Daggy Tracky Dacks

As I write this on a freezing cold mountain morning, I am wearing my daggiest outfit - thermal undershirt, sloppy sweater, `ugg’ boots and my daggiest tracky dacks. (PETA members can calm down - I am not as economically flush as your leading light, Pamela Anderson, and I can’t afford Ugg boots made of real sheep- mine are syntheitic).

Daggy track dacks may also need some explanation. In Oz,that simply means a shapeless pair of track pants. These are not only shapeless, they are pink - you just don’t get daggier than that.

But as I was slipping them on this morning, I noticed something quite startling -no, not a pic of Nicole Kidman wearing the very same pants in a gossip mag, but almost as surprising. These daggy pants have a label - someone has put their name to the - er - design.

Now, I did not shop for these daggy dacks in any exclusive store - I fished them out of a bargain bin and bought them because they were warm and cheap. You don’t wear your daggy dacks out (unless less it is a really cold morning and no one at the corner shop is going to report you to Vogue Australia). Well, actually, that’s not strictly true. Daggy tracky dacks are practically a uniform in some places. I recall the opening of a new David Jones store in Sydney some years ago - it was very posh, with Italian marble floors, a string quartet sawing away on a podium and displays of glittering French perfumes. Almost the entire female population of the western Sydney suburbs had crammed onto the trains for the grand opening and the marble floors were a veritable sea of tracky dacks and trainers…

But I digress. The name on my pink tracky dacks is Adela Simonetti Australia. I’d kind of been expecting something like KMart For Dags, but only in Australia could you find a designer label on your tracky dacks, no matter how obscure that label might be.

But at least I am wearing something Australian. There is virtually no clothing industry here that hasn’t moved off shore. In a country where Asian imports outnumber the gallant Simonettis trying to dress the locals, labels can be a lot of fun anyway. I once picked up a dress in an Asian shop in Sydney, that sported the label name Whore.

What dictionary is that they’re using, exactly?

Earth Calling…

Earth can be heard screaming out in space, according to Space.com - now why doesn’t that surprise me?

Partayyy!!!!

It’s party day at A Fanciful Twist - well,we’re a little ahead of time here in Australia, but any excuse to get the party started! Gypsy Path is celebrating the inner child -it’s my own birthday in a couple of day’s time and my grandchildren will be helping me celebrate. I firmly believe in children - they make life worth living, and I equally firmly believe in keeping the inner child alive and nourished. How can the years matter when you still find wonder all around you?

Here in the Granite Mountains, it is winter - there is white frost on the ground in the morning and it is quite beautiful, like the icing on a party cake. It inspired me to try and capture the feeling in a digital painting, so here is a little party favor called Stanthorpe Winter:

I got out my tamborine, ready to dance around the camp fire (there is always a camp fire at my parties!) I’m still a traveller girl at heart,so if you poke around the edges of the fire you will find some baked potatoes. The pot holds strong black Traveller tea, but to make it special, I’ll serve it in cups from my English china collection. The pot holds pineapple, mango and passionfruit jam - yum! You’ll find scones on a trestle table under the trees.

I made one of my famous fruit salad trifles:

And my grandson Jei just partied himself out…

If I could,I would love to serve tea in one of the gorgeous little sets at Paris Breakfasts.

Err…whatever

This was actually my daughter Kat’s idea. She is a big fan of the original Asian version of The Ring,and this was her reaction on hearing that Sarah Michelle Gellar would be starring in the American remake.

Art in our Neighbourhood

Art is wherever you look for it. In my little town of Stanthorpe, the city elders have planned little art `surprises’ around every corner. Here are a few encountered on a walk round town.

This collage is made up up of bits of this and that, old keys, memorabilia, tiles and what have you, all contributed by citizens. Whenever I stop to look at it I can always find something new.

This street is not exactly paved with gold but with inlaid mosaics

Stanthorpe is famous for it’s plummeting temperatures in winter - cold enough to - well, you get the picture.

This tree still blooms in winter - hung with tinkly metal tags

Natural art is everywhere, as the famous granite mountain on which our little town is built offers up nature’s sculptures, like these boulders outside the art gallery.

In party mode

Just getting in the party frame of mind here - a couple of masks I sketched in pearly pencils - you can’t see the pearliness, alas.

Want to Party?

This looks like so much fun - was tipped off by Soul Food buddy Alexis so I decided to join in, seeing as its only two days off my own birthday.

Trip on over to Fanciful Twist and pick up an invitation.

Remembering Summer…

We are heading for the depths of winter here, so I thought I would post these images of yellow bottlebrush growing near my daughter’s Sydney home last summer.

These images are poignant because they were taken at the time of my granddaughter Kassidy’s funeral, and today would have been her first birthday. But they are, and remain, a symbol of hope and life in the midst of sadness.

The Story of a Rose

About two years ago, I bought my daughter Kathy a Betty Boop Rose for her birthday. As she adored roses and loves Betty Boop, it was the perfect present.
We planted it in the back garden of the house we lived in then, and waited hopefully for her to bloom. Alas, she did not. She didn’t like her situation. We moved her to a better spot, but she sulked, refusing to grow or bloom.
Then came a period of emotional and domestic turmoil. We quite forget about Betty, but we remembered to take her with us in a large pot when we moved into temporary accomodation. We needed to move to the cooler air of the mountains for the sake of Kathy’s youngest child,who suffered badly from the oppressive heat and humidity of the lowlands, but there were seemingly interminable delays. Betty was placed in the backyard near the tap so we would remember to water her. She continued to resist all blandishments to bloom, but she did flaunt new foliage. Clearly she just hadn’t liked the old house at all. We were inclined to sympathise with her.
Finally we managed our somewhat chaotic move to a house on the Granite Belt, on the Queensland side of the New South Wales/Queensland border. We remembered Betty, shoving her in the back of my car just before we left. Poor girl, she took it well, but looked a bit lost at the side of the house in her pot until we sortied around the new back yard and discovered good rich soil in which to plant her.
I must confess that by now I had given up all hope. But we placed her in her new situation with a tomato plant, some parsley and a strawberry plant for company. Well, the heavens just opened up as soon as we moved in and it has rained pretty well continuously since. The drought that had forced us all onto very strict water rationing is over - the local dam is overflowing, but with all this rain, water usage hasn’t really changed much.
But how Betty loves it! She has started to grow at last, puts out new leaves, and lo and behold! The other morning we found her very first bloom.
It is as gorgeous as all the photos predicted, a deep and lovely pinky red toning to yellow. Kathy was enchanted - Betty’s first baby is being lovingly cared for and will be pressed to find a home among Kathy’s most precious keepsakes.
You see, this is more than just a rose - Betty’s baby is a symbol of hope, of light coming back into lives that were darkened by sorrow, loss and worry. Betty has survived all this upheaval - we kept her because no matter how unhappy she was, she refused to give in, she kept fighting to survive.
And that’s the story of our beautiful rose.

Nigella Express

The great thing about having a chef for a son in law is not just the food - it’s the presents. His latest gift to me is the new Nigella Express. Here’s someone who understands the craving for a good recipe book as bedtime reading. And Nigella always serves up a good book, as tasty as her dishes.
I love the succulence with which she writes about and describes food. Here’s a delicious sample from the introduction to her recipe for Chocolate Mint Cookies;

These don’t take long to make up and bake, and I can’t tell you how lovely it is to be able to open the door to people with the smell of their baking oozing welcomingly out in the evening air.

Nigella makes cooking a sensual experience, even in a book that purports to be about cooking in a hurry for people who don’t have time to cook.

Incidentally, here’s that cookie recipe.

Choclate Mint Cookies by Nigella Lawson

100g soft butter
150g light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
150g flour
35g cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
200g dark chocolate chips

For the glaze

75g icing sugar
1 15ml tablespoon cocoa, sieved
2 15 ml tablespoons boiling water
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (Nigella uses Boyajian Natural Peppermint Flavour)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (gas mark 4)
Cream butter and brown sugar, then beat in vanilla extract and egg.
Mix flour, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl and gradually beat in to the creamed mixture. Finally, fold in the chocolate chips.
Using a rounded 15 ml tablespoon measure, spoon out scoops of cookie dough and place on a lined baking sheet, leaving a little space between each one.
Bake in the oven for 12 minutes and let them sit on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before moving them to a cooling rack, with some newspaper on the surface underneath to catch any escaping glaze later.
Put the glaze ingredients into a sauce pan and heat until combined.
Using a teaspoon, zig zag the glaze over each cooling cookie.
Makes 26.

And they don’t last long!