A few highlights from January, the first half spent swanning about on my summer break, finishing off painting my spare room (goodbye to tatty cream and hello to a cool and sophisticated grey) and getting the garden back under control and the second half dealing with three weeks worth of post-holiday emails. Here’s a little of what’s been feeding my soul this month.
READING
Unspeakable Things: Laurie Penny. Sex, power, revolution – a critique of modern feminism, where it falls short and how it needs to do better.
I absolutely failed my personal reading challenge last year. I’m by no means the voracious reader of my geeky youth any more (torch under the bed covers at 2am because you absolutely *had* to know what happened in the next chapter…guilty) but I do like to put away about a book a month, maybe two if I’m feeling peppy. Maybe reading challenges are daft, who am I to say, but I feel like as much as I enjoy and get out of reading, it gets pushed to the side by other flashier distractions so a challenge serves as a useful prompt to pick up the book off my bedside table.
LISTENING
The Great Indoors. A celebration of all things interiors presented by UK presenter/designers Sophie Robinson and Kate Watson-Smyth. They have a lot of fun in this one, although the first episode of 2023 did declare that grey was OUT as a interior colour scheme. Oh well…
IN THE KITCHEN
Rhubarb and strawberry pie. After digging up and moving my long suffering rhubarb yet again last winter, I finally found a sweet spot for them and have been rewarded with an absolute glut of rhubarb. Rather than pre-making pies and freezing them and ending up with the weird pie crust freezer flavour that invariably happens, I made several batches of pie filling that I can pop into freshly made pie crusts when the weather turns colder.
WANDERINGS
What I thought would be a quiet excursion-free month instead turned into a series of small adventures.
Sunday mornings at Hobart’s Farm Gate market. It’s been an embarrassingly long time since I’ve been to the city on a Sunday morning to treat myself to the delicious selection of produce from all around Tasmania…and this month I went twice. Twice! Look at me, leaving the house and everything. Stocked up on raspberries (with supplies for the freezer), cheese and mushrooms (smoked mozarella from the Elgaar stand and the oyster mushroom stall are highly recommended). Smoked mozarella…how can I go back to eating the normal stuff now? Hobart’s Farm Gate market runs every Sunday from 8.30am to 1pm on Bathurst Street.
Blueberry picking in Gardners Bay. Just past Cygnet, Gardners Bay is a small rural community near the coast. Towards the end of January I headed along to their last pick your own day of the season to fill up enough containers to keep me in frozen blueberries for the year, and away from the high carbon footprint, overseas grown, frozen ones from the supermarket…that may or may not get recalled because of Hep B contamination or whatever.
Kayaking the Huon. Posted some highlights here. The Huon River is simply stunning. This is, however, only the second time I’ve ever floated about on it (well, not counting the occasional summer swims). Cruising around the Egg Islands was something that had been on my bucket list for a while. If you’re travelling to the Huon or simply want to see our valley from a different perspective, sign up for a guided tour with Esperance Adventures.
GARDEN DELIGHT
This month it’s got to be cosmos. This quick growing annual starts filling in the gaps left by early summer flowers that have faded and are remarkably tough for such a delicate looking plant. To keep your cosmos blooming, make sure to snip off old seed heads regularly (just don’t forget to save a few for next summer’s plantings).
GARDEN VISITORS
Since moving my birdbath to a much more convenient and visible spot (near to a tap…genius…) it’s been easier to keep the water topped up and fresh, and to see who’s stopping by. A steady stream of New Holland Honeyeaters, Grey Fantails, Fairy Wrens regularly visited, alongside Yellow Throated Honeyeaters (a rare visitor) and, for the first time, Black Headed Honeyeaters.
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