Art For Art’s Sake

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Decluttering and minimalism are all about eschewing ‘stuff’ and some people seem to think that life is bland and missing something without possessions.

Now, I am not suggesting for one moment that I do not have stuff or that I am even a minimalist although I certainly do have less possessions than many people.

Experiences are valuable and mean much more to me than a house filled with possessions. Travel is always high on my list of experiences. Sometimes we travel specifically for art experiences and at other times we find cultural experiences along the way.

Just 12 months ago we went to Hobart for the express purpose of going to an exhibition titled ‘Lands of Light’ by Lloyd Rees at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

We discovered a very different but equally interesting exhibition in the adjacent gallery.

The next few months are filled with various artistic and cultural events. Some are very local, such as the Maldon Portrait Prize which celebrates local artists. We plan to view the entries at a local gallery sometime in the next week. Other planned trips include Bendigo to see the Frida Kahlo exhibition and well as going to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne to see ‘French Impressionism’ from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. We are also going further afield over the next couple of months to Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale to see ‘Turner and Australia’ which explores the influence of JMW Turner on the Australian art scene and the Art Gallery of South Australia for an exhibition titled, ‘Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890 – 1940’.

Of course, art encompasses some many other mediums and we have tickets to several performances over the next few months beginning with our younger daughter’s dance concert tomorrow afternoon. Two live theatre productions round out our adventures for July. Live theatre is one of my great loves and I am looking forward to seeing Justine Clarke in a one-woman play, ‘Julia’ about Julia Gillard, Australia’s first (and so far, only female Prime Minister). The other is called Mother Play which premiered on Broadway in 2024. This version stars on of my favourite Australian actresses, Sigrid Thornton.

The opportunity to experience such diverse cultural experiences is worth more to me than a cupboard full of things.

What about you?

Sorting the Linen

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I seem to have linen in a couple of different locations and I recently decided that I needed to look closely at what I had, and more importantly, where it is stored. The towels and bed linen were mostly in the small linen cupboard in the hallway. I had some tablecloths and less used bed linen and blankets in the large drawers under the bed in the spare room. Tea towels, hand towels and some table mats are in a drawer in the pantry.

The catalyst for my decision to re-evaluate the linen storage was the fact that the spare bed had become a bit of a dumping-ground which included the clean linen needed to remake that bed.

So, the first job was to hang up the coats which were also on the bed and remake it ready for guests at the end of the month. That immediately made things look better.

The bed was one which we bought from the previous owners when we bought the house, however, I can honestly say that I hate it. I like the look of the bed but it is difficult to make as the mattress which is very heavy sits inside a timber recess. I usually end up with scraped knuckles by the time it is made. The built-in drawers in the base are a killer for my back as I can’t get my feet close enough. I am currently searching secondhand option for a suitable replacement.

Meanwhile, I removed everything that was in the drawers in preparation for not having that space in the future.

The revamped linen cupboard – towels, sheets and doona covers.

Some extra blankets in a vacuum bag in the wardrobe. The bags on the floor contain 2 airbeds – one is a single and the other a queen-size.

Finally, I have relocated all the linen relating to the kitchen and dining room to a drawer in the extended pantry. These include tea towels, handtowels, table mats, serviettes and tablecloths.

The rearrangement did not take me too long and hopefully it will continue to work well.

Weekend Wandering

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We were away from home for less than 23 hours on the weekend. Although we did have a specific purpose and destination it was almost as much about the journey.

When we go to Melbourne we drive or catch the train from Castlemaine depending on the reason and our destination. Catching the train means that we have to drive about 15km from home and leave the car in the station car park for the day. We have also arranged a lift from friends when our trip involved getting to the airport for overseas travel.

This time we made a conscious decision to make use of the very intermittent bus service from our small town to Castlemaine. We left home after lunch on Saturday and walked about 15 minutes to the bus stop.

After the short bus ride we arrived at Castlemaine Railway Station in plenty of time to connect with the next train to Melbourne.

The train terminates at Southern Cross Station.

Our next step was a short walk across the road to catch a tram. This is one of the older style trams. The ones that run the 96 route are the newer, double-length, flat floor models.

The No 96 tram passes Southern Cross Station on its route from St Kilda to East Brunswick. We were going to the terminus at East Brunswick. It was then a short 200m walk to our overnight accommodation at an Air BnB. The tram terminus was also directly outside the Lomond Hotel which was the reason for our adventure.

We went to the Lomond Hotel on Saturday evening for dinner and to see a band, ‘Streams of Whiskey’.

It was a fabulous evening and we definitely made correct decision to find accommodation nearby as the music began at 9pm and concluded about 11.30pm.

After a comfortable night at our accommodation we were off and ready to leave just before 9am and simply retraced our steps and public transport options before arriving home at midday on Sunday.

Back at Southern Cross and the train is ready to board.

The bus dropped us off around the corner from home.

I know public transport is not an option for everyone or for all situations but if you have the time and are prepared to do a bit of pre-planning it can work in many instances. Thanks to reduced regional fares/concession/weekend fares the total transport cost for our return adventure was $22.80. Moreover, we did not have to drive or find parking.

The Next Step

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We are making progress on completing the lounge to the way we want it.

Some of you might remember this post from late February. Well there have been a few hiccups along the way but the window installation was finally completed today.

We will need to paint the frames both inside and outside and then I will see about choosing a blind. In the meantime, we will rehang the piece of fabric that has been covering the old window for the past couple of years. Bare glass is not a good idea at this time of the year.

The choice of louvres will be fully appreciated in the summer as they will provide good cross-ventilation.

Speaking of painting, we spent some time painting the pickets of our newish fence. It has been several months since it was installed but the weather has been either too hot or too cold and a few days ago we had rain to further delay us. Of course, we also seem to manage to be away or otherwise socially engaged. However, today was perfect. After a frosty start we were blessed with a glorious sunny day and no wind. Hopefully, there will be a few more days like today in the not too distant future to enable us to finish that project.

The Old and The New

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Today I bought a new pair of walking shoes. This in in preparation for our overseas trip in December/January when we will be in Europe in the winter.

I have this pair which I bought 6 years ago. They are waterproof and extremely comfortable.

I was keen to get another pair so that I could alternate them when we are travelling. So, I went into the Kathmandu store in Bendigo today and discovered that they had an identical pair in my size and there was a 40% off sale.

I am very happy with my new purchase.

They are a slightly different colour but the same great fit and comfort. I gave them a test run on our walk today.

Finally

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We, along with a large swathe of southern Australia, have been holding our breath and hoping for rain. The farmers are really desperate.

Well, we have finally received some rain in the past couple of days. It has mostly been very light and barely more than drizzle at times but at least it is rain. We have had 23mm here in about 48 hours. Much more is needed but at least that is a start.

Along with the rain it has been bitterly cold today. Unfortunately, GMan and I were volunteering at the market which is held by the local Neighbourhood Centre. I did have an opportunity to test out my recent ski jacket purchase and it stood up to the job admirably. You can check it out here. The ‘feels like’ temperature hovered around 1.5C for the 2.5 hours that I was standing at the market entrance. I feel as though I am some way to being prepared for 5 weeks in Europe in December and January.

Although the ski jacket and coat I bought a couple of weeks ago were brand-new, the majority of my clothes are sourced second-hand. I was in Melbourne on Friday and managed to find a pair of black Sportscraft trousers for $6. There is no photo at the moment as I wore them yesterday and today (with a thermal layer underneath). In fact there has been nothing particularly photo-worthy so I thought I would share this one from the alcove near the change rooms when I bought my trousers. The sentiment is terrific – the spelling ………….not so much.

Ready to Wear

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Yesterday I mended a woollen pullover. I bought it last year at the op shop. It is 100% merino wool and looked to be in perfect condition when I purchased it.

When I was hanging it on the clothesline a couple of days ago I noticed a hole on the front – not far from the armhole or shoulder seam. The hole did not look like moths had eaten but more like I had caught it on something although I have no memory of doing that.

Anyway, I decided to darn the hole with my limited darning skills. Fortunately, I had some darning wool that was a very similar colour so I am pretty happy with the result.

A close-up of my handiwork.

It is definitely not perfect but will work OK especially since I mostly wear the pullover with a scarf and/or coat. The colour is reasonably accurate in the first photo although the blue is even a bit brighter..

Labour Intensive

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The last week of May ran away while I wasn’t looking so welcome to a new month and the first official day of winter here in the southern hemisphere.

Towards the end of last year I picked a good crop of garlic that I grew. In fact, I harvested 1.7kg of garlic. I have replanted some, given some away and used it as required for the past 6 months. There was still a substantial quantity left so I decided to make my own garlic salt.

I spent a good few hours carefully peeling and thinly slicing the cloves.

Here they are laid out on the racks and ready to go in the dehydrator.

15 hours later the pieces were dry and crunchy. Here is some of the results.

I then ground the dried garlic pieces to a powder and mixed them with an equal weight of salt.

This is the 300g of garlic salt which I now have ready to use in cooking as needed.

Although it was a fairly time-consuming project, I feel that this was definitely worthwhile.

A Mixed Day

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Like so many days, today was a mix of assorted small jobs that I managed to tick off my list.

The weather was overcast and we even had some very light rain but I had some handwashed items to dry. I used the very convenient extendable rack in the laundry to hang them up.

I also had a couple of cooking jobs. I had cooked some dried Great Northern beans some time ago and frozen them. I thawed them yesterday in preparation for turning them into my version of baked beans. We had some for lunch today and the remainder have been divided into single serve portions and are ready to be frozen. I ended up with 16 portions for relatively minimal effort. The recipe for my baked beans is here.

The other cooking job for the day was to make a slice for a conference we are attending tomorrow. This is the slice before I iced it this evening. It is easy to turn into a gluten-free option with a straight substitution of gluten-free flour for the regular wheat flour. The recipe is here. I added some cinnamon and ginger this time to spice it up and the icing was made with lime juice and the addition of more powdered ginger.

I am feeling rather accomplished because as well as things I have mentioned here, I have also taken up a new pair of trousers and mended a pair of jeans – both for GMan and ironed a few items from the washing of the past couple of days.

It is good to have everything pretty much up-to-date before we are in Melbourne over the weekend.

Winter Weather

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It is technically still autumn but the weather has been feeling distinctly like winter the past few days.

We have had a couple of frosty mornings. This was the view of the paddock across the road yesterday.

There was a light frost on our back lawn, too. You can see the promise of a glorious sunny day though.

Meanwhile, we have planted some seedlings.

Cauliflower

And some spinach. They are tiny but will hopefully survive.

As if we cannot get enough winter weather here, we are off to northern Europe for Christmas and possibly a white Christmas. Even though it is almost 7 months until we leave, it is a good time to be considering what clothes and shoes we will need.

I bought this jacket in the snow gear sale at Aldi yesterday. It will get some use here during the winter but it is primarily for our trip.

Today we were walking in the main street of our small town when a display in the window of a boutique caught my eye. It was an absolutely perfect coat. I am now completely ready for winter in both hemispheres.

If only it would rain…………I would be happy. Stay safe wherever you are and whatever the weather.