late that night in my little tent, listening to strange thumping sounds & wished desperately that I was back at home. But I stuck it out & things got better.

A few days later we were riding on high alpine plain when suddenly some wild horses, brumbies, appeared. It was thrilling to see them. Later that night round the campfire, an old stockman, a member of our random group, sang “The Red Back on the Toilet Seat”. And then the gruff mountain woman leading the group surprised us all by reciting Banjo Paterson’s “The Man from Snowy River”. It had been written about the same area we were camping in – we’d been riding through the poem. “Through the stringybarks and saplings on the rough and broken ground”. We were listening to her round a campfire
“where the air is clear as crystal and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky”

You can tell Banjo Peterson was a man who had galloped on a horse – his words hit hard and rhythmically like hooves striking the ground.
“There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away”

So now I’ve gone back to “Clancy of the Overflow” – using Banjo Paterson’s eyes to see the landscape on my drive through the country to the old schoolmaster’s house. Here are just the first couple of verses…


I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago;
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just “on spec”, addressed as follows:”Clancy, of the Overflow”.

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumbnail dipped in tar);
‘Twas his shearing mate who wrote it and verbatim I will quote it:
“Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving, and we don’t know where he are.”

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Sunday lunch in the country

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Whenever I ask friends to the country, I always warn them there is ‘nothing to do there’. Every single time the response has been “Great!”


But there are things to do there – cooking, walking, sitting in front of the fire, kangaroo watching from the kitchen window. I could better say there is no stimulation/excess distraction there.
The day passes slowly. Meals become more important. Planning them; the hour long trip into town to buy ingredients. An organizational skill that has to be relearnt after living 2 minutes from shops in the city.

But there is more pleasure to be had cooking in the country. It’s something to take time with, to enjoy. The unexpected delight of adding fruit or vegetables grown in the village. Poaching quinces from the tree spilling over a cottage fence. Making a crumble from a neighbour’s freshly picked rhubarb- so sweeter and more subtle than produce from a supermarket.


Easter Sunday lunch- the first in the new sunroom. The weather is clear and beautiful, there are no flies about today. On the menu, Charmaine Solomon’s rendang daging, tamar salat, and cucumber riata. The deliciousness of the afternoon, some peanut butter and jam biscuits- baked at the last minute, assembled from ingredients found in the cupboards. Due to lack of peanuts- 3 bars of peanut brittle subsituted instead- the toffee definitely gave it an edge!

the little girls played in the garden

peanut and strawberry drops cooling on the windowsill

Peanut brittle & strawberry drops
adapted from The Age “Baking”

Ingredients
125g butter softened
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
3/4 cup peanut butter,
90g peanut brittle
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
about 1/4 cup strawberry jam

Method
Preheat oven to 170 C. Line a couple of baking trays
Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and beat in egg, mixing well. Stir in peanut butter and crushed peanut brittle, then sifted flour and baking soda, blending to a smooth dough.
Roll mixture into balls about the size of golf balls and place on the baking trays. Use floured hands if dough is sticky. Make an indent in the centre of each ball with your thumb.
Bake for 12 minutes then remove from oven and rill each indent with a generous dob of jam. Return to oven and cook for another 5 minutes or so until golden. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

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The beginning

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early morning light over the back fence.

One time, when I lived in a windswept salt drenched Bondi flat, I bought some cheap flower punnets to liven up the weed filled dirt patch out the front. Despite my ignorance, some small flowers grew & I realized how much I enjoyed messing around in the dirt. I started to want to know more about gardening & found a book by the British film director Derek Jarman. In the 80s he had bought a black tarred fisherman’s cottage on a bleak stretch of coastline in Dungeness, Kent. He started planting in a random way- sea kale, dog roses in between structures of salvaged driftwood and twisted pieces of metal. Slowly, his garden became a poem, a living sculpture- a valiant attempt at beauty in defiance of the nuclear power plant on the horizon & the ravages of his illness. His book inspired me to a different way of thinking. Gardening had seemed a mysterious complex process that involved knowing a lot about soil – now it held the potential for creativity.

Derek Jarman's garden

Photos by Howard Sooley

Many years later I stand outside a house on a neglected one acre block deep in the Australian countryside- the old school masters residence in a 19th century gold rush town… it’s for sale . The owner, an artist & stonecarver, is keen to sell & the price is low. Propelled by some strange instinct -I scrape together my savings, and take the plunge.

on the far side of the world. my closest neighbours. sometimes up to 40 of them over the back fence.

A city girl in a remote country town- like being on a ship at sea, sailing high up in the Australian bush. The town, once cosmopolitan, with pubs, businesses, an oyster bar & an opium den, feels enigmatic, out of time. Appearing at the end of the road through an avenue of trees, like Brigadoon. But what it does have is that rare thing- authenticity. No tourist prettification, no advertising signs. Barely 200 residents, many of them artists. The house itself run down, kind of unloved, sitting primly upright on a large bare block . Not romantic like the other miners shacks that seem as though they have grown out of the landscape. A solid double brick home ordered up by the education board and dropped in a country town a hundred years ago. The house is a blank canvas- a challenge. Like Jarman did, so far away & so long ago, I want to create my own world of beauty and simplicity.

This is the chronicle of the transformation of the old schoolmaster’s house & a rediscovery of the Australian countryside.

the main street - like an abandoned movie set, a western. the road into town.

the old schoolmaster's house, photo from over a year ago - much has changed.

following a bush trail

among the weeds and piles of stone were some beautiful heritage roses.

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