Gastronomy: Pavlova

Ingredients:

4 egg whites
1 ¼ cups caster sugar
1 teaspoon DYC white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 tablespoon Edmonds Fielder's cornflour

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.


2. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites and sugar for 10 minutes or until thick and glossy.


3. Mix vinegar, vanilla and cornflour together. Add to meringue. Beat on high speed for a further 5 minutes.


4. Line an oven tray with baking paper. Draw a 22 cm circle on the baking paper. Spread the pavlova mixture to within 2 cm of the edge of the circle, keeping the shape as round and even as possible. Smooth top surface over.


5. Place pavlova in oven then turn oven temperature down to 100°C. Bake pavlova for 1 hour. Turn oven off. Open oven door slightly and leave pavlova in oven until cold.


6. Carefully lift pavlova onto a serving plate. Decorate with whipped cream and fresh fruit.

Serves: 6
Source: Edmonds Cookery Book, 1992

Notes:

The first pavlova of the season (Christmas Day) was made with plain sugar and malt vinegar because that was what we had in the house and it turned out just fine.
Mr O also only preheated the oven to 100°C from the start and left the oven door closed overnight after the obligatory 1 hour of baking.
As for toppings... that is completely up to your imagination. Kiwifruit is very popular, but my personal favourite is fresh strawberries. Yum !

We have also decided that pavlova goes particularly well with trifle. It is environmentally friendly with no wasting of egg yolks if you make your own custard for the trifle. It may be waistline unfriendly, however. But it is Christmas and the calories don't count at this time of year - everyone knows that. ;)

***

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the wonderful New Zealand icon that is the Edmonds Cookery Book, here is a little bit of history from The Bookshelf a website that is dedicated to selling cookery books.

"It all started in Lyttelton, last century, when 20-year-old Thomas J. Edmonds developed his own baking powder in response to the need of dissatisfied customers who came into his grocery store complaining about the unreliability of the baking powder then available. In 1879 he sold his first batch of 200 tins, telling his customers that their baking was 'sure to rise', and before long the housewives of Canterbury were clamouring for more of the tins bearing his distinctive rising sun with cakes trademark. The rest of New Zealand soon followed suit and in 1907 the first edition of the Edmonds Cookery Book, with its 50 pages of 'economical everyday recipes and cooking hints', made its appearance. Every couple who announced their engagement looked forward to receiving their free copy - a practice which lasted for some years.

Sales of the baking powder continued to rise in spite of competition from some fierce contenders for the business and, by 1915, sales were equivalent to six and a half tins for every family in the country. Seven years later Thomas Edmonds opened his factory, which was to become a Christchurch landmark for nearly 70 years.

During the Depression it became the first factory to introduce a 40-hour, five day week and this forward thinking ensured that none of the workers, many of whom had been with the firm for an impressive number of years, had to suffer redundancy. And the city of Christchurch also gained from this remarkable man's generosity when he erected a band rotunda (now a restaurant) and a clock tower to celebrate his firm's 50th anniversary in 1929. This was followed by the creation of a park behind the factory which later became city property.

As Edmonds increased its range of products the success of the cookery book grew and more than three million copies have now been sold - making it not only a bestseller among cookbooks but the biggest-selling book ever published in New Zealand. In 1989 a companion volume, the Edmonds Microwave Cookery Book, was published and there is no doubt that the Edmonds cookery books will continue to stay New Zealand's most popular cookbooks for many years to come."

Children & Cultural References

Is it just me, or do all Mums come up with pet names or silly phrases when talking with and about their children? I am asking because it appears that I have been doing this. In my case I seem to be merging several popular cultural references into my daily language but altered specifically for use with my daughter.


At dinner times she is frequently referred to as The Milky Faced Kid, due to her somewhat distractable nature and messy eating habits.
The Cultural Reference will be familiar to those with a penchant for white chocolate.

Then there is my enjoyment of things science fiction with the grumpy and crabbit child. There are times when she approaches Whinge Factor 9.
The Cultural Reference is obvious to Trekkies everywhere.

And as she has moved on developmentally into the stage of bubbling, she has become The Phantom Raspberry Blower. No disrespect to the Two Ronnies or Spike Milligan intended.

So, am I alone or are there others of you out there with stories to tell? 'Fess up.

Renovation - VI

The work on the house continues. It is finally hitting the speed of a rolling snowball from the movies.
We now have the guts of a carport. Our kitchen is almost totally installed, as of today. We now have a proper hallway door, it is just waiting for the glazier to come back with safety glass for the two glass panels. We also have our new "back door" installed and I have a set of keys for it. The pergola is starting to look like a real structure too.

What's still to be done:

the kitchen and dining area tiling
the living room area carpeting
the carport (concreting & roofing)
the pergola
the final electrical bits and pieces
the final plumbing bits and pieces
the final bits of painting and finishing
the clean-up
the fixing of anything that isn't up to scratch (don't get me started on this one)

and probably a bunch of other stuff that I have forgotten about.

Here are photographs from the end of last week.


The skeleton carport.


The patio without pergola.


The partly installed kitchen.

Photography Challenge I - Still Life

I've decided that I need a bit of motivation.

I'm a snapper in photographic terms. I point and click, hopefully not cutting off anyone's head in the process. But I love looking at great images.
I'd really like to take some great photographs, but I don't want to invest the sort of money that DSLRs and photo editing software costs before I know that I will be able to make the most of the technology.
That's the frugal Scots person in me joining forces with my inner Mother to control the overly-exuberant child who wants the toys NOOOWWW, despite showing no actual talent or stick-to-it-iveness with the hobby.

So, in order to begin the appeasement process, I have decided to launch a once-a-month photographic challenge for 2008.
I'd love for you to join in, if you have the time and inclination.

This first challenge will be an extended six week challenge, since it is about half way through the month already, and I don't need to be adding extra deadlines around Christmas time.

The challenge is to take a still life photograph or photographs that I am particularly happy with. I will then post them on the blog and if you want to crush my spirits, feel free to give me constructive critical feedback. Ouch, that's going to hurt. :lol:

If you want to join in you can either post a link to your own blog entry here in my comments, or put a link back to this post in your own entry.

I'll see you back here on the first posting in February.

For Cat Lovers and Bloggers Everywhere

Are you a cat lover?
Are you a blogger?

If so, this guest post by Tony Clark over at Lorelle on Wordpress should bring a smile to your face on a Monday morning.

Oh Waily is primarily a House CAT, with the odd foray into being a CAT-alyst. Hopefully it's not too much of a CAT scan though.

I've also come up with some other CAT-agories for you to consider:

CAT-o-nine-tails: a blog that deserves a flogging for terrible writing.
CAT-amount: wild and fierce, blogs that rant.
CAT-erpillar: slow starter, but blossoms into a great read.
CAT-aphract: an armoured blog that doesn't let you get to know the blogger behind the writing.
CAT-ullus: a romantic and poetical blog.
CAT-o: the political blog.

What Kind of Cat are You?

Things to Live By

A few weeks ago I was having an insomnia moment, and was sitting up trying not to disturb those members of the Oh Waily family who happily go to bed, fall asleep and snore loudly. Don't duck - you know who you are!

I was sitting and thinking about life, the universe and everything else, as you do when your brain refuses to shutdown for the night. When I got to the section on life my mind began to come up with all of these ideas of what my life should be driven by. This isn't that unusual for me anymore. Since becoming a new Mum I've had quite a few moments of contemplation on the Meaning of Life (no Pythons, thanks).

It struck me after the first couple of ideas that maybe I should be taking notes on these midnight musings, so I got pen and paper out and wrote down what came to mind. I'm not sure if the order is important or if it is simply a chain reaction, starting with the first idea knocking out the second and so forth down the list. If you're a psychotherapist feel free to tell me what my meanderings in the middle of the night mean. I'm not scared to hear your opinion. Honest. No. Really.

So here they are. If you have a similar sort of list, feel free to leave a comment exposing your inner soul. ;)

Dream BIG
Take Action
Be a Leader
Be an Example
Be Graceful
Don't Give Up or Give In
Love Yourself
Have Fun
Be Grateful
Do Good
Help Others

Photography recommendation - II

I came across this photographer the other day and thought I would share his webpage and Flickr stream with you.

The post-processing technique that he uses, HDR, is probably not to everyone's taste but it sure makes some of his images completely surreal.
I like many of them, while some step over the line into neon poster status. Still, it is art, no doubt about that.

Find Stuck In Customs' website here.
Find Stuck In Customs' Flickr stream here.

And if you are really interested in the High Dynamic Range technique, you can read his tutorial on it here.

Some of my favourites are:

• Swallowing the Ruins


• The Place Where Rebekka's Horses Run Free


• Hong Kong from The Peak on a Summer Night


• Farewell India

Miss Oh Waily on a roll

At about 8:30am this morning (5 December 2007) Miss Oh Waily rolled over from her back to her front.

We were going to do tummy time on the bed and while she was doing her usual back arching and kicking out with her feet she managed to get herself more or less on to her tummy. Then she managed to turn her head enough that it lifted off the bed. This gave the momentum needed to make it all the way to her tummy properly.

I was so excited that I gave her a huge hug and was going "Yay" "Yay" "Clever girl" all over the place. After a few moments of hugging mayhem I let her roll into me (I was lying beside her on the bed) and gave her a big cuddle. Then I put her on her back, a little way away from me and encouraged her to do it again, which she promptly did. It took her some effort to do it, but she had a determined look on her face and she managed it after a minute of wriggling and thinking and wriggling again. This time she couldn't control the momentum and she ended up rolling right onto her back again (and directly into a cuddle with me), but she managed to roll from back to front to back in one go.

We tried for a third time, but the effort was getting a bit much. In the end she started getting a bit frustrated, so I gently held her hip forward a bit and that was enough for her to get momentum to turn on her tummy. So, she got a slight assist on her third go. Considering she has needed to be gently pushed or pulled over on to her tummy, even this small assist is nothing.

Fan-darn-tastic. Really and truly fantastic. Now we have to watch out. She has been doing little snake crawls on the bed over the past week and it can't be too long before she gets the hang of the crawling too. I figure it'll be a month at the most. But then, I thought she would be much quicker rolling over than she has been, simply because she started to practice 6 weeks or so ago. In fairness, it has only been this last week or two that she has looked seriously strong enough to manage to turn over, so the crawling thing is probably 6 weeks away at the minimum. I guess we will have to wait and see.

Ah the small things in life. It's enough to start the day with a big smile.
My clever little girl. :D

This has been a post.

Amazing Cake Decorating

I wasn't going to do a blog entry today.
Life was mundane and apart from emptying some more boxes there really wasn't much going on that I felt the need to talk about.

Then I sat at the computer and Stumbled a few sites. Oh boy did I hit the jackpot.

• Are you on a diet?


• Do you have a special event coming up?


• Do you just love the most amazing cakes?

You think you've seen some pretty amazing cakes in your time. I thought I had.
No way. No how.

This is the most amazing cake decorating I have ever seen in my life.
I'm scared to ask how much they cost, but I really know that I want one of this guy's cakes. Really. Truly.

So, without further delay... click over to Mike's Amazing Cakes and take a look through their gallery.
Just scroll down and turn off the music, it becomes really annoying.

Then report back here with your favourites.

For the record mine are:

The Most Insane Cake Ever Built: The Tyrannosaurus Rex cake
The Quirkiest Cake: The Lopsided Wedding cake (4 rows down on the right - Wedding Cake section)
The Coolest Cake: The Pillows and Crown Wedding cake (6 rows down on the right - Wedding Cake section)

Although I struggle to get past the Knight, the Rooster and the Globe on the opening menu page.

Yes, it's official. I am blown away by these designs.

Renovation - V

Our home is coming together in a slightly more rapid manner now, for which we are very grateful. Soon we will no longer be serenading Miss Oh Waily to sleep with digger noises and bandsaw songs.

Progress made today:

• The weather boards have been completed on all sides of the new extension.


• The electrician has pulled cables for the lighting of the extension.


• The side garden (down the driveway) has been removed totally.


• The back garden has been dug down to the level of the patio.
  
  
  
  • This leaves a raised bed along the back fence.
  
  
  
  

• Over the weekend the painters completed the roof colour.

And here are some photographs that I took a day or so ago.

***

This is part of the new extension. Mr O can be seen measuring out the distance for his birthday present's cables. (His lovely wife - me - purchased a home theatre system for his upcoming "big" birthday.) Men and tape measures, they seem made to go together. You can also see that our dogs are not the least bit interested in such excitement and that our roof had not yet been newly painted.



This next photograph is of the inside of the new extension, facing the area that will eventually be our kitchen. Benny kindly stood there for scale.



Then there is the view from approximately the kitchen sink to the sitting area, and on the far left, the new doorway to be.



And a view down the side of the house, the scruffy old garden to the left is now gone entirely. It's a shame about the roses, but they weren't being looked after and were pretty in spite of us rather than because of us. The nasty red-brown fence that has been falling to bits almost since we moved in will also be going during this mayhem of renovation. The fence man wasn't able to promise us a before-Christmas job, but after 10+ years of living with it, I told him that a few more weeks wasn't really a problem.



And finally, a view of the front of the house so you can see the new colour. No longer that green with a hint of grey, we have gone grey with no real hint of green. Much nicer I think. And if you are wondering about the bizarre coloured curtains in the windows to the right, please refer to my earlier entry and bleat about builders called We are home in which I detail one of the rather annoying things that have happened during this epic building project. (Not that it is large-scale, just that it seems to take on all the tragedy and comedy of an epic.)

My First Award

and I am so proud of it too. :)



Thank you to Andie for nominating me. I'm glad that you enjoy reading my blog.
Now for the hard part... who to nominate. This always gets me. But at least this time I have managed to move on and read more than one or two blogs. I'm not confident of managing to nominate ten other bloggers, but I will give this a go.

1. Bruce at Bioneural. He was my inspiration to start blogging and I always enjoy the travel pieces and occasional rant.


2. Solnushka at Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things. Only the second online blog that I subscribed to and still enjoy.


3. Around My Kitchen Table. This is a new blog that I have been trying on for size lately, and am enjoying the sense of humour immensely. I have yet to make comment there, so this award will probably come as a surprise.


4. Michelle at Scribbit. Another new blog on my list. I have been enjoying the food, crafts and family stories over the past month and am slowly working my way through the archives. Great ideas to be had here, and definitely smiles too. Also likely to be a surprise award.

Okay, so that's all I can muster at the moment, at least it is an improvement over the last meme where I could only muster a whopping two blogs. It must be a sign that I need to get out and mingle on the internet more. At least that's the excuse I'm going to use for sitting at the computer for the next little while, studiously ignoring the unpacked piles of boxes directly behind my chair.

Once again - thanks Andie. :D

Reincarnation - Miss Oh style

I discovered that reincarnation is possible.
Miss Oh has provided me with the evidence I needed.
On waking up a few days ago I pulled back her covers and discovered that she is in fact the reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi.

We are home.

But you probably already guessed that from my previous post.

Yes, we are finally in our partly completed abode. We are living in what would have been the original house when the villa was new. Apparently those little lean-to things (like our previous kitchen) were a later addition. On top of that you would have had to make your way out the back to some sort of long-drop toilet presumably. As for baths and showers, my guess is a giant metal tub in front of the fire was brought out once a month whether you wanted it or not.

We now have five rooms in various states of functionality.
Our bedroom, which has the bay windows, is now almost fully functional with just two cupboard doors yet to be installed.
The second bedroom is 100% functional.
The temporary living room is 100% functional. (It is now trying to convince us it should stay as a reserve lounge cum library once the real one is completed.)
The bathroom is 100% functional.
The temporary kitchen really is temporary and will be going once the new addition at the back is completed. At that point the builders will come in and remove plumbing and old kitchen benches, and restore it into the semblance of a single bedroom.

Now when I say 100% functional, what I really mean is, it can be used and is being used and I am not expecting to see a builder within it's bounds for any form of work until I need a new brain transplant. What it doesn't mean is curtained or decorated in any fashion.
That's not entirely accurate, our bedroom is curtained for privacy and the ability of Miss O to sleep during the day. The curtains are, however, tacked up black out curtains temporarily nicked from work's training room. Not quite the quintessential mode in decorating, dahlings, but apparently really nice curtains made for our windows out of nice fabric and done by a professional organisation can take anywhere up to 5 weeks. There is no way I will be parading around my bedroom for 5 weeks with every Thomas, Richard and Henry able to gawk in at me as though I were a goldfish on display. So nasty old black out curtains it is. Needs must.

Do I need to mention that the curtains that were here before we moved out were perfectly serviceable (not flash), but between then and now they appear to have disappeared? Builder told us while we were in Tauranga that he would try to "salvage" the remaining curtains. Now why would we believe him? I ask you! And why would we think that they would be careful around the curtains, as none of the windows were actually going to be involved in the renovation process?! Hmm. Naive, definitely naive. Another lesson learned - and passed on.

Okay, I have managed to locate our SanDisk and upload some old photos to the Flickr Album. I have chosen a selection to give you an idea of how it is coming along. I do really promise you that we don't normally live in quite such a mess (well, most of the time anyway ;) ).


The backyard after demolition.


The backyard in progress.


The front bedroom on the day we left. Now the temporary living room.



Then we have the rooms seen in my earlier entry.


Our Bedroom (front bedroom with bay window)


The hallway minus Benny but with added rubbish and things without a home to go to.


The old living room, now the new computer room / junk storage facility.

Are you getting the impression that we have crammed all of our belongings into a much smaller space than they originally took up? Yes? You think so?

Keep chanting... "Only two months to go...only two months to go..."

P.S. Builder now says that the roof of the new addition may be up by the end of the week. (Don't chuckle - you're starting to sound as cynical as I am.)

NaBloPoMo is blown

It is self-explanatory really.
I didn't manage it. I tried, really I did, but I just couldn't fight the forces of darkness. i.e. the Builders

Since my last entry I have had four different abodes, only one of which gave me easy access to the internet. One didn't even bother to offer it, for goodness sakes!

Can I have a good moan again? Please? Can I? Huh? Huh? Huh?

Okay, since the last renovation update and bleat combination things have been happening. Not happy things I must warn you. Things to do with paint. Things to do with fumes and a three month old baby. Things to do with people who are barely one step above Neanderthal with regards to using that large thing balanced precariously on top of their shoulders.

If I said to you...

Let me know when it will be okay to move in. I won't tell you when we want to move in again. I want you to tell me when it will be in a fit state for us to move in, so call me and let me know, okay?

Would your reply have been...

I'll check with the painters and get back to you.

Then later that day call and say...

Next Monday will be fine.

Then, should your painter be a simpleton and incompetent with time and work attendance, you wouldn't bother to telephone me back and say...

Actually the painter has stuffed up and won't be finished until the weekend before the day I said would be okay to move in. That means you really ought to stay out until the following week.

Meaning, of course, that we drive up from Tauranga expecting to be able to move in on the Tuesday. (We're not stupid you know. If they say Monday, they mean they'll be doing "last minute things" on Monday.)

So we drive up on Sunday intending to stay overnight in abode choice number one until Tuesday (Mr O needs to be in Auckland for work on Monday). So far, so good. Mr O arranges for assistance to move our things in on Tuesday and two friends offer assistance which is gratefully accepted. On Sunday night we take a sneak peek at the place and notice the overwhelming smell of paint fumes. Enamel, you know. For the doors and trims. Standard Operating Practice. The builder is still onsite, which is reassuring. Apparently the painter took until the Sunday (and as it turned out, the Monday) to complete the paint job. The builder says he has spoken with the painter, who tells him that the house will be fine after a couple of days airing.

Okay we say. We'll see what things are like on Tuesday and then decide what to do. In the meantime we retire to our temporary abode and reflect on the house and information provided. Tuesday rolls around, and we decide that perhaps we should check with the paint manufacturer as the scent of enamel has not really faded away to nothing in two days of airing. Mrs O phones, is put through to customer services who put her through to the Help Desk who puts her through to the company chemist. Who then says that you really want to leave it seven days "just to be safe", although it might be okay sooner. Right. Seven days. That would be next weekend, then. Options are take it day-by-day, or just up sticks and head back to Tauranga. Desperation sets in. This is our third attempt to move back into the house. There is no way we will head back to Tauranga (even if it kills us), we will play it day-by-day. Each day is more excruciating than the last. We are unable to extend our stay at the first accomodation of choice - they have no rooms. We head to second abode of choice, but they only have room for a night. Move just up the road with the real hope of moving in the next day. Hopes are dashed by the scent of paint. Give up the day-by-day fight and opt to stay in abode number 4 for the next two days and move in on the weekend - seven days after the supposed final coat of paint. (Touch-ups not included.)

Well done you've made it this far. Welcome to our past week experience.

Reflections

Today I was stumped. I didn't have anything to write about.
Novelty does not picture very big in my life at the moment, but as I thought about it some more it occured to me that I did have something to write about.

About a week ago I was contacted by someone I haven't seen or spoken with in nearly twenty years. Ouch, did I say twenty? Anyway, it was a very pleasant surprise because for some time now I have been thinking about a number of people I went to school with and wondering what they are doing with their lives. My surprise correspondent was one of them.

My interest in what my old school mates were doing with their lives stems back to almost exactly two years ago and was the subject of my third ever blog posting. It was called The oddness of dreams... and was originally posted on my old blog at Blogspot. It is nice to be slowly working my way through my mental list of folk I would like to catch up with. What was also nice about catching up with Dave is finding out that he is a great photographer and he kindly pointed me to his Flickr stream.

He has something in the order of 1500+ photographs online here, and to give you some idea of why I wanted to share this link I have chosen a sample of my favourites so far.

water on the beak...
buster
Oracle
black & white - take the time to look at the on black version of this, but not if you have an aversion to insects
070707- eyespy - I love the eye colour here, very striking.
attack of the mutant dragon flys...
how many people fit in those boats? - Ooo, ask me. I know this one. Ooo. Ooo. Ooo.

Okay, so that is enough shameless promotion of friends and associates for one day. Enjoy your browsing, as I'm sure you will end up doing.
See you all tomorrow.

Renovation - IV

Today we were going to move back into the body of our house.

The key word in that sentence is "were".
Upon arriving home after the two and a half hour car journey with Mr O's step-father and my father, Mr O is not amused to find that the body of the house is not in a fit state to move furniture in, let alone us and a baby.
The painting was not completed, the wardrobes had not been fitted out, the bathroom wasn't finished, one of the light fittings hadn't been moved, some of the workmanship left a bit to be desired and the place was generally a dusty great mess.

This was not the state of affairs we were expecting, and it turns out to have been a good decision not to have gone up with the baby today, but to have enlisted family assistance with furniture moving instead. Otherwise I would have been a very, very cranky client. As it was I was less than impressed with the huge waste of everyone's time today.

The builder was supposed to have everything ready for us to move in last weekend, but that turned out to be impossible due to the hardening time for the re-polished floors. Today is 6 days after the last coat was applied, with day 7 being the final curing day. We spoke with the builder about moving in today when we saw him in Auckland last Thursday and he didn't say a word about things being unlikely to be finished.

We agreed to move out for a couple of weeks, maybe three to allow the builders full and unfettered access to the interior of the house. In return for this we expected the interior part of the work to be shortened by a week or slightly more. It has now been six weeks. I want to return to my own home. I do not wish to continue to be a house guest with my parents. I think they have been extremely generous and understanding, and insist that we haven't worn out our welcome. However, six weeks is over my limit of friendly stays, and it is well past time that we were out of their hair.

For anyone out there who works in customer service please take heed of the following advice:

Don't just say "Yes" to every request the customer makes. It really p*sses us off when what you say doesn't match what you do. Only say "Yes" if you know that it is a 100% guarantee that it will be a "Yes". And, if you discover that it isn't going to be a "Yes", then for the sake of everyone's time and efforts, make a simple telephone call and say the "Yes" has turned into a "No" because of [insert reason]. Otherwise your "Yes" should remain a "Yes", even if you have to break your own back to ensure it is. That is the essence of good customer service.

That, unfortunately, is my bleat for today.

Oh, and the builder is suggesting that all these little bits and pieces will be completed by the end of the weekend, so we will be 100% able to move in on Monday.

Hah. I'll believe that when I see it with my own two eyes.

Miss O in photographs

I have just added a whole load more photographs of Miss O to her grandparent's computer, so I thought I would share a few with you. Thank goodness for digital cameras. If I had to process the number of photographs that we have taken over the last three months we would be bankrupt. It also helps when you can keep snapping away in an effort to get not only the elusive smile, but also the relative stillness required for your cute baby shots.

So, here are a few thumbnails for you to take a look through. As usual, just click on the photograph if you want to go to Flickr and see it in different sizes.

Photograph 1: 12 weeks old and a smile for the camera.

Photograph 2: Trees Need Thought

Outside the window is a small Kowhai tree. In the breeze its graceful movement attracts her attention whenever she is in the living room. It looks like it requires a lot of thought this watching a tree in the breeze.

Photograph 3: The Hat to end all Hats

This hat is something of a faux pas on my part. Mr O and I were in town on our own and spotted this hat. Upon closer inspection I insisted that the XXS would be too small for Miss O, whereas Mr O insisted that the XS would be too huge for her. It is now the running joke that I don't even know my own daughter's head size. Here we see Miss O wearing it in the turned-up style (in order to see and be seen). She'll grow into it...

...maybe by next summer. 8O

Knots & Crosses - Ian Rankin

Knots and Crosses is my latest attempt to find an author who can hold my attention for more than the few minutes I have to sit and read at the moment. It comes from my parents' mini-library collection. This shouldn't be a surprise, if you know that they are Scottish and lived for a part of their lives in Edinburgh.

This is the first of the Rebus novels.
I can see now why he has been able to write more and why the Wikipedia entry for Inspector Rebus mentions that the books account for 10% of all crime book sales in the UK.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, my memory and attention span seem to have become considerably shorter over the last few months and only now seems to be easing slightly. This means that an author who cannot write in a gripping and compelling manner gets, at best, the first few chapters read before I give up trying to remember who is who and what is going on.

No problem with Ian Rankin then. The chapters are short, pithy and easy reading. I like the author's style. People and events are described, but the author has left plenty of space for my own imagination and knowledge to filter into the whole reading process. It is not pretty reading. The characters are not always to be viewed in a positive light, but neither do they seem to be vilified for their weaknesses and foibles.

Knots and Crosses is centred around a police investigation into the disappearance and then murders of four young girls in Edinburgh. It lays a nice introduction into the character of John Rebus, weaving his past and present lives into the story of the murdered girls. Rebus is brought into the ongoing investigation along with other officers as the search for the killer intensifies and there the real story begins. It is clear where some of the plot is leading, but how it is to reach it's conclusion is the key to the later part of this novel.

I can give this a hearty recommendation. I found the book a compelling read. I didn't want to put it down as I drew closer to the ending. I was pulled into the book and the character, and just as swiftly the end came and it was over. I will be reading more Rebus novels. I hope they offer similar fare.



4 out of 5.

Renovation - III

I have trawled through the photographs that I have so far and have come up with some images of work in progress.

This is our old bedroom looking through where the fireplace used to be. On the other side is the Old Living room, where the ornamental fireplace used to be. All gone. New walls are now in their place.



Here is a photograph of Bedroom One. It's taken from the doorway, but if you look at the first Renovation entry you will see that the fireplace against this wall (and the ratty old cupboard/closet with louvre door) is missing from this photograph.



These are progress photographs of the old study/single bedroom that is transforming itself into our new bathroom. Currently the neighbours have a nice view in the window, but that will soon be rectified with a carport and a new discrete glass window.




And our final photograph for this entry is the backyard. Those of you who are familiar with our home will recognise the absence of large wooden deck, planters, etc. Oh, and also the rather large L-shaped lean-to that once housed our kitchen and dining room, as well as our bathroom and laundry.


Yes. We did embark on rather extensive renovations right around the time the baby was due. In fairness we thought the council would be somewhat quicker in allowing the building permit, but then we can be very naive and optimistic about some things. Lesson learned.