Regaled.

I think that I've mentioned before how I'd most likely be clinically certified as insane during school holidays if I didn't have the comforting respite of a good book to see me through. Mercifully, during the holidays that have only just concluded I had a couple of fab books in which I was able to quite happily lose myself amongst the pages.

Can you believe that only a couple of days into the hols, Paul Bangay himself came to Fullers Bookshop in Hobart with his new book 'The Garden at Stonefields':

This was such a red letter occasion that I actually hosted a sleepover at my place and one of my old friends from school drove 4 hours from her farm in the north of Tasmania to come and see Paul with me:

After an informal talk, there was question time and I was able to ask Paul Bangay, in person, which gardening books he keeps stacked up on his bedside table.....his answer was anything by or about Vita Sackville West and Sissinghurst, David Hicks and Russell Page. While most of Paul's oeuvre has done time on my bedside table, I'm sorry to say, that as much as I love this book, it weighs an absolute tonne and is particularly difficult to read in bed. However that's an aside. He also clarified that the quickest way to get your hedges to join up (and this is a major preoccupation for me) is to plant from small, and water and fertilise like mad......I later read that in his own garden he dug up most of the soil in his beds and had it sifted, fed and topped up before it was replaced.....maybe that's what I'm going wrong.

Anyway, the rush of having the babysitter in for the evening may have gone to my head, the result being that my friend and I took ourselves out for a fancy dinner at Garagistes.......it was celebrity spotting heaven (in Hobart terms) as we later spotted Paul.....disappointingly having dinner at another communal table. Yet, for my friend, who quite openly admits to being an AFL footy tragic she was beside herself to discover that she was actually sitting next to a female football commentator who she idolises.....I'm afraid to say that I didn't have a clue who she was. As you can imagine, it was hard work keeping the troops on track the next day. Thank goodness I had a brief window of opportunity to slope off with a cup of tea and see the before and after of the magic that happened over 8 years in the Stonefields garden.....the immediate results being a that I've been gripped by a gardening fervour which has seen me strew sheep manure over my entire garden, plant 3 box topiary shapes and a hedge of eight 'Abraham Darby' roses.....so far.

One weekend during the holidays, we took the ferry over to Bruny Island where amongst the strange isolation and beautiful scenery:

 I started to read this:

Richard Flanagan's new book 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North'. I won't lie to you, at one stage....after the horrifyingly confronting and graphic descriptions of a POW camp in Burma....I had to put it down and take a mini break.

I'd been to a talk Richard Flanagan gave a couple of weeks ago and been transfixed by his anecdotes and inspiration. One story he told was about when he went on a book tour of America which coincided with the belated release of 'The Death of A River Guide' which he had written some years before. I was recounting this afterwards to my husband (who has done some work for Richard) and made it this far before he wanted to know whether this was the time 'when Richard found himself in the back of a taxi with the Beastie Boys?' No. It was the time that Richard found himself on the plane and realised that he couldn't remember absolutely anything about this particular book that he had written, neither the plot nor the characters....nothing. The book was in the hold, which was no help, so he admitted that he resorted to drink. After he landed, jet lagged and a tad hungover, he was met with the good news that he had to front up for a radio interview....and he was already running late.

I managed to summon the courage to finish 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North' and I'm still digesting it. It was written in such a way that even though I didn't think I could keep going, I had no choice, as I compulsively wanted to know how it was all going to end. And nothing prepared me for how it did. I can't stop thinking about it and already realise that I'm going to have to read it all over again.

Although, before I do so, I think I'm going to have to read Tim Winton's new book 'Eyrie'. Especially as I see that Tim is bound for Hobart to talk at a Fullers event on 26 October at 6pm at the Stanley Burbury Theatre at the University of Tasmania....which is bound to be interesting.

So my children are now all institutionalised back in their respective schools. Books aside, during the second weekend of the holidays, I managed to stage an actual physical escape.....to Melbourne for a hedonistic weekend of chat, food, fashion and frivolity with Heidi from Adelaide Villa, the most interesting blog commenter in the world, Pamela and Faux Fuchsia.

How fantastic are these ginger jar jeans:

They were a gift from the sartorially gifted Faux Fuchsia who was determined that I should start dressing to match my house.....although I may have already been guilty of dressing my baby accordingly......see:

Rx

Details.

We've had the builders in. Late yesterday, I didn't think that I could bear looking any longer at those nasty security stickers that they are required by law to stick on large glass doors. I was envisaging a long night getting rid of them.....but then Google came to the rescue. In no time at all I had removed the firmly stuck on stickers and all of the gluey residue, using a secret pantry staple.....peanut butter.

So here's my housewife tip for the day:

To remove stickers from glass:

1. Scrape the stickers off with a flat blade as you don't want to scratch the glass....I used a Laguiole pate knife.

2. Smear sticky mess left behind with peanut butter. At this stage the baby toddled over and couldn't resist rubbing her fingers in it for an impromptu snack. Leave for about ten minutes while the peanut oil seeps in and then scrape off.

3. Wipe off peanut butter, Google suggested a tissue yet I used what I had to hand.....nappy wipes....and then finished off with a cloth.

Amazing. It took all of twenty minutes.

Last week I couldn't find a babysitter for Friday night. I tried all of the usual sources and they tried all of their friends. To no avail. So then, as things became more desperate, my husband went to work and tried everybody in the office with teenage children, while I asked around at the yoga studio and at the health food shop in the village. When no babysitter could be found, I went out for dinner with a group of friends leaving my husband at home on babysitting duty. Before you jump to the wrong conclusion and think that I was skiving off.....I did cook them all dinner before I left.....and I brought my husband home a takeaway tiramisu.

Dinner was with friends at the Italian Pantry in Federal Street in North Hobart. By day it operates as an Italian food warehouse/provedore/cafe and on Friday nights they fill it with tables and chairs and red and white checked tablecloths and have a restaurant:

I wore this:

And yes, my white Victoria Beckham Denim jeans were on their second outing between washes. The jeans and By Malene Birger jacket are from The Outnet. The top is Morrison......I actually went into a shop (Luxe) in Hobart and bought it.

I ate this, well actually we all shared the antipasti platter:

Rabbit, hazlenut and Frangelico risotto:

And the ladies shared the pistachio cannoli:

On Saturday, Mimi and I sported our colour block jeans:

Mine are JBrand, that I bought from Revolve, way back before they upped their prices to match Australian retailers, and Mimi's were $18 from Tarjay (Target)....and are one of the nicest shades of pink that I have seen. See, Target isn't all that bad......although I will admit that most of their tween clothes are designed to make your daughter look like a tart. You have to have the time and the inclination to sort through racks and racks and then there's also an element of luck involved. Occasionally, all the planets align, like on the day that I found my leopard print espadrilles for $14. Most of the time it's just too hard and I can't be bothered.

Milly wore this:

I fervently wish that I had a skirt like this. Back in February, I found a Dolce and Gabbana pale pink tulle ballerina skirt on Net -A-Porter. My heart started beating faster and my palms became clammy. I made haste and ran downstairs to get my credit card, only for them all to be sold out. Utter desolation. I live in hope......meantime if you have any leads.

Then on Saturday afternoon, the weather really set in:

So I did this:

I was facing the fire reading Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd. The rest of the family may have been facing the other way watching the AFL Grand Final. This is Hobart, after all.

Rx

Flowers.

Spring, of course reminds me that I nurse a rather serious flower fetish:

Although, since I've stopped up most of the holes in my garden beds, I now no longer take the local garden centre's rose catalogue and Botanica's Roses to read in bed during long winter nights. These days, I must admit to having this charming garden book next to my bed:

Sitting on top of Vita Sackville - West's Garden Book and In Your Garden Again inspired by her garden at Sissinghurst in the UK and a selection of Susan Irvine's books about her garden at Forest Hall in Northern Tasmania.  As Katherine Swift so succinctly states, most gardening is done in your head.

Even though my full name may be a herb rather than a flower, it still contains the word 'rose' which is lucky really, as it's my very favourite flower:

And that glorious 'coconut ice' coloured bloom in the front is 'Pierre de Ronsard', which if I had to choose only one rose to grow on a desert island, this would be it. I'm trying to festoon the front of our house with it....hopefully this season it will finally reach the second storey....it already clambers up two posts on the back veranda. It is utterly ravishing. Yet, I'm also rather partial to David Austen, Delbard and most heritage roses as I love a good story or connection.....like 'Souvenir de Malmaison' which was supposedly grown in Josephine's garden. Not in mine though, as when it flowered it treacherously turned out to be something else.

I was shamelessly flower centric when deciding on our daughter's names and each includes a bloom in their name  - Primrose for the eldest and  Camelia for the baby. In the language of flowers.....yes there is such a thing....Primrose means 'first love' and Camellia means 'graciousness'. I also toyed with Marigold and Magnolia....or 'dignity' and 'desire for riches'. Neither quite worked and unfortunately marigold's are a rather unprepossessing looking flower.....although I suppose that you can eat the petals in a salad.

Today, I took a turn around the garden looking for flowers. The camellia's were out:

Yet this was all that was left of the spring bulbs - three different daffodil varieties, muscari and forget -me - not, which, of course, is not a bulb but almost a weed:

I had more luck finding flowers inside. A Designer's Guild cushion:

And in the bedroom, a Coalport vase that belonged to my grandmother:

And a teacup and saucer that I bought at Gowans because of the foxgloves:

My favourite flowery dress is emblazoned with foxgloves:

I wore it to my 40th birthday party in our garden last year, after I spent the best part of a year weeding the waist high twitch out of it.....the garden that is:

Just before my party, my husband took me for a day trip to Melbourne to find 'the dress'. He endured sitting in numerous ladies change rooms around town all day while a friend and I conducted the search. We fortified him with steak frites and chocolate profiteroles, washed down with lashings of red wine at France Soir for lunch. I'm happy to report that his spirits didn't flag once.

This dress is a riot of sprays of flowers and birds:

I bought to wear to the Henley on Thames regatta:

I was a little bit pregnant, so was unable to make the most of the Pimm's Bar. Maybe next time.

Seeing yesterday was Thursday, I was compelled to make my weekly pilgrimage to Gowans Auctions. They were filming the new series of Auction Room with Gordon Brown:

Look how many flowers there were. A reproduction Faberge egg:

Lots of plates:

And this book of 17th century engravings, circa 1976:

Someone else was getting rid of their Princess Diana memorabilia.....only fifteen years since her tragic car accident in the Parisian tunnel which claimed her life:

What a pink larkspur......which represents 'fickleness', in case you don't speak flower.

Rx

Library.

I have been trying to drag out the memories of our amazing trip to India back in November not only with Indian food, but also with Indian literature.

I'm ashamed to admit that over the last three weeks I have been chipping away at this tome yet am still not even half way through:

I'm starting to loose track of who's who and that is a tad of a bad thing as I still have so far to go. While I'm really enjoying some of the characters and genuinely wondering who will Lata Mehra marry, I'm finding some of the characters tediously boring.

As usual, I have been using the State Library of Tasmania online catalogue to feed my book fetish. It is the best thing for book addicts and it's free except that we have to pay the mortgage and the rates and the water and the electricity etc etc on our address.

If you haven't tried it this is how it works. All you need is a library card and then you can place holds on books as you find them on the online catalogue. Don't think that you need to be restricted to just books, they also have vast collections of DVD's and CD's. Magically, they will then find it from any library around the state and email you as soon as it arrives. Even better, they will hold it for you with your name on it, on shelves especially for that purpose, so that you can just drop in and pick it up.

So today I led an expedition to the Library itself to pick up the books I have on hold. My children consider a trip to the Library to be one of the biggest treats - right up there with an outing to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

After picking up my holds I then had a trawl around the shelves and found these magazines (for that elusive time when I get to sit around and drink tea):

I was curious about Traveller magazine, having never spent money to take it home. This issues headlines shouted 'Hobart: Could it be the next cultural capital?' Could it? Good news - now that we have MONA and the Henry Jones Art Hotel the journalist who wrote the article thinks that in time it could be.

Anyway, time for a quick read before bed.

R