Score!

Picked up this really nice deco pedestal basin tonight. Someone on my work buy,sell, exchange was giving it away (yes, free, gratis) because they have just had their bathroom upgraded with modern fittings. This is a genuwine 1930's model, in pretty good condition, and here it is standing in front of the 1960s basin with cupboard underneath, which probably replaced a basin just like this. The irony of life and fashion; one person's modernisation is becomes someone else's idea of yuck. I never use the cupboard under the basin anyway. Mostly it stores bits and pieces that could find a home elsewhere. The new old basin looks great. My bathroom is very very small, so this will give an illusion of more space. And it looks like it belongs there; the bathroom is the most original part of the house (built in 1938) still with its original windows, light fitting and towel rails. The funny thing is that I could have looked for ages for a nice old basin like this and not found one, not for free anyway, so I've snapped it up.

Makes up for continuing difficulties in my work-life, where doors seem to be slowly closing, and the ongoing dreary saga of the city's rebuilding and a looming General Election (expect the usual patronizing rubbish from all sides, who really don't give a shit as long as they get elected). 

Tired

Arezzo

Not much doing today. I'm really tired after my work-week, Monday was hell on earth as it was busy, busy, busy and we had 2 people sick. Today I've stayed in bed and slept mostly.
  I laid out in the garden on my rug. Thomas found a new friend, a little kitten that I've not seen before, and talked and purred at it. My boy is a lover not a fighter; I feel sad that he's all alone, with no other cat to keep him company. I could get another kitten, but it's so expensive now with food and vet's fees.
  Still in the process of booking for the Italian trip, most is done now except the last week. I think I'll stay for a few days in Arezzo and do some local bus/train trips around there. Unfortunately, some of the places I want to visit are only accessible by car, and I need an international driver's license which I don't have, to hire a car. No doubt it will sort itself out in time; it's quite a lot of work planning a holiday.
  The pears are starting to fall, and I've just had three very juicy nectarines. Our weather here had turned cooler, sort of autumnal in the early mornings. Where did our summer go?

OMG

Had to get passport photos for a new passport. Oh my God! I never realised before how uneven my face is; no, I have not had a stroke, just look naturally miserable. We're not allowed to smile for our photos, or wear glasses ( I usually do, all the time) so this is the result. I even put a bit of makeup on so this is me looking almost my best. OMG indeed! Although, as a wit at work said, the passport photo probably reflects quite accurately what one looks like after flying halfway round the world.

Notes from a potty-mouthed underachiever

Had a PRD session yesterday - Performance Review and Development, an interview with the boss that is like a 6-month report card. Not that I've done anything wrong; my employing body likes to do these for all employees just to keep us on our toes and let us know how goodly/badly we're doing. It's full of the usual words like 'initiative' 'taking responsibility' 'making it happen' (whatever it happens to be). Everyone hates them, bosses included. The worst thing is that no matter if you are the best little employee in the world, being the best little employee in the world will not get you a pay rise. You might get 'mentioned in dispatches' as they used to say from the trenches in wartime, but there's little real concrete motivation to do more that go through the motions. I come in, I do my job as best as I can, don't try to rub up against my colleagues or the punters, and generally try to be helpful and cheerful. But this is not enough; I must 'continually seek to improve' 'work smarter' etc. etc. My boss was not in a good mood yesterday; the words 'potty-mouthed' and 'underachiever' were mentioned, so I'm feeling a bit hurt. Well, no, a lot hurt, really. When I compare myself to some of the other workers, I can't say that I'm any worse. (One colleague always gets away with doing what she wants all the time; for some, allowances are  always being made, why, I don't know. The rest of us have to toe the line and take up the slack left by those for whom allowances are always made). Life is unfair. I shall stay in bed all day and nurse my bruised ego.
  Still, I console myself with the garden. As pictured above, a little harvest of vegetables from the potager. At least I can feed myself. My other job comes to an end in a few weeks, so back to penury and austerity. My employing body has hit a cash crisis, so there is no longer money for casual or discretionary employment, which keeps the army of part-timers able to have a few luxuries in life. (However, there is money for the new mayor to employ five new 'advisors' for her office; funny, that. Hope 'they' are not reading this; does it constitute 'bringing my employer into disrepute?' Disclaimer: this is purely a personal view point from a personal person, not an official statement from an official of my employing body). Since a very small portion of the world's population reads my blog, I think not.)
  I've wittered on long enough. Tot siens! to my fans in the Netherlands.
   

Plum sauce

Finished and bottled the plum sauce this morning. I had to go and buy a stick blender because my old one broke and was thrown out ages ago. The sauce needs to sit for a couple of weeks, so that the flavours 'marry'. I like this one, it has no onion in it, so no tedious tearful onion chopping. It's more of a sweet and sour sauce than a savoury one. In the spirit of wartime, (see next paragraph) I've reused my olive oil and mayonnaisse bottles; no pretty little "mob-caps" of gingham here, I'm afraid. More plums wait in the fridge. I just have to decide whether to make them into jam (will it set?)or just cook and freeze them (easier and less nerve-wracking).

Reading two books about the Second World War at the moment. Just finished "La's orchestra saves the world" by Alexander McCall Smith, a 'nice' easy read, a bit predictable and just a little preachy) and a more weighty non-fiction tome, "A green and pleasant land; how England's gardeners fought the Second World War" by Ursula Buchan. Great pictures, the best is a poor, dismayed child confronted with a carrot rather than a longed-for icecream.

Later that day...

Our weather is quite predictable here, in a wild, dramatic sort of way; after a day of heat and hot wind, the wind has swung around to the South, so now the thermometer has dropped about 15 degrees and the wind is cold! The peril of living on a long, narrow island in the middle of the sea means our weather changes very suddenly. Tourists tramping in the mountains often get caught out. They don't believe that a calm sunny day can turn into a killer southerly with snow in about half an hour.
   Here's the southerly buster coming in over Kahurangi, pictured from my spare room window. It's probably hailing up there now.
   So this evening I'm indoors in the warm, making plum sauce from the day's windfalls. 

Summer - hot!

It's midday here in NZ, and it's about 31 degrees outside (Celsius that is). This is hot for us, and there's a hot wind blowing as well, which makes it unpleasant to be outside. So I thought I'd come inside in the cool and blog a bit. I took these photos this morning, when it was calm.

'Fragrant Cloud" rose growing among the cornstems in the vegetable garden, has a great fragrance, a full, fruity, true rose smell.

Lillies galore

Dahlia 'Lady Darlene'

Concha d'Or lillies

Japanese anemones: these are really tall, over my head

Feline photobomber!

The next door neighbour's plum tree is raining fruit on the garden.

A pretty Asiatic lily that I discovered in my search for windfall plums

Looking out from the conservatory,  and trug full of dead-heads.

Little pumpkins

Pumpkin plants need gallons of water, the big leaves just flop in the heat.

The Hobbit

Went to see the second Hobbitt movie last night.
I felt there was something missing in the movie; it's all action and CGI but with little real acting or subtlety of plot. The first movie was better, I thought, in terms of the characters involved.  However, I did enjoy the lovely Evangeline Lilly as the elf Tauriel, (she brings a much needed warmth to the plot and I really liked her costuming) and Smaug is magnificent. The barrells-down- the- river sequence is fun; I'll bet Disney is even now trying to figure out how to make it into a 'ride'. 

Fan fiction - "Margaret Dashwood" by Yet Another Lady

  It was generally believed that Margaret Dashwood would not bid fair to
 equal either of her sisters. 

 As Elinor was good, and Marianne beautiful, even Margaret believed that
 she had been left but a narrow field of endeavour. Perhaps she would turn
 out to be clever, she thought, but as to how this might be accomplished, she
 had no firm idea, nor any particular plan. 
 Surely some kindly neighbour would  offer her a trip to Bath, or
 her uncle and aunt might take her into Derbyshire. An eligible
 bachelor, nay two eligible bachelors, might move into the
 neighbourhood.

 She had woven cocquelicot ribbons in her dark hair, and thought the
 effect very pretty and exotic, but on seeing her, Marianne had cried
 "Good God, you look like a Hottentot!" and Elinor had mildly suggested
 that the effect was a little outre, dear, for Hampshire.

 Her sisters were fair, Marianne blazingly so, but Margaret had dark
 skin and curly dark hair. It was an item of family history that there
 was perhaps a Spanish or Italian, or even maybe a Welch person,  among
 the ancestors of Mr Dashwood, but as the link was probably  a
 natural one, this point was not pressed. If Mrs Dashwood had not
 been a respectable woman, and had not been very much in love with her husband
 some suspicion might have resulted from Margaret's high colouring.
 Mrs Dashwood made it the purpose of her life to discourage Margaret's
 exposure to the sun, so that she would not be darker still, darker
 than was proper. Only fair women would achieve marital success, she believed;
her hopes for Marianne were high indeed, less so for Elinor, and, alas, almost nothing
 for our heroine.

My go at Austen fan-fiction. Discovered in my archives today.

Le quattro volte

Watched this movie last night. The title means The four turns, as in changes, rather than turning around. It's very quiet, mostly with no dialogue, and "slowly unfolds following the passage of a soul through four elements; human, animal, plant and mineral" as the blurb says. Sad and humourous, and quite fascinating.

Elizabeth Jane Howard

Elizabeth Jane Howard in 1962. Photograph: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/02/elizabeth-jane-howard-dies-90

I've just re-read her first novel "The beautiful visit", which won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1950. It remains one of my favourite books, because of the intensity of the writing and the intensity of the main character, a young woman who passionately wants to have experience and a life worth living. The heroine, who remains unnamed, lives a life of narrow shabby genteel poverty with her emotionally cold and professionally undistinguished family (her father is an unsuccessful composer) in London in the years before the First World War. She is invited to visit a family living in the country, who provide such a contrast to her own background that the visit comes to be a lodestone of how life should be.  I have read other novels of Howard's, but none of them seem to have the brilliance of this, her first. She is best known for her series of novels about the Cazalet family during the Second World War, but I didn't really like these, although they were a popular success. Or perhaps because they were a popular success?

Blackcurrant jam day

Only three jars, though; I thought there would be more. Panicked when I realised it wasn't setting, so added a little more sugar and some lemon juice. Thank the kitchen goddess, it has set and is delicious. Something to look forward to on cold winter afternoons, scones with homemade blackcurrant jam, yum.

The next door neighbour's tree is loaded with Black Doris plums, the only problem being that they are about 30 feet up! I had a couple of trees in my garden, but they only seemed to produce scabby fruit or none at all, so I had them removed. Hoping that some next door fruit will fall my way, but they will probably be eaten by the birds first. Apricots not a success, the wretched brown spot has taken over before the fruit are even ripe this year. Gardening; you win on the roundabout, but lose on the swings.

Heavenly hydrangeas

It's hydrangea season again. I'm particularly blessed in this garden with hydrangeas; one of the past owners (probably the man who loved opera) planted seven or eight bushes, and they flourish mightily. I don't do much to them, but every year they put on a great show. They're like lilacs, a very Victorian flower. The blooms are delicate and complex, but the bushes are tough as old boots, 'good doer's'. They only look dreary in the autumn, when the frost kills the leaves off, but at least we've had this mighty flowering to remember and look forward to next year.

Back to work tomorrow. Here's another thought about happiness, vis-a vis the book I was reading. Perhaps to be happy, you also need a little unhappiness. I don't mean the sort of dreadful misery that breaks you, but the minor dissatisfaction of  having to do things you don't really enjoy, like going to work. Perhaps every day you need to do something that's a chore and a bore, just to throw the good stuff into relief. (Ooo, a pun - what a relief, to do the good stuff after the dreary stuff!)

Hello 2014

Well, its been and gone and done it - become a new year. It was quite noisy this year. Other years have been quiet, everyone has gone on holiday, but I think with all the young bloods here for the rebuild it was more raucous. Lots of fireworks and idiotic behaviour. I stayed at home (I always do) with a glass of wine and Hugh Dancy as Daniel Deronda. I haven't seen this BBC series although it was made several years ago, nor have I ever read the book. We were given 'Middlemarch' to read when I was at 'uni, and I didn't like it much; I wanted to shoot Mr Casaubon from a cannon, and slap Rosamond a good tight slap or three. I did enjoy Deronda. Most particularly did I enjoy Gwendolen's clothes, a beautiful emerald green balldress the most impressive of these. I'm still not sure if I like Romola Garai as an actress; I don't find her wholly convincing, somehow. There's something very theatrical (in the worst sense) about her performances, but perhaps this is just the sort of casting that she gets - self-absorbed spoilt brats like Gwendolen and Emma Woodhouse. She is beautiful, and I think this gets in her way.
   Planted some onions and more lettuces (no, not Iceberg strangely enough) and grazed my way around as I watered up this evening. Three strawberries, a logan berry and three apricots, as well as gathering a grapefruit which I'll have for breakfast tomorrow. We have a lot of mosquitoes this year, and standing in the evening garden watering is a gift for them. The other night I was wearing a skirt, and managed to get bitten on a very tender part of my most secret anatomy. Blast and damn them!