o frabjous day!

o frabjous day! books, recipes & other things

  • Flowing water

    It has been raining heavily on and off for the past two days, and poured overnight. The lower dam has flooded its banks again, spreading into a small lake in the backyard, and all day a steady stream of water has been rushing down the driveway and the gutters towards it. Our house is down…

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  • Thoughts on horses

    From: Alex To: Celia; Alice P.S I drove through THE VILLAGE [being where I live] yesterday. From: Celia To: Alex; Alice I know. I followed you. Well, at least I saw your facebook status indicating you were up the mountain and presumed you went through THE VILLAGE as you put it. I can’t believe you…

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  • Incubation

    One of the chooks has gone broody. On the weekend she was determinedly sitting on the eggs she and her fellow denizons of Chickendome had laid that morning, and stayed there rather than adventuring out in the garden with the others when I opened the door to the pen. A fairly pointless endeavour, given that…

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  • First day

    We came back from five days visiting family in Melbourne and spent some time together in the garden over the past few days – mowing, pulling out fallen fences and ripping up lantana. This year will bring so many changes for us and I think we both feel the impetus to organise and arrange the…

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  • Alphabetical

    There seems to be a basic instinct in all young children who visit our house to make high pitched screeching noises and run after the cats, who roll their eyes and belt in the opposite direction. Ella was a bit shy when she came to visit us last weekend in our unfamiliar house, but that…

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  • Strawberry Cake

    Strawberries are cheap and plentiful at the moment, and I loved the look of the Strawberry Summer Cake on Smitten Kitchen, with the juicy caramelised strawberries on top dribbling through the cake. I actually used a sugar substitute that my sister-in-law had given me (decanted into a container, so I have no idea what it…

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  • Brains

    While my brother and I live in (roughly) the same city – well, he lives within it, and I live 50ks away – we don’t spend a lot of time together, so it was nice to spend some time hanging out with him on the weekend. I asked for a coffee, which he didn’t have,…

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  • Night life

    The bootcamp instructor I spend my time with on Saturday mornings persists in jogging lightly along beside me while denigrating my running style. Probably with good reason. “Keep plodding along!” she shouts at me cheerily, while I gasp for air, and try and communicate with my eyes that I am not plodding, I am gliding,…

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  • The game

    We watched a bit of rugby while we were in New Zealand, mostly because there always seemed to be a provincial match on TV whenever we turned it on. And I found myself becoming interested in it, despite a lifelong indifference to similar sports. I think it was nationwide enthusiasm for the game, and the…

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  • Counting in

    Since early this year, I’ve been organising a group of people who get together to play ukuleles once a month. Until a few weeks ago, we were meeting in our lounge room – I would drag all our dining room chairs into a rough circle and we crowded in between the bookcases, strumming away. But…

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