Here she comes...

Here´s proof! She´s on her way!

Anjès is on her way!

Another momentous day in our family history! Anjès is (going to be) on her way to Australia. On her Monday morning, she´ll board a plane for Singapore at 11:15 and arrive here on Tuesday at 19:30 (in Brisbane). We can´t wait to give her a great big Welcome Home family hug as she arrives! Her room is ready for her, the weather is lovely and a new life and adventure waiting to begin! 

Anjès had a wonderful farewell party on the weekend, photos of which can be seen here and she has also started a blog (which, for the non-Dutch speakers among us, you may want to chuck into Google Translate, should you wish to follow).

Again we say, tempus fugit - we´re all very excited!

Lovely party

The Weather Makers were with us this weekend! On Saturday afternoon, about 25 of our friends and family came down to Houghlahans Creek Road to celebrate my birthday and Niki´s return with us. Beautiful dishes had been prepared by all - curry, pasta, artisan bread, cakes, soup and other comestibles aplenty. Thanks to the kind weather we could spend most of the afternoon on the back deck. The last of our guests left by 7.30 at night by which time we had just retired inside.

Sunday my love spent the morning and afternoon in the garden, where I joined her in the afternoon - clearing the overgrown herb patch and harvesting 309 (!) lemons from the bolted lemon tree along the side fence, now pruned back to a much smaller shadow of itself with some 50 or 60 of the fruit remaining. We´ll try and flog the 309 with an honesty box on the side of the road and ´volunteer´ them to unwitting victims...

We´re also planning a veggie patch, but are still trying to locate the best area to plant our future meals...

Watching Downton Abbey at the moment in front of a fire that doesn´t want to spark into life...

Celebration

After much rain over the past few weeks it looks as if weather has finally turned for the better! Tomorrow (Saturday) we´re having a, hopefully sunny gathering with family, friend, neighbours, cats, dog and ducks, to celebrate my ..th birthday, Niki´s return home and the fact that living in one time-zone is fantastic and life is beautiful. We´ll be sure to share some photos with you later this weekend.

Over the past week or so, writing has kept us off Houghlahans Creek Road (or any road, street or lane, for that matter), out of the pool (which is too freezingly cold anyway) and well-enmeshed in the linguistic intricacies of that foreign realm called English Grammar for our English Grammar for Teens If you click below, you can see the design of the level 1 pages - we think it looks very cute indeed.

And then there was silence... It´s not that we haven´t been doing anything over the past few weeks, since my love´s arrival. On the contrary, our days have been filled with too many things to mention - most importantly, re-establishing our little family unit with Tess and Yarrow; and working on the property; writing, and carting back and forth between Pearce´s Creek, Lismore, Byron Bay and Clunes; and getting used to the (too) cold winter weather. It´s not exactly freezing, but it feels extremely cold, and at night (and sometimes during the day, too!) we have a fire on. 

We´re planning a Saturday lunch party on the 18th, to celebrate my 50th birthday and Niki´s return. Thank you, Peter and Ann, for sending me The Times newspaper of 23 May 1961 - an authentic copy of the paper, it´s a fascinating record and very interesting to read and see what happened on that day, apart from me being born of course...

On the animal front (see older posts), there is not much to report other than a twosome of ducks that keep returning to the pool (the other 13, who soiled the pool and made it a green, dirty pond when  got back a while ago seemed to have decided to relocate); some Orb spiders; the occasional bird flying into the window; a lonely and seemingly lost frog on the Barracuda hose in the middle of the pool, and a mysterious animal that seems to have dug a burrow off the deck. We suspect it might be an echidna.

Both Niki and I are really happy to be here (again)! We´re awaiting Anjès, who is now in Paris with her mum, looking forward to getting on that plane and will be arriving in Brisbane on 28 June.

The Eagle...

has landed ... Oh joy!

Tracking

Niki´s flight path on 27-28 May 2011, click to enlarge

It´s amazing what you can ´follow´ these days on the Internet, You can follow people on Facebook, follow Twitterers and people on other social networking sites, but you can also follow, erm, planes. The airline does say, ´Look, mate, once we´re out of Europe, you´re on your own´... Cute, nevertheless. Fly to me, babay, fly to me...

World view of the sweetest journey ever made...

No words...

Going...

Your bags are packed. You´re ready to go. You´re leaving on a jet plane. Well, a few jet planes... 30 hours of jet plane, to be exact. It´s one way to get home ... 

Have a safe and pleasant journey, my love: we will be awaiting you to welcome you home and embrace your return with a passion!

Here´s a poem, by e e cummings, to accompany you on her journey. 

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                    i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant 
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Just that spot

Now, Mr Malouf just had to select that spot, and not the one next to it; just exactly on that magazine that was lying on that huge sofa ... to establish that special feline equilibrium that only cats understand. Aren´t they adorable?

No more cloudy days...

Would you believe it! Where my travel plans were hampered last year by Icelandic volcanic eruptions, Iceland could yet again have been throwing a spanner in the works as the Grimsvotn volcano erupted once more earlier this week and spread another ash cloud over parts of Europe. In fact the eruption was worse than last year but favourable wind and weather conditions have made it less disruptive. The latest news is that it is clearing and won´t disrupt airline traffic unduly. Let´s hope that this won´t have any effect on my love´s flight to Australia on Friday!

Birthday

I was informed, earlier this morning, after cake and presents in bed with Tess and Yarrow, that I was not to do anything and just had to wait and ´things would be OK´. Well, that sort of told me that something was afoot - and lo, and behold, around 6pm Tess and Yarrow led me up the stairs from the study (with my eyes closed of course) to the kitchen where Ton, Ellen, Bryony, Mieke, John, Tess and Yarrow were waiting with presents, nibblies, food and drinks... I hadn´t even noticed them coming in! We had a very ´gezellige´meal, but we all dearly missed my love and Anjès! As Ton wisely said, ´Well, we´ll just have to do it again.´ Sensible thought. A nice, warm fire, laid by Yarrow added to the convivial atmosphere. And Chicco? Well, she was just being so Mega Cute posing for this photo that I felt she needed a mention and inclusion in the small gallery below...

A simple message

I LOVE thee, as I love the calm
    Of sweet, star-lighted hours!
I love thee, as I love the balm
    Of early jes'mine flow'rs.
I love thee, as I love the last
    Rich smile of fading day,
Which lingereth, like the look we cast,
    On rapture pass'd away.
I love thee as I love the tone
    Of some soft-breathing flute
Whose soul is wak'd for me alone,
    When all beside is mute.

I love thee as I love the first
    Young violet of the spring;
Or the pale lily, April-nurs'd,
    To scented blossoming.
I love thee, as I love the full,
    Clear gushings of the song,
Which lonely--sad--and beautiful--
    At night-fall floats along,
Pour'd by the bul-bul forth to greet
    The hours of rest and dew;
When melody and moonlight meet
    To blend their charm, and hue.
I love thee, as the glad bird loves
    The freedom of its wing,
On which delightedly it moves
    In wildest wandering.

I love thee as I love the swell,
    And hush, of some low strain,
Which bringeth, by its gentle spell,
    The past to life again.
Such is the feeling which from thee
    Nought earthly can allure:
'Tis ever link'd to all I see
    Of gifted--high--and pure!
  
Eliza Acton (1799–1859)

Picnic in the park

On Sunday, Niki had organised a picnic in the park for her friends - an occasion to say celebrate her going (from Portugal) and coming back (to Australia). On her Facebook site there´s a photo album with lovely photos of good cheer, friendship and sunshine! (Some of the photos are from a few dinners my love had with some of the people who couldn´t be there on the day).

And ... what do you think of the cake somebody baked ...!

Happy Birthday

End of the world

Seeing as the end of the world was nigh over the weekend, I thought this clip from The 1979 Secret Policeman´s Ball might interest some of you, or at least make you laugh, just in case you were also waiting for said Nigh End...

Tractor

Yarrow proudly showed me her latest school certificate. It says:

ALSTONVILLE HIGH SCHOOL AGRICULTURE

Tractor Driver´s Licence
This is to certify that

Yarrow Mol

has succesfuly passed his/her driving test.

Valid only on the school farm. Gold licence. Year 2011.

Well-done, Yarrow! Always useful to have!

Anna

We just heard last night that Anna, Mieke´s sister, has had to go in for an operation this (Sunday) morning on her lumbar spine. Apparently she had been unable to move earlier this week and had to be taken to hospital. We wish her all strength, luck and surgeons who know how to solve this predicament! Send good vibes!

Lazy, lazy, and the Chicken and the Cat

It´s a very, very lazy Sunday morning. It´s raining a drizzly but constant kind of rain; not cold, but low-hanging clouds and mist in the valley, and a cold tinge on the edges of the day. (Scattered showers, the weather report said - well, it´s been like this for the past 7 hours ...). The cats cannot be anything else but lazy, either, and are sleeping in various catty spaces on the deck; Chicco has found an old blanket to lie down on. The girls are lounging, lazily, reading, watching movies, showering; I am re-reading John Irving´s A widow for one Year (a book I know, for a fact, I read and admired years ago, until, re-reading it now, I realize I remembered absolutely nothing about, until I got to the part that is set in Amsterdam...) 

One of those days when nothing much happens.

I just realised that Tess and Yarrow are staying tonight as well, on account of tomorrow being my birthday, which is really nice! So tonight will be apple-cake baking time to prepare for the ancient ritual of Cake In Bed On Birthdays.

This morning I observed an unusual scene: I had fed Malouf his breakfast and spilled some of the cat food around his bowl. Darren´s chicken, Luna, who occasionally visits, arrived on the scene and companionably pecked away at some of the food. At some point, Malouf looked sideways, and I wonder whether anything else but the smell and taste of food went through its mind on seeing the chicken there, eating ´with him´.

My love, in the meantime, is ´on´ her last weekend in Lisboã - spending time with her best friends Susie and Rita. Rita helped her make an inventory of the apartment on Saturday. On (her) today, she will have a picnic with friends ahead of her trip Down Under at the end of the week. I hope the weather will be nicer than it is here now!

Easter Photos

During the Easter weekend, and the days before and after, which Niki and I spent in Holland with Anjès (see earlier posts), we took quite a few photos. If you click on this link, you´ll be taken to a photo album on Niki´s Facebook pages.