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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 we moved recently to a community centre, which gives us more space. It also makes the whole enterprise seem more formal, which I’m finding a bit of a challenge. Figuring out get the attention of a group of people and count them into a song, wondering if the song choice is right, if the tempo is right, wondering if we should go over the chord changes more… I rarely have enough confidence in my own decisions to say definitively, “Right, this is what we’re doing – 2, 3, 4, go.” Partly, it’s lack of experience in leading any sort of musical group, and partly it’s my usual concern that people won’t like what I’m doing.

    Charlotte at Great Fitness Experiment wrote about the strange nature of the desire for everyone you meet to like you. And it is a ludicrous idea, really. I don’t like a lot of people I meet, and occasionally I would describe myself as a bit misanthropic, but I still want people to like me and approve of my decisions (even the ones about how to count in a song). I always find it a bit hard to believe people who claim that they really don’t care what other people think of them. Surely no-one gets through their day without a healthy dash of paranoid speculation about the inner thoughts of their fellow citizens.

    I think improving at leading in songs is more to do with deciding that your timing is the right timing (and your songs are the right songs), and sweeping everyone along with you. No dissension allowed. Speaking practically, the minute you ask for opinions from 10 or so people, you lose 5 minutes while the merits of those various opinions are debated. A benevolent dictatorship is probably more productive. (As long as it stays relatively benevolent, I suppose).

  • In past months…

    Been reading:

    – Across the Universe by Beth Revis is a YA generation ship story, the first in a series – I thought it explored a lot of interesting ideas, although I felt it suffered a bit from ‘stupid character’ syndrome (ie. the main characters taking ages to figure out something that the reader has realised long ago). I picked it up because I read great reviews of it on Tansy Rayner-Robert’s and Random Alex’s blogs.

    – Eon by Alison Goodman, is a wonderful high fantasy with a girl-disguised-as-boy protagonist (Eon), and a lot of very high political stakes. Eon can also be a bit dense at times as to what is going on around her – perhaps this is just an ‘adult reading YA’ problem.

    – Deadline by Mira Grant is the follow up to Feed which I bought and devoured as soon as it was published. I really enjoyed it, but it had its problems – repetitive, a narrator whom I found frustrating, and a few plot twists which left me undecided as to how I felt about them. Despite that, I’m really looking forward to the third book and seeing how Grant wraps up the series.

    – Solitaire is Kelley Eskridge’s only published novel, and it’s a fantastic piece of science fiction. I only wish she had written another novel – maybe I’ll have to find some of her short stories.

    – I have loved all of Tana French’s novels – while they sometimes push your ability to suspend your sense of disbelief, French’s writing and plotting is just so enjoyable. Faithful Place was no exception to the trend – a really wonderful mystery novel.

    And watching:

    – I binge watched the first season of Game of Thrones, which I loved – I have never read the books and I don’t think I will. The TV series seems to condense them very nicely (and then I won’t have the trauma of starting to read an unfinished series).

    – The fourth season of True Blood is its usual very enjoyable mess of too many plot threads (and vastly improves upon its source material, I think – we don’t have to listen to Sookie’s interminably dull inner monologue about her morning routine, which is what most of Charlaine Harris’ books spend a lot of time going over).

    – Torchwood: Miracle Day is a full season of Torchwood being shot in the US with Gwen (and family), Captain Jack and a whole lot of new American characters. It is suitably thrilling and disturbing, and I’m enjoying it enormously. In the first episode, there’s a scene where Gwen slips a pair of pink earmuffs on her baby daughter before sprinting down a corrider, holding the baby with one arm and shooting at a helicopter with the other. I love Gwen.

  • Breaking glass

    A year or two ago, my camera was dropped off the bonnet of a car onto a concrete slab. I won’t say who was responsible for that (it wasn’t me). Astonishingly, nothing appeared to be terribly wrong with the camera. It had its 18-70mm kit lens on, along with a uv filter, and while the lens was a little dented (which prevented me from ever removing the uv filter), it still seemed to function without any problems.

    Fast forward to our New Zealand trip, where on our first morning my padded camera bag slipped off my shoulder and dropped to the ground as I was bending down. I picked it up again and didn’t think much of it, because the bag’s padded, and it’s slipped off my shoulder a couple of times before. However (of course, there’s going to be an ominous ‘however’ following up that anecdote), as we walked down to the sea I pulled the camera out of the bag, and clicked together the little opening mechanism on the lens cap to be greeted by a terrible crunching noise. I looked up at the husband with what he described as a blank, frozen expression as I continued to pull the lens cap off to reveal shattered glass underneath.

    I stuttered something articulate like, “Oh. my. god. That’s my only landscape lens. We are in New Zealand. Landscapes. New Zealand. Lens. Argh.” The husband took a look, and pointed out that it was only the uv lens that had actually shattered – presumably due to a flaw in the glass from the first time it was dropped. We couldn’t remove the filter, due to the dented end of the lens, so we went over to a bin and smashed out the remaining glass from the filter with our car keys.

    The camera still seemed to function perfectly, and the lens continued to take photos that I couldn’t see any flaws in. I took approximately 18 million landscape photos. We realised later when we were in Queenstown that there are actually two tiny star-like cracks in the lens itself, but for some reason they’re not visible to my eye in the photos we take, not even against a clear blue sky. The husband took a photo of me down by the lake. “This can be a record of when you realised your lens was cracked.”

    As a result of this little incident, I have stepped up my project to upgrade some of my camera equipment. Well, calling it a project is a bit of a misnomer – it simply involves navigating to an appropriate website and spending rather a lot of money. “Project” indeed. And the “stepping up” has amounted to sending the husband an email helpfully pointing out that I am turning 30 this year (in case he had forgotten), which he must agree is a lovely round number, certainly worth of celebration and the lavishing of gifts upon said 30 year old. I included a list of items and approximate prices. This has not resulted in any positive indications thus far, but the seed is planted. I’m sure it will flourish into a lovely tree, bearing bushels of Nikon fruit.

  • Moments

    Some of my favourite moments from our recent trip to NZ’s South Island:

    1. Queenstown would not be my usual favourite holiday spot – it’s so touristy, and my preferred kind of travel is out of tourist season. Hanging out with crowds of other tourists is not my idea of a good time. But Queenstown makes up for its touristy feel by being jaw droppingly gorgeous – I loved picking our way along the snow covered ground along the shore of the lake at the end of the day, and sitting in our apartment drinking a glass of cheap red, watching the changing light over the lake and surrounding mountains.

    2. The inland lakes, like Lake Tekapo, which are such a vivid turquoise blue that they don’t look real – particularly after it snowed, the lake glowed against the surrounding whiteness. We went snow tubing when we were there, hurling ourselves down a hill in inflatable tubes while looking out on the spectacular vista of the lake.

    3. Tuatara are the only living members of the order Sphenodonti and have a variety of sci-fi-esque features like a photo receptive “third eye” on top of their head. And they probably live for hundreds of years. Seeing them moving around at the bird park (very very slowly, as befits such a long lived creature) was pretty incredible.

    4. I wanted to stop every 5 steps or so as we walked around the Kaikoura Peninsula and take a photograph of the slightly different angle of the views we saw in every direction. Looking down to the ocean, we could see a small seal colony basking in the sun at the foot of the cliffs – looking behind us, we saw snow capped mountains across the horizon, past a green field of grazing cattle, and stepped hills that were once the site of fortified pa. No other people in sight, and we sat for a while on the clifftop watching a seal swimming and listening to the sound of the waves.

  • In zid

    Things I’m loving about New Zealand:

    – the amount of farmland, and the sheer number of sheep I have seen grazing in fields, in the snow, and on seemingly sheer mountainsides. I love sheep. I am going to move here and run a sheep farm. With other people doing all the hard work – I’ll do the fun stuff, like moving stock (well, it looks like fun).

    – “Sweet as”
    – seeing an ad for a type of sheep dip while watching rugby on tv
    – SEALS

    – being able to chuck some wine and a six pack of beer in your trolley at the supermarket
    – the fact that it’s not a trolley, it’s a trundler
    – that the sort of weather that results in road closures is so beautiful

    – the national and very enthusiastic obsession with rugby and the upcoming World Cup
    – the graceful way that keas waddle towards vehicles pulling into carparks

  • On the beach

    It was fairly overcast when we went across to Stradbroke Island a couple of weeks ago, but there were odd rays of sunshine that broke through the cloud cover. We took advantage of a relatively clear late afternoon, and walked down to sit on some rocks by the beach, drinking red wine and smoking a cigar (in the case of my father). The waves peeled in to the shore, and we watched the fishing boats on the horizon and the clouds slowly moving across the sky.

    I hadn’t been to the beach in ages, and spent a while squatting on the sand with my macro lens taking photos of shells. I like taking photos of shells. They don’t move as much as insects, so I don’t have quite as many blurry shots to delete at the end of the day.

    We stayed in a little beach house – a townhouse with three levels and little balconies, where you could see a glimpse of the sea. The townhouse next door was full of blokes celerating a buck’s weekend, one of them told us apologetically. “Just, you know, come over and tell us to shut up if we get too noisy.” Crows and kookaburras hung around in the trees outside, eyeing off the barbecue. The blokes next door threw scraps of meat to the kookaburras, and I watched them diving to catch the food in mid-air. We decided they were a group of siblings – three young birds, similar in size.

    My brother pointed out a group of whales spouting out to sea – puffs of mist rising from a slightly darker patch of sea. I think it’s the first time I’ve seen whales – if you can call such a small glimpse seeing a whale. I am wondering whether to go on a whale watching cruise while we are in New Zealand next week – I think it would be amazing to get a bit closer, but equally wonder whether a trip would be worth it to get a brief glimpse of a whale tail before it dives again.

  • Pumpkin spelt muffins

    Another mostly cleanse approved recipe – the spelt flour works beautifully in these muffins. The amount of oil depends on how long you want to keep them – if they’re going to be eaten straight away, leave it at a quarter of a cup, if you want them to last for a few days, increase it to half a cup.

    ingredients:
    2 cups spelt flour
    1/3 cup packed brown sugar
    1 tablespoon baking powder
    1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    2 large eggs
    1 cup milk or cream
    2/3 cup packed brown sugar
    1/4 to 1/2 cup oil
    1 teaspoon vanilla
    1 cup cooked mashed pumpkin

    Pre-heat the oven to 200 C. Grease or line a muffin tin.

    Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and spices into a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, additional sugar, oil, vanilla and mashed pumpkin. Add the pumpkin mix to the flour mixture and stir together until just combined. Spoon the mixture into greased or lined muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

  • Carob brownies

    While the six week cleanse has ended, we’re still experimenting with a wheat and sugar free diet – these brownies are made with spelt flour, oil, honey and carob powder, making them wheat, dairy and sugar free. And surprisingly nice, despite all that. The icing does have dairy, but I think the brownies would be lovely without.

    I could have used a smaller pan, and cooked them a little less – also, I completely screwed up the icing by adding twice as much liquid. Definitely a recipe to try again!

    ingredients:
    ½ cup honey
    3 eggs
    ½ cup oil
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    ½ tsp vanilla
    ½ cup carob powder
    1 cup spelt flour
    ½ teaspoon baking powder
    1 cup of chopped nuts, or sultanas, or whatever floats your brownie boat

    Beat together the honey, eggs and oil in a bowl with electric beaters. Add in the salt, vanilla, carob powder, spelt flour and baking powder until combined. Stir in the nuts or sultanas, and pour the mixture into a small-ish greased baking tin. Bake at 175 C/ 350 F degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.

    and for the icing:
    9 tablespoons carob powder
    6 tablespoons cream
    3 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
    1/4 cup o coffee
    1 teaspoon vanilla
    rapadura or sugar to taste

    Beat the icing ingredients together with electric beaters until smooth. When the brownies are cool, spread with the icing and serve. Eat with gusto. Or at least visible enjoyment.

  • Carrot spread

    This is a deliciously sweet lemony spread – perfect as a dip, or spread on bread, or dumped on pasta or a salad. Adapted from here.

    Chop up 3 or 4 large carrots, and boil or steam them until soft. Chuck them into a food processor, and add a can of chickpeas, the juice of a lemon, a quarter of a cup of rice bran oil and a pinch of salt. Whizz away until relatively smooth. Dump into a bowl and enjoy.

  • In the distance

    We were driving second, which meant we watched our friends’ four wheel drive sliding crazily along the muddy track before we followed them. It didn’t fill me with confidence. I don’t think I particularly enjoyed clinging on in the passenger seat as we drove through some particularly steep and muddy sections – I mean, it’s a bit of an adrenaline rush, but it’s also fairly terrifying, feeling the car slip about underneath you. I enjoyed the places we got to though – standing on the side of a hill looking out over the Maleny valley.