Sydney sojourn and other treats

I have just finished reading a wonderful book - Geraldine Brooks' "Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women". It's a fascinating account of the stories of Islamic women encountered by Brooks during her six years as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East. It's told with compassion and intelligence, frustration and clarity. Brooks' overwhelming desire to understand the women of the Islamic world and to tell the stories of their lives has given me an understanding of their beliefs and the effect of a beliefs system that extends to governance and power over every aspect of their lives. Prior to reading this book, I had almost no knowledge of the Islamic world, now I feel that I know a little at least and would like to learn more. This book is a window onto another culture. Brooks makes effective use of her access to both powerful and powerless women; the result is informative and challenging. I highly recommend it.

The impact of this book is such that I had to begin this blog with a note about it, even though we have also had a very exciting and enjoyable long weekend in Sydney. We flew into Sydney on Thursday to celebrate Zoe's 11th birthday. We stayed at the Sir Stamford, where Zoe was given a special welcome gift of chocolates and we had complimentary cocktails. Luxury! We tripped around the city for three days, delighting in visits to the Art Gallery of NSW, the National Maritime Museum, Woollahra, Chinatown, the gardens, Circular Quay and Kirribilli. We also walked across the Harbour Bridge and climbed a pylon for a wonderful view of the harbour. Each afternoon we swam in the rooftop pool. The weather was as beautiful as Sydney. You can see a photo journal of our holiday in the link.

I did manage to complete something for Project Spectrum: Fire - a ski hat for Zoe that was almost complete and just needed some tassels. Quirky but cute, hey?

We have had wild winds this afternoon - one of the pots at our front door was knocked over and smashed and one of our fences fell down. Poor Greg had quite a task to prop it back up. Across the city, trees were uprooted, bringing down powerlines and brick walls, and smashing onto cars. We got a little bit of rain and there is supposed to be more but it has not eventuated yet. It's the rain we need - the wind raised dust storms across the state and made the sky a dirty, dusty colour this evening.

I am learning more about how to blog - hopefully The Littlecote Times will improve as I gain more skills.

Cheers!

Easter Excitement

Exciting news! Greg has been offered a position as an English teacher at one of Melbourne's top boys' schools. He will be retiring from the government school in late June and then he can take up the new position straight after the school holidays in July. It's a well deserved move to something new and invigorating for him - and hopefully not so demanding or stressful as his current role. The whole family is delighted for him.

Zoe and I have been creating:

Zoe made this fantastic "sit-upon" from "The Daring Book for Girls". It's made from newspapers and a plastic bag, but we added wadding and made an appliqued cover for it. The cute panel is from fabric we bought at the Stitches and Craft Show last weekend.


The hat is made from Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, and is for a colleague of mine who finished work on Thursday. The baby is due in early May. The picture makes the hat look blue but it is really a pretty lilac - I thought it would be good for either a boy or a girl. The hand holding it is my colleague Susan, in our office at school.

Through one of my favourite blogs (A Friend to Knit With), I found Project Spectrum and think I will just have to participate! But can I get anything "Fire" finished before the end of March? That will be a challenge. Anyway, as a start I am including a picture of sunset from our balcony.

Hope you had a lovely Easter. We spent it catching up with each of my brothers and their families. With four birthdays to celebrate in two weeks, it was a great opportunity to see everyone.

We're off to Sydney later this week. Can't wait!

On a hot weekend in March

The Labour Day holiday was less of a holiday for the three of us, and more of a day of labour - but what a great time we had!

A good portion of the weekend was spent by the three of us getting Zoe's room into good working order. This involved throwing out, bagging for the op-shop, rearranging, boxing and creating new displays. We felt both virtuous and successful! Just look at it now:





Zoe and I also helped my uncle and his family on the stall at a couple of farmers' markets. Great fun, and an opportunity to sample the wares of other stalls. It's lovely to talk with the producers of the food, who are all really passionate about what they grow or make. The peaches and nectarines that we were selling were delicious, so they sold out very quickly. We brought home a couple of buckets of fruit, and because it was such a hot weekend some of the fruit just had to be made into something. Greg also picked green tomatoes from our vines, so now we have more peach jam, green tomato chutney and peach and white chocolate muffins. Yum!











Also made were a couple of padded coathangers, as there was nothing good enough to hang Zoe's new knitted coat on.
I have finally finished Virginia Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" - and I say "finally" because it is not an easy read. It can be hard going to read a book without chapters, that moves seamlessly from the thoughts of one character to another, and particularly when conversations are composed of both the thoughts of the participants and their words. The themes and the plot are wonderfully thought-provoking and timeless, and the characters are beautifully established and developed. It is a jewel of a book but challenging.

Year 8 camp was fantastic - surfing, canoeing, snorkelling, exploring our wonderful Port Philip Bay, seeing dolphins, seals, puffer-fish, cuttlefish and other sea-creatures. The girls were delightful, and even slept well in the enormous dormitories in which they spent the four nights. Movie night watching "She's the Man" was fun (the girls are such romantics). The view over the Heads into the bay from Cottage by the Sea was stunning. But the most fantastic thing about camp was Samry, our Ethiopian refugee scholarship girl, who was never been fully-immersed in water, surfing! Amazing!

Tick, tick, tick!

Not the ticking of a bomb but the ticking of a pen, the ticking off of a list, or the ticking of a clock. That's what's been happening at Littlecote this week.

Tick - Zoe has finished "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". She was reading at all hours, engrossed in the story, and we rented the DVD to compare the novel and the film. Now she's onto another of the Royal Diaries - this one is about Anastasia of Russia.

Tick - Zoe has bought herself an 8Gb iPod Nano. She has been saving her pocket money, gift money and the money she has earnt helping at the market, and has finally saved enough! She has bought a lovely green one, and named it Minty. She is very proud of herself. Now that we finally have a replacement for Greg's faulty one (no thanks to Dick Smith Electronics, but thanks to Jedda at Streetwise), we spent a couple of hours today getting them both up to speed with iTunes and iPod management.

Tick - tick, tick and more ticks. Greg has spent the day marking English essays. He's pleased with how his Year 12 class is progressing.

Tick - I have finished the cardigan/jacket for Zoe. I am delighted with how it has turned out. Zoe loves it although she says it feels heavy, but then we are still experiencing very warm weather so we're not used to the heavy layers of winter. The cardigan is so soft and looks lovely on her. I think I want one for myself!

Tick - I am all packed for the Year 8 camp. I've prepared my lessons, telephoned parents who needed to be contacted about their daughters' progress, arranged conferences and breakfasts, organised the week for Greg and Zoe. But I haven't contacted friends and family as I had intended this weekend. I must prioritise!

Well, that must be a ticking off!

Routine

We are all back into the routine of school, work, ballet, piano, gym, running, etc.

Zoe has begun learning the flute and is loving it. She has progressed well enough to be invited to join the primary school's band. She has been working very hard on learning "In the Jungle" and is hoping to learn the Australian national anthem so she can play during assembly.

She has also been invited to join as intensive, advanced ballet class. There are only 7 girls in the group and they are all older than Zoe, and in the level above her. The teacher is from Berlin. It means an extra session of ballet each week (that takes the total to 4!) but she seems to be managing it all quite well.

On top of all this, she has been reading the first Harry Potter novel, and has really got the reading bug. Today, she has gone with my dad to help my uncle at the Flemington Farmers Market. She will be helping them sell their peaches and nectarines - and delicious fruit it is!

And it is Zoe who has been productive this week. She made herself a fabric pencil case (with a bit of help with the zip). It's got a great Chinese script design inside and out - appropriate for school as they are currently learning about China.

Greg has been marking work, resolving social problems, conducting information sessions and entereing VCE data. He is very busy every day but still manages to come home and cook dinner on ballet nights.

I am enjoying my Yr 12 class. The students are all working well and a nice atmosphere has developed in the classroom. The same with my Yr 8 and Yr 9 classes. The Year 7 girls have been on camp - it will beinteresting to see what they are like when they return!

I have just had the volume increased on the "Tiffany earrings" and it is taking a bit of time to get used to it. It's quite exhausting for my poor brain to be subjected to so much more noise!

I have finished Kate Atkinson's "Human Croquet". It took me a while to get into the flow of the story and to appreciate it's humour and direction. Although not my favourite amongst her novels, it did raise some interesting questions for the reader, and left me reflecting on the themes and construction long after finishing. That is one indicator of a worthwhile read.

I also attended a workshop on how to pick up the stitches to knit a collar. And now, Zoe's jacket is nearly finished! More pics when complete.

Not just handsome and smart...

Greg has been the productive one this week, and Zoe and I know we are very lucky.

Yesterday, he did the shopping and the cleaning, mowed the lawn before a tiny shower of rain, then whipped up a lasagne and a curry for mid-week dinners! The Renaissance Man.

He has had a very busy week at work, sorting our timetabling problems, organising assemblies, working on curriculum and teaching his classes. It all seems to be going quite well. Right now, he's re-reading "The Great Gatsby" on our little terrrace in the sunshine.

I had a good week at work too. My Yr 12 class is settling into the work - and they all seem to be really lovely. The boys are hard-working and fun. I have a a school vice-captain, a house captain and a house vice-captain. They can't be too bad, can they? My other classes are delightful, although the Yr 7s are very confident after just one week at the school!

I finished Philip Pullman's "The Amber Spyglass" and all I've made is a little tie belt for Zoe:

Zoe has settled into Grade 5 very well. She is enjoying her teacher and being with most of her friends. She also started ballet again this week. Late last year, a German ballet teacher came to the school and selected a group of seven girls to take advanced classes with her this year. Zoe was selected and, it turns out, she is the only one from her level. The other girls are all in the level above and at least two years older than her. We are very proud of her. She will have two classes each week with this teacher, and will have to attend on four days. After the first two classes, Zoe said that it will be challenging but she loves it.

We all watched "Who Do You Think You Are" on SBS last Sunday night. This episode featured Catherine Freeman. Greg and I agreed that it was amongst the best television we have ever seen. And thank goodness our new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is making an apology to the Aboriginal Stolen Generations this week. Hearing of each of the humiliating and degrading events that shaped the lives of Catherine Freeman's family as indigenous Australians made me feel ashamed to be white. And this is just one person's family history - she carries it with her: knowing that her mother had to ask for permission to visit her family for Christmas and that permission was refused; knowing that her grandfather was a champion rugby player who was not given permission to travel to England as part of the Australian team; knowing that her grea-grandfather was a lighthorseman in World War 1 but his family never received his pay because the "Protector of Aborigines" thought that aboriginal people couldn't be trusted with money; knowing that her great-great grandfather had been a half-caste who worked hard to feed and clothe his family and was a well respected member of the community but, when he refused to sign a work agreement, as he was legally entitled to do, the local police had him and his entire family incarcerated on Palm Island, allegedly for drunkeness. The family were forced to remain on Palm Island for three generations where they were treated as prisoners and slaves. Just for this one woman's family history, we should say sorry. And I know the apology is not about the treatment of other than the Stolen Generations, but it is a start in the recognition of our dreadful treatment of the indigenous Australians. Thanks to SBS for producing such as amazing piece of television, and thank you to the wonderful Catherine Freeman for her resilience and generosity.

Back to School

It's back to school for the three of us this past week. Greg and I started on Tuesday with staff days, and Zoe began school (Grade 5!) on Thursday. Greg's students started on that day, too but mine didn't begin until Friday.

After three days of preparation, it was lovely to have the girls return with their lovely, excited, pleased-to-see-you smiles. I was a bit anxious about my Yr 12 class but the Year 11 girls (from last year's Accelerated Maths class) all came in with big smiles and ready to begin, so I feel rather more relaxed about it now. I have three boys from the neighbouring boys' school in that class, too, but they did not attend on Friday so I have yet to meet them. Also, three Yr 12 girls complete the class.

Also, very nervous about telling the girls about my new "accessories", the hearing aids. I'm calling them the Tiffany earrings. They certainly cost more than Tiffany earrings! In some respects they are wonderful and really help me to hear more, but I am still struggling with background noise and speech. I have to practise some more in the classroom.

No time to complete any projects, but I did finish Linda Olsson's delightful "Let me sing you gentle songs", also titled "Veronika and Astrid". This is a lovely, lovely book about the friendship that develops between two women each initially living in solitude in a Swedish village. It is a most unlikely friendship that becomes hugely significant to them both. Beautiful, poignant, profound. It makes you realise the importance of honesty with oneself and the value of gentle, honest friendship.