Sunday Funday

I've had a busy week at work and having got out much over the recent past. Weekends with friends are the perfect anecdote to any stress in my life. How can my little heart not be gladdened when I get to go out walking with this amazing bunch of people?

The Luminosity, Purple Lady and Design Diva at The Pinnacles

 

We passed a street library on our walk - I love these and the way they share literacy in the suburbs.

I rewarded myself with a slice of cake at the end - it was made by Emma Cake, who apparently is not proud of this creation, because it is not perfect. But I liked it. It was an attempt at making Russian Buttercream. How is that different from American Buttercream, I hear you ask? It's the accent. And perhaps the politics. 

Raining Cats and Blogs

It's raining. Some friends visited from South Australia, and we had a wonderful evening of catching up and laughter. Leaky Lyn asked me to not let her forget her pocket raincoat that she was going to need for the weekend. The next morning I found this on our dining table so I helpfully took a picture and texted, 'don't forget this!'

It's raining, so Him Outdoors isn't keen to go cycling. He's got an injured Achilles tendon at present so he can't go running. So he did his other favourite leisure activity: brewing. Apparently this involves perching on a stepladder in the shed. 

It's raining, so Melantho and Penelope are confined indoors. Is there anything more gloomy than two kittens on a laundry windowsill staring out into into the garden? Inclement weather has curtailed their wanderings. Cur-tailed! Ha! I'll get my coat.

A study in gloom

Staging a Feast

Canberra Day is curry with the Kays. Patience Itself cooks up a storm and we eat and drink on their patio. It's a good thing. 

Along the pathway to their house, there are these fabulous fruit trees - I'm not entirely sure what they are, but they look spectacular.

I have been working on a play in development with two other actors, the playwright and a dramaturg. People Inside Me by Katie Pollock was live-streamed from The Street Theatre, and this was our stage. 

It was a really intense process (the play covers some pretty deep and thought-provoking themes) and the whole 'having to watch yourself on TV' thing is extremely confronting. So I was greatly relieved afterwards when Original Gravity dropped round to share a dram of the good stuff with us. 

I then had a fabulous but exhausting weekend of auditions (I'm directing/ producing Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad in July). There is such an abundance of female theatrical talent that I am spoiled for choice. I will have callbacks on Monday but, in the meantime, Him Outdoors applied for Husband of the Year by cooking me a roast dinner. Fantastic!

Seeing the Light

There's a tree out the front of our house that does not belong to us. It is some kind of eucalyptus tree and it is big.  The other day I went out for a walk and I smelled freshly cut wood - really fresh. Obviously a branch has fallen down and blocked the road; someone had phoned the authorities; they had removed the offending branch and chopped it up into manageable chunks. And I hadn't noticed a thing. There must be a moral to this tale, but I have no idea what it could be.

While out on this walk, I came across a little dollhouse that had been put out by the kerb, probably in the hope that someone would take it away and play with it. In the meantime, the sun seemed to be doing a good job of highlighting its best features. 

The kittens remain unimpressed, but they are clearly millennials and, hence, too cool for school. I know they are millennials, because I caught Melantho trying to eat my smashed avocado on toast. Apparently this means she is squandering all her income and will never leave home. Good.

I didn't get to the Enlighten Festival this year, in which 'some of the capital's most loved and iconic buildings' are illuminated with large-scale projections. I did, however, stumble across these designs on the Sydney and Melbourne Buildings in town. Bohie Palacek's illumination, Dandelion, 'draws on the bright flower's ability to heal, its strong roots and its floating seeds to relay a message of care and consideration. A meditation on Canberra's last 12 months.' 

Mikaela Stafford's Proximity, meanwhile 'draws parallels between our natural and built environments'.

And, as usual, I rounded off the week with a circuit of Lake Burley Griffin with the Walking Crew.

Reigning Kittens

My kittens mark out poses on the duvet cover, as if they're playing Twister. 

Kitten Twister

As I walk down to the local shops, I see the new mural is really taking shape and putting down roots (do you see what I did there?) - the artist, Faith Kerehona, seems to keep popping up into my consciousness. 

It feels like it wouldn't be date night without a picture of some food, so here are the cheesy meatballs with liquid cheese from To All My Friends. 

It's been kind of stormy weather around here for this past week; the dark clouds were certainly gathering on my morning run up Mt Painter. I arrived home just as the rain began to bucket down, but between the front and back door it began to lash down so hard that I decided not to get the washing off the line.

On Friday night we went around to friends' Gindelle and The Minister for a blind gin tasting. There were seventeen to taste and we took notes and decided which one(s) we liked best. It was a great night of fun, gin, food and laughter. I'm not sure why the first photo of the evening is the most blurred when the bottles weren't even moving. Perhaps it was the excitement of the anticipation.

As you can imagine, the notes got a little more rough and less coherent as the evening wore on, but I did capture my impressions of my favourite two: Sundown Gin featuring Strawberry Gum ('mint aroma - eucalyptus? - slightly sweet fruity flavour, warm smooth finish') and Audemus Pink Pepper Gin ('peppercorns; fennel; cardamom; star anise? Definitely Indian spices but also slightly creamy notes like honey or vanilla').

My runner-up gin of the evening

My favourite

And in a glass, with strawberries

I kicked off the weekend with a yomp round Red Hill Nature Reserve with the walking crew. In a change from our usual routine, we stopped half-way round for breakfast instead of waiting until the end. 

Signs at the lookout suggested that the surrounding natural temperate grassland has become one of Australia's most vulnerable ecosystems - I reckon there's plenty to choose from. Apparently these grasslands provide the habitat for several threatened species, including the Grassland Earless Dragon, the Striped Legless Lizard, the Golden Sun Moth and the Perunga Grasshopper. 

Now, I don't wish to sound judgmental, but this sounds like a dragon that can't hear, a lizard that can't run (and is possibly pissed), a moth that likes bright lights and a grasshopper that can't fly. It does sound a little like the home for the differently-abled reptiles and insects. I always thought Canberra was a little odd, but I wasn't aware that it was science fiction.

Due to tree growth, it is now quite difficult to see the lay-out of the city below from the lookout. However, another helpful sign provides the following information:

Intended to create healthy modern environments for urban dwellers, British 'Garden City' principles inspired the residential planning of Canberra from the 1920s. 

John Sulman, a leading architect and planner of the time, had a major influence in making our capital a garden city. His early suburb designs included Ainslie, Braddon and Kingston. Modest but well-designed single-storey houses were built on large allotments in generous garden settings, with wide verges and large shady street trees. Today, parts of these suburbs are heritage listed. 

Homes in early Canberra were prohibited from having front fences, so hedges became the preferred alternative. The 145km of suburban hedges were pruned courtesy of the government until 1954.

Charles Weston, Superintendent of Parks and Gardens from 1913 to 1926, oversaw the planting of two million trees and shrubs throughout Canberra. Influenced by 'Garden City' thinking, Weston created tree-lined streetscapes, which provide the striking seasonal colours we still enjoy today.

The information panels didn't mention anything about these beasties that we encountered towards the end of our walk. My Aussie friends told me that the cluster of caterpillars on a tree trunk were spitfire larvae and that when disturbed they spat out a stinging substance (the larvae; not my friends). I thought they were having a lend <cough> drop bears <cough>, but it turns out to be true! Later research (I looked it up on a computer) revealed that they actually dribble rather than spit (again, the larvae; not my friends) and the substance isn't harmful, which sounds a little less impressive, but it does seem that most Australian flora and fauna is indeed trying to kill us. Maybe the Dr Who tardis isn't so out of place after all... 

I arrived home to find that Calamity Sue had been to visit with a present for the kittens that she found in a second-hand shop. I installed it in the house and they soon had great fun climbing up and down it and hiding within.

Penelope going up...

...and coming back down

...and hiding inside

...with Melantho

Their antics wore them out so they needed a little lie down.

So did we. It may have been the bubbles...