o frabjous day!

o frabjous day! books, recipes & other things

  • Hosanna

    Tony Backhouse conducting at a gospel workshop over the weekend. I love singing gospel, and really enjoy his workshops – not only the chance to sing with a big group, but also with such a great choir leader. There’s nothing like that feeling of singing gospel and having the group really getting into the groove…

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  • Down by the sea

    We just spent a few days staying by the sea at Bargara, which is a small town near Bundaberg, about four or five hours drive away. We stayed in an apartment looking out onto the ocean, slept with the windows open to the sound of the waves, and spent a lot of time walking along…

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  • Intruder

    One of our little kookaburra family has got all territorial prior to breeding season, and has been attacking our windows. There’s nothing more relaxing than being woken up at 6am on a Sunday morning by a crazed kookaburra hammering its scarily large beak against the glass, like it’s trying to break the window, get into…

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  • The key of C – the people’s key

    The conclusion I reached after spending three days at the Cairns Ukulele Festival was this: ukulele players are lovely people. I reached a number of other conclusions, including “I need to learn how to play Don’t Worry Be Happy”, “I love conga lines” and “I need to buy a banjolele”. But the one about uke…

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  • Reading the Hugo Packet – Part 2

    Part 1 is here. This week, I’ve almost finished one of the novels – Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, which is about a fantastically disturbing future Thailand, bleak and compelling. I’ve also finished all the short stories except for Kij Johnson’s Spar, and none have particularly grabbed me. I want to move on to the…

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  • Eclipse

    There was a partial lunar eclipse last night, so I thought I would take some photos of the moon, which I have never done before. It’s more complicated than I had thought – my cheap 70-300mm lens didn’t cope very well (and really, I don’t think 300mm is quite long enough) and my tiny tripod…

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  • Reading the Hugo Packet – Part 1

    (The eagle-eyed will spot that this photo has nothing to do with the Hugo Awards. But I think it’s pretty. It’s the sort of photograph that causes my husband to sigh and say, “Oh, another arty one.” He doesn’t like small points of focus. I think they’re fabulous.) I made up my mind to go…

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  • Birds

    Looking back over a year’s photographs, I can usually tell when my mother and her partner have come to stay – I generally take a lot more bird photographs. It’s a lot easier when Mum and Allen are pointing them out for me so I can take the photo, and then identifying them for me.…

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  • Winter colds

    I am getting over my second cold of the year, after slowing the healing process by the scientifically proven method of resorting to the cocktail recipe book. People in books are always drinking hot toddies and feeling tremendously refreshed and invigorated, and I agree that the mixture of whiskey, lemon juice and honey does tend…

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  • Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cake

    A slightly altered version of Smitten Kitchen’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake, for Kirsty’s birthday. I cooked it in three 8-inch square pans, rather than 8-inch rounds (because I’m always happy to find new uses for the wedding cake pans.) It is a very soft cake and definitely requires freezing before constructing and icing, but I…

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