SLOW living

I've been feeling like a bit of a fraud for a while. This week, its really come home to roost but I've been conscious of and feeling like this for a couple of months. Fraudulent in the sense of not deceiving outright, just feeling a little like stretching the truth somewhat.

My tag line for my blog may have to change.

Living with SLOW principles when you are a mum of three and a worker and a student and starting a small business and helping another one get up and running does not for SLOW living make. Having a husband who is now running for parliament in the next State election doesn't help. SLOW living is not really HOW we live hour to hour. Its pretty hard and fast around here.
'Doh!', yeah, i hear you groaning.

Funny, I really identify with SLOW principles. I believe in savoring, getting back to first principles, working for your rewards, not taking the easy options, respecting nature, appreciating the effort that goes in to making, doing, being. SLOW principles are what we always try to employ in what we do, what we use, what we consume, and how we do it. But it all adds up in a modern world to a crazy busy life of promoting SLOW. Our lives are based on generating a public interest in ideas like this. My tag line needs to read something like' a SLOW principled woman working too FAST in a modern world, striving to make SLOW a conscious and attainable way of life.
Within all my responsibilities, paid and otherwise, I try and practice SLOW but at the end of the day it really all adds up to BUSY. Trying to live as consciously and ecologically as possible and getting the word out there and trying to make a difference as a working person with a family is inherently not SLOW.
Cant quite work it out.

delays in programming

I enjoyed a glorious moment today which made my heart sing and my brain take a break from its now seemingly regular convulsing. Mid 'working with the media' workshop, where a bunch of harried university types were furiously swatting and cramming all that can be crammed in 3 hours of training, honing up on writing press releases, the do's and donts of live interview and a role play of a press conference (dont you just love adult role play moments? (well actually it was rather hilarious and we all had a good time) i looked out the huge floor to ceiling window. Far above in the sky I spotted what looked to be small gliders, moving across the sky. Well they were gliders of a blooded type. Two pelicans were playing in the currents above the city skyline; up, down ,around, moving silently through the air. It was a moment of pure peace and delight. I revelled in all 10 seconds of it.
Food post coming soon!

remembering the happy meat

Its taken a while to eliminate a lot of my old habits but I have noticed over the last 6 months or so that my unconscious brain has moved over into accepting full happy meat consciousness. I now remember to search out the vegetarian dishes when Im dining out; no proscuittto on my pizzas, no chicken in my past sauce, no prawns, not a lot of fish. Its taken a while to accept this as I am definitely a meat lover by nature but i just cant do it anymore. Not from a happy meat point of view or a human population health point of view. Its happy meat or its the vegetarian option. Actually if I was a vegetarian it would have been alot easier to remember; the full monty would be with you always. So i have found that the trick is to pick the right place for anticipated failure. Japanese is good, so is Italian and Indian, well Thai too. All the eating out vegetarian options are really tasty if they dont do happy meals. As a meat eater, doing veg when Im out has been very very difficult but its really just taken a shift in how i think about it. No longer do i go 'nooo' carbonara is what i want! i reframe from 'Im missing out' to 'i can do this', be Big and do the right thing and retrain my brain to think it can all be delicious without the meat. Anchovies have been known to save me from despair!

As I have become more diliget about it, the BBQ chicken pizza loving B1 has been known to object, not taking to it to well (especially when olives are present to ruin the WHOLE thing) but she is coping and she understands the reasons. It sounds fanatical , I cant quite believe Im 'one of them', Im usually all for putting the stomach first but Im finding that harder and harder to do as my knowledge has increased over the years. Ive been good for a long time on buying happy meat for home consumption but eating out has always been my downfall. So what's next for me is to start asking if the chicken/pork is free range or if there is a free range option when Im out. I have resisted this tactic as i know damn well its not, but its like the whole smoking in public places thing. If people didnt start asking to sit in non-smoking sections in restaurants, societies attitudes would have taken a lot longer to change. You have to market the idea, one individual at a time and at all points of sale, not just the butcher. Remember life before real vegetarian options? A pineapple ring, a half a canned peach and some ricotta cheese set in the abyss. That used to be the veetarian dining out alternative. It had to start somewhere. Self as one-woman happy meat consciousness raising and marketing campaign.
Sigh. Then there's the unhappy cheese on the pizza...no wonder we dont eat out often!

I came across this blog postyesterday, its easy to read and informative so I thought a cross post would be simplest( my brain is otherwise occupied). or you can cut straight to the Farmacology article here. Anyone out there still eating intensively farmed meat? Thinking about switiching? Why? Why not?

wild boar salami update - we're still alive!

To follow up my salami post from a few weeks back, heres an update on its progress. The salami has lost about 30% of its weight (mositure loss) and that's the recommended minimum wait time for eating, that and 3-4 weeks as an alternative criteria. Heres what it looked like the day it was made. My date for sampling filled both criteria. Problem solved. Time to try!

As you can see from the pic below and a little in the pic above, the mould is blooming; the white chalky, dry looking 'good' mould. The jury seems out in general on the topic of mould in the salumi blogsphere: some say all fuzzy mould is bad and some say greeny-blue mould and some brown and black mould is just fine and its the red mould to look out for and avoid. Its very confusing. Im thinking mouldy salami is bit like homebirth- lots of fear around it based on the notion of 'sterile' and 'safety' and when you do the research its actually a different story... So Im not going to do what alot of the online and American sausage writers do, chuck it out! (yes, theres a whole sausage community out there) I will do some more research and decide. The European sausage makers who blog all seems rather enamoured with the flavour enancing qualities of a good bloom like this one and check this green salami out, it'sfor sale!. I figure Im in good company with a couple of thousand years of tradition...

So, Im just watching those few sausages which are happily growing the fuzzier stuff and will check for mould 'roots' which spread from the surface to the interior and decide from there.
We cracked the first salami and the duck proscuitto at our wine making afternoon with The Gnomes. Post on that to come. We all actually woke up the next day, alive and its a good thing too coz the salami and duck 'proscuitto' (eaten with last seasons pickled figs) were delicious and I'd hate to waste it. So im feeling pretty chuffed so far with my first foray into charcuterie and extra happy when i saw wild boar salami selling for $60 a stick!

liquid gold

If you need one good reason to buy a duck, besides being tasty, sustainable and low impact happy meat, this is it. Duck fat. Liquid gold! Think potatoes. Fried golden crispy potatoes done in the oven or in a pan. Think the best potatoes you'll ever taste. Dont think of your arteries. This fat imparts an incredibly rich and rounded flavour to the potatoes, not at all greasy nor 'ducky'.

Duck fat is very easy to render out from duck skin. Just put chopped duck skin and excess fat trimmed from the bird in a pan and shallow fry on a medium heat for about 20 minutes. All the fat will render out from the skin and leave you with molten gold in a pan as well as lots of 'quackling'; crispy duck skin fried in its own fat. Oh my god. It all sounds soooo bad for you!
When the skin pieces hit a deep brown and become really crispy, remove them and then drain the slightly cooled fat through a sieve into a storage container and refridgerate. It keeps well for quite a few months and can probably be frozen. While youre rendering out the fat, you may as well stick the duck carcass in big pot with some of those vegetable trimmings that you stash in a bag in the freezer and some seasoning and make stock, right?



So heres what you can get from a duck:
:: a meal for 4 using the meat (2 legs, one breast)
:: one duck breast proscuitto, enough for 8
:: enough duck fat for roast potatoes for 8
:: 6-8 litres of duck stock
:: quackling

An amazing amount of goodness from a small bird. The boybean was quite partial to a bit of quackling, having discovered them for himself when he climbed up to the benchtop. He must have eaten, ohh about ten of these tasty morsels before i intervened. The crispy rendered duck bum i fed to the cat.

dry cured, wild meat chorizo and salami/cingaliere

It took me all afternoon, not bad for four hours work with a small bean hanging around being very interested and wanting unreasonable things like food and drink with me all up to my elbows in minced pig fat with some aromatherapy herbs and spices to cut the stink of the hog casing! that stuff is pretty rank! phew-eee! But I managed and its worked, so far. 'Scuse the crappy pics throughout; various issues with kids taking some, fat smeared on lens, no light in the pantry and computer issue so no editing available.
I have made sausages many times beforebut never salami. Im not sure why as when watching some River Cottage it looked so damn easy, and i thought 'what they hey? charcuterie adventure here i come'. I have the requisite mincer and sausage/salami nozzle and Im always up for learning and trying something new. And when it means you can actually EAT SOME SALAMI, Im all in. I dont eat salami anymore as i havent found any free range or organic stuff and Im sure if i did it would cost me an arm and then two legs. I do buy a local free range chorizo occasionally but i treat it like gold as its pretty expensive; $11.50 for two 10cm lengths. So, i forked out the cash for some wild boar and venison and some back fat and i reckon i might just be about two hundred and fifty ahead if this stuff proves edible. If you can get over the obvious similarities with some rather adult activities and body parts this is something you can try with the kids. The teen beans found this whole process highly snortable and in betwen trying to elevate the process out of the gutter, I resorted to a few, 'hey check THIS out' myself.
No nitrites (saltpetre) in this salami, so i hope the natural fermentation process steps up tot he mark! Its all about the salt and the ambient temperature.

Wild boar and venison salami and chorizo.
The primary mix is the same for both so i combined all meats and seperated them into two lots when it came time to add seasonings specific to each type of cured sausage.

2.5 kg diced wild boar meat (cinghiale)
1.5 kg diced venison
1.5 kg boar/pork backfat (you can use 'salami fat' but its floor scraps)
hog casings (about 6 metres)
20 cloves garlic minced with meat
salt (to equal a minimum 2.5% total weight of meats) I used murray river salt flakes.
hooks
meat string

The pork backfat came with skin so first task was to remove the fatty strip so it could be minced, my knives are terribly blunt knife and I hacked away after doing my two knife sharpening trick that seems to work but really just makes a great sound.
It was strangely satisfying. Then i minced all the meat using the coarse mincer attachment, with the garlic, then the fat and mixed them together with salt. I did this all by hand as you need to really get in there to mix without mashing the fat completely and used a big plastic box to do the mixing as it makes it much easier.

I split this 5kgs in half to make half salami and half chorizo.


Salami seasonings for half the meat mix.
2 tsablespoons lightly smashed black peppercorns.
2 tablespoons lightly smashed fennel seeds.
1 tablespoon ground coriander seed.
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons coriander seed.
1 tablespoon cumin seed.
3-400ml red wine (i used elderberry)



Chorizo seasonings for the other half
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
4 tablespoons smoked sweet ground paprika
1-2 tablespoons ground hot paprika
3-400 ml white wine (i used quince)


Mix seasonings well into the meat paste using your hands. Now begins the fun stuff!
Slide washed casing length over the stuffing nozzle and tie at end. Turn on machine and begin to stuff! Being rather impatient, i must admit that i had begun the session without really checking some good tying off techniques so i ended up with soe pretty random and not very professionally tied salamis. Next time i will brush up on knotting and finishing technique before I start as having this knowledge would certainly would have made the flipping and contorting process easier. I pricked any air pockets i could see with a pin sterilised in the flame of a match.
2.5 kgs of wild boar and venison salami and chorizo now hang in the pantry, 2.5kgs of each. It smells ..interesting.

One thing to definitely ensure before you begin the process of salami making is to nail down and prepare your hanging place;it needs to be airy and cool. We hung ours in a walk in pantry and lined its drip line with a sheet of newspaper and despite the room being made of mostly rock it still was alrady stinking out the house, so much so that i got concerned that something funky had already happenned to my lovely looking specimens which were dripping a little and Googled 'what should homemade salami smell like'. Gives you some idea of the pong. I was glad to read the following...

The smell of rot — the ripe funk you breathe in Italian pork stores and French charcuteries — has always been part of the craft of curing... the raw meat is stuffed into natural casings and left exposed to each stage of a salami's life: gocciolamento, dripping; asciugamento, drying; stagionatura, ripening in the air, picking up wild yeasts and cultures that start fermentation.
"When I was a kid, the salamis used to drip on the customers' heads, and the smell was fantastic," said Louis Faicco, an owner of Faicco's Pork Store in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. "Now they are all locked away upstairs where no one can see them or smell them." I felt much better after reading this.

No one tells you this when you start.

'smell of rot'...'dripping'...reassuring words to this novice! Doesnt sound very appetising does it? just gota keep you nose on the prize, that lovely rounded, sweet, rich full flavoured and aromatic air dried salami taste. So the pantry is now smelling delightfully of rot (we opened the ceiling window and this has helped with ventilation no end) so i really wouldnt recommend drying it in your clothes closet in the bedroom (unless you're into the exotic, rather feety smell of fermenting pig) If the pong doesnt become more manageable we will move them to the garage and shroud them in a loose cage of wire to stave off the hungry hoardes of wild urban animals.

Most salami sold is apparently cooked, this reduces cost, time and potential litigation due to the sometimes unpredictable nature of dried, fermented meat product. This risk reduction strategy has also reduced the flavour. When i think about it , this explains why they dont have the traditional white, chalked look! no mould as no fermentation occourred and hence no bacteria growth! The white mould on the outside is all good. It's when it's green there's a problem.


They'll be ready in 4-6 weeks, in time for the good weather and wood fired pizza. Next time i make salami i wont forget to do it traditional style; with coretto (coffee with grappa) that might just make it extra interesting, oh and some extra hands on deck might be a good idea too!

Click here for updates on the salami

Haiku Friday

mindful reflection;
allow yourself the freedom.
take some time to see.

Saturdays

Saturday morning is my morning for a lie in. Sunday is the Blokes turn. I love Saturday, we've got it all worked out. The Bloke [insert me on Sundays] takes the bean downstairs after an hours play with us both and returns with coffee and a laptop. He's even gone so far to make a sign for the door to keep the bigger beans' potentially endless 'start of the weekend' questions at bay. It works a treat. Now they go to him with the questions. Also brilliant. Its nice to dual parent again!

So i sit propped up, slurp my coffee, read the news, check my mail and do blog stuff all with the aim of 'some morning relax'. But im finding that difficult this morning as i sit amongst, well...the filth. The bloke calls it 'our lovely nest'!
Crumbled leaves sit just inside the sliding door of the balcony, blown in through the rip in the flywire that the bean made yesterday, whales, orca and dolphins strewn around the floor, a huge book of animals of the world open and abandoned, my purse, removed earlier from my handbag hanging on the mirror open, coins spread, cards too. Dust on every surface (damn that Spring light), books piled high with their own layer of dust, cameras, photo frames with no photos, coffee rings on the side table and two days of work clothes and matching shoes left where i walked out of them, not to mention the gear on The Blokes side of the bed. Im finding it hard to relax in 'our lovely nest'. But Im definitely gunning for a day in the garden and not cleaning inside. Its perfect spring weather out there. So Im hoping for a complete and finished preparation of all the vege patches ready for planting out and great afternoon of creating in the kitchen. Im thinking homemade salami or sausages from some happy house or wild pork. Better get out of bed.

whats pissing me off right now...

Californian grapes flooding the market with slick advertising, sales tables and free samples. They're not only flown half way round the world, but they're frickin grapes! (something exotic I might turn a blind eye too on a bad day). Its winter. NOT.GRAPE.SEASON. I have to confess to being quite loud with my incredulity and horror as I passed the tasting table. Hoping that my snarky food miles comments and the ridiculousness of consumer demand for grapes mid winter got a few thinking. Food activism in action! Give it a go. Its quite theraputic.

life takes over your life

if you know what i mean...
i finally hauled myself off to the doctors this week to get a full blood test done. Thyroid malfunction at both extremes have plagued many women in my family so i wanted to get this and my iron count checked. I have been experiencing tiredness like never before. The 'is this what CFS feels like?' tiredness. The 'ohh i know ive just had 10 hours sleep but i could go a whole days extra' kind of tiredness. She actually laughed at me "yes i know i work, am finishing writing a thesis, have a one year old, two teenagers, am trying to set up a business, have a garden to manage, a household to help run and exercise three times a week, but i feel more tired then normal" . I have to say after telling her all that i felt pretty stupid! hmmm, maybe i no longer know what normal is?

Life seems to be running away from me, im happy, interested, enthusiastic, but i cant seem to squeeze enough hours out of the day to do what i want to do. i need spares, time vouchers please. So this weekend im purposefully spending my time slowing down, sorting out my life by cleaning and organising the study, removing dead printers,sorting the piles that need filing so i dont lose track of where im at. im feeling like another week of chaos may tip me over the edge "sorry, what company are you from? who are you? i ordered what?" I know myself well enough now that a good tidy up followed by the reward of a few long hours chopping and stirring fridge and pantry contents into something special is literally just what the doctor ordered. Now, i just have to decide on the something really tasty and special to cook? What do you like to indulge in preparing when you're in need of some one-on-one with a saucepan? Some ideas would be great.

Haiku Friday

darkness comes early.
rooms evolve into quiet dens,
autmun leaves expire.

bean sprouts

The pad thai we are all craving is a loooong time coming.

This is the extent of my gardening over the last few weeks, besides the removal of offending green but very velvety and plump pests from the kale, just rinsing mung bean shoots twice a day, turning and, well, just waiting... and waiting... and waiting. Maybe tomorrow...

Haiku Friday

the Gates stuffed up. Whoops!
technology has limits
nature knows its true

chicken soup for my soul

Thats how i sold the extra day away.

I was determined to have it. The idea of time alone to wander and look and think and be was just too tempting and being in Melbourne for work anyway made the extra time affordable. I cannot remember the last time I chose to be alone like this; eat alone, travel alone, explore alone, maybe never. I didnt call on friends to spend time with. I really wanted to be by myself, to be able to enjoy this free time on my terms.

I woke early, used the hotel gym and packed my bags, stored them and left. I walked across town through city gardens, passing groups of people doing tai-chi with swords, without swords, runners, dads up early with small children walking dogs, cycling their kids tandem to yoga. It really reminded me of Europe; busy inner city full of family and life.I walked down Brunswick St, one of my favourites, got a paper, found a coffee shop and sat reading for an hour and a half, eating my Florentine eggs, sipping latte and feeling very very content.

When I was done sitting and reading I walked for hours. Browsing shops, transversing suburbs, looking, listening and enjoying the freedom of my pace. Tired but smiling I arrived at the Japanese Bath House, worn out from five hours on the move and in a small amount of agony at having to walk past the Books for Cooks Shop, which looked soo inviting but Id run out of time. My reason for a layover in Melbourne. I knew that after walking so long i would really appreciate lounging in a huge hot bath. So i stripped, showered, scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and sank into that steaming deep, dark, hot pool, shut my eyes and drifted for an hour enjoying the snippets of conversation from other women and the gentleness of time. First time I had bathed without friends too. Solo bathing is very different, you cant hide behind conversation. You do all your nakedness in silence. I had looked forward to this too.

So feeling soothed, clean and just a little bit floppy, i dried and changed into the sweet smelling Kimono set provided, consciously slowing down everything i was doing, rested some more on tatami matting, sipped tea and then sucummed to an hour shiatsu massage. Chicken soup for the soul indeed. Being alone with my thoughts, my self, my inner monkeys whilst adventuring was so good. Liberating. I cant believe it took me to nearly 40 to discovery the joys of such time. Maybe its only now i have the confidence to make the time, possibly the resources to have such time. To not feel guilt at asking for leisure time and leave the responsibility of children behind for a moment.

So the Bloke is now enjoying a well deserved lie-in with coffee, and a snooze no doubt, and I have to work out how to deal with my mega morphed carbon footprint from all those work induced air miles.

bed

This is my view.
I love bed. When i lived 'at home' it used to drive my non medicated, hyper-thyroid mother crazy. She was up rushing around washing and cleaning before dawn and Id stay in bed until noon, usually reading. Quite a bit of haggling went on back then. Nothing's changed in theory, there's just no more haggling. I still love bed, i just dont get to hang around in it very often. Its actually a good dose of bed i have been looking forward to this weekend (well day and a half) when im alone with just the bean.


So this morning i trundled all three kids into the car at 4.30 am, drove to the airport, signed two of them over (unacompanied minors, one with a bad case of hickies *snigger*, that's how that night went) returned with one, fed him and put him to bed, watered the garden and decided some rekindling time was due. Some peace. Some slow... bed and a book. The sun welcomed me when i walked in. It took my breath away, it was incredibly inviting. Autumn and winter are the sunniest seasons in our room. Needless to say the book didnt last long before the zzzz took over.

...easy to spot which side of the bed's mine!

a long lunch

We used to belong to our local SLOW food convivium. It was full of locals with a passion for growing food, eating food, talking about food and making wine. Definitely in principle my kind of group. So why did we stop participating? I think life got busy and as it was a group that simon and his late wife belonged to before i came on the scene, possibly without my 100% enthusiasm it got too hard, Ive never really asked him his thoughts on why it fizzled out. Many in the group were retired and I felt that i just didnt have that much in common with everyone to make it an easy get together; particularly with the 'other' woman and the 'younger' woman mantle that i felt i was carrying. Those early days were hard. Forging ahead with a open face and measured words, head first into everyone elses expectations of just who this woman replacing their dceased friend could be. I spent months of our early relationship searching online for some support. No peers of mine had ever been divorced let alone started a relationship with a widow. So i think all the stress of being in the 'old group fishbowl' coupled with my own new divorce, two young kids and a career just kickstarting, plus being newly in love, we didnt have time for a full day of slow food !

One thing i did however take away from these gatherings was the concept of the Long Lunch. Its a great idea and one i think thats a fantastic focus for a meal with friends. The idea is to get everyone to bring a food contribution to share. The rules are that whatever you bring, the ingredients used must be local, seasonal and made in its entireity by each guest. You can distribute the responsibilities; some bring drinks, some do bread, some bring savoury, some do sweet, some do appetisers/canapes/whatever word you want to use for those really nice nibbles that you just want to stand next to for a little while longer than is socially acceptable (or is that just me? - (memories of the lemon and olive oil draped homemade warm haloumi wafting past). Its a neat way to bring the ideas of SLOW sustainable eating to the fore and possibly to share these concepts, in hopefully a really inclusive way or at leats a tasty way, with others who may not be so interested in the principles of sustainable living. Just dont stress out the guests too much.

So, I bet you can guess the bloggy lunch basics...

another 5 minute bread convert

I havent done a food post for a while (or a gardening post for that matter)...not too much going on in the garden of late; the is corn maturing, the tomatoes are teasing me with their 'not quite readyness', the beetroot is finishing up and im letting a few go for seeds, the last cabbages are standing, the basil prolific, the beans are going for second flush as are the lemons, some oranges and mandarins are edible and we're harvesting a huge bowl of apples daily; the drying rack and Vacola are about to get a workout. Im focussed on getting the beds ready for the next round of planting and their second season. This was the first growing season for these new patches, and it exposed what needs doing differently; better attention to irrgation to compensate the slight slope and which parts lose moisture quickest.

Back to the food post. After hearing so much about this book, i bit the bullet a few weeks back and ordered it, as the breadmaker has gone back to school. Most weekends she's got just no time for breadmaking. So bread can get a bit hit and miss around here now, but I still havent resorted to anything wrapped in plastic-its been months now. So i whipped up the inaugural batch of dough this morning. Like the title says, its ready in five. Its quite incredible. After the initial investment of about 10 minutes of actual work (2 hour minimum of cumulative time, most of it waiting), its ready to go.

The idea is to get the bulk batch ready and just pull it out of the fridge, chop off what you need, shape it up and bake it. Dead easy. That pretty much sums it up, and the texture and flavour... Wow! *who needs a bread oven* she says tearing out her hair. Look at those chewy holes! The book promises your loaves will emerge from baking with that lovely artisan crust and even my shitty oven, which leaks heat, managed it. Yippeee! Cant wait to try the rye and wholewheat. White bread is nice every so often, but when i crave bread, its the heavy stuff. Sorry kids.
Next dilemma after they came out of the oven was to find a something other than cheese to top it off ... a look in the fridge declared itself. Beetroot dip. I used up leftover cooked beets, a spoonful or two of cashew butter, a hunk of parmasaen, a clove of garlic, some olive oil and juice from a lemon. Magic.

So while the oven was still hot from baking, despite the leaks, and as we had friends coming over, i made an apple streusel cake for afternoon tea, which used all of about 8 apples (double the recipes suggestion) and a baby leek and feta galette for dinner (im thinkng galette is just a posh term for a long thin quiche?) - looks like muck in the pic, tasted great. Im very ready to stop and sit with a cold glass of wine.

Does anyone have any feedback or have done anything interesting with this basic Boule recipe?

a circle of sorts

Ive been looking, but i cant find one; a knitting circle close by. Initially my reaction was "oh bummer, i s'pose thats it then, cant find one, not gonna happen" That would be the sometimes rather thick, non-problem solving, giving up straight away Kel talking. Then my inner lightbulb went on... "so start one". oh poop! my brain automatically darts to the percieved emotional responsibility for the hanging together and successful meeting of a group. Hmmp. Old Kel tape. Insert new one. I think Im up for it...Im not going to be part of a circle if i dont.

No choice. Embrace it. Its on my list for 2009.

I love the 'idea' of knitting and every winter i get inspired find some wool and set down to make something fabulous. I want to make socks, that beautiful blanket, a jumper for the bean. I can cast on, i can rib, i can drop and pick up and i can do it in the round, until something unidentifiable happens and i cant work out how to solve it. i need to be around knitters who know whats going on! I want to chat, sip tea, eat chocolate, learn to problem solve with sticks and string and make new friends. I started a wonderful bookclub and its still going strong 4 years on...we all get on well and have successfully weathered a few storms and seen new members come and go. But i have never been involved with a 'creative club' like this. So, i have a few questions for those of you who belong to knitting cirlces or any other kinda circle.

How did yours develop? was it word of mouth to friends, through local advertising or some other way?

Where do you meet? Have you always met here or have you changed location for some reasons?

How do you structure the group and the time you are together, if at all?

Do you have rules and are there any things that in reflection you regard as really important about running/ being a part of a group like this that i should know?

Lastly, if you're local and belong to a circle can i join you? lol or does anyone wanna join me in a new one? I really want to finish this scarfe...

i have a dream

I grew up in a pretty special place on Sydney harbour and spent my childhood at the beach, watching boats come and go and fantasising about the waterborne gypsy lifestyle i saw so many living. I love the sound of rigging clinking on the mast, the salt water and feel of the spray, the sound of waves glugging against pilons. So when my neighbours sold up and left for a 3 year, round the world voyage on a boat, taking my 10 yo friend and her brother, i was pretty much green with envy; the closeness with your parents that it affords, the outdoor adventures and cultural wonders to be experienced, the sea, the beach, the sun.

So when i first met my husband and found out he had spent 4 years sailing the world as a single man, being both crew and captain on ocean crossing voyages, i knew he was the man for me. I grew up sailing but not like that; trailer sailers and moths on beach hikes was as exciting as it got. So, when i told him of my fantsay to sail around the world with my family and homeschool aboard a boat i was totally gobsmacked to find that it had been a lifelong dream of his too. SHAZAM! Its the perfect way to travel; low impact, no hotel costs, the best views in the world and SLOW! LOL

We now have a 7 year plan. To buy a second/third/fourth (read affordable) hand Catamaran and say goodbye for 3-4 years to circumnavigate the world. The girls will both have finished school and can choose to join us if, when and where they wish and the boy will be a 7/8 yo bean, a perfect age to leave behind daily land life and go to sea to expereince the adventure that is ocean cruising.

Do you have a long term goal or plan that fills you with so much excitement that you're just bursting?

Haiku Friday

the sun clumps up, like
a bunch of marching apples
drumming in the trees

a collaborative Haiku with 'the bubster'