Serendipities

Small discoveries - online, off the page, and elsewhere

Sunflowers

I can't resist a bouquet of sunflowers. These I found on a street garden near Gorman House Markets a couple of weeks ago. If I went back today, they would probably be a bit bedraggled, screwing up their lovely open faces and getting ready to drop their seeds - that's if the cockatoos hadn't eaten them for breakfast. On the day I took the photo, the bed was full of sunflowers, the promise of a crop of pumpkins and sage.

Louis IV, the Sun King

Sunflowers always, always remind me of France's Louis IV, known to history as the 'Sun King'. He built the Palace of Versailles, some say because he hated Paris, he didn't feel safe there. This is all the excuse I need to scroll through the photos of our travels and revisit our visit to Versailles. Here are the palace gates - looking very golden even on a gray winter's day.

The gates of Versailles, December 2012

You can find out all sorts of things about the Palace of Versailles here. But here is my traveller's tip: don't just visit for the day. The palace is incredible (and really needs more than a day to fully explore the grounds) but the town that has grown up around the palace is worth some time of it's own. With more time, you could, for example, visit the King's Kitchen Garden or the Antique Dealers' District.

The Dangers of Literary Lectures

Have you heard what Hilary Mantel said about the Duchess of Cambridge? Well, Twitter lead me to this terrific essay on the dangers of literary lectures and being reported out of context, which has been published in The New Yorker. Even if you're not interested in all the bookish examples, scroll to the end to read Mantel's comparison of the Royal family to pandas - it tells you a lot about the context in which her comments were originally delivered and it may make you smile.

Famous Resolutions

The fabulous Brain Pickings continues to bring me serendipitous moments of joy. I haven't made any new year's resolutions yet - the year is still young. But if you've ever wondered about the resolutions Marilyn Monroe and Jonathan Swift made, take a peak here. My favourites today come from Woody Guthrie:

Stay glad ... Dream good ... Dance better.

The First Sunday

Christmas was a big hit with the wee man this year. I think three-years-old is probably the perfect age for the celebration. We said 'hello' to Santa's helpers at least six times, never once questioning why they all looked alike. We went for night drives to look at the 'big' Christmas tree in Civic Square (a disappointment for someone brought up on the Christmas tree in Sydney's Martin Place) and the gardens and houses lit up in the streets near us. We put out grass to feed Santa's reindeer ... and took for granted that the reindeer actually ate it. And there is no doubt in Mr M's mind that it was Santa who left the Jeff Wiggle doll for him. Little wonder that he has now told me twice that he 'wants to have Christmas again'. The only problem was that, after giving someone else a gift (which he did very graciously), he turned to me or to J and asked, 'Is there another present for me?'

We also managed to do quite a bit of Christmas cooking. Mr M really likes making cakes - in the past few months we've made Shrek cakes, Wiggle biscuits, birthday biscuits, more Shrek cakes. In the week leading up to Christmas, we made Christmas biscuits (Nigella Lawson's recipe is very versatile - cookie cutters are marvellous things), jelly, fruit salad and Baz balls with our own variation (crush a packet of Scalliwag chocolate biscuits, add a can of condensed milk, a cup of sultanas and the same of choc bits, mix together, roll into small balls and then role in coconut - the variation was leaving out the crushed nuts, which I couldn't possibly put in now we live in world of nut allergies). These last, however, were topped by Vanessa's twist on a similar family recipe, Chocolate Winnies. Simply by leaving out the cocoa and adding white choc bits, instead of milk chocolate ones, she created a winner - and as they melted in the heat, they tasted even better. Here's the revamped recipe for White Chocolate Winnies:

Crush a packet of Arrowroot biscuits.
Add a tin of condensed milk and a cup of white choc bits.
When everything is mixed together, roll the mixture into small balls and then roll the balls in coconut.
Keep in the fridge until ready to eat.

We've had a slow start to the new year. The heatwave, which hasn't been as severe in Canberra as elsewhere, wreaked havoc with Mr M's sleeping patterns. He's taken to falling asleep at 4pm, worn out by the heat. This means he is ready to party on until midnight so we have had to adopt some strategies for keeping him awake through the day. Too many dvds are the result - as well as trips to the pool and KidCity with Jack and Charlie. Next week we'll be back to 'normal' routines.

The unexpected daytime sleeps, though, have given me some time of my own. I've read books - A House in Fez by Suzanna Clarke, which didn't quite inspire me to head off to Morocco to renovate, and Australian Classics by Jane Gleeson White, which has inspired me to add some Australian classics to my reading list for the year. (Yes, how nerdy is that? I have a 'reading list' for 2008. But I would like to catch up on some Aussie novels I've never read, including Helen Garner's Monkey Grip and Tim Winton's Cloudstreet.)

I have also, finally, finished organising Mr M's photos into albums, even annotating the photos so, when he is 50, he will know who is who and what happened when. Horrid realisation ... I have taken over 700 photos of Mr M and his life and he is only three! I can't even blame J for contributing to the number as, with the digital camera, I am the main photographer. It's made me ponder how personal photography has changed. With a digital camera, it costs me nothing to snap away, often taking half-a-dozen photos to get the one I want. I'm not limited by my poor photography, having a roll of film that allows me to shoot only 12 pictures, having to wait to see whether my photos are any good. This current generation will probably be the most photographed yet. Nothing that happens to them will be undocumented. But perhaps I should think about easing up on the photography now that he's reached three? How many cute photos can you have?

This blog is as close as I'm going to get to a new year's resolution. I enjoyed writing and sending my group emails last year. So here's the plan: every Sunday this year (or Saturday or Monday or, maybe, Tuesday) I hope to post about the week just passed. Let's see if I can keep it up and if, at the end of the year, I have 52 posts. Fingers crossed.