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The THREAD: September 2023

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September, and spring has not sprung in Sydney, it’s deadset yo-yoing. The temperature this weekend is meant to hit 34°, while next weekend it is forecast to plunge to lows of 9° at night, and then the following week? Your guess is as good as mine. Needless to say, no one knows which layers to wear, what to sleep under, or whether The BOM (aka the Bureau of Meteorology) is to be believed or is making it all up on the fly.

It’s also school holidays (huzzah!), so settle down with a cuppa and let me fill you in on the latest in my September THREAD.

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

During the past two days I have been thinking about transformation. I can identify the catalyst for this stream of thought very precisely: yesterday afternoon, Miss Malaprop rolled back the cover of our backyard swimming pool (which I had thoroughly cleaned last week) to reveal an algal bloom had turned the sparkling blue water in our pool a deep emerald green. Since then, I have spent a substantial amount of time pool side, vacuuming debris from the bottom, backwashing and rinsing the filter, then scrubbing the walls and floor with a brush before adding a bottleful of a magical indigo elixir supplied by the very polite and patient assistant at our local pool shop. As the hours pass, the pool is gradually being restored to its former glory. Emerald green has given way to a deep aqua, followed by turquoise, and now the colour is definitely appearing far more blue than green.

Watching the transformation has been quite alluring — addictive, even. And definitely more productive than the several hours I spent worrying about the pool last night from about 2:45am onwards. Even so, this morning I was skeptical about the success of the whole process, and initially I did not think it had worked. But — with time, and a little faith — I have witnessed the colours change and the concerns that had plagued me overnight literally fade away. There is something about rapid change that I find both beguiling and satisfying, much like time-lapse photography (such as this clip filmed by Neil Bromhall). I can’t quite explain what makes it so enchanting but that, I suspect, is the very nature of enchantment. It’s a bit like being in Oz before the curtain was drawn back — though I am well and truly done with the colour emerald green right now?!

What else is going on? Well, apart from remedying the pool, I’ve been trying to remedy another “ailment”. It’s school holidays, so I’ve been hearing a lot of…back chat. This is partly, I suspect, because I have teenagers — who are often, by turns, tired and hungry — but also because we are all a bit worn out and frazzled after Term Three, especially since the last day of school ended up with Marvel Girl having a six hour stint in the local hospital with suspected appendicitis (it’s not; she’s fine).

I am trying, ever so carefully, to pick my battles. I am also trying to say less. Much less. I am trying to remember the words of Anais Nin: We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. I am trying to apply that salient and sage piece of advice to my current situation and recognise teenagers and parents see things very, very differently, and then respond accordingly. And the back chat? I’m trying not to react. Trying. Still trying.

Which brings me, perhaps unsurprisingly, to a book I’m about to start reading. It’s called Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood and it’s by a clinical psychologist called Lisa Damour. The book was recommended by the Wellbeing Coordinator at the girls’ school, and the industry reviews I found suggested it was worth a read. Although I’ve not yet started it (full disclosure — I didn’t have the slightest inkling what the seven transitions might be until I looked at the table of contents), the quotation from Anna Freud the author chose to use at the beginning of the book made me feel like I was in the right place.

While an adolescent remains inconsistent and unpredictable in her behaviour, she may suffer, but she does not seem to me to be in need of treatment. I think that she should be given time and scope to work out her own solution. Rather, it may be her parents who need help and guidance so as to be able to bear with her. There are few situations in life which are more difficult to cope with than an adolescent son or daughter during the attempt to liberate themselves.

Anna Freud, 1958 (pronouns altered)

As a parent of two teens, I am seeing these attempts at liberation play out in different ways every day. I do want them to succeed, so I’ll keep trying. And while I do it, I’ll read the book.

The other thing I am attempting to do while parenting teenagers, is making sure that The Bloke and I are on the same page, which I do not via reading by eating! I very much doubt The Bloke will have time to read Lamour’s book, so every now and then we make sure we’re still connecting by heading out to dinner together. Last night we had some amazing high end Mexican fare at a local restaurant we’d been meaning to try for ages, complemented beautifully by a bottle of Californian Chardonnay. Despite having faced the challenge of the pool turning green, I am on holidays with the kids — unlike the Bloke. It was gratifying for me to watch him become increasingly calm and relaxed as the evening passed, even though he had to work again today. We make a point of discussing a multitude of things on date nights, and try to avoid topics like the kids or our respective To Do Lists or finances or work. While these things do crop up from time to time, we both make an effort to bring the conversation back to something positive, or to something we’re looking forward to (not that our “off limits” topics are necessarily negative, they’re just really easy to get mired in).

One of the best things about last night was that at the bottom of the menu was a very convenient “Trust the Chef” option with a set price. With no decisions necessary, we just sat back and enjoyed the parade of culinary surprises. And the food was glorious! Delicious tacos, fabulous fish and perfectly cooked pork, generous sides and a show-stopping pavlova to share for dessert. And while the restaurant was worth a re-visit, we’re making a real effort to go somewhere new every time we choose to go out, trying to support a variety of local businesses instead of the same ones over and again. So far, it’s a plan that is serving us well!

I’ve been admiring a few things on the box lately, including the Supermodels series on Apple+. There is something inherently nostalgic about watching the footage of these beautiful women and their extraordinary careers — it’s a combination of the fashion, the music, the hairstyles (OMG!) and the models’ explanations of and encounters with prevailing attitudes at the time. Watching it (I haven’t finished yet) is making me feel grateful for how far we have come, and thanking the old gods and the new for feminism.

On Stan I’ve started watching The Winter King, a retelling of the story of King Arthur. It’s in a similar vein to The Last Kingdom and was a timely find for me, having just read Alexandra Bracken’s novel Silver in the Bone, which also deals with many aspects of the Arthurian legend — and is worth a read, too. I finished binge watching Borgen not so long ago, which I absolutely adored. I know I’m late to the party on this one, but I thought Sidse Babett Knudsen was utterly brilliant as Birgitte Nyborg, I loved Birgitte Hjort Sørensen as Katrine Fønsmark and I had a real soft spot for Bennedikte Hansen as Hanne Holm. Peter Mygind was expertly Machiavellian as Lars Hesselboe, and Pilou Asbæk was just the right amount of unhinged as Kasper Juul.

I then proceeded to dip into a bunch of other things featuring Sidse Babett Knudsen, including a fabulous little movie Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction (which also stars Mikkel Boe Følsgaard in a very different role to that which he played in Borgen) and Inferno, the third and final film in the Da Vinci Code series which, to my delight, was set in Florence, Venice and Istanbul.

And that brings me, as always, to doing. At the moment I have a list of things I am working through and none of them is particularly exciting. But I am, slowly but surely, ticking them off (in between checking on the colour of the pool water) — and that is satisfying in itself. Sometimes we just need time to do the things that we have had on our lists for what seems like an eternity, even if we don’t particularly want to do them. So I’m making a point of getting the ticks, and celebrating them if they are big things. Especially when they’re boring things!

And when I’m through, I’ll probably get back to more thinking, hearing, reading eating, admiring and doing…

Mind yourselves,

BJx

The THREAD: August 2023

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Huzzah! It’s the last day of winter here in the Antipodes, and there is already a hint of spring in the air.

I’m pushed for time today, so welcome to a rather express Edition of the THREAD – let’s jump in!

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

Strangely enough, I’ve been thinking about time management, and specifically about distractions. I’m one of those people who has been working from home since before the pandemic, and time management is something pride myself on being pretty good at. I think it’s also fair to say I’m experienced at navigating pathways between those devious, pesky things we call distractions — which can include anything from finding yourself suddenly possessed by an unscratchable urge to perform a chore you would otherwise find mind-numbingly boring, playing games on your phone or laptop (I’m looking at you, Wordle), or gazing blankly into the refrigerator until the annoying door alarm starts going off. Been there, done that, sent them all packing.

But when the first glimmerings of spring appear, I often want to get out amongst it instead of sitting at my desk. So this week, when my schedule was unexpectedly upended by a cancelled work placement, I’ve concentrated on putting all the things in all the boxes so I can create spaces in between where my writing can flow. I find that if I can plan out and “Tetris” all the stuff — from personal training, to kids’ extracurricular activities, to menu planning, to lunch with a friend, and even the many and various things seeking to distract me — the time I free up becomes…well, free. And when I’m free, the words can come in waves. I guess what I am trying to say is if you know yourself well enbough to identify your patterns of behaviour you can conquer any distractions, and my way of doing that (however incongruent it may sound) is by using boxes and waves.

Except sometimes things don’t go willingly into a box, which is where hearing comes in handy. Most parents know that if you sing something to a child, it becomes somehow more palatable — or maybe more like a game. Either that, or we’ve all been looking like complete loons while walking around messy living rooms singing “now it’s time to pack away” in happy, hopeful tones to our offspring. I’ve written before about how hard it is to stay cranky with your kids, for example, when you’re listening to disco music. Please give it a try if you don’t believe me — and remember, no matter how small or large, all kitchens are for dancing in.

Anyway, the same principle works for me when I’m struggling with adulting and feeling rather petulant (OK…I”ll admit it, downright childish) about it. If I’m not in the mood to go to personal training during the precisely allocated box I have timetabled for myself, for example, I put Madonna’s Ray of Light on in the car on the way to the gym and turn it up LOUD. If I can’t get into the right headspace to write, I try Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. It’s still boxes and waves, really — just in musical form.

Reading is something I don’t usually have to put in a box, because I tend do it at the end of the day when I’m all snug in my PJs and ready for bed. But when I’m really busy and just want to hit the pillow at the end of the day, I find other boxes that allow me to fit my reading in — like when my daughter has her flute lesson. In this way, I’ve managed to read R F Kuang’s Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History, which is a fantastical historical novel my language loving father would have loved back before dementia robbed him of the ability to read. It’s a complex book dealing with equally complex themes (imperialism, colonialism, revolution, and how all of these intersect with academia), but at the centre of it all is the concept of translation. I wanted to love this novel, but found it kept me somehow at arms length — possibly because of the extensive use of footnotes (which may or may not be historically accurate, as it is a work of fiction after all), or maybe as a result of it’s scholarly tone. Did it remind me of the way I had to read when I was at university (which often for anything but pleasure)? Perhaps. That said, while I didn’t love it, I did enjoy it, and was glad to have read it.

Since then, I have started reading Pip William’s latest offering, The Bookbinder of Jericho. It is much easier going but so far it hasn’t engaged my attention to the point where I want to pick up the book instead of laying my head on the pillow…though I suspect says more about the nature of my life lately, rather than about the novel itself.

Our next topic — and also a great form of distraction — which is eating, and the simple story here is that I have been trying not to eat when I shouldn’t. As in I am still working on eating sensibly and only at mealtimes (after my peviously-reported tropical island gluttony), and so far this approach is working well.

Tonight we will have chicken schnitzel with a roast pumpkin salad, which involves not only the aforementioned pumpkin spiced up with some cumin and coriander, but also corn and black beans, toasted pepitas and a lime crema dressing. It’s delicious, and full of flavour. Tomorrow night it’s meant to be cold again — because spring is always a bit of a tease — so we will have roast lamb with baked vegetables and greens. Beyond that our meals are a bit of a mystery, but I’m sure all will become clear once I reach the appropriate box in which menu planning has been scheduled?!

When it comes to admiring, I managed to find time to watch Netflix’s latest offering in the Bridgerton franchise Queen Charlotte last week. It has all the usual Bridgerton fancies and follies: over the top costumes in riotous colours, wigs so resplendent they would make any self-respecting drag queen swoon, a smattering of sex scenes, and classical musical renderings of pop songs. But Queen Charlotte also has, at its heart, a beautiful and moving story of a couple living with and divided by mental illness. As someone who has witnessed the various ways generations of my family have dealt with living with bipolar disorder, I was genuinely moved by the depiction of the relationship between Queen Charlotte and King George III — and I am grateful that the producers of Queen Charlotte chose to tackle the subject matter rather than shying away from it. Mental illness can affect anyone, from commoners to kings, and I’m glad to see it being presented on screen rather than hidden away.

And finally, that brings us to doing. I’ve been doing rather a lot, hence all the boxes (and hopefully plenty of waves in between), but like rest of the Australian population there is one thing I have stopped everything else to do in the past month: watch our mighty Matildas play in the World Cup. While my knowledge of anything soccer-related is similar to that of Ted Lasso when he started out at Richmond FC — as in I can’t explain the offside rule but I think I know it when I see it?! — like most Australians I love sport (generally) and am now completely in love with the Matildas (specifically). And I do mean ALL of them, though I do have a particular soft spot for Mackenzie Arnold and think Hayley Raso’s hair ribbons are the bomb. I will never, ever forget the way I felt when Sam Kerr scored that amazing goal against the Lionesses, and I am inordinately proud — along with the rest of the country — of what the Matildas have done not just for women’s sport but for women in Australia and beyond.

Anyhoo, there’s no real topping the Matildas is there?

So best to wrap this up and attend to the next box full of “stuff”.

Mind yourselves,

BJx

The THREAD: July 2023

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Another month has rolled around, and with it winter school holidays and both my kids’ birthdays. I know they’re getting older (obviously), but I find it interesting that they are now beginning to comment on how quickly time flies by. When they were little, they felt like eons or entire geologic eras passed between one birthday and the next, but now they are experiencing the passage of time in a different, far more adult, way.

Naturally, having teenaged children has the tendency to make me feel considerably older, too. But the thing that brought me up short recently was a conversation I had with a friend while out of a walk in the glorious winter sunshine, and she asked me about holidaying in Hawaii, as she’d never been. I feel very fortunate to have winged my way between Sydney and Honolulu quite a few times during the course of my life, but admit to being aghast when I realised my first Hawaiian vacation took place forty years ago when I was seven years old.

Gulp.

So let’s move on — life may be short, but it’s still for the living. Let’s dive in to the July 2023 THREAD.

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

I’ve been thinking, as I would imagine many people have, about Sinéad O’Connor. While she was best known for Nothing Compares 2 U, as news of her untimely death at the age of 56 has spread around the world, the song I have found myself listening to is I Am Stretched on Your Grave. Based on a translation of an anonymously written 17th century Irish poem, Táim sínte ar do thuama, she recorded the lyrics over the top of a drum beat with very little instrumental accompaniment (save for some fiddle at the end of the piece). You can see her performing it live here, if you’d like — I suspect that is how she would like us to remember her: powerful, passionate, with superb and subtle control of her instrument.

Despite living in the Antipodes, I feel like my generation grew up with a succession of Irish singers who provided the soundtrack to our formative years. Bono is the most obvious of these, and thankfully he is still with us. But I am also thinking specifically of Dolores O’Riordan now, sadly, of Sinéad O’Connor. Knowing that both of these awesome talents have left us saddens me more deeply than I expected it to. I’m also feeling a little downhearted that a whole bunch of kids are probably only discovering today what a incredible talent Sinéad O’Connor was — I hope they also find out how damn brave she was, too.

Rather than dwelling on sadness, however, it’s best that I move onto hearing. Strangely enough, I’ve been listening to another Irish voice, that of Cillian Murphy, who is probably my favourite actor of all time. I listened to a great interview he did with Marc Maron, whose WTF podcast is one I find myself dipping into from time to time with great enjoyment. I have not yet seen Murphy in Oppenheimer, because I want to see it (if possible, should the scheduling stars and planets align) in 70mm as Christopher Nolan intended it to be viewed.

I suspect Oppenheimer is going to be among the most important films of the decade, if not the century, and by all accounts Murphy delivers a truly impressive performance, along with a stellar supporting cast. What is so lovely about Maron’s interview with Murphy, however, is that ranges all over the place — from the various guitars they own, to what it’s like to live in Ireland, to Murphy’s upbringing — and intersperses some heavier material (primarily about the film) with funny anecdotes, including one about Marc Maron meeting Cillian Murphy at an airport and failing to recognise Christopher Nolan, who was sitting right beside him. All in all, it’s an entertaining podcast and I’m looking forward to seeing Oppenheimer as soon as possible.

I have been reading a lot more than usual lately, because school holidays have provided me with the time and space to do so. I have read a couple of thrillers/mysteries, such as Michael Robotham’s Lying Beside You and Sarah Penner’s The Lost Apothecary, and also re-read Raymond E Feist’s fantasy epic The Magician.

More recently, I picked up a copy of Shankari Chandran’s Song of the Sun God at Townsville airport and decided to buy it because the story begins in Ceylon in 1946. After reading The Seven Moons of Mali Almeida, I have been interested in reading other novels set in Sri Lanka, and this multi-generational family saga was compelling and beautifully written despite detailing the horrors of civil war and the challenges of migration. This book felt very alive to me, full of small but significant details that enriched the action. Specific ingredients are added in scenes where food is being prepared, for example, and the ordinariness of these actions only highlights the massive upheaval the family members are dealing with: physical violence, social dislocation, philosophical and religious disputes. Chandran’s descriptions are brief but evocative, deftly weaving together history and emotion and relationships:

The map stretched, inviting and blue across the wall. The world was such a vast place, surely ther ewas somewhere they could go: somewhere they would be safe from riots and growing rage.

I was delighed to learn that this week Shankari Chandran has won the Miles Franklin award for her latest novel, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens. I know, having read Song of the Sun God, that the seemingly saccharine title will hide a book of depth that is unafraid to broach difficult topics, and am looking forward to reading it.

The other book I read and loved during the past month was Costanza Casati’s Clytemnestra, which is a retelling of the Greek tragedy from the perspective of one of the greatest figures of the Ancient World. The novel gains a sense of immediacy and accessibility from being written in the present tense: not only do we witness what is happening to Clytemnestra as it occurs, but we are also privy to her thoughts and feelings in those same moments. She becomes far more relateable, and as a result her quest for vengeance seems almost reasonable — even though she takes the lives of those who have betrayed her in brutal fashion. Clytemnestra was a magnifiently drawn character and the novel was a great read.

On to a different type of consumption now: eating. Oh boy…there are two parts to this section of the THREAD this month. First off, there’s the part where we went away on holidays and all the (delicious, amazing, high end restaurant quality) meals were included, so for a week I ate incredibly well but didn’t actually feel hungry again until I got home, so I probably ate too much. OK, let’s be clear. I know I ate too much. But the most extraordinary thing about that holiday was I didn’t have to plan or shop for or cook a meal for an entire week so it was totally WORTH IT!

Now that we’re home, I’m onto the second part. I’ve been working on providing the family with simple, tasty food. It might not be a fancy ceviche, or a differently themed cuisine each lunch time, or martinis by the infinity pool, but at least I’ve created some headspace to get back into eating well and as cleanly as possible. Tonight’s dinner? Swedish meatballs on cauliflower puree with broccoli. Last night? Pesto chicken with tomato and feta risoni and green beans. Tomorrow night? No flipping idea…that is tomorrow’s problem!

Speaking of problems (and freely acknowledging that most of mine are of the First World variety), you may recall a couple of months ago I finally finished watching The Americans. Working out what to follow such a show with was not easy — but I finally settled upon Schitt’s Creek as a palette cleanser, and that hilarious and beautifully executed sitcom well and truly did the trick. Various parts of Rose family parlance have subsequently entered our own family lexicon, and I imagine they will stay there for quite some time.

Since then, I’ve been admiring a few things on the small screen, including Shantaram on Apple+. I was initially hesitant to watch Shantaram, because I was not sure I would be convinced by Charlie Hunnam’s attempt at an Australian accent (and now, having watched it, I would give his efforts a solid B minus). I read Shantaram years ago, but not so recently that I could recall it in vivid detail. The storyline is compelling, not least because it’s based on the author’s real life (and crimes). The slums of Bombay in the 1980s are brilliantly brought to life — even if they were actually filmed in Thailand — though I was not particularly satisfied with the ending.

I then watched The Essex Serpent, starring Tom Hiddleston and Claire Danes, also on Apple+. The Essex Serpent is a period drama with moody visuals and interesting themes (think: science vs religion, women vs the patriarchy, rich vs poor). Both leads were eminently watchable (as always), the Essex coastline was suitably mysterious, and the hysteria generated by the “serpent” believable. I really loved Clémence Poésy as Stella Ransome, the ailing wife of the local vicar, Will Ransome (played by Hiddleston). Strangely enough, however, the ending of this show did not satisfy me either — it felt a little bit too neat. Humpf.

Anyway, that brings me finally to doing, and to our family holiday to the Great Barrier Reef. Despite dramas with planes on the way to and from Queensland (which included missing pilots, missed connections, an unexpected overnight stay in Brisbane on our way home and much gritting of teeth along the way), the vacation itself was spectacular and we were blessed with fine weather, even if it was a little windy at times.

In addition to the incredible food (which I mentioned above) we met some great people, including a lovely family from Switzerland who are currently living in Adelaide for a year. We also had some fantastic experiences: snokelling, hiking, sailing, paddle boarding, kayaking, and puttering around in dighies. One highlight of the trip was feeding fishy kitchen scraps to reef sharks off the resort’s jetty, another was watching glorious sunsets over the sea (which for this Eastcoast dweller is always a bonus). And as a final bonus, we saw some whales from the helicopter when we were transferring back to the mainland.

Anyway, that’s a wrap on the July THREAD.

I’m off to a themed trivia night I’ve been roped into and (no pun intended) have to get into my cow girl costume…fingers crossed we come home with a prize!

Until next time, mind yourselves.

BJx

The THREAD: June 2023

Posted on by • Posted in Blue Jai Creative, music, Musings, Uncategorized, Writing • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • 1 Comment

We’ve gone past the shortest day here in the Antipodes! The Winter Solstice is a milestone I mark each year, not least because it means that from this point onwards the days are getting longer again. Admittedly, we still have to get through that small botheration called winter, but nobody has really noticed much of that around here lately because we’ve all been glued to various devices trying to get tickets to see Taylor Swift.

So, keeping with our theme of brevity, let’s jump straight into the June THREAD.

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

I’ve been thinking a lot about equity and fairness during the past week or, perhaps more specifically, since Taylor Swift announced the dates for the Australian leg (such as it is) of her Eras tour. As regular readers of this blog will know, I live with a pair of Swifties — one diehard, one far more nonchalant — so the news that Tay Tay was finally heading Down Under was met with great excitement.

However, as details of concert dates and pre-sales and ticket pricing began to filter through, my cogitations began in earnest. The amount I would have to spend on some of the packages available to attend just one of these highly desirable concerts is equivalent to the amount we would normally spend on a weeklong family holiday. Could I justify the expense? Was it fair of me to tell my children that if I did manage to get tickets, they might not get Christmas and birthday presents this year? Would Marvel Girl even cope if we did not secure this most elusive of bookings?

I’ve been hearing a lot of the same sorts of questions from other parents, and from other people who are fans. The hype surrounding the Eras tour has been phenomenal, and I know that this concert is not simply a “bit of a gig”, but a full blown stadium spectacular choreographed down to the last pyrotechnically enhanced millisecond.

I’m also conscious that, if I did get my hands on Taylor Swift tickets, this would be Marvel Girl and Miss Malaprop’s first proper concert (because at this point I’m not counting the Babies Proms at the Sydney Opera House folks…that ship sailed so long ago it’s halfway to Haiti by now). I’m also acutely, painfully aware that — thanks to a global pandemic and a bunch of lockdowns — my kids have missed out on unforgettable experiences like this.

So, like so many others, I started reading all the fine print. And the presale information. And began setting alarms and checking login details and updating passwords and acquiring ticketing codes and taking a long hard look at my bank balance. I also started reading Curtis Sittenfeld’s new book Romantic Comedy, and had been perusing a bunch of travel guides (dreaming of a European vacation before the girls get to the pointy end of high school), but all these had to be put on the back burner. Tay Tay was coming to town, and I had to be ready.

It was around this point that the stress eating began. I can safely say that I have eaten more chocolate in the past week than I ever ate at Easter time.

I may also, equally sadly, have fallen into the trap of eating cheese and drinking wine. So much so that The Bloke — who, by now, had joined the feeding frenzy — went to the trouble of finding Tim Minchin’s hilarious song about cheese on Spotify or YouTube or some other thing and began playing it for me in a very misguided show of what he called ‘support’. I think it’s fair to say that Minchin’s lyrics about him loving cheese but cheese not loving him did apply, but it was not The Bloke’s finest moment?!

As things turned out, however, it did become one of Miss Malaprop’s finest moments, one that I am still admiring. The first presale came and went with a giant crash (brought to you by American Express), and despite frantic — and might I also say valiant — efforts on my part to navigate some sort of safe passage through the maze of the interwebs to ticket ownership, I came up empty handed. By some small miracle, one of The Bloke’s staff got wind of what we were up to (perhaps because there were several fraught phonecalls to his office as we kept him apprised of our lack of success), and she managed to find her way onto the presale site…but the best she could come up with was a pair of tickets (at a whopping $900 each), and I was determined that both my girls would be coming with me to the show or none of us would go at all.

It was at this point that Miss Malaprop, bless her cotton socks, piped up that if we could only get two tickets we should nab them and that I should take Marvel Girl, superfan as she is of Ms Swift. Her generosity and selflessness caught me off guard, and made me even more determined to get her a ticket as well…if that was humanly possible?!

Which brings us, of course to doing. By the time the next presale rolled around (OK, it was only two days later but I can tell you the hours drag until the event begins), we were ready. We were SO ready. Three laptops and three phones were logged on and ready to enter the Ticketek lounge — home of the infamous blue bar of doom (if you were there you know what it is I speak of) — and after 10:00am the minutes, which had so recently felt like they were lagging by, suddenly began to fly past as I knew there were tickets flying into people’s online shopping carts faster than you could say …Ready For It.

And then, about twenty adrenaline-filled minutes in, The Bloke called. It turned out that half the staff in his office, upon hearing of our plight (first world problem as it absolutely is), had registered for presale codes and were all trying to get us tickets as well. And — wait for it — the same staff member who had got through to the elusive Amex presale had been miraculously plucked from the Ticketek lounge (which we are all now aware is anything but a queue), deposited on the hallowed seat selection page and beaten the famous clock to secure us a trio of tickets for Taylor Swift’s opening night in Sydney.

We were gobsmacked. Celebratory. Relieved. Grateful. Even a little bit tearful, in Marvel Girl’s case. Miss Malaprop was practically turning cartwheels and the cat, never one to be left out, got the zoomies and began racing up and down the stairs.

I still can’t quite believe our luck, not to mention the generosity of The Bloke’s staff. But that’s good people for you — they chip in and help make the impossible somehow, unexpectedly, brilliantly possible.

We’re going to Taylor Swift.

And until a Taylor’s version is released, that’s a wrap on the June THREAD.

I’m officially exhausted.

Mind yourselves,

BJx

The THREAD: April 2023

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It’s autumn here in the Antipodes. Although the days are still pleasantly warm enough, the nights are starting to cool down. Sleep comes easier at this time of year. The summer doona is back in the linen press, replaced with a warmer one that always reminds me of a cloud — so much that changing the sheets makes me feel happy.

There many aspects of autumn that I love, but one of the best things about this time of year is that the ocean temperature is still delightfully warm, and the beaches are less crowded. An April dip in the Pacific brings me a quiet sort of joy. Sometimes I think autumn in Sydney might be a reward for surviving the drooping humidity of late summer.

But enough rambling on about the season. Even though we have just slipped into May, it’s time for the April THREAD.

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

It was ANZAC Day last week, so I’ve been thinking about my grandfather, who served in the Royal Australian Navy during World War Two and was present in Toyko Bay when the Japanese signed the surrender ending that awful conflict. We went to a small Dawn Service on April 25th at the caravan park at Seal Rocks, to which we had escaped for a couple of days to cap off the Easter holidays. It was a solemn and simple commemoration: a couple of school kids reading short reflection on the bravery of the ANZACs and the Ode, then a trumpeter playing the Last Post. There was a minute’s silence before he continued with the Reveille, followed by the beautiful and moving sight of a lone uniformed horseman with an Australian flag paying tribute to the Light Horsemen who served in World War One, riding along the beach as the sun rose over the sea.

I wondered, as I stood there, my hands cradling a candle in a paper cup, whether my grandfather had seen Seal Rocks from his ship when he sailed back to Sydney Harbour, having survived the war in the Pacific with all its horrors — not least of which were the infamous kamikaze pilots. Perhaps he saw the coastline, crowned by the lighthouse that has warned ships away from the rocks since 1875. Maybe he didn’t — and it really doesn’t matter. I felt gratitude as I stood there, surrounded by my family and by strangers. There were people of all generations, from well dressed retirees to kids still in their pajamas and dressing gowns, all gathered to remember those who served, especially the fallen, and to pay our respects to those who continue to serve. It also felt distinctly Australian, perhaps because as we sang the first part of the National Anthem I felt all of us there knew exactly what it feels like to be girt by sea, or maybe because despite the solemnity of the occasion the vast majority of us in attendance were wearing thongs or ugg boots or no shoes at all.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them. Lest we forget.

Ahhh…moving on. Because we’ve had a few hours in the car getting to and from Seal Rocks, I’ve been hearing a couple of podcasts The Bloke has been listening to lately. The first one is called Billy Joel A to Z, a podcast by a couple of comedians called Elon Altman and Dave Juskow who happen to love Billy Joel songs and have decided to go through all 121 songs he recorded from A to Z — or, more accurately perhaps, from A Matter of Trust to Zanzibar. I’d never heard any of it before, so landed where The Bloke was up to (towards the end of the F’s), and found it entertaining enough. It seems I made the same complaint many listeners do, which is that they do not play the song they are talking about at the beginning of each episode — though given licencing laws I can understand why. Some of the content is genuinely funny, especially the song parodies they come up with, and if you’re a fan of Billy Joel’s music, it’s worth a listen. That said, I would also recommend listening to the specific song they are dissecting before each episode so it makes more sense.

Since the NBA Playoffs are upon us and The Bloke is a big basketball fan, we also listened to the latest installment of The Mismatch. Fortunately, I’ve been watching some of the game highlights on YouTube so was familiar with some of the big topics covered (not least of which was Draymond Green’s suspension), but at the end of the episode it came out that their theme song was recorded by Father John Misty, which led us down a rabbithole of his songs — kicking off with Mr Tillman, which has the kids and I have counted as a favourite for quite a while but The Bloke had never heard, until we found ourselves pulling into our driveway at home.

I mentioned during the March THREAD that I had just finished reading Ian McEwan’s book Lessons, which explores — in a significant amount of detail — the life story of one Roland Baines, starting from his primary school days at an English boarding school and finishing when he has become a grandfather. Beejay Silcox summed the novel up well in her review for The Guardian:

McEwan’s 17th novel is old-fashioned, digressive and indulgently long; the hero is a gold-plated ditherer, and the story opens with a teenage wank (few books are improved by an achingly sentimental wank). But Lessons is also deeply generous. It’s compassionate and gentle, and so bereft of cynicism it feels almost radical. Can earnestness be a form of literary rebellion?

I’m still not sure whether I enjoyed Lessons. It’s densely written, full of allusions and references (if you care to pick them all up), and of historical and socio-political detail (frequently from more than one point of view). I will admit, however, that since I finished reading it I have thought about passages in the book often — particularly in relation to women and the creation of art. As McEwan writes towards the end of Lessons: “The larger subject was the ruthlessness of artists. Do we forgive or ignore their single-mindedness or cruelty in the service of their art? And are we more tolerant the greater the art?” This is a question that makes me wonder about my own creativity, because although I may possess a room of my own (or more accurately, passageway?!) à la Virginia Woolf, I know I do not possess the sort of ruthlessness portrayed by Roland’s first wife in Lessons. Does that mean I will never create something great? I wonder…

Not surprisingly, after reading Lessons, I needed something entirely different — and so devoured Samantha Shannon’s epic A Day of Fallen Night, which returns to the same fantasy world of The Priory of the Orange Tree. Happily, it did the job I needed it to.

As part of our return to menu planning, we have been eating some old favourites and some new creations lately. After ordering a massive box of green vegetables when my usual fruit and vegetable delivery was on a hiatus, I made a silverbeet version of what was meant to be Spinach and Feta Pie, based on a recipe from Jamie Oliver. I’ve not used filo pastry for ages, and forgot how versatile it is, not to mention how crispy and tasty. The kids told me this one definitely needs to be added to the list, along with various other favourites like Beef and Bean Nachos, Satay Chicken and good old reliable Spag Bol.

I also made a batch of passionfruit and pear muffins this week. These were intended to be blueberry muffins, but upon opening the freezer I discovered that Miss Malaprop her helped herself to a bag and a half of frozen blueberries while making smoothie bowls. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, and the pears were on the verge of being relegated to being thrown out or turned into crumble, so…yeah. At least we had something to go into lunch boxes until the next lot of blueberries arrived.

I have been admiring the resilience of my dear little cat, Tauriel, lately. She had emergency abdominal surgery just before Easter, having (very unfortunately) blocked her own bowel with a furball. Despite being in obvious discomfort — not to mention slightly off her head on methadone and fentanyl — she has patiently endured the post-operative recovery process, with all its vet visits and oral antibiotics (I only got scratched once). Since being given the all clear to return to her regular feline pursuits, Tauriel has been rather more affectionate than usual and has even given me her version of a hug. Truly heartwarming stuff.

My admiration has also been kindled by a dear family friend of ours, Valda, who was experiencing some health issues recently and subsequently received an unexpected and unpleasant diagnosis. She has displayed great dignity and calm as she faces this challenge — which, upon reflection, is hardly surprising, because as for as far back as I can remember she has been a dignified and calm person. She also has a wonderful sense of humour, which I sincerely hope serves her well in the coming weeks and months, and she has always been very kind to me and mine — so fingers crossed some exceptionally good karma is coming her way.

And that brings us, as always, to doing, and also returns this post back to where it started — at Seal Rocks. After having a great initial experience in the surf at our local break in late January, I mused one evening that I might like The Bloke to teach me how to surf when we went for our ANZAC Day getaway up the coast. He, having being provided with this flimsiest of excuses, decided this would be a great opportunity to purchase (yet another) surfboard for our burgeoning collection — a foam topped one for beginners of my size and (lack of) ability.

On our first day at Seal Rocks, the surf was too big for beginners such as myself. But on the second day, The Bloke deemed the conditions to be more manageable and decided it would be a good time to take me and my new blue board and push us out to sea. The water was very clear, and the most beautiful shade of turquoise I’ve seen in a long time. It was also reasonably warm, but a little bit dumpy. Friends — I had a go. Not a particularly successful go, given I grazed both my knees on the surface of my new board (which turned out to be a weird combination of rough and slippery). Sadly, I did not manage to stand up on the board a single time without immediately pitching sideways into the surf. Then, having experienced the excruciating ignominy of attempting to paddle back out to the break and discovering that — despite my genuinely best efforts — the board was travelling backwards through the water instead of forwards, I was forced to make a demeaning retreat to the sand and walk along the beach beforing attempting to catch one more wave.

I ended up riding that last wave in on my belly, boogie board style, to The Bloke’s (probably) eternal shame. Clearly, I did not cover myself in any kind of glory, but lived instead to tell the tale — however humiliating. That said, I have not given up and to my immense surprise, my ego has rebounded from the experience far more swiftly than I thought it would. I will, despite my relatively ancient age to be taking up such pursuits, try surfing again at some point…most likely when The Bloke is next willing to suffer through what will likely be yet another embarrassing spectacle. Such is life?!

Anyway, that brings us to the end of the April THREAD.

I would love to hear what you’ve been up to and what you’ve been consuming — via ears, eyes, mouth or any combination of these.

Until next time, mind yourselves.

BJx

The THREAD: March 2023

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I’m not entirely sure who said it (though I strongly suspect it was C S Lewis), but there’s an old saying that goes something like this:

Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different?

It doesn’t feel like more than a month has gone by since I sat down and wrote the first of these THREAD posts, but here I am again. Only a few weeks ago that I was musing about raising teenagers, reading Jonathan Franzen and reminiscing about our (now far less) recent trip to New Zealand. That holiday feels like an eternity ago, now we are well and truly in the swing of all things school and work.

Since it’s been a busy month, I’ve got a bunch of things buzzing around in my head — so best to let them out.

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

This month I have been Thinking about the imminent retirement of Adam Bull from the Australian Ballet. I have genuinely enjoyed watching him dance over the years, and am sorry the blasted pandemic meant I had to put my ballet subscription on hold, meaning I will probably not get to see him take the stage again. I’ve never been a dancer (my body favours sporty stuff rather than the life balletic), but I have come to love and appreciate the athleticism, grace beauty of both classical and contemporary ballet. I will be sad to see Adam Bull’s tall and striking figure leave the company after more than two decades, but am grateful to have seen him perform.

I’ve also been thinking about how various artforms inform and inspire each other, largely because I have just finished reading Maggie O’Farrell’s book The Marriage Portrait. The novel opens with Lucrezia de’ Medici, Duchess of Ferrara realising — on page one, no less — that her husband intends to murder her, and that the portrait he has commissioned of her is being painted in isolated castello precisely because that is where he intends to carry out the fell deed without anyone realising or interfering. Needless to say, I was pretty much hooked from the initial paragraphs and finished the book in a night.

The painting which inspired the novel is generally attributed to Florentine artist Agnolo Bronzino, and also served as the stimulus for Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess”. Like O’Farrell’s novel, the poem has an equally memorable opening:

“That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,/Looking as if she were alive.”

When I first looked at Bronzino’s portrait, I was struck by how modern Lucrezia appears — and how worldly, despite her youth. She did not survive her marriage to the Duke of Ferrara, and died suddenly at the age of 16. Lucrezia’s dress in the painting might be dreadfully outmoded, but her expression is intelligent and her gaze direct. I went down quite the rabbithole trying to figure out who she reminded me of, and stumbled across this comparison, which seemed rather apt:

Fortunately, Anya Taylor-Joy is very much alive, and I suspect she’d do a great job of playing Lucrezia de’ Medici if The Marriage Portrait ever made it to the big screen — much like Scarlett Johansson did in Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was based on Tracy Chevalier’s novel of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the painting by Johannes Vermeer. Or how Adam Bull played the Prince in Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty, which was based on the fairy tales of Charles Perrault.

Is everything created somehow borrowed, rather than brand new? I’m not sure…but it’s certainly given me a lot to think about.

I finally got around to Hearing this interview Helen Garner gave Annabel Crabb late last year. Recorded to mark the occasion of Garner’s 80th birthday, it is a thought provoking hour of insights into the life of artists generally and writers particularly. I suspect one of the main reasons I enjoyed listening to this so much was that this particular interview was a discussion between two women I admire (and whose general vocabulary I covet). Then again, in my experience it is always pleasurable to listen to intelligent, articulate and opinionated people discuss…things. Anything, really. If they are speaking of something about which you know nothing, you have the opportunity to learn something new. Perhaps more importantly, if they are discussing something with which you are familiar, you may gain a fresh perpsective or better understanding of someone else’s point of view.

In any case, Garner spoke candidly about many things, including the self-doubt which plagues her whenever she is writing something new, the book she believes to be her worst, her views on feminism, the controversy provoked by The First Stone and her understanding of how and why that particular storm erupted and how it appears differently to her now. She also talked about her numerous journals, leading Crabb to extract a promise from her not to burn any more of them. I found the interview thoroughly entertaining — much as I did Garner’s book Everywhere I Look, which just so happens to contain a superb extended essay about the Australian Ballet.

In addition to Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, I have been doing quite a lot of Reading lately. Truly excitingly, I strongly suspect some of the books I have read lately are Great Books (and yes, those capitals are Definitely Required). Last weekend I finished reading Ian McEwan’s lastest, Lessons, which was brilliant but requires further reflection before I write about it. A few weeks ago, however, I finished Shehan Karunatilaka’s outstanding novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, which won the 2022 Booker Prize. This book got under my skin, and well and truly into my subconscious. Quite literally, I found myself dreaming things based on the pages I had read before I went to sleep — and, not surprisingly given the novel details the post-mortem exploits of a war photographer, they were not particularly pleasant things.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is both a ghost story and a murder mystery, but is neither in the traditional sense. Set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan Civil War, the novel demands you engage with all sorts of things including politics, religion, gender, class, friendship and family dynamics — the works. Despite concerning the exploits of a dead photographer during his first week an the Afterlife populated by supernatural beings, the book brims with roiling mass of humanity. This is a novel of colour and movement, peppered with dialects and idiomatic speech, bursts of hilarity and moments of adroitly observed insight, like this one:

Evil is not what we should fear. Creatures with power acting in their own interest: that is what should make us shudder.

I highly recommend The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. A word to the wise, however: if you do choose to read it, really go with it. Suspend your disbelief and you’ll be in for quite a ride.

I next read Leigh Bardugo’s book Hell Bent, her sequel to Ninth House. Even though this is a fantasy novel with substantial supernatural elements, reading Hell Bent after The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida felt like returning to a reassuringly familiar world: not only is the geographical setting real, but the temporal setting is also close to present day. Additionally, the main characters are distinctly human…until they’re not. No spoilers here! Though I’m genuinely looking foward to the next instalment of Galaxy Stern’s adventures.

In terms of Eating, I’ve been getting a lot more organised and have resumed menu planning. Not only does this save me time and reduces my mental load, but it also boosts the variety factor when it comes to family meals. The added benefit of posting the week’s menu ahead of time is that other family members can also pitch in and start meal prepping if needs be (not that this has ever happened…I live in hope). Knowing I have increased work commitments coming up next term, I am making an effort to get into good habits now and and am reminding myself of meals I can cook ahead or dinners that are “one pot wonders”. In this vein I’ve also been calling to mind various traybake recipes, and have been figuring out what (other than muffins) I can make as lunchbox treats.

Since we’ve had a long hot March, we’re still enjoying our salad days — especially the salads featured in Hetty McKinnon’s brilliant cookbook Community: Salad Recipes from Arthur Street Kitchen. I don’t think I own a single coobook I have made more meals from than this one, and our most recent discovery from this gem is Pumpkin with Chickpeas, Toasted Coconut and Lemon Tahini (except we ditched the Lemon Tahini dressing in favour or a bit of extra lime juice). It’s a Fijian inspired salad, packed with fabulous flavours and topped with the satisfying crunch of toasted pepitas. It’s also truly delicious.

Admiring is one of my favourite sections of the THREAD, and this month I cannot go past the brilliantly and blackly comic television show Bad Sisters. Set in present day Dublin and featuring five sisters, the first episode features the funeral of John Paul — husband of the second eldest of the Garvey sisters, Grace. It turns out JP, during his life, was quite a piece of work (abusive, controlling, manipulative and generally nasty) so it may come as no surprise that the storyline flip flops between the past — during which all four of Grace’s sisters have some sort of a go at bumping off their evil brother-in-law to rescue their sister and niece — and the present, when a harried and hapless insurance agent is desperately trying to prove JP’s death has been caused by the Garvey sisters’ foul play so he does not have to pay out a life insurance claim. It is not immediately apparent who or what has killed John Paul, but the show is so darkly funny and entertaining that Marvel Girl and I binged the ten episodes over the course of a single weekend.

Back at the beginning of the month I also found myself admiring the glorious scenery that forms the backdrop to Yellowstone. I had been putting off watching Season 6 of this fabulous show, because I didn’t want to watch an episode a week. (I also suspect I was feeling slightly superstitious about watching the most recent season because I watched the other five while I was isolating when I had COVID, and a fresh wave was hitting around the time Season 6 came out). In any case, I adore the scenery in the show — which could probably, given how many people fight over the land in Yellowstone, be counted as a character in itself — particularly as it reminds me of the country near where I spent part of my childhood when our family moved to Canada for a couple of years. So, as it turns out, I watch Yellowstone the nostalgia it evokes for me just as much as the drama — and for Kelly Reilly’s vivid portrayal of badass Beth Dutton. Just as an aside — did you know Kelly Reilly is English? Her accent in the show is pretty tight.

And that brings us, as always, to Doing, though this month one of the main things I have been doing is waiting for and then celebrating the return of another stellar television series: Ted Lasso. Season 3 is landing at last, and not a moment too soon! There are so many things that I (along with the rest of the known world) love about Ted Lasso. The writing is so sharp it sparkles, and the performances — especially now we are three seasons in — are so well-honed they truly shine. Rather than fangirling at length over the cast, because I can’t think of a single one of them I don’t love, let’s just leave it by saying there are so many lines from this show that have found their way into our family’s daily vocabulary — not least of which is simply, “Oi!” — that I can’t imagine life without Ted Lasso. It’s that good.

Other things I have been doing have included making a concerted effort to maintain good hydration and to keep stringing together sessions with my personal trainer. PT sessions are easier to keep up with (you schedule regular sessions, you turn up: “Simples” as the meerkats say). Drinking enough water? You’d think it would be so straightforward, but making and sustaining this habit is taking me longer than I expected. I am incredibly grateful to my girls, who thoughtfully presented me with a large Ravenclaw drinkbottle for my birthday, because I now try to chug my way through this several times a day. I’m getting better with hydration, and I’m deadset sure it will be worth the effort, so…go me?!

Anyway, we’ve reached the end of the THREAD for March 2023. Like a piece of string, I’m never sure how long it’s going to be and this one has been a bit of an epic, (so good on you if you’ve stuck with me and got this far), so my head is definitely less “buzzy” than it was when I started. As always, I’d love to hear what’s buzzing around in your head or what you’ve been THREADing your way through, so leave a comment if you’d like to.

Until next time, mind yourselves!

BJx

Introducing the THREAD

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It’s been a long while since I last posted here. Christmas has come and gone, and New Year’s too.

Since our family finally ventured overseas for the first time in years at the beginning of January 2023, my year in review posts for 2022 never eventuated. And, although I often have a multitude of ideas for posts, I frequently don’t have the time to execute them — mostly because life. So between my last post and this, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how to make this blog more relevant to my life as it is now.

When I started making a list of what I wanted to write about — things I’d been thinking, reading, eating and doing — I realised I had the beginnings of a workable acronym for all I wanted to communicate. A couple of minutes of tinkering later, I had a plan in my notebook and a smile on my face.

And so, without further ado, I would like to introduce you to the THREAD.

THINK | HEAR | READ | EAT | ADMIRE | DO

I’ve been thinking about this post by Amy Betters-Midvelt, which someone shared to the Chat10LooksTeen Facebook group recently. It’s called All Parents of Teenagers are Liars, and examines the way we speak about — OK, lie about — the lives of those she refers to as “tall kids”, or teenagers. It reminded me of the old saying, which I may have heard myself imparting to my own tall kids of late, that everyone is dealing with something. You might be privy to someone’s situation. Perhaps, to you, it seems trivial, perhaps not. Or maybe you’ll never know what a person is going through, and it’s something truly ghastly. Or maybe it’s not. But the fact remains: everyone is dealing with something.

My two main takeaways from this thought-provoking piece were, firstly, that regardless of how tall they are (and believe me, Marvel Girl has well and truly passed me, and Miss Malaprop’s not far behind her), teenagers are still kids. And secondly, that just about every parent of a teenager I know is more likely to respond as cheerily as they can to a query about how their tall kid is doing rather than launching into a ten minute diatribe about whatever it is they are dealing with at that time, whether it be school refusal, bullying, slipping grades, vaping, porn, alcohol, general slothfulness, or their insistence on publicly wearing a bikini so miniscule it would make a Brazilian blush. We’re all doing our best, with varying degrees of success, and sometimes as unsure of ourselves as parents as our tall kids are of the almost-adults they’re becoming.

Everyone is dealing with something. But focusing on the good bits when we’re asked? Maybe that’s not such a bad thing…

Since I live in a house with two tall kids, I’ve been hearing a lot of their music lately. Our summer days have been filled with songs from Lana Del Ray, Taylor Swift, and Harry Styles. Marvel Girl got a record player for Christmas, so there have been numerous trips to various music stores in search of specific titles on vinyl. (I suspect I did clock up more than a few brownie points for presenting her with the Moonstone Blue edition of Midnights to start off her collection, but that may have been more good luck than good management on my part).

The Bloke and I have made sure Marvel Girl has added a few classics to her record collection too, making sure she’s got some Beatles tunes, and some U2, and even dug out some old vinyl we’d been hanging on to since forever and introduced her to Neil Diamond’s Hot August Nights. We even found some Elvis records that had belonged to her great grandmother, and the theme song to Felix the Cat, just for good measure.

When the kids are not around, I’ve been listening to a weird mix of Indie Folk and whatever happens to be on Spotify’s ever-changing “Front Left” playlist. And when I’m working, it’s all instrumental…no words, because lyrics have a tendency to get in the way of the words I’m writing.

I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading this summer, have have been on a bit of a Jonathan Franzen kick after reading Crossroads just after Christmas. I was happy to hear Crossroads is intended as the first of a trilogy, and I enjoyed it so much I decided to read Freedom. Franzen writes about family so well — the weird, somtimes stilted, inter-generational dynamics of living with people purely by accident of birth — and often in a darkly funny way.

I also plowed my way through several holiday reads via the Libby app (Jane Harper’s Exiles, and two very British mystery novels by Sarah Yarwood-Lovett called A Murder of Crows and A Cast of Falcons). In various airports and armchairs I read Allegra in Three Parts by Suzanne Daniel, Hilde Hinton’s new book A Solitary Walk on the Moon, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold and a couple of entertaining thrillers: The Cloisters by Katy Hays and A Narrow Door by Joanne Harris. I also read and found myself frequently reflecting on the tragically beautiful portrait of love and mental illness in Olivie Blake’s novel Alone With You in the Ether. I enjoyed them all, some more than others, but mostly because each was exactly what I needed at the time.

Eating is something I am eternally grateful for. I am one of those people who lives to eat, not one who eats to live, so good food — whether prepared by me or for me — is something I truly relish. We ate some fantastic meals during our road trip around New Zealand, discovering some great restaurants. To this end I highly recommend Atticus Finch in Rotorua, Pacifica in Napier (where our kids enjoyed their first ever degustation dinner), and the Pier Hotel in Kaikoura.

Since we’ve been home and school has resumed, we are back to far more routine offerings, such as Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Banana Muffins (my copy of her book Kitchen automatically falls open at the page featuring this recipe, not least because it is a very effective way of using up over-ripe bananas). Like most of Australia — OK, half the world — we’ve been singing the praises of Nagi Maehashi, of RecipeTin Eats fame, whose cookbook Dinner has been a source of many a home cooked meal at our place this summer. We are particular fans of the Asian Glazed Salmon, not only because it’s insanely delicious, but also because it is super quick to prepare. We tip our collective hats to Nagi, a Northern Beaches local who creates amazing recipes and gives so much back to our local community via RecipeTin Meals.

I know it might seem like a peculiar thing, but one thing I have been admiring lately is the bottom of our new swimming pool. Yep — the bottom! You know how the light hitting the water creates those mesmerising moving patterns? The ones that make you think you might be swimming over the top of a gigantic turquoise-shelled sea turtle (if such a thing existed)? Or some kind of weirdly warped honeycomb-like tessellation? OK…maybe it’s just me. But I do love watching it, floating on the surface, gazing down into the blue.

I am also admiring my kids, who both started at a new school this year. It’s not been entirely plain sailing, but they’re both doing all those hard things that stand you in good stead later in life, as well as in the here and now: making new friends, finding their way in unfamiliar territory, remembering (after a long summer) how to be punctual, showing up to things they’ve signed up for, speaking up for themselves when they need to. I’m struck by their courage, their tenacity, their humour. It was truly gratifying to see their care for each other after their first day, checking in and making sure their sister had survived their first day before regaling me with tales of what they’d experienced. And I’m grateful — beyond measure — that after four years at separate schools, they are finally together again.

And finally, we find ourselves at doing! We’ve been doing so much, but the standout highlight would have to be our New Zealand road trip. We flew into Auckland, and drove — via Hobbiton, of course — to Rotorua in all its (stinky) geothermal glory, then onto Napier before heading down to see very dear friends who have made their home in Wellington, at the tip of the North Island. A particularly exciting moment for Marvel Girl was watching her godfather flying a plane out of his “office”, Wellington airport: she had requested he do a barrel roll but apparently such aerobatics are frowned upon on domestic flights, so we settled for seeing him take off instead. We might even have cheered.

From Wellington we made our way across to the South Island via the Interislander Ferry to Kaikoura, saw hundreds of seals including about fifty pups at O’hau, then made our way via Christchurch to Aoraki (Mt Cook). There we were blown away by mountain views, icebergs and glaciers, and even swam in the very cold but still refreshing Lake Pukaki. We finally wended our way to Queenstown, made a magical day trip to Milford Sound and saw a bunch of bottlenosed dolphins put on quite a show, before finishing up with a hair-raising jetboat ride on the Shotover River. We flew home tired but happy, pleased with all we’d been able to do and see but also glad to be back in our new house.

So there you have it, folks: the inaugural edition of the THREAD, which I hope you’ve enjoyed.

I’d love to know what you’ve been getting up to over the summer and how life is treating you now school is back in session for another year. I’d also appreciate any thoughts you have on tall kids and how to manage being a parent (I’ve just about given up trying to “manage” the tall kids at this point, but I think that’s also kind of the point at this stage in their development?!), or anything else that has got your brain turning over lately. And feel free, as always, to use the comments for recommendations for any music, books or recipes you’re into as well.

Mind yourselves,

BJx