A place on the Internet to keep our recipes.

Zok and I have an endless loop conversation called 'What's for dinner?'

We have trouble remembering what we like or want.

So I have started a blog to keep our recipes in one place.

Also this way I can be more engaged when Zok is cooking, because sometimes I am not.  Please feel free to give feedback, because I am not well versed in writing instructions for others to use.

If you are interested look here:

http://dinnerwithzok.blogspot.com.au/ 

"...One minute she was asleep, the next she was completely awake and dumped into despair."

I clicked through my entire 'reading list'- aka the other blogs from people I have met or known, only two of the seventeen are active.

They have migrated back to life, in real time, or migrated with the stream that adopts the newer avenues of a more instant, faster changing flow such as tumblr, and twitter.

I think my blog is now as I always thought of it, less a letter to my friends and more a journal of events.  One left in the spare room, unlocked.  My digital means of looking backwards.

I went to MONA with Zok and our house guest Liz.  The latest exhibit went up while I was away.  MONA is large, and on the interactive side.  Most of the space is underground, which I find makes the saturation of sensory input more intense.  I like going through with people the first time, so I know where to concentrate my energies the next time I am alone.

I really liked this exhibit, it worked in tandem with another permanent space I love- the sound tunnel, part of the dialog from this visual display was also in the tunnel.  We are seated under the hull of a ship, and the screens used for the projections indeed look like eye balls.

If you are interested here is the blurb from the exhibit.

http://mona-vt.artpro.net.au/theo.php 

Type in 'sajtia@gmail.com' to view my tours this one is called 'nowhere less now' from October

Also, one of the women I met from Derby has an exhibit.

I loved it.

http://mona-vt.artpro.net.au/theo.php

This one is called 'rats nest' from the same tour 

"...being in fact much better fitted for a walker than a reader, was extremely pleased to close his large book, and go."

Of course walking on a bit further away from Hobart still brings me happiness as the plots have not yet been turned from acreage and a normal sized house to the dividing of land for development.  I am not saying it is all that way, there is quite a large house down near the cove up for sale and it is both huge and expensive.

"...Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?..."

Our neighborhood is being developed in an alarming way.  Where one house stood now stand six apartments.  A small cul-de-sac has many large houses, none too varied, crowded up against each other.

I find it a bit dispiriting.

 

"...we change the tune but not the song, over and over..."

Zok and I seem unable to tear ourselves from the garden, come rain (mostly rain) or shine.

Zok is on some building mission as you can see.  I think he is making an obstacle course for the birds so they have to exercise on their way in to eat our fruit and vegetables.

He also created a new space for the BBQ now that our (new) deck is too small and too flammable for the BBQ to be right outside our back door.

I have had the chore of weeding which is pretty dull really- and seems never ending, sometimes I think "Ahhh geez just let grow big so they are easier to pull out." But of course this is how weeds spread by getting to the point where the one weed goes to seed and spreads itself.

But right now most are really, really tiny and hard to pick out through the mulch.

I listen to books and hours go by, yesterday I got cranky and demanded treats, so we had lunch and beer on our porch before calling it quits for the day.

Next month my yoga classes start up, regularly 3 x a week in the morning, so I should well be on the path to earlier starts and summer light.

Speaking of which, I have been coming to the realization that many, many people here get up extremely early, like 5:30 am or earlier.

I think I only know one person from my life outside of here that gets up at that time.  (you know who you are!).

Things that have taken up my time outside of the garden:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-11/malala-yousafzai-wins-top-human-rights-prize/5015628 

Have you read or heard about Malala?

The type of story that keep any complaints one might have firmly inside the brain, because of the diminished size in comparison to her life.

"I beg you, friend, be happy. I have the vague sense that on your capacity to be happy hangs our only hope."

People often ask me how I feel about Hobart.  How I feel about Stockholm.  Where is home?

Well, due to the amount of easy cliché sayings involving "home" that come to mind. I think that this is a very common question.  I, alas, do not have an answer.

 Our house in Hobart is a home.  We have invested into the maintenance and garden in ways that an apartment, especially a socially run Swedish apartment does not need.  I would say we have done a fair job of cluttering up the Swedish apartment, it is no match for the remnants of forty-five years worth of slogging stuff from place to place.  Stockholm feels like a vacation because we have so many friends there, and so much to do.  Hobart feels like home, but we are still quite insular in the sense that we don't engage with our community at large.  We are trying to work on that.  Our neighbor and house protector Sue left us a vase of daffodils to prove that spring is definitely coming on.

Tomorrow we will have been back here in Hobart for two weeks.  Zok played a lot of Croquet matches already, and now has a rather large trophy in his office.

I have started Yoga classes at a newish place by the waterfront.  Mostly we have been gardening and organizing the house.  Being gone for months at a time does impact the kitchen. 

I haven't studied Swedish, or gone swimming.  I haven't caught up on my issues of 'The New Yorker'.  

I did start the latest Ian McEwan book.

I have planted many seeds both flowers and vegetable.

I started to 'grow' a vinegar 'mother'- from a bottle of wine we opened and didn't like.

I am waging a serious battle against 'onion weed'.  I have given in and I am just digging out heaps with a fair bit of dirt as well.   They have to be bagged up, sealed up, left to smother in the sun and then they still have to be put into the garbage aka the "deep" landfill not into compost of any kind.

I caught the very last of the Magnolia blooms.  The Lilac tree looks months away from blooming, but the Swedish ones can come on quite late in spring so I am not worried yet.  My newest tree which I call a 'snowball tree' because of its blooms is thriving since Zok had the large tree nearby taken down.

The Clivia, (large orange flowers) that I divided all bloomed which I think is amazing, because seriously, I had to hack it out of the ground.  We added a second bird bath, onto the stumps of the tree that was taken down.  The single bird bath used to be at the corner of the house, on the old apple tree stump- however when the brick work was done they moved the tree stump (?!) too far back, so we are going to just pull it out.  We only left it there because we used to be able to see the flock of new holland honey eaters bath there in the evenings, which is hilarious, and really counts as entertainment.

However, birds do not seem to be attracted to the new location yet, so we might need to move them again, as the space might be too open.

Each day we find ourselves exhausted by our efforts and feeling as if we are farmers. (Ha!)

"...fly me to the moon...and let me play among the stars..."

This photo was taken in the early hours of our trip to return to Tasmania. Only hour number six. Now I am in a airline lounge, hour number 42.  Our flight leg from Dubai to Melbourne was re-routed to Adelaide due to weather and a lack of fuel. Two hours on the ground, in the plane, we finally returned to Melbourne. Here we had to get our luggage, have our passports checked, and the contents of our bags for quarantine. Lastly, getting to check in again, on the earliest available flight, six hours later. Bringing our door-to-door travel time somewhere around the 42 hour mark.

Australia can feel very, very, far away.

My brain is mushy. Also my perception is skewed, because after so many hours in a plane, the airport feels light, bright and fresh.