Out.

The night before last we got the babysitter in so that we could go out......yes, on a Wednesday night. We had an invitation to the Light the Night Launch. Sadly, Hobart isn't getting a walk this year, if you want to participate you have to host your own. I'm not quite sure how this would work.....with my husband and children out on the lawn in the backyard....the Leukaemia Foundation suggest that you can have a bbq. We are on the case though, Felix did a fundraising magic concert for the boys at his school on Wednesday and raised $36 to be shared between the Leukaemia Foundation and the MS Society. Well done Fe! His next performance is for the kinders.

It is like a well timed military manoeuvre getting ready to go out in this house......especially at 5.30pm. Needless to say, I am usually exhausted by the time I've fed and watered the troops, cleaned up for the babysitter and sorted out their bed attire and going out is the last thing I want to do......but then euphoria usually hits at the bottom of the driveway.

I cooked my stand by dinner that I save for such occasions......'Pasta with Bacon, Peas and Cheese'. A recipe which I bastardised from a Delicious magazine from about 10 years ago. The original also called for such ingredients as cream and a specific French cheese. My version bears little resemblance to the original as it has been pared back to as far as it can go. Mercifully, all of my children love it, even the baby. Here is the recipe in case you have plans over the weekend:

*Cook a packet of spiral pasta.

*6 minutes before it is ready, tip in almost a packet of organic peas and two chopped rashers of organic, free range bacon.

*When it the timer goes off, drain and stir through chopped parsley and grated cheese to taste.

*Serve.....and run upstairs to get dressed.

The essential ingredient in the recipe is the free range, organic bacon......because the factory farming of pigs is CRUEL. Last weekend a young animal rights protester spent 24 hours in a farrowing crate on the lawns outside Parliament House in Hobart to highlight the cruelty involved in the horror that is  factory farming pigs. Read about it here.

My delivery from The Outnet arrived in time for me to wear this:

The dress is strapless bronze sequins By Malene Birger....as if I could wear that out on a wintery night in Hobart....I had to accessorise it with a black skivvy, black Sass and Bide jeans and a black linen jacket from Asos as well as wrap a pashmina from somewhere in the Crawford Market in Mumbai around my neck....for extra warmth.

I spend most of my time disappointed that Hobart is so daggy. Yet there are places in town that can quite convincingly delude you that Hobart really is hip, cool and groovy....baby. After the launch we went for a drink at Sidecar:

This is one of those places, but seeing that it is an offshoot of Garagistes it shouldn't come as a surprise. And then we headed in the direction of Remi de Provence for dinner because coincidentally, Wednesday night is cassoulet night:

Can you tell that our foray into teetotalling vegetarianism is over?

PS I have tried to email JMAC, the winner of my Giveaway, through Google Friend Connect twice now.....to no avail. JMAC, if you are reading this, and I have every reason to believe that you will as you are a bona fide follower, please get in touch with me so that I can send you your prize. However, if I can't flush you out over the weekend, I might have to redraw. 

Rx

Etc.

Don't think it's all been fun and fickle frivolity around here this week. I have been working hard embracing my domestic chores:

(Just for the record these were made by Sweet Envy in North Hobart and NOT by me)

Yesterday, it was 16 degrees in Hobart....so I managed to get not one, but two loads of washing line dried, folded and put away. Unheard of for this time of year. And then, on my way down the hill to lunch, I dropped into the accountant's office and signed off on the paperwork to complete our tax reporting for not last financial year....but the year before. This induced feelings of euphoria......it was a two glasses of wine lunch. But that's OK as in the last seven days I've done eight Bikram Yoga classes.

And I've finally gotten around to picking cumquats. With one kilo of fruit I made three more jars of Moira's Cumquat Compote:

Still the tree is heavy with fruit, so my work with cumquats is not done yet. I'm thinking marmalade.....I once coughed up $16 at the Richmond Hill Cafe and Larder in Melbourne for a jar of Stephanie Alexander's Cumquat Marmalade to see exactly how she cut her fruit. I know now. And of course they are delicious squeezed into G & T's......if you have any other suggestions for cumquats, let me know. 

I got another invitation in the mailbox. This time from The Leukaemia Foundation for the '2012 Light the Night' Launch Cocktail Party. It made me cry. Almost four years ago my Dad died of Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.....a rare and very aggressively cruel form of blood cancer. When he was diagnosed he was told that without intervention he would be dead within two weeks. Two weeks. He participated in a drug trial and had chemotherapy. His two weeks turned into five months, for which I am so grateful. It doesn't sound like long, yet it's funny how time, as you've known it before, becomes a strange concept when you are living through such a harrowing experience. It was long enough for him to meet his new granddaughter and to give my sister away at her wedding.

My memories of the 'Light the Night' in Hobart three years ago are so vivid and raw. It was almost a year to the day after Dad died. It had teemed with rain all day. Yet the clouds cleared just as the procession of illuminated lanterns spilled out of the Hobart City Hall and seemed to float around the waterfront. It was eerily beautiful....for one night, so many people's harsh experiences with Leukaemia were somehow transcended into remembrance and hope. I'll be there again this year.

R