house painting Italian style...

Yes, it really is four and a half metres to the centre of the vaulted ceiling. Bold but simple black wrought-iron chandeliers, rather than pigs' carcasses, would be my preferred object to be hanging from the iron ring in the centre of each room!

interesting reading

When resting on the couch with the flu and a box of Santa's cherries in brandy dark chocolates, I had plenty of time to read.

The brand was Warner Hudson. The box design was clear, simple, casually elegant. A bottle of "finest superior brandy", a stemmed glass of cherries and two chocolates, all with delicate reflections, over a loosely sketched gold design. On closer inspection the gold line behind the picture turned out to be a rampant lion. Ah ha, I thought. An English brand. But Santa came from Scotland this year.

I turned the box over, for closer inspection. From whence came these luxury delights?

I found two days' worth of interesting reading.

This amused me first. The description. "Plain chocolates with Cherries in Brandy Liqueur". I suppose they were plain, empty!

Everything was in 15 languages. Best before ... 15 times over, and then the date printed convincingly in a different type and ink. Yes, no problem, I will definitely consume these before 26.08.09. In fact, mission accomplished already!

But now the really fascinating part. The nutrition facts, repeated in tiny print in other languages, generously described a serving as 4 pieces. Great! But no, wait! On the opposite side was a slightly bigger panel, especially for Australia and New Zealand. Serving size? A miserly 3 pieces! I felt cheated. Why could the English and French eat more?

I looked closer. On the French and EU side there was fat content of 31%, plus a tiny bit of salt. On the Australasian side there was only 17% fat. And no salt. and 20mg of calcium. The EU had 0% calcium.

Even if this was (heaven forbid!) a typing error, the fat figures (love that!) still showed a difference. EU had Fat lipides (bold type) 11%. Under this was saturated and trans fats another 20%. The Antipodean version of the same chart (on the same box, remember?) had Fat, total (bold print) 17%. Under this was 'saturated, 10%'. The figures just don't add up. Mine certainly will... needing the brandy after all this confusion, I ate them all!

And who actually made Santa's gift? It was a product of Germany, distributed by a German company, for Lolliland, Sydney, Australia.

time to paint

I leave the television going for language immersion. I walked into the kitchen (the TV supplanted the microwave when I was sick) and saw a close-up of frilly lettuce leaves. For a moment my brain had it all converted into negative painting, lights and darks, shades of green. I thought, in that moment, that I was looking at a close-up of a work of art.

Perhaps I was.
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more work

Work recommenced in the cantina this morning. The expression "you wont see me for dust" takes on a whole new meaning... as does "eat my dust". All those girl-hours of cleaning before Christmas are being negated as I type. This dust is so fine, so pervasive, it doesn't matter how many layers of covering I use, how many doors I close, the dust locates, targets and settles on every object I have with accuracy and finesse. I do understand why people put their gear into storage and move into hotels when their houses are being restored. I'm just too frugal to pay the bill! Besides, who would feed Zacchi?

Zacchi and I have had to re-establish some meal-time rules. He forgets that he is a dog and turns down perfectly good meat, raw and cooked, and dog biscuits, as he waits hopefully for omelettes and home baking. Forget it, little critter! I may have become vegetarian but it is no excuse for you to reject good dog tucker!

censorship

Today I did something most unusual for me. I destroyed a perfectly beautiful as-new book. (I feel my librarian friends' shockwaves from here!)

My two weeks of not working has given me a lot of thinking and reading time. Oddly enough the flu didn't fuzzle my brain too much. I have decided to accept the "down time" as a gift.

On my bookshelf was a book I had bought to read as I flew to my new life. Several people had recommended it, and the volume itself - hard cover, most attractive dust jacket, small enough to go into the hand luggage - was just too seductive to leave on the shelf at the airport bookshop.

I read the book very quickly, totally disillusioned once I got past the attractive quotations and beautifully designed pages. I am sure the writer had the most honourable intentions as she wrote. For me, however, it was not the inspirational book I had been promised. Describing the "law of attraction", this was a book encouraging greed, encouraging consumerism, encouraging self-centred living. It sat on my kitchen bookshelf for almost two years. I half-hoped one of my guests might take it away. Increasingly its presence offended me. I read other books, and the more I learned from them the more this attractive volume weighed negatively in my home.

It is no more. Today I tore pages from it. I cut them into small sections to give away to friends. I have kept a few quotations for myself. Then, without any qualms, I gave it a ceremonial burial in my kitchen rubbish bin, covering it with the peel of about thirty mandarines. That wasn't enough. I took the plastic bag and deposited it in the local rubbish tip.

Tomorrow it will be gone. I feel good about that.
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creative spaces

Following links in my emails I found this... creative spaces. It sometimes blows you away, what goes on, largely unsung, in our communities. Awesome work!

One of my unfulfilled aims was to set up a Children's Art House in Morrinsville. Maybe someone else will run with the idea...?

A somewhat grander "maybe one day..." is a yen to study the use of creative therapies to help "problem" children and teenagers learn more acceptable social behaviours, develop a programme to suit New Zealand teenagers, and have it replace the discipline systems in some of our schools. It will take a huge amount of energy. There is still time.
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out of the wilderness

After almost three months of isolation I have internet again. Long may it last.

It is one year and two days since I started this blog. I am not sure how much I will blog this year. My enforced break and now some time with absolutely no email connection at all gave me time to read, to think, to re-evaluate. The flu kept me at home and out of contact with all except kindly neighbours cautiously delivering food and medicine to my door. Less time at the computer this year? I hope so!

But now to tackle all those long-neglected emails!

Zacchi says all is right with the world... the heater is on, and mum is at the computer. What more could a little dog need?