Iceberg

Once upon a time, back in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, the most popular kind of  salad lettuce you would be served here in NZ was the Iceberg lettuce. Thousands of them were grown every year, particularly by home gardeners, because they were easy and bulked up well in hot weather. They were usually picked as whole plants, then kept in the 'fridge along with tomatoes, cucumber and salad cream. Then along came the Italian-type lettuces, with colours and shapes, picked as individual leaves, and salad as we knew it changed, but due to some spirit of nostalgia in the supermarket the other day I bought one. And I love it! It's all about the crunch; modern gourmet-type lettuces just don't have it, no matter how fresh they are. And Iceberg is bland, (which is probably why we got bored with it.) There's very little taste, which makes it a great accompaniment for stronger tastes - smoked salmon or grilled lamb, for example. (I did draw the line at dressing it with salad cream, though. I've never really liked salad cream, even when its called mayonnaise, except with potato salad.) Iceberg lettuce, rocking salads since the 'sixties.

The antidote

The book I've just been reading is The Antidote: happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking by Oliver Burkeman.

The question posed is "Does the pursuit of happiness make us miserable?" and Burkeman's persuasive answer is Yes, it does. He delves into Stoic philosophy, Buddhist teaching, business psychology and the Mexican celebration of mortality that is the Day of the Dead, among a host of other things. He recommends an alternative "negative path" to happiness that involves embracing failure, pessimism, insecurity, uncertainty and our own mortality, a more realistic approach than the endless 'motivational' sessions and 'goal-setting' of one branch of pop-psychology. These upbeat brain-washings can do more harm than good. One example he uses is the 1996 disaster on Mt Everest, where obsessive goal-achievement overrode the climbers' commonsense. The goal becomes the person, and any denial or failure of that goal means self-negation.
  I enjoyed this book's location at the intersection of philosophy and psychology, and Burkeman makes his points without over-emphasising them. A 'just right book', not too clever nor too simplistic.

Rain, rain

Boring day today. This is the fourth day of rain; it started on Christmas Day in the afternoon and has been going ever since. This seems to happen every year. Just as the apricots get ripe, (also just as everyone heads off on their camping holidays) we get this misty or pouring rain which sends brown rot onto the fruit. One year I remember picking them in the rain while not quite ripe, so that at least I could have the cooked fruit and not all the crop would be ruined. It looks like that may happen this year too. I also have a lot of blackcurrants that need picking, but they seem less prone to fungal diseases - maybe tomorrow will be better.
  The photo is of a past harvest of apricots, about four years ago. Sadly, both of the beautiful puss-cats (Eddie, left and Emma, right) are now deceased.
  Watched the BBC teaser for the new 'Sherlock' series - how I miss those guys! Weird to think that they are now also Bilbo and Smaug. Hope to go to The Hobbit soon, with a group of similarly-minded nerds from work. That's what I love about my fellow librarians; they really are my soul-tribe. We can talk about daleks and dragons, sing old advertising slogans (Bernina, Bernina!) and discuss Stoic philosophy, and we all know what we're talking about.

Boxing Day bits and pieces

Been doing a bit of painting; this is Castle Rock, which I can see from my spare room window. Its Maori name is Te tihi o Kahurangi, the abode of the sky-god, which is much more poetic. The rain was clearing away from the south. Kahurangi is very dramatic, a good weather indicator. I look at him every morning and evening and several times during the day. 

I've also been baking. This is my very own recipe, Apricot, almond and sour cream ricotta cake. I had to make use of some cream that was turning, some leftover bottled apricots and almond meal that had been sitting around for a while (but not rancid), plus fresh ricotta that I bought from the market on Sunday. It's gluten-free and delicious. Next time I'll put baking paper in the bottom of the tin, though, as it stuck even to the non-stick, buttered pan.

And a lovely poppy photographed in first light. I hope to harvest the seed from these for baking. There's a great Jewish recipe called Hamantaschen (Haman's pockets) made to celebrate Purim that uses a poppy-seed filling for pastry pockets. My German teacher made them for us many years ago in high-school, and though I remember hardly any German, I do remember these - very delicious.

Merry Christmas from a grumpy cat

                     Tried to "festive up" Thomas - he wasn't happy. 

                   Merry Christmas to all our friends and readers.

Removal

I've removed the daily saying of the Dalai Lama from the bottom of my page, not because I disagree with him, but because his wise words came with an advert saying "Who doesn't want to make more money with smart apps?" - not quite what I want, and somewhat contradicting His Holiness' message, which was about selflessness. I've been uncomfortable with this add-on for a while, and wish I could get the Dalai Lama without the ads, but Google won't let me, posing an ethical dilemma that I have now resolved with the remove button. And posted a calming picture of Okuti Valley instead.

Italian-English

Just been reading Corriere della sera online, as a way of learning a little more Italian. I can get the Google translation as well, so it's quite fun to compare what I think I understand with what it really is. Google translates literally, though, word for word, so sometimes the words don't make sense: I'm not sure how 'barista' becomes 'tom-tom' for example. But it is a painless way of learning new vocabulary. If my addiction to news can be harnessed to learn a new language, so much the better. I also have a set from the library "Perfect your Italian" which has interviews and conversations at real speed, which is very useful and stretches my knowledge. It is marketed for 'intermediate' speakers of Italian, but I think I may be safely classed as 'sub-intermediate' at the moment. The weird thing is that when I switch back to reading English, it takes a second to make sense again! There is just a little brain lag, where the brain has to renegotiate its mother-tongue.
  And I got to hear Italian the other day at the local market. An Italian couple have started making and selling cheeses; while I was buying some an old guy came up and started talking to the proprietress in Italian. I don't quite know what he said, apart from the last word, 'sentiamo' which meant 'we listen'. Or perhaps 'we feel' or 'we think'. Not knowing the context, it's hard to say. But I could wish them 'Buon Natale'.

Today

Today I got stuck in to my neglected front garden. The front bed is infested with twitch and is hell to get out, so the management plan is to weed it, then mulch it heavily. I've also put in some winter (!) vegetables, leeks, onions, celery in the vegetable garden. The yellow courgette has succumbed to virus and being eaten by something so that's gone. The weather changed this afternoon though, and now it is cold and windy. So I've gone to bed early. Les Nouveaux Riches (Mr Machinery) over the back fence have a loud party going, but I've got Christmas carols in my headphones so they can boomp, boomp all they like. I hate this time of year; every halfwit in the city thinks it's time to do silly things that normally they probably wouldn't. It's no coincidence that September is one of the most common months for babies to be born. I think of them, poor little things, being concieved left, right and centre, by parents who are too drunk, drugged or besotted to think about their actions. Still, twas ever thus, I suppose.

Garden and shelfies

Poppies in the potager

Marina di Chioggia was probably the wrong choice of pumpkin for a small garden

Pears are coming along

The shade corner with the Edwardian urn

The conservatory; not really attractive but I've tried to soften it with plantings

Shelfie in my bedroom; this all fell off the wall in the earthquake and landed on my bed

Hallway shelfie

Spare room shelfie

In defence of real books

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/columnists/rosemary-mcleod/9533538/Plastic-not-as-fantastic-as-real-books

In this morning's Press, a piece by Rosemary McLeod.


And The Guardian brings you "shelfies":

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/dec/17/forget-selfies-we-want-to-see-your-shelfies

Feeling more Christmassy

Feeling a little more Christmassy tonight. I've got King's College Chior on, singing away, and the candles are lit, and the house is full of the scent of Christmas lillies. (One of the great things about having Christmas in summer is the flowering of the Lillium regale, which we call Christmas lillies, sort of a little reminder of the Annunciation, which started everything off.)  We had our final team meeting at work yesterday, which doubled as our Christmas party, now that our employers are taking the road of austerity (or so they say). We had lots of lovely food, a quiz and a Secret Santa, so it was one of the best team meetings ever.
  And today I had a visit from a dear old friend. (Old as in have known her for a long time. And she's 91). She's just a little younger than my Mum, but now "has a hip" and walks with a stick, so I was able to pass on Mum's stick that I had kept, a proper ergonomic one, and Mum's record player, since hers doesn't work now. She bought me some preserved ginger in a lovely blue and white jar, some Ferrero Rocher and a bottle of wine. We had a lovely talk. She's such a cheerful person, always looking on the bright side, a joy to be around. She hopes to live to 100 to see her grandchildren graduate from Uni. I think she'll make it.

Change adaptive? Nah.

Oh dear. A bit depressed tonight. I don't usually talk about my work life, but... Both of my jobs are changing so fast they are becoming jobs that I no longer want to do. One is becoming increasingly technological, the other increasingly customer-driven and money-centred. Neither of these things have much interest for me. It seems as if a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mindset is taking over the world. And I had the very annoying experience this week of being treated like a total idiot by a new, much younger colleague, who thinks that just because she is much younger she is naturally much smarter. Oh, she's just so bloody professional! Terribly efficient and trying to impress, which she thinks she will achieve by dissing the sad middle-aged wreck that she sees is me. Of course, manners and general courtesy are such a waste of time, aren't they? Time that could be better spent getting ahead in one's career.  So tonight, I feel really old. I've seen the writing on the wall; soon the world will have no place for me or others of my kind. I am going the way of the dinosaurs, the sooner I shuffle off the better for the Bright Young Things who are taking over.
  But one day they too will be old and fat and past it. This is my consolation. Whenever some pouty young Miss pouts at me I think "Your day will come, too, sweetie". As I am now so will you be, prepare for old age and irrelevance, and follow me.

Double day lillies

Search by voice!

Yes, my new browser gives me the option of searching by voice. Problem is, it will only search if you speak with an American accent, and that American accent as in New York/Midwestern/Californian, not Southern American or any other English accent.
It comes up with wonderful things when I speak in my own flat New Zild accent:
"The Press" became "Chris" or "The Priest"
"Christchurch Press" became "christmas tree"
"Rachmaninov" became "right money"
"Florence, Italy" became "Laura" unless spoken with an American accent. Thusly "Flawrrence, Iddaly" found what I wanted.
So, although this seems a wonderful innovation, for most of the world's Internet users it's worse than useless.
Hours of innocent fun, though.

Book review: The white forest by Adam McOmber

   Usually I try to review books that I've enjoyed. Well, here's one I didn't enjoy.
I was attracted by the cover and the hope that it would be another enjoyable  Victorian- era novel a la Sarah Waters. It starts out quite promisingly, with believable characters and something that might become an interesting plot, but about three-quarters of the way through all believable parameters are thrown away and I felt as if I was reading someone's drug trip, mental breakdown or a rewrite of the Book of Revelation. It's as if the author suddenly gave up and thought he'd just throw a lot of weird stuff in, which might (he hopes) be interpreted by the reader as significant and meaningful. Good fantasy has an internal logic of its own; its world is believable on its own terms, but this....? It's a lot like the last episode of Lost, which raised more questions than it answered and was really lame. ("Oh, so they all go into the Light, do they? How very original. Not.") With this book, you're left asking "Yes, but how did Ariston Day and the Fetches get into the Empyrean? And why did Nathan become a white ape? And what are the white apes anyway? And how did Madeleine and Pascal get back to London from the Empyrean, considering that the Empyrean is not on the same plane of existence? Did they walk? Did they get a cab? " Sorry, Sarah Waters it aint. Reading the readers' reviews on Goodreads I obviously missed something; everyone else seemed to think it was a work of genius, but I can't concur. If I was being really nasty I would say it was subjective claptrap, trying hard to be deep and profound.
   Best avoided.

Morning garden

 

Took these shots this morning while the light was gentle

 

 

Poppy from seed taken during a trip to the Cape Campbell walkway several years ago. On the last day we stayed in a beautiful old house called Freeth House, so these I've named (unofficially) "Freeth House".  

 

This beautiful aquilegia just popped up in the vegetable garden.

 

Digitalis mertonensis

 

The lilies are starting to bloom. This is always the first one.

 

True to the forecast, today is going to be very hot and probably windy. The plan of attack is to do some gardening out the back this morning while it's shady, then move to the front, with a diversion to tidy the composting area at some stage. And tie up the tomatoes and the beans. Knowing me, I'll probably lie around all day with my nose in a book. (Reading a weird one at the moment - The White forest by Adam McOmber - sort of a Victorian fantasy/steampunky thing, not sure yet if I like it).

 

The Heathcote River bridge is closed today, so all the heavy traffic is being bypassed down Opawa Road. It's so noisy, all banging and clanging as the trucks go over the earthquake bumps in the road. Thank the Goddess that we don't have to put up with it all the time. I can hear Mr Machinery over the back fence throwing things around, so no doubt he's got a DIY project on the go, off course they've all got to be finished by Christmas so... goodbye peace and quiet. And with his horrible noisy kids there too, the overweight teenager bellowing like a bull calf and thumping his massive body into the (really quite small) swimming pool. What a waste of fresh water.  Ghastly people, why don't they buy a block in the "lifestyle" suburbs, then they could really go all out.  

 

So poor Nelson Mandela has died, and now we have the hypocritical right-wing pollies saying how wonderful he was and how well they knew him, the same people who would have been quite happy if he'd stayed in prison forever. Terrible to think that of his ninety-something years, TWENTY-SEVEN were spent in some of the world's worst prisons. I don't know how he was able to survive, physically or mentally; this fact alone makes him a remarkable human being.

Sunset

 

Very beautiful sunset tonight. We get these particularly when the wind is in the North-west, a hot wind called a Foehn wind, which comes across the Tasman sea from Australia, picks up moisture as it travels, then dumps the rain on the west coast of the island as it lifts over the mountains. Once over the mountains it races over the Canterbury plains getting drier and hotter; it's our classic hot-weather summer scenario, the only time we get really hot weather here. And beautiful sunsets with calm warm evenings.

 

The orange-pink light makes orange-pink spectrum flowers almost fluorescent - lovely effect.

Tomorrow will be another hot day like today. I spent most of it in bed with a tummy bug though, so hopefully I'll see more of the golden weather tomorrow.

Cyber world

Had to change my browser - don't really understand the whole browser thing, but my Blogger template looks odd ("unsupported browser" apparently) and Blogger recommended I use another browser, so I've gone with Chrome. Weird thing was there was a Windows update yesterday, after which the Blogger site started doing weird things, displayed a cryptic error message, something about my run time not being compatible with my ghs.exec.html. Doh??? as Homer Simpson would say. I hate the way all these things happen behind the scenes; it's like your car suddenly decided to become a different make and model, all on its own, and now the gears are column change and manual.
  So if this displays funny at your end please let me know.
  Sadly, the blackbird's nest is gone. Himself got up there this morning and pulled the nest down, with the poor birds unable to stop him. I guess this is just nature taking its course; birds are programmed to nest, but cats are programmed to hunt. He's now sleeping the sweet sleep of the unguilty and untroubled on my bed. Pity I can't reprogramme his browser too.

Thomas with Graham Thomas

'Graham Thomas' has gone a bit mad the last few days, so I picked a big bunch for the house. Thomas happened to be sprawled out on the carpet so I got them both together. Thom's such a good cat, he sleeps quietly on my bed some nights, but sometimes makes me feel too hot then I put him in the living room to sleep; he doesn't seem to mind where he's put, so easy-going. He's being a great hunter at the moment. A blackbird has made her nest in the plum tree, so he goes up to see her; I hear the poor bird's alarm call and rush out with the twiddle-stick to distract him. (Twiddle-stick; an old piece of stick I use to run over the lawn imitating a mouse). So far, so good, but I don't hold out any hope for the blackbird chicks. Thom knows just where to find them when he wants them.
  Watching the second series of 'Sherlock' at the moment, I didn't see it when it was on TV. It's highly enjoyable, very escapist stuff. I've just watched the one with Irene Adler, tonight it's the Baskerville Hounds getting the treatment. And ooo, that evil Moriarty!