MissLeonie.com

After Liam’s dad’s new old bass guitar was finally delivered this morning (it took us women to find out exactly when), I went to Woy Woy with Liam’s mum. We did some shopping, and I found a fantastic Billabong cowboy hat type of thing. Billabong is a surfer’s brand, so my cowboy hat has sea shells hanging from it. It’s against the law not to wear a hat during the summer in Australia, so I’ve now fulfilled one of the conditions of my visa.

Afterwards, I’d agreed to meet Liam at the local shopping centre. I’d bring his fancy new camera, so we could do the amateur photographer thing at the waterfront. The red flower is a bottlebrush: they’re pretty much everywhere, ranging from white to pink to red (most common) to a sort of purple. You can see why they’d be called a bottlebrush, couldn’t you?

I can’t wait to go back to Woy Woy: not because it’s such an exciting town (some English/Australian comedian once called it the biggest above ground cemetary in the whole world), but because I found a butcher (!) selling liquorice (!) in the local shopping centre. Good old Dutch drop! How crazy is that?

In other news, I got honked/whistled at three times in less than the 10 minutes it takes to get to the shops. Only once the day before. I was popular today. How crazy is THAT?

I sat down to watch the exclusive interview with Terri Irwin tonight. I sat and drank my tea and watched with amazement and suspiciously wet eyes as this lady told us of feelings that cannot be aptly described in words. I was overwhelmed by her love: her love for Steve, her love for her daughter and her little son, her love for life and her love for animals and her faith in all of the above.

I was in awe. She was completely broken down yet stronger than ever. I suppose it’s because the one thing that didn’t break is her spirit. I’m amazed, I really am. I can’t think of more suitable words to describe my admiration for her. Even in the current situation, she managed to teach me something. How can someone who’s hit such an all time low teach me about appreciating what I have? How can she renew my appreciation, my appreciation for life essentially, while I’m feeling so bad for her?

I watched it with Liam’s mum, and we had a mad laughing fit about scratching the dog’s itchy bum (he gets allergies from the grass we think), and about how we both had never thought we’d be scratching a dog’s bum. We went on this mad tangent along the lines of “I bet you never thought you’d end up watching TV and scratching a dog’s behind.” “Did you ever think you’d come to Australia to scratch a dog’s butt?” “Beats the Opera House.” “And the Gold Coast, Surfer’s Paradise…” “It took a while to get used to…” “…but once you got the hang of it…” “…you don’t want to go anywhere, you just want to scratch the dog’s butt!” We laughed and laughed until we had tears running down our faces. I think it was a crazy reaction to being struck by Terri’s story, and her way of dealing with it.

It was good fun, and it meant I got to cry without anyone really noticing.

I’ve been in Australia a little over two months now. My sentences have started to go up at the end. I’ve eaten meat pies. I know thongs aren’t underwear. When I’m at the shop, I say “good thanks” to the check out lady, because I know she’ll always ask “how’re ya going?” I know I shouldn’t get excited at the sight of wild kangaroos (but I still do). I’ve tried on a beautiful blue akubra (and will buy one before I leave). I’ve had a full Australian breakfast. I’ve seen wild pelicans and my first blue tongue lizzard. I’ve been to golden beaches. I’ve seen the Opera House and have passed over the Harbour Bridge (a.k.a. the coathanger). I’m slowly but surely developing a tan. I can tell a magpie from a kookaburra (they both have mighty big beaks, but the colours are quite different). I can even tell the song of a magpie from that of a kookaburra. I know to watch out for nesting plovers. I’ve smelled real jasmin, just walking down to the shops. I’ve had my groceries bagged for me. I’ve bought a nice selection of summery clothes for about half the European price. I’ve been to two different Lush shops (Queen Victoria Building (QVB) and Tuggerah for the win). I love potato wedges and passion fruit. I have sunscreen SPF 30+ that I use frequently. I limit my showers to 10 minutes because of the water restrictions. There is a swimming pool in my back garden. It’s sunny almost every day. I’ve cuddled a koala, and a kangaroo. I’ve seen a really big crocodile (but luckily he was safely locked up). I’ve seen a cute platypus. I’ve been to a real Aussie country town. I’ve seen two Spitfires fly. I’ve seen Johnny Howard. I’ve been to Canberra. I’ve been horseback riding among gumtrees. Liam’s here.

I’m a little homesick, so I just need to remind myself of what I like about Australia.

But. I’ll never put chicken on my pizza, or eat it with my hands in a restaurant. I can’t get used to saying “G’day” even though people do actually say it. I’ll never put chicken salt and vinegar on my chips. How people can eat kangaroo meat is beyond me (I’m starting to notice a food-related theme here…). I still get a little bit offended when the supermarket staff want to check my bag. I don’t think tomato sauce (ketchup for non-Aussies) is great with almost all food. And I’ll never be relaxed at the sight of a spider, even if it’s just a garden spider like yesterday.

I had promised to make pizza weeks ago. I even got my mum to send me recipes from home for the pizza base.

Only to find that, as I was making the pizza base, the recipe made no sense. I hadn’t noticed before, but there wasn’t a single word about water, and just two eggs won’t bring your dough together beautifully.

So I added water by the spoonful, and a bit of olive oil, praying it would come out alright. I wanted everyone to like it so badly. The raw dough tasted alright, so perhaps all that bread baking a couple of months ago finally paid off.

The pizza came out of the oven looking yummy and colourful. It smelled great. We cut it, everyone got their personalised slices and we sat down to eat.

After the first bite, there were words of praise. After the third, the room went quiet. And stayed quiet, until everyone had finished the last crums. They loved it! Luckily there was more where that came from (I made two large pizzas by doubling the recipe’s quantities by four).

I’m so proud that my experimental cooking payed off! Doesn’t it look yummy?

Almost forgot: credit for the picture goes to Liam and his flashy new camera. I want one!

The wind was hot. It came in strong, sudden gusts. Then we heard sirens. Lots of them, screaming, heading in the same direction. “Can you see anything?”, Liam asked his dad. “Nah. Or, wait.” And sure enough, we could see strings of cloud rising above the hill. Gum trees create white smoke when they burn. Then the smoke turned a faintly orange shade of brown. Then black. The sirens were no longer to be heard.

Until they fired up again, heading the other way. The smoke turned white, became thinner and disappeared. My first bushfire was out in less than half an hour. Nice work.

Point Frederick is on the edge of Brisbane Water, holding an old graveyard (for Australian standards) and a quiet little park. Liam’s mum describes it as one of her favourite places, and when his dad heard of our plans to go there, he took his first sicky in forever.

We set out, stopping off at the parking lot next to what was Liam and his brother’s infant school (awww) to get something to eat. I don’t know if I’ve talked about meat pies before, but they are such an elemental part of Australia that I really should. Meat pies are little cups of pastry filled with beef, or cheese, or whatever (chicken curry is my favourite), topped with another layer of pastry. They’re impossible to eat, but very tasty, if you’re lucky.

We went into a little bakery that Liam’s grandmother always spoke highly of and got ourselves three pies. They were quite hot, and rather than eating them next to a busy road, we decided to take them down to the park at Point Frederick, and find a bench there. On the way there, we drove past Liam’s high school and seriously? You don’t get to complain about high school at all if you were so damn lucky as to have those surroundings. It’s beautiful.

We sat down in the park and had a bird ogle our food (I fed him pastry later on, and he was right on it). Then we walked down to the rocks and the mangroves. These rocks have oysters *in* them, and holes from years of water wear. I’d never seen anything like it before.

Back up was a settler’s graveyard, holding the graves of the first pioneers of Australia. It’s such a peaceful spot that it doesn’t give you that depressed feeling like most cemetaries. It’s all so beautiful. I didn’t take pictures however, because that felt wrong… intrusive.

The graves are all grouped by families, and what astounded me is that I hadn’t been conscious of the fact that it was very normal not to make it to adulthood just 200 years ago. There were children whose age was counted in months, weeks, days or even hours. There was a wife who had to bury her entire family in a year, only to die when giving birth to her baby daughter (who didn’t make it past two months after that). There were 22-year-old daughters. Luckily, there were 92-year-olds, there were people who were born in 17something and made it well into the 19th century… Despite the sad stories you could deduct from the dates and names on the gravestones, the place didn’t exude sadness or loss, but well-deserved peace after a hard-working life. I’m fascinated by the place and I’ll definitely go back sometime.

Now, for some pictures: (click the thumbnails for a larger version)

I have quite a bit of catching up to do. It’s spring break, and to start off the two weeks of blissful freedom in style, Liam and I travelled south once more. We crashed at his friend’s house in Canberra the first night, so we could leave at some ungodly hour (i.e. before 9am) the next day. Our destination? The country town of Temora.

Temora, to make up for being adorably stuck in the seventies, has a Temora Aviation Museum. They recently acquired a second flyable Spitfire (no two of them have flown together in the Aussie skies for sixty years, so this is special). Moreover, they have a shiny new runway. The first novelty meant that we (Liam, his friend Pete and Pete’s girlfriend Emma and I) were there, the second meant that good old Johnny Howard was there too. For those of you who, much like Bill Bryson, have a distinctive memory block with regards to the Aussie prime minister, that’s what he is.

Pete and Emma drove through Temora a few weeks ago and noticed there would be an airshow on. They have airshows quite often, but to have the Roulettes and two Spitfires attend is rare. Of course, everyone and their cat already knew about the airshow, and as a consequence, the little town of 7000 residents had completely booked out its hospitality options. As the Dutch say, “de een z’n dood is de ander z’n brood” (one man’s death is another man’s bread), which is relevant here because some poor fellow moved on to a better place, leaving behind two booked double rooms in the Shamrock motel he would now no longer be using. The rooms were lovely: clean, well-equipped (fantastic aircon, TV, water boiler) and quiet. Lucky. The best thing about the Shamrock (h/m)otel is that it’s got a Shamrock Chinese restaurant: it really doesn’t get much more obscure than an Irish Chinese restaurant that also serves Australian dishes.

After our first day of sitting in the burning sun (SPF 30+ worked remarkably well in keeping me from lobsterisation. Emma and I even put sunscreen on the blokes while they looked embarrassed and not convinced of the need to at all. Remarkably, they volunteered the next day), but not complaining about it because hey, first row, we decided to check into the motel and look for a place to eat in town. We decided to pass on the Irish Chinese Aussie dishes, and after walking up and down the main road, chose to eat at the local pizza and kebab restaurant.

You know you’re in a small town when the prices for pizzas are based on the size, not the toppings. No extra charges for additional ingredients or “make your own” options, just fresh pizzas made by lovely locals who’ve probably never seen Italy.The original plan was to have a few beers in a pub somewhere after dinner, but we were all too stuffed and too tired. The bed was incredibly comfortable and the airco did its job. Not bad for $70.00 AU a night.

The next day involved more planes that did even more exciting things, as the pilots had got used to their unusual aeroplanes and thus dared to do slightly more complicated manoeuvres. The two blokes flying the spitfires seemed to have abondoned their knowledge of landing a plane: they were having too much fun showing off in the sky.

The trip back to Sydney on the Greyhound bus was lovely, but the train trip involved a delay due to a broken down freight train in front of us, and a vicious fight right next to our seats. The bloke who got bottled in the face by his newfound drunken acquaintance first wanted to press charges, in which case Liam and I would be the closest eye witnesses, but I think he realised he was breaking the no-alcohol-on-trains law himself, because he ended up getting off at Woy Woy and forgetting about the whole thing. He did however have a big gash under his eye reminding him of the experience. We got home alright and in one piece, and as soon as the adrenaline wore off, I slept like a baby.

I have a tonne of SpitPorn ™, so I’ll post up some pictures/graphics when/if I feel like getting creative.

Essay one out of two dreadful assignments has just been completed. My brain no longer functions. I am terrified of failing one of the assignments, or worse, both. I want to do well so badly it’s actually handicapping me.

Luckily I have Bailey, who wakes me up in the morning, and pleads with me until I let him sleep on the bed. He’s both an alarm clock and a source of comfort. I’ve been sitting in front of my computer all day, in varying states of productiveness, and he generally likes to snooze behind my chair. The great thing there is that he thus actually keeps me locked in my chair: I can’t roll it back, or I’ll hurt him, and the armrests are preventing me from sliding out sideways.

I think I wrote a decent essay, but I’m still terrified. I tried so hard - I have been thinking about this essay for ages, writing it in my head, and I hope it has all translated to paper in a coherent way.

Now all I have to do is deliver the second baby. Keep breathing.

On a happier note, here’s a happy picture of Liam and I at Palm Beach a couple of weekends ago, squinting our eyes because of the sun. Heh. Sun. Now there’s something I haven’t seen since last week! (Don’t worry, not because of the essays, but because of the neverending flood of rain. If it doesn’t stop soon, I’ll be getting a big boat and a couple of pairs of animals.).

It keeps raining! Why won’t it stop raining? It’s rained so much that the swimming pool is about to overflow and it’s raining so hard that the drops are almost coming sideways.

It wouldn’t normally bother me so much, but I want to go places, do things! I hate feeling caged like this. I should just defy the rain and go outside, armed with a coat, leather boots and an umbrella. And possibly a bin bag, Garden State style.

I wish I still believed in the sunshine dance my sister and I used to employ in situations like this one.

The image on the right is part of the cover of the Dutch version of Monica Furlong’s “Wise Child” (Heksenkind) by publishing house Lemniscaat. It was one of my favourite books as a child - I must have read it at least ten times. You’re probably wondering what that’s got to do with anything I could possibly post about, and rightly so. The thing is, I *love* this image. It’s been years since I’ve actually read the book, but I still remember the cover, the story, and how it made me feel. The book is about a young girl who is auctioned off on the town square when her parents die. No one will take her, because everyone in the village is very poor, until finally Juniper, the local “witch” says she’ll take her, and raises her to work along with nature.

Basically, I want to be Juniper. She’s a wise lady who knows everything about herbs and their medical use, lives with the seasons and does no harm, and that’s something that appeals to me a lot. She is what a lot of people would call a hippie nowadays: one with nature, balanced, at ease. Somehow, the cover of the book conveys all that to me. I love the bright colours that have been used, I can almost smell the herbs I imagine are right around the corner, and can feel the late autumn sunshine rays in my hair.

One day, I’ll have a huge garden full of lovely smelling herbs and wild flowers, a huge vegetable patch with fresh produce, dogs running around, cats snoozing in a patch of sunshine and horses calmly eating away in their paddock. Until then, I’ll have to make do with my latest purchase: Lush’s wonderful Seanic shampoo. In addition, I also bought this natural conditioner. They smell like that garden, they smell like that life I want someday. In addition, Lush’s philosophy makes me happy: they’re environmentally friendly, they use quality ingredients and their producs are *real.* Just the smell of it all makes me smile.

I love the city, movies, music, the Internet, taking photos and shopping (sometimes). But I could never do without hot tea, autumn storms, forest walks, picking flowers, making bread and talking to horses. Perhaps I am a bit of a witch, but only one that would love a caring, balanced life. That’s not such an outlandish thing to wish for, is it?