(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
