Domestic Art

Have been busy on the domestic front recently and these are proof of my endeavour - lemon honey , made from some lemons from my neighbours tree up at Orewa, an easy microwave recipe.

Then there is a sultana, currant and marmelade loaf made from an old recipe newly published in Alexa Johnston's new book "A second helping". The fruit is soaked in a cup of hot tea overnight. It is delicious.

I recently got out my spinning wheel and spun a couple of skeins of yarn, using some natural grey fleece and some brightly coloured rolags of wool I bought many years ago, inserting small pieces of the pink and red wool between the two grey strands when plying them. I will be crocheting a baby blanket of granny squares when I have done a lot more skeins, in slightly different colours.

Our Knitterati domestic craft group is going to evolve into the Floralarti at the Rose Festival in Novemember and I have been knitting some roses to make into brooches. They are easier than it would seem.

Art

Elisabeth painted these pictures of Dieter and friends from old photos. He was working at the freezing works in Mataura on his first visit to New Zealand, this was several years before we met in Germany. He was on a 6 year working holiday that saw him hitchhike all the way from Europe, across the Middle East. He occasionally met up with another hitchhiker or two and they would travel or pitch camp under a bridge for the night. When I met him I thought it might be quite fun to travel overland like that too, so he went out and bought some maps and told me all ab out sleeping outside like that. He would be armed with a knife for protection. That was when I chickened out and flew to Singapore to see my parents who were there for a year or two.

Berlin

Ship Board Life

Dubrovnik

Split

Pompeii

Venice

Florence

Home Sweet Home

Have been home for a couple of weeks now and will post a few of our holiday pictures. It is all still quite fresh in my mind and was a wonderful holiday , though the last two weeks in Germany were rather too warm at 35C. However the cold back here in Auckland has brought us back to the reality of winter.

Gaudi

Our last few hours in Barcelona. In fact we are going to pick up our luggage from hotel and get a cab to the port. Have just been to the big cathedral to look around and took in a Gaudi exhibition in the Diocesan Museum, his lesser known works on paper mainly. As well there was a good exhibition of works by the French artist Courbet, who had an influence on Picasso and Miro in turn. Of course there were lots of beautiful churchy works of art too from the various centuries, depicting the saints, an old crucifix, statues etc.
Went out for a meal last night and savoured my glass of Spanish red! There is going to be a bit of rain in the Mediterrannean . Hopefully it won´t be too rough.

Barcelona

Arrived in bustling Barcelona today after a very long flight from Singapore - about 15 hours. Still I survived and we are now out and about taking in the atmosphere. Just been to the fabulous market which has all the fruits of the season on sale - bought some cherries, some fig and nut panforte and took photos of the rest. Will load on to blog when able to later on. Monday being the day the museums are closed we wont be doing much apart from finding somewhere to eat. Nice and mild at 20 degrees. Join the ship tomorrow.

Perth

Belltower , kangaroo sculpture and butterflies in the museum.

Patricia Piccinini

This unusual creation looked like a huge nest strung high in the art gallery atrium . Has a little figure of a child in it.

King's Park

Spent a morning roaming this park high above Perth with superb views over the river and city and great displays of Australian flora. Not much colour though at this time of the year.

Guildford

Spent a lovely afternoon in this quaint little township with old houses and antique shops with reasonably priced bric-a-brac.

Perth

Having an enjoyable holiday with good friends Eileen and Frank, originally of Titirangi who left Auckland for the good life in WA all those years ago. I used to make regular pilgrimages in earlier years and this is our second trip in the last three years. This time it was to see baby Finn baptized which was a happy occasion last Sunday followed by a gathering of the 2 families and friends at Marianne and Dean's with yummy finger food and wine and a delicious christening cake.

Monday was a public holiday here too so we went for a long walk along the coast in the morning with the deep blue Indian Ocean stretching as far as the eye can see, with waves crashing on the beach and black-clad surfers out in force along the various beaches every few hundred metres.

In the afternoon we all went for a drive to Guildford about 40km away. It is an old town with lovely trees, parks, old houses and antique shops. It reminded me of Cambridge and has an Anglican boys grammar school in its midst. It is also in the heart of the Swan Valley, a wine growing area, formerly settled by Croatians like in Henderson.

Yesterday we went for an outing in the morning to King's Park, a very spacious park with native plants and trees, from the different parts of Western Australia in particular but also the rest of Australia. Not much colour at present but it was good to be reminded of the variety of flora and to walk among it, with views below to the Swan River below. Lunched at Subiaco afterwards - prices are high - panini and coffee for 3 was A$45.

Today Dieter and I got the train into Perth and went to the art gallery to look at a Patricia Piccinini exhibition of her lifelike and unusual silicone sculptures. She combines very lifelike figues of children and babies often with rather grotesque animal or goblinesque figures. I liked them and understood them better after watching a video of an interview with her.

Walked to St George's Anglican Cathedral for a lunchtime organ concert by the Cathedral Organ Scholar, a smiling Year 11 Guildford Grammar student by the name of Elijah Lim. He played works by Buxtehude, Bach, Mendelssohn and a couple of later composers.