Post 59: ANZAC Day

 I had no expectation that I would be up at sunrise to take part in the Dawn Service for Anzac Day. I don’t attend the service at the cenotaph , and although I often wake up early, I usually stay in bed reading and dozing.  Because of  Corona Virus  Dawn Services were cancelled or limited to a handful of representatives. People were encouraged to stand in their driveways or balconies and hold a lighted candle.

When I woke up before dawn this morning I realised I could take part. I leapt up, grabbed a wooden Balinese statue with a candle at its base and took it out to my front balcony. The only flat space to put it was beside the head of a Buddha. It looked a bit strange for the occasion. I then realised that, although no one would see a candle on my Eastern balcony,  I could light it as the sun rose. I scrabbled around in my candle container (of course I have a candle container - in case of blackout), rushed to the Eastern balcony, and found a place for the candle in line with the rising sun.


Just as I photographed it, my dove flew from the roof to the tree in my line of sight and a single bugle sounded the last post across the city. I don’t know if it was from the city war memorial, or somewhere more local, but it was extraordinary - a single call as the sun rose . The dove is barely visible but I’ve marked it in the photo to the right of the candle

Jim liked to go to the Dawn Service and often laid the wreath for the South Australian Education Department. Jim’s middle name was Lionel, named for his uncle, a Warrant Officer in the RAAF. Lionel was the youngest of three brothers. When their mother died, and their father deserted them, the two older boys left school to earn enough to support Lionel and keep him at school. When war broke out, Lionel was 18. He volunteered and joined the Airforce. His plane was shot down over the Bali Sea on 21 May 1944 with a loss of all lives. Lionel was 22. Jim felt an obligation to ensure Lionel was not forgotten.

At 8.30 my cleaner came. He is the only person, other than myself, who has been in my apartment since I returned from England. He and his wife came to Adelaide from Pakistan after working in Dubai for a number of years on permanent protection visas . Last week his wife was unable to return to Pakistan to see her dying mother. Nor can she attend the funeral. There were no flights. It has been a very difficult time for them. They love Australia and regard it as home but there are heartbreaking losses. 

We talked of migration and the cost. Many migrants, my grandparents included, left their home country knowing they could never return, never see their parents or siblings again. We’ve come to expect to travel - but it has been a privilege. We can no longer take it for granted. There will be many more such sadnesses before we are through. I sent him home with a bag of Anzac biscuits to eat in the evenings after their fast, and a printed explanations about their significance.

At 11 am a sound drew me to look over the Square. A lone piper was playing Amazing Grace. I gather he walked the city playing it today. He looks tiny in the photo, but his sound was not.

Both Vivienne and Katherine sent me the Nursing Mother’s Association Anzac biscuit recipe. I tried it out. I vote these in second place in my Anzac biscuit trials. The winner, for my money, is the first recipe - from the Australian Women’s Weekly.

I had a long phone call with a friend still working in the Education Department and trying to support principals and teachers through the expectations, limitations and demands on them at the moment.

I kept stitching and watching the Anzac Day coverage - so many people who have never attended a dawn service finding ways of sharing commemoration with their neighbours and families .

The screen is coming along a treat. Very happy with it.  It is relaxing stitching. This is today's progress.

Late in the afternoon I received a message that Jennifer had been brought off her respirator and kept breathing for herself. However, doctors found her vocal cords are swollen so have reinstated the respirator and are treating her with steroids for 48 hours to reduce the swelling before trying again. Disappointing - but within the skill and resources of the ICU in which she is placed. Deo volente.

It was a somewhat sobering end to a day of inspiring, moving moments and lots of reflection.

I cooked a pork hock for my dinner, opened a bottle of bubbles and watched an episode of Midsomer Murders followed by Murder in Paradise. Not quite a bottle of wine and Patsy Cline - but close.

This is the screen tonight. I reckon I can stitch to level with the base of the tree before rolling the linen on to the end.

Tomorrow.

Post 58: Mending

Yesterday's rain limited the dove's visit and the seeds I put out got wet. She was back today to retrieve them, even though they had swollen. She was comfortable enough to sit for quite a while in an empty flower box.





While she surveyed the scene, I got out my darning mushroom and some 2 ply wool, and mended the Uzbekistan slipper socks.







It took a while and it doesn't look elegant, but it is on the sole , not the top. It's interesting that the first mend has felted - no doubt from friction as it rubs on the floor.


Next job was making another batch of ANZAC biscuits, this time using the recipe my mother used - from the Commonsense Cookbook. Over the years I have annotated my copy, to mark conversions from ounces and cup measurements to grams, and also to note a severe reduction in the amount of sugar.

The recipe was similar, but not identical to the one I used two days ago. Butter, flour and oats were the same. Sugar was less in today's recipe (and my variation less still) as was Golden syrup. Coconut was a quarter of a cup more, and bicarbonate of soda half a teaspoon more today. The mixture turned out to be too dry. I added more butter and a little more syrup. I think this was a problem last year as well. They turned out OK - but a bit dry. I think the texture of the last batch was much better. I reckon this is mostly the result of the extra bicarb. I no longer have the Nursing Mothers' Cookbook, which is what I think I used for many years for my ANZAC biscuits. Batch 1 is definitely my preference so far.  I may yet have another try.



I was waiting all day to hear news of Jennifer's progress in the Perth ICU. I had an anxious moment when the WA Premier announced another death overnight from a cruise ship. It turned out to be a man who had been on the Artania. It is a terrible and cruel thing to feel relief.

Eventually I got a message on my network grapevine that Jennifer is still on the ventilator, but breathing herself. Doctors intend, if she remains stable, to take her wholly off the ventilator tomorrow. She will need to remain in ICU for 24-48 hours after that, then in a respiratory ward for at least a week, followed by some time in rehab.  It's a slow process - but it is a way forward to recovery.
The sun was out this afternoon and I spent a lot of time on my balcony with the plants Jennifer gave me.  They are doing well. The aspidistra was divided earlier this year from one I gave Jennifer in 1987 when she succeeded me in a Deputy Principal's job. When Jennifer moved to an apartment last year she asked me to look after it. Earlier this year another friend divided it into 3 parts and we each took one. The begonia also came from Jennifer. Earlier this year she suggested I cut it back,which I did. It has lots of new growth (top right). The small, thriving plant at the bottom right is a cutting from that plant, now expanding its leaves. These plants look so good today. I'm hoping Jennifer is similarly mending.


I spent more time on the balcony contemplating plants today than I did stitching but I managed to finish off the leaves to the right of the squirrel and make inroads into the foliage to the left.













This is where I am now up to. I reckon another two days of stitching will see me ready to scroll up to the lower section of the linen.

Post 57: Hopeful news

The last couple of days I have finished writing my blog well after midnight. Last night it was about 12.50am when I pressed the button to post. I have the email notification to followers set to be sent out between 11pm and 1.00am and went to bed punting I had posted in time to catch the automated mail-out. I didn't think to check in the morning, until, in the middle of a call from my brother I had three missed calls from my Guild friend Margaret. She was trying to check that I was OK because my email blog post had not arrived.

I am so grateful to Margaret, both for checking up on me, and for alerting me to the email failure. I adjusted the mail-out time immediately so the post went soon after. I apologise to email recipients for the late post.  Best of all, however, was the knowledge that Margaret had my back. Thank you. 

It was a wet, grey day in Adelaide. My brother said it was perfect, sunny, Autumn weather in Sydney. Sunny certainly feels better, but in Adelaide you can't complain about rain.

I finally got around to replacing a button on my purple tights. Barbara Mullan taught me the trick of making a phone pouch with two loops, and adding two buttons to each of my leggings. This way I always have my phone on me, even when I don't have a pocket.  These tights have been waiting for weeks for a button replacement. Done.


The next mending job is darning these knitted slippers that a friend brought back from Uzbekistan. They are great for wearing around the apartment - so great that I wear them out. I have already mended them once (the red circles), but they have worn out in several other places.   I got as far as photographing them, but the Mellerstain screen called too loudly.













I finished simmering the soup, while working on more leaves on the Mellerstain screen with artificial light in the early afternoon because it was so gloomy.
Then I had a phone call that I had not dared to expect.  Susan called me from her isolation hotel in Perth. Doctors today reduced Jennifer's oxygen dependency from 65% to 30%. 30% is, apparently, close to what is normally in the air we breath.  If this goes well for the next 24 hours, tomorrow they will bring Jennifer out of her coma and off the ventilator. Susan talked to me for 50 minutes. She was clear headed and rational. She now has a reason for hope, and that makes all the difference.  It made a difference to me as well. Nothing else seemed of great importance today.

Tonight's sunset seemed to sum it up - light shining through dark clouds. I especially like the photo at the bottom of the composite - the new Calvary Hospital against the sky. While it blocks some of my view to the North, it stands for healing and recovery.












I made good progress on the screen today. Lots of leaves and berries completed beneath the squirrel. It's looking good.


I have made an effort to finish this post by 11.30pm and have returned the mail-out time to the 11pm-1.00am slot.

Should be posted in the next 90 minutes.

Post 56: Food

The big event for today was to be a delivery from Romeo’s Foodland between 12.00 pm and 5 pm. I had time to get an email out to the World Embroidery Study Group with a sample of Miao embroidery designs. I’m going to try sending something out every Wednesday, 

I was just emerging from the shower when my phone rang. A neighbour was outside the front door of our apartments with something she wanted to bring up. It turned out to be two rhubarb and apple mini-muffins she had just baked. A kind thought. 

I had just dressed when my phone rang again. It was the Romeos deliverer telling me the delivery was outside the apartments. He had buzzed me but I hadn’t answered. It was just after 11am. I went down and collected it, then rang him back to say that in future, if the delivery was going to be early, I needed to be informed in advance. He said he understood. We’ll see.

It was a good delivery, a fresh ham hock to roast, a smoked ham hock for soup and French cutlets. Parsnips, turnips and swedes for the soup, milk, berries, grapes, mandarins, butter, margarine and disinfectant. I got most of it put away except for the soup ingredients.  I put the ham hock on to boil and pulses in a bowl of water to soak.

While the hock was turning to stock. and after the muffins had proved delicious,   I figured I might as well give the ANZAC biscuits a go. After my last year’s failure, my daughter obviously decided I needed scaffolding. The ingredients were weighed and labelled. I had to supply a tablespoon of water.

The recipe was specific, including a note that I was not to skip the step of pre-heating the oven and preparing the trays. I rolled my eyes, but obeyed.  I was determined that this batch would be the control.
No deviation.

My plan is to make another batch in the coming days using my recipe and methodology.

The dough was  pliable and produced a very promising tray of 20 biscuits. I did heat the oven - and I even used the timer for the first time in case I got absorbed in my stitching as they cooked.

The result was, I must admit, almost perfect ANZAC biscuits. I know because I made coffee and ate two of them.

I turned off my stock and left it to cool while I worked on he Mellerstain screen.  While I was working on this a friend phoned. She worked on the first edition of the Macquarie dictionary and has written a history of that dictionary. She told me of some of the original debates around the dictionary entry on ANZAC biscuits. During WWI, apart from the four basic ingredients, women added whatever they had in their pantries. My next batch might be interesting.

I was well into the rhythm of the squirrel’s branch, but I stopped to skim the fat from the stock, add the pulses and chop the vegetables.

While at the stove, I  cooked a potato, lamb cutlets, tomato and broccolini for my dinner. I finished it while catching up with one of my daughters by phone. 








I have made inroads in the squirrel’s tree. It is becoming more and more addictive. 

My soup is looking good. Tomorrow I'll add tomato and maybe try it. Rain is forecast, so soup might be just the thing.

Post 55: The Squirrel gets a Tail

There has not been a great deal of the rain forecast for this week, so today I refilled the bowl from which the dove has been drinking.

As soon as she appeared it was to the bowl she went before the grain.











The pink in this zygote bloom and the perfection of the stamens sent me for my SLR and macro lens, but alas, the battery was flat. A more accurate photo will need to wait.


I was about to have breakfast when a message from my daughter told me she had returned the Easter nests container to my door. The container proved to be filled with a recipe and ingredients for a batch of ANZAC biscuits.

For those who are not Australian, ANZAC biscuits are made from mainly oats, coconut, butter, Golden Syrup and bicarbonate of soda, that were sent by Australian and New Zealand families to men at the Front in WWI. The ingredients meant the biscuits kept for months without becoming too hard and dry. They have become a popular staple, especially, but not only at ANZAC Day.We celebrate ANZAC Day on 25 April - the anniversary of the landing of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli in 1915. It is an important day of commemoration in Australia.

My mother always made the biscuits, not only on ANZAC Day. I made them every year until I lived on my own. I always have the ingredients in my cupboard.

last year's ANZAC  biscuits.

Last year I made a batch at the last minute. They were a dismal failure. When I checked, the bicarbonate of soda had a use-by date in 2014!  My family, therefore, are making sure I don't repeat the failure! I thank them. I will make the biscuits later in the week.



I do most of my reading on a Kindle or a Kobo, but have a pile of hard-copy books that I am trying to reduce. This week I am trying to read and review, on Goodreads, one book a day. Today it was Marcia Langton's . I haven't written my review yet, but I have it in my head. This is a reference book designed for children. It has a good range of information in clear language. I'm not sure about the way it is organised, but it has an excellent index, so finding what you want is easy.

In between reading and making or taking phone calls and emails, I worked hard on the Mellerstain screen. The squirrel now has a tail! And a branch to rest on. He does not yet have an eye.


I managed to get a bit of information today about Jennifer - from a network involving a friend, Jennifer's brother and Susan's nephew. Jennifer is still in ICU, on a ventilator, stable, and slightly improved, but not out of danger.





I thank all of you who have asked after her and are supporting her with thoughts and prayers.






Here's the lower section of the screen at the end of the day. Lots of leaves and branches tomorrow.

Post 54: Bookended by Squirrels

I was delighted to wake this morning to an email from my retreat friend Genevieve in Brussels. An advantage of a 9 1/2 hour time difference from GMT are the morning bulletins, collecting up news from the other side of the world.

Genevieve sent me some photos of her deck, complete with snaps of her visiting squirrel. I may never have a squirrel on my balcony, but, courtesy of Genevieve, I have a virtual one! Thank you so much, Genevieve!

It is especially welcome, as I unintentionally frightened my dove away this morning. I have a Vergola over my balcony - a louvred cover that I can close or open. Last night I had closed it in anticipation of rain overnight. This morning I put out some seed and opened the louvres thinking the openness would be less threatening to the dove. Unfortunately, the dove was perched on the wall above the louvres, and flew away in fright. I could hear the cooing for some time, but no appearance. At the end of the day about half the seed was gone, so I'm assuming she ventured back when I wasn't watching.

I spent quite a bit of the morning finishing Threads around the world.  Its 25 chapters tell of specific textile techniques unique to a particular region, or group of people.  There is a lot to like. The writing is accessible and each chapter tells a story in an engaging, clear way, paying tribute to the skill of the artists and providing details that those interested in textiles would want to know, 

I was particularly interested in the Zari brocade of India, the Miao shiny cloth of China and the Shona cloth of Zimbabwe. Each of these provide specifics on the lengthy, meticulous, traditional processes undertaken to achieve the remarkable outcomes. For many years I had a sari that I now think was Zari brocade. I wish I'd known how it was made.

The chapter on the Molas of the Cuna Indians of Panama is excellent, with a good outline of conflicting accounts of its history as well as clear details of techniques.

Some sections, however, are more sketchy. The Scotland chapter needed, a the very least, illustrations of the woven hose under discussion. The chapter entitled "Thailand: Hmong Pas Ntaub (Story Cloth)" is only marginally about Thailand, and focuses on the story cloths of a very specific group of refugees. It would have been preferable, and easy, to title it more accurately. The chapter on Kantha fails to reference the rich source of Niaz Zaman’s The Art of Kantha Embroidery, with its depth of understanding and detail. Indeed, the references in all chapters tend to be published in the USA or sometimes, the UK. I am uncomfortable with the lack of resources originating in the cultures under discussion.

The other disappointment lies in what is not here. Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam  have rich textile traditions, as do the First Nations people of  Australia, New Zealand and North America. There is no obligation to be comprehensive, but there is surely a need to explain the scope and limitations. 

I got useful and interesting information from this volume and will continue to use it as I continue my interest in world embroidery and textiles. It serves, however, to push me to look for knowledge and understanding that is closer to that of the local practitioners and less that of a first world outsider looking in.

My main goal today was to get from Genevieve's squirrel to my crewel squirrel. I am now working on the lower half of the Mellerstain firescreen.

I finished the acorns and leaves to the right of the squirrel











and then,  on the left.













After dinner I worked on the squirrel.


I have had no information from my friends in Perth today, although I tried. From the daily WA News Conference I know there have been no deaths today, and there are 27 in hospitals in Perth, 6 of whom are in ICU. So it appears there is likely to be no change in Jennifer's condition.












I'm pleased with my day's work - bookended by squirrels!

Post 53

I woke this morning to an email from my retreat friends, Sandra, in Manchester England, England,
(across a bit more than the Atlantic Sea from me) who is blessed with a pigeon nesting. It’s lovely to see the signs of Spring on the other side of the world in the midst of the pandemic. Thanks for the photo, Sandra.

My dove and I breakfasted together with a glass door between us. Mine rested on my Nicola Jarvis whitework ring cushion tray, hers was on the slightly wet tiles.

It was overcast and a bit showery in Adelaide. It got to 20C but felt a bit chilly.

I spent a bit of time this morning reading some samples of books from Thrums Press. Thrums publish and distribute books about textiles and textile artists around the world. They recently sent me a sample  from The Secret Language of Miao Embroidery. The sample includes four patterns for embroidery or colouring. The illustrations and patterns are lovely. 

Thrums are marketing the book as a package with Every Thread a Story, discounted by 20% on the print version and 50% on the digital. The Book Depository has the best print price, but it is expensive and hardback, which I find a bit awkward to read. Eventually I chanced the digital copy. It is really lovely, especially on my laptop rather than iPad. They have other interesting books. I sent an extract from their book on traditional Peruvian weavers out to the World Embroidery Study Group. 

By midday I was back on the fire screen, trying to finish the leaves and acorns at the very base of the section I had wound on yesterday. I got the section to the right of the squirrel finished before I put my frozen calamari and chips into the oven and made my salad.

I have not heard directly from Perth today. I watched the Chief Medical Officer's Press Conference this afternoon. There are now only 28 in hospital in Western Australia, 6 in ICU. That is 5 fewer in hospital than yesterday and the same number in ICU ( I got the number wrong yesterday. I said 5 in ICU but it was 6 - 5 fewer than the day before). Since they reported no ICU deaths, I am assuming Jennifer is still one of the 6. 

Again, I'm assuming no news is good news.

After dinner I worked on the section to the left of the squirrel. It isn't finished, but the squirrel is getting closer.

In South Australia we have widened our testing to include anyone with any kind of cold symptom or vulnerability. Today's appeal is for people aged 20-35 to get tested as that group is missing from the sample. Currently 420,000 have been tested in Australia of which 1.6% have been positive. Although this is an encouraging statistic, we are likely to emerge very slowly from lockdown. Predictions seem to be that we might be able to holiday in Australia by Christmas, but overseas travel will take longer than that. At this stage I can't see myself travelling to England (or Scotland) in 2021. I'm holding out, however, for The Lakes in October 2022. Deo Volente.












In the meantime I have a squirrel, a deer and a lot of leaves to embroider.