Maples, Wiltshire

Every now and then, nature puts on a display that leaves you without words, sans mots, speechless. Which is, as those of you who know me, rather odd. . . 

If you are a lover of the seasons and the dramatic changes they bring in the northern hemisphere, pay a visit to the Westonbirt arboretum in Wiltshire. A kind of tree museum established in Victorian times by a nature loving aristocrat, Robert Stayner Halford, it is one of those places that sear themselves into your memory and revisit in your dreams.

We've been in summer, autumn, spring and winter. Every time, nature offers something to gawp at. We always take the dog, plenty of treats to entice him to return - and we've never been disappointed.

I'm posting this photo today, actually taken in the autumn,because we were supposed to go to Wiltshire for a couple of days but at the eleventh hour, it ain't going to fit in. I'm really really disappointed but will just have to wait!

'Baroquing the Streets' 


Very quick post today as it was Rob's birthday and I've been busy. But I did promise to report back when I found the most recent of the 'Baroque the streets' murals (see yesterday's post). 

So, here it is: Guido Reni's 'Europa and the Bull' through the eyes and spraycans/brushes of Faith47

I think this one is wonderful too. Here is her website www.faith47.com

Rather wonderfully, I've found the Aussie artist too but will save that one for later. . . .and intrigued that a former colleague, Julia Baird, has been in New York and has written about her experiences on a similar subject!


Here is her piece http://www.smh.com.au/comment/by/Julia-Baird

Baroquing the streets

  

I've no idea why but a column by Elizabeth Farrelly last year came to mind this morning and as January 2 dawned bright and clear, I figured I might just get on my bike and go exploring the 'hood. 

The plan is to go see if I can find the new street artwork that's belatedly joined a fantastic suite of murals spawned by the 'Baroque the Streets' project, brain child of the clever types at the Dulwich Picture Gallery last year. 
For those who don't know it, this was London's first, purpose built gallery, designed by the Regency architect Sir John Soane using innovative illumination designs (natural light, glass cupolas) and which opened to the public in 1817.

It's on our doorstep and in the four years we've lived 'souf of the river, Hockney lithographs and Whistler on the Thames have been highlights. The permanent collection is built around the gift of hundreds of Baroque old masters by the aptly named Sir Francis Bourgeois in 1811. It's mind boggling, the two BIG Canaletto's alone worth hours contemplation.


Anyway, the education team at Dulwich decided a couple of years ago that Baroque ain't cool enough to entice younger types into its permanent galleries and decided to throw open the collection for inspiritation to a raft of street artists from around the world. (There's an Aussie there too). We residents of Camberwell/Peckham/Dulwich are the lucky beneficiaries of these fantastic murals. I've snapped a few of them and pinched pics of their inspiration. . . .

My absolute favourite on the wall of the pub on Bellenden Road is this detail from the 1645 painting by Pynacker, 'Landscape with sportsman and game' by the Belgian street artist, Roa. I adore it

Here are a few others 

Rembrandt's 'Girl at a Window' by Remi Rough 

Franceschini's Guardian Angel by Stik

Triumph of David by Poussin (near the school) by Phlegm

Van Dyck's Samson and Delilah reinterpreted by David Shillingsaw

Will keep you posted if I find the new one!

One of the things I've promised myself in 2015 is to return to blogging. This time however, I want to do it with discipline: write short, write often, above all, write interesting. (I hope!)

I've traveled a lot on my own and one of the things that strikes me about lone adventuring is the never-ending urge to share experiences when you've seen something beautiful, unexpected, interesting.

I'd love this blog to be my 'OMG, will you look at that?! Have you read this? You simply MUST go and see X".

A Facebook aficionado, I love swapping life/stories/photos with friends all over the world and find that medium easy and natural. Blogging, at least for me when I started last year, felt like sharing into a vacuum, a monologue rather than a dialogue.

In 2015, I'm going to give Euro File another go: see if I can find a way to share not just the domestic but the political, the news worthy, the creative, indeed whatever takes my Euro-hearted fancy! 

So, happy New Year to you all - from the dog park on Sherlock's birthday of course!

Recipes and life

This morning, an old notebook full of recipes collected over nearly 30 years fell off the kitchen shelf where it lives and onto my head. It happens all the time and I was intent on throwing the whole bloody thing into the bin, when a card with my maternal (French) grandfather's handwriting inside it floated to the floor.

His recipe for 'Gateau de Praline', photocopied by my mum, had been given to me as part of my birthday loot many years ago. 

This incredibly divine dessert, of a complexity way beyond my talent or patience, is a dense, velvety textured cake made with almond-meal and was served floating in a a cream of such deliciousness that if I close my eyes I can still taste it. Gateau de praline formed a part of the rare and terribly special occasions when Pepère shooed the household's helpers out of the kitchen and took it over himself, usually after returning from a fishing or hunting trip or when he had grand-kids around him who particularly loved his sweet things. 'Les crepes' , thrown in the air with great flair, were a favourite, closely followed by 'ca nougat' (I have no idea if that is how you spell it) which was a kind of chewy, fragrant toffee which he cooked and then cooled and cut up on the old marble table in the middle of the kitchen. These sweets were wrapped in foil (my cousins might correct my memory) and never lasted very long!

Donn'Anna Pepere and Memere's home

Pepère was also known for making an incredible Nocillo, an eye-wateringly powerful liquor steeped with green (unripe) walnuts although drinking it does not form part of my childhood memory! One of the most romantic things ever done for me was the Nocillo concocted secretly by my husband with walnuts picked from a tree in the garden of our first house in London. Robert followed Pepère's recipe and we still have some in the cupboard, usually pulled out  after a dinner party when we've probably all had quite enough to drink but the night still feels young.

For me, sense of smell most vividly evokes old memories: espresso coffee mixed with tobacco will send me right back to Naples just as ripe mangoes and pine trees woosh me smack bang into Aussie Christmases. Today it was bits of paper, old magazine cuttings, print-outs and faded photocopies, that propelled me into childhood and teens (Coco Pops slice, really?!) into the wild early 20s, back to old, old mates, exes, long lost acquaintances and the continuing friendships helped by technology like Facebook. 

Among the treasures I found Luis and Isabel Garcia's Cuban Potaje (circa 1987). The Italians call it potacchio, the French potage and it's a lentil and veg and bacon bone thing that has long been one my kids' very favourite comfort foods. Here I've found it impossible  because believe it or not, you can't find smoked bacon ribs in London!

I dug out Patricia "Aunty Pat" Sheahan's Spinach Pie, a filo concoction that reminds me of the days in the shared house in Glebe, with John Hanscombe, Mark Cornwall, Henry Everingham and a host of others - all of us young cadet journos, budding artists, musos - all poor but rich with ideas, anticipation and angst and about the future. 

Buried a little further on, the delightfully named 'Root Soup', written out I think in Rosie's godfather, Russel Granger's writing. I smiled at this one for title alone - and put it on the table for recipe revival.



I also found pages and pages of recipes I wrote out after sitting down with Cosimina Della Pioggia, who was my nanny as a baby/toddler and who worked for our family for two generations. I knew and loved her as 'Babba': she helped raise my cousins and some of their kids too. A tiny powerhouse of a woman, she never learned to read or write and yet was a dynamo, the most loving, patient, wonderful woman and to this day, a better cook I've yet to meet. She is gone now but lives on in my memories - and my kitchen! 

I also found my mum's sugo instructions, the pasta al forno my kids (and my brother's too)  call 'crunchy pasta' and probably another 20 recipes jotted on bits of paper in the wake of frantic phone calls home for inspiration after a long day at work and with hungry kids waiting. Missing is my paternal Nonna's recipes: she was a brilliant cook so I must right this omission with my Dad asap.
Oh, I found a host of other wonderful tidbits that I won't bore you with. So to finish, here's picture of me in Naples eating pizza.

My favourite. Of course.

Seasons' greetings (yes, the apostrophe is in the right place!)

This morning's winter sun in the St Giles churchyard, Camberwell

The northern hemisphere's seasons - and the dramatic changes that come with them - are a continuing source of wonder. I remember a mortifying moment just a few months after we arrived in 2008 when I woke up and saw that the stunning climber that covered the old brick walls of our rented house in Hampstead were brown, withered and looked - at least to me - as if a bush fire had swept through overnight. I rang the landlady's P.A in slight hysterics the flowing day as I knew that just like the 150 year old wisteria that climbed the house, this was an old, old, OLD climbing hydrangea. Convinced it was dead, I was having terrifying visions of the bond being withheld (and red-faced explanations to the SMH bean counters when the time came). Instead, the voice at the other end of the telephone burst into a gale of laughter" "Don't worry, it's deciduous and will come back! You're Australian aren't you? This happened once before with a tenant who thought they'd killed an old chestnut tree!"


Now, I know better although our garden, planted just 7 months ago after a big debris clearing exercise, is giving me conniptions and like an anxious mother fretting over a feverish child, I keep checking that what is left is actually still alive...leading to a lot of snapped twigs to check for green - and probably more damage than if I just trusted nature a little more!



In the park today, the light was magic. The sun behind the clouds in England make you see, first hand, the natural wonders that enthused poets and artists over centuries, from Wordworth to Turner, Constable or Alexander Pope.

John Constable, Trees at Hampstead (left)




St Giles, the dog park this morning (me!)

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Grey skies and a biting wind this weekend led me straight here, a cozy bar cum eatery that does the best smoked British bacon sanger on toasted sourdough in the world. (If you're in the 'hood, put it on the list it's worth it). 

Chomping happily, it dawned on me that one of the things I most love about London is the diversity of its media. 
In the daytime, the bar looks like a makeshift news agent as beer coasters are cleared away for big piles of papers. Seen all together, the choice is mind-boggling, especially if, like me, you are used to a diet limited to Fairfax or News Limited. 

It's hard to choose between The Guardian, Times, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Daily Mail, Independent, Observer, Sunday Times, Sunday Tele, yesterday's Evening Standard, 'i' and a rather grubby Metro. 

Had I holed up in the cheerful greasy spoon just up the road (equally delicious but in a different way), I'd feed up on an artery-hardening full English breakfast washed down with orange juice served in 'return for 10p' glass bottles with foil tops like the old Oz school milk. Here, the tables are covered with myriad tabloids, all of them more tits than news.

Truth be told, I adore reading the red-tops and for a while, after leaving the SMH to settle permanently in London, confess that I harboured a secret fantasy of finding a job on News of the World. The hacking scandal kyboshed that idea but I still have a melancholy hankering for the kind of news room once populated by grumpy, male subs and editors who were masters of the outrageous, double entendre headline and ended their working days snot-flying drunk in the pub across the road. I guess deep down, I'm still a dirty ol' print kinda gal.

But back to the serious stuff: casting my eye across the day's front pages, each one is completely different: the front page lead, the picture, the choice of puff and column subject. Some lead on a domestic yarn, others focused on the international, not one looks or reads like the other. Inside, different points of view and axes to grind  but none of that sense of deja vu I had reading the metro dailies in Sydney and Melbourne.

Political coverage is equally diverse and while the serious papers attempt to at least pay lip service to objective analysis, everyone knows what paper to buy if they want to their own views reflected as well as what to buy (or avoid) if you prefer to be irritated or read views different to your own. 

On weekends, it is unusual for me not to learn something new from the papers, whether it's about the arts, about the city, about this country's history - or its people. And more often than not, I am elated by a piece of writing, amused by columnists who have both a honed sense of satire and an erudite approach to their patch (Dominic Lawson, Caitlin Moran, Simon Jenkins et al). Inevitably too there is still stuff to set aside or cut out, interesting tid bits like recipes, things to do or see, a review to put inside a book read and to be remembered or loaned to a mate.

During the week, I admit that I too rely on newspaper websites although I am an avid fan of the Evening Standard and read a hard copy most days, handed out gratis at the station. 

Fleet Street has had its share of troubles - and they are far from over. But London, at least for the newspaper readers (if not for the journos)  still offers a sense of hope, of inspiration and enthusiasm that print ain't dead. Papers are on planes, trains and buses, spread in cafes and pubs, rolled under the arms of walkers and still as visible as phones and tablets on the Tube. 

They're varied and they're gutsy - and when it comes to politics, with each and every one of them, you know where you stand.

Yep, I'm a fan.