pat

While I gather my thoughts and heart after 'the weekend' I thought I would share with you a sneak peek at a little film I am doing with Steve and Jason from, yep you guessed it, No. 5 and with Liz, our gorgeous and local ABC Open Producer. The film will hopefully be for two things, ABC Open and as an entry to the Local Food Film Festival. It is about Pat, the beautiful potato farmer who supplies No. 5 with the potatoes that allow them to make the best chips ever, seriously. She is in her seventies, is super strong, incredibly cheeky and wonderfully wise. Here are some photos from our day at her farm.

clip

hello there, feeling very tired and exhausted after a wonderful weekend away, hope you like this, the latest filmclip by The Mid North, pretty wonderful.

Napkins ready?*

Some meals to drool over and keep you occupied whilst I hop on a plane and head to Sydney solo for a couple of days, three days and two nights to be precise, woohoo and eek. Such great lengths; boarding a plane and leaving my loved ones calls for two whole sleeps demands either an emergency or an extra special occasion, luckily it is a very special occasion; the celebration of my beautiful and wonderful friend Jen's birthday (yes it was a few weeks ago but fortunately we get to celebrate again). The weekend is looking pretty perfect with dinner with Jen, Ruth and Tracey (I know, how awesome is that) on Friday night, a sleepover at Tracey's on Friday, a bonus extra special Ruth time Saturday morning and then to Jen's for a special dinner cooked by Rod, oh my goodness, I think my cup may very well be overflowing when i return on Sunday.
Again, it will be hard, unusual and a bit heart breaking to leave Poe and Ilo (in particular), Scott does have a whole lot of awesomely fun things planned and I know they will be fine but my heart strings do tug quite a bit, despite my absolute excitement.
I have, as predicted, crafted Jen a few little gifts but understandably I cannot share until I have given them to her, so stay tuned.


The pictures above were taken by me and loved up by my sister Suriya  (she has a wicked winter coming her way, if she ever gets up here for a decent visit, hint hint), are some of the food pics I have started taking for No. 5, yes they are as delicious as they look (Nikki, am working on getting that recipe). When I say delicious as they look, they are actually more delicious, I have no idea really about food photography but am enjoying learning, I am endlessly inspired by this immensely popular and mouth watering gorgeous food blog.  I have also decided (in a last minute, early morning post update) decided to add the untouched photos (same as above) to see what you think but as very few of you actually comment on this blog (I know you are out there people, I see the stats), for you to quietly observe whilst sitting on your hands. I liked the treatment Suriya put on the images but I was also quite happy with the original pics as well. Now to decide.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. xx
*this is an updated version of this post

what an adventure

As we drove into the Macksville Showground, we drew Poe's attention to the Big Top ahead, "what does that look like Poe"? Eyes widen "a circus tent, can we look at it?" "sure" Poe: "We need tickets if we want to go in though", "We have tickets" "WHAT, really". Oh my goodness, we could not have asked for a better reaction, he was amazed that we tricked him, amazed and delighted. I wish I could have bottled the pure, unadulterated joy that he showed throughout the whole circus, he was nearly wetting himself with delight at the (admittedly low rent) clowns and at the trapeze, the juggling, the hula hooping. He was giggling with immense delight, so much so that people kept turning around to look at him and smile, he was also doing this very gorgeous little seat dance with his legs as he clapped and laughed. Honestly I spent most of the circus watching him, he was far more entertaining.
Yes, the circus was decidedly average with the first half consisting of the silks, then the average clowns and then some rope work (pretty much the same as the silks but with ropes) and then the clowns and so on. The second half was a bit more varied with juggling and hooping but still. We were all also gobsmacked by the excessive and frantic consumption of sugar going on around us, Poe asked at one point "why are all these children eating so much sugar", there was fairy floss, bags of lollies and cans of coke a gogo, we had definitely stepped out of our Bellingen bubble.
But overall it was amazing, amazing because of Poe's reaction and absolute love, love that he had been tricked and the joy he experienced at the circus. The next morning as he snuggled into bed with me, he started laughing, "Oh Mumma, I am just thinking about the circus".
Ilo enjoyed the circus but was a little scared at the beginning, after a few, "I want to go home", he settled in and enjoyed.

 These are the three pieces I made to fill in the wall space for the Energy Fest thank you party, the party was pretty low key but really lovely, full of warming soup and great music (see below). Ilo played the whole set with the band, he decided beforehand and hung out with them til they started and then he just sat there, tapping his foot, playing and singing along, totally relaxed and oblivious to the looks of delight of everyone as they watched him play. Poe was really impressed "I was really nervous for him, I can't believe he did that". I particularly loved how relaxed he was about it all and that he lasted the whole half hour set.

overflowing

 The other day I thought of all the things I needed to do, should be doing, things that I couldn't really put off for much longer and decided to do something I have never done. Yes even as an albeit new 'steiner' parent, I have never scraped beeswax crayons*, so I sat with Ilo by my side and delighted in the unveiling of the beauty beneath the muck and by the little pile of colour that was growing in front of me. It was the most perfect thing I could have done in those 20 minutes (including the fun of drawing lots of rainbow pictures).
In this world of exhibitions, markets, online shops, photography and soon to be film making (yes really, eek) my creative mind and heart are literally jumping out of their confined spaces and shrieking at me with joy and near hysteria, at times it does kind of feel very surreal. It is nice (read crucial) to stop and slow down and to remind myself of this over and over. Because within all this fun stuff it does feel a bit squishy at times, I guess the squishiness is due to having two exhibitions on consecutive weekends and juggling the space to be a relaxed, fun and aware parent, partner and human, so hopefully I will be able to stretch out a little soon and get to wriggle all my extremities.
Even with my mind, body and spirit in an unusually squishy shape, I do love peeping out amongst it all  and marvel at how both Poe and Ilo are influenced by their surrounds (including Scott and his music). I love that their creative outlets although influenced by us are self driven; getting their embroidery hoops out as they please and creating beautiful pictures, playing bands, making film clips, having their own exhibitions, pop up shops, markets etc.
Poe has particularly been getting into the photography side of things he has been making filmclips and taking oodles of random and not so random photographs. A couple of weeks ago  I was filming Kell Stoner's gig with Jordie Lane at No. 5 and Poe decided he wanted to come and film as well, he sat on a little step just near my feet the whole time and filmed it all on his camera, with such concentration and consideration.  Oh my the sweetness of his face as he sat and looked around and waited until they started was nearly too much. After a very brief explanation he has also been dabbling with a bit of stop motion animation, unfortunately he deleted the clip so I can't share but it was pretty awesome.

 

Some examples of recent Poe pics, ukelele's, guitars and fruit, together at last. I love finding these little gems uploaded onto the computer.
This weekend we are going on a surprise trip to the Circus at Macksville (no animals in this circus), Poe is well and truly entrenched into the delightful world of Enid Blyton's Circus Adventures, as we read it, his eyes glaze over and you can see him imagining himself in those little brightly painted wooden horse drawn caravans that take the circus from town to town. Wonderfully there is not too much editing needed in this Blyton book and the main characters are Jimmy a very sweet and sensitive boy and Lotta a rather high-spirited and adventurous girl. Scott and I are busting with excitement, we cannot wait to see Poe's face when we arrive at the big top. Considering it is 9 months since we went to see Circus Oz and that is still heavily featured in their play, can't wait to see what this fresh burst of circus will do.

*we have had the crayons for 5 years now and you need to scrape the other bits of crayons that seem to  stick to them

an energy fest indeed

Heralded by many as the best Bellingen Energy Festival yet, I for one would not disagree. On a personal level it was so wonderful to see the hard work and the vision that we from  The Workshop talked about come to fruition, the exhibition space, as you can see, was stunning, filled with so many beautiful objects it definitely entranced people as soon as they walked in. Check out that amazing shark carved out of a Camphor Laurel log by Thomas, and the stunning bull head by the immensely talented Nick, as mentioned previously somewhere on this blog. It really was an honour to be part of this group, I felt very proud of all that we had done, especially the mammoth effort of Soli and Nick.

As I was mostly in the exhibition space, I didn't really get to listen to all the wonderfully inspiring talks that were happening around but I did love my sneak peeks at overflowing tents, standing ovations, smiling faces, kids making beautiful objects out of junk, seed planting and people riding around on pushbikes that had pushmowers on the front, ingenious. This is kind of like the Bellingen Show for the Bellingen of the now and the future, a festival for a sustainable future. 

The beautiful Bob Brown, who welled many a heart as he wandered around the festival and inspired with his packed out sessions. 

 A beautiful addition to The Mid North's usual lineup.He also caused many a heart well.

Wonderfully by the time I had got to the exhibition, about 9.30am (it opened at 9am) all my three pieces had sold, woohooo. However a couple of nights ago I found out that the organisers of the festival have decided to have an 'after' party in the exhibition space this Friday night so I am frantically trying to think up and sew up a few more works to fill that empty space, pretty daunting but pretty exciting nevertheless.

the bees have it

'the beeholder'

'it's what you do with it'

'the last bee left in the plantation forest'

snap

On Friday night the lovely Ellie and I headed to our favourite local haunt, yep you guessed it, No. 5 Church St, a lot of stuff sure happens in this space. On Friday night we were lucky enough to be entertained by Brett Lee, a local muso, and The Rescue Ships from Sydney (and Canada), they were so much fun (and Elana Stone is totally gorgeous, check out her frock as well, oh my). Here are a couple of pics from the night, there are more over here on the No. 5 Facebook page, where more of my photos will be appearing. Unfortunately as it was a late night I was a little weary for the markets on Saturday, due to the weather and something in the air the market ended up being kind of quiet, which meant that i didn't have to heave myself out of my low slung chair too often. 

In an act of madness and necessity I did however stay up late again on Saturday night trying to meet the deadline for the 'Wrong way go Forward' exhibition that The Workshop is doing for this Saturday's Energy Festival. Quite excited about it all, now that the work has been done, should be a great day with loads of interesting stuff and talks happening. 

a sign of spring

When my Mum was up last she gifted me with a preciously beautiful tablecloth, made out of a crumply soft linen and embroidered with these bright daffodils, as soon as I caught sight of it I could feel my neck start to spasm and my left eye twitch, I couldn't wait to create. Inspired by Annie's amazing boleros and an old silk top of mine I made this little number. Yes it is rainy and grey today and only a very lovely fool would wear such a thing today but we have been surrounded in days of loveliness and this works so well with all matter of sleeve. I also plan to make a few similar tops patched together with doily and lace, I can see it in my mind, hopefully the vision will be as pretty. 

Thanks to Anne, this little number has now been spoken for.

as the sun goes down

The last couple of weeks has seen our family barraged with more than our fair share of delicious fruit salad, Poe has discovered his cooking mojo, mainly specialising in fruit salad and guacamole. After one fruit salad too many I suggested warming our fruit (apple and pears) on our fire, so followed some delicious nights of stewed fruit. On Wednesday night after a glorious afternoon of fine tunes, communal cooking and much laughter we made up these amazingly delicious, if unsightly pear tarts, the pastry in particular is spectacular, we used Jude's Coconut oil pastry (just with spelt pastry not the combination of atta and spelt, purely because i only had spelt) and oh my goodness not only is it so delicious in a shortcrusty kind of way it also made the tarts have a kind of amazing muffin effect, yet crunchy (the pastry was a little thick in places) and is incredibly easy.

Here is the Coconut Oil pastry recipe from 'Wholefood, heal...nourish....delight' by the amazing Jude Blereau

Makes enough to line 380g

125g (3/4 cup) atta flour (or wholemeal spelt)

90g (3/4 cup) unbleached plain flour (wheat or spelt) 

3 teaspoons raw (or golden castor) sugar

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup coconut oil, solid or preferably frozen

1/2 teaspoon of natural vanilla extract

60-90ml of ice-cold water

Mix together the flours, sugar and baking powder in a bowl. 

Grate the frozen or well-chilled solid coconut oil into the mixture. Add the vanilla extract and gradually add the water, using a blunt knife to mix together. Add extra water if necessary Press together with your fingertips. (You can also use the food processor in a similar way, making sure the coconut oil makes the mixture crumbly before adding water)

Cover and rest in the fridge for approximately 20 minutes (and have a warm lemon drink, whilst you are waiting), then it is ready to use. Enjoy and please don't let the above picture put you off. 

As part of our communal cooking and together time in the evenings, we have also been enjoying some delicious warm citrus drinks made by Poe with a little cinnamon, a little ginger and a little apple cider vinegar mixed in with whatever citrus we have around (it is citrus city in these parts of late, you can't turn around without a tree offering up it's goods or people off loading their goods) we then sit around the table in candlelight, listening to some relaxing music, enjoying the warmth of the drink, it's fast becoming a treasured ritual.