#113 Set Yourself a Satisfying Challenge

#112 Attempt a Resuscitation

It was late on a Sunday evening, after the chickens had been safely locked up and the final load of washing was happily swirling in its soapy juices, that I settled down to watch TV and simultaneously send a few text messages.

Except my iPhone was missing. Nowhere to be found, even after upending all the sofa cushions, checking every room I’d wandered into on the way towards relaxation time and dialling it from my landline.

I knew it couldn’t be lost. I’d had it not forty minutes ago, just before, just before … putting on the washing.

OMG the washing! Had the phone been in the pocket of my jeans?

#112 Attempt a Resuscitation

It’s hard to describe the feeling of watching your iPhone grinning gleefully at you as it sloshes around in sudsy water from inside your washing machine .

Did you know that interrupting front loading washing machines mid-cycle is not at all intuitive?

And it’s terribly stressful trying to locate a 10-year-old washing machine instruction manual in a hurry, find the section on “How to Add or Remove Items From Your Machine”, then discover it’s nigh on impossible if the drum is full of water. The internal screaming at your own stupidity doesn’t help either.

So I resigned the phone to its fate, managed to switch the washer to a shorter cycle and spin, all the while googling “Can a Drowned iPhone be saved?”

It turns out, that’s not as stupid as it sounds. If the immersion has been short-lived, there’s an outside chance of rescue. But there was no mention of “full cycle”, “soap”, “suds” and “high speed spinning”.

Following Google’s advice, I switched the phone off the second I could retrieve it (and it did look very clean) removed the SIM card, rinsed the phone of soapy residue and put it in a jar of rice.

The next morning, after further research told me that rice isn’t a good idea because small grains can get into the mechanism, I moved onto silica beads.

*DO NOT EAT ME … but do save me for a rainy day*

You know the ones. They come in little sachets slipped into various purchases to reduce damp spoilage and they have written exhortations on the packets not to ingest them on pain of death.

But the few packs I could scavenge didn’t seem enough, so I bought more from my friendly hardware monolith, slipped the phone into an old sock and buried it in a heap of the beads for 5 days.

*… and that’s the SIM card at the top, wrapped in a piece of tissue in an attempt to salvage it as well.*

The amount of water extracted after the first 5 days was surprising

so I repeated the process with fresh beads for another 5 days with similar results. (Being without your phone for ten days is a whole other story … )

Being loath to risk electrocution by turning it on or recharging it after such a soaking, I took it into a very brave iPhone repairer who did the deed for me. He, too, was mightily impressed with the silica beads’ water extraction capabilities and offered to nurse the phone on his bespoke temperature controlled warming-bed for another 24 hours.

I find this hard to believe, but my phone has been working since I picked it up from him.

Yes, really!

I’ll be honest, a machine can’t go through that much trauma and come out totally unscathed.

It can no longer manage facial recognition, take a screen shot or allow me to pay using the Visa card in my apple wallet, but these are minor issues and so far, everything else works pretty well.

HALLELUJAH!

And the major lesson I’ve learned from this adventure? (Well, apart from the obvious.)

Save up all the little sachets of DO NOT EAT silica beads you ever get, because who knows, one day the phone they save may be yours.

#111 Knit The Impossible

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It was early May when I first had the ridiculous idea of knitting something I’d never before attempted.

A friend and I were browsing in Spotlight, looking for the fabric she needed to complete a quilt for her sister’s expected baby, when I strolled into the knitting section and came across a book of Paton’s (trusted since 1923) Ombré Baby patterns.

As the baby wasn’t due until the end of August, it struck me that I’d have heaps of time to create something small and cute for him.

And I had runs on the board in the craft-y area. Why only two years ago, I’d completed a very, very long winter scarf during the height of lockdown. Easy peasy.

Oh, the arrogance of ignorance.

#111 Knit The Impossible

*So small, so cute—and **trusted since 1923**. Who couldn’t knock a pair of these out in a few days?*

But there were a few important facts I’d overlooked. Sure, the booties were small but it then became apparent that

The wool had a ply only a tad thicker than gossamer
The needles were the width of toothpicks
Four of these tiny double pointed toothpick needles had to be wrangled simultaneously, and
I seem to have grown farmer’s hands during lockdown

The task suddenly took on gargantuan proportions.

*Late May 2022: It took the better part of a month to cast on (undo, cast on, undo, cast on …) without twisting the needles or accidentally knitting backwards*

A few weeks of pixie-knitting later, I arrived at the first truly challenging stage of sock creation: turning the heel. What on earth did people do before YouTube videos? Thanks to a knitter who posted this excellent demonstration on how to create a flap before turning it into a heel, the manoeuvre worked out tolerably well—

But then things went awry, and the little bootie took on a life of its own as I tried to follow the obscure instructions (trusted since 1923) on how to knit up stitches at the sides to bring it together before completing the foot section.

Sadly, the final product ended up totally skewed.

*Late Jun 2022: Something important has gone seriously wrong*

Back to the drawing board for a second attempt. Only this time, while trying to neaten up the opening, I narrowed it way too far:

*No sweet little baby foot could squeeze into this one!*

By now, it was mid July and although I’d knitted two booties, knew how to turn a heel and could seamlessly combine the toe section, neither item was good enough to present to a brand new mother. I was ready to admit defeat.

Fortunately, my friend was having none of it. Her gorgeous quilt was almost finished, so she urged me on, believing two tiny matching booties would one day be possible.

And so, several weeks later, spurred by her encouragement and just two days before the baby arrived, I staggered over the finishing line:

*No twisted stitches, no mysterious ‘v’, no narrowed inlet, just two tiny booties waiting for their baby!*

On reflection, it took almost as long to knit these little presents as it did for the parents to create, nurture and grow to full birth size an entire human being.

Isn’t nature wonderful?

*Baby Darcy by @lucypike and @alexwregg*
*Quilt by @l________________p*

#110 Relearn a Language

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We’re constantly being exhorted to exercise our minds as well as our bodies, so when a friend told me a few months ago about Duolingo, “The World’s Best Way to Learn a Language” (according to Duolingo’s website), it sounded like an idea that was perfect for the times. Certainly a much better idea than exercising my body which wasn’t ready for anything as dangerous as say, walking.

So I promptly enrolled in their French course, a language I had once haltingly stammered over 50 years ago, and found myself ensnared in a juggernaut of relentless encouragement.

#110 Relearn a Language

The Duo part of Duolingo, as well as meaning two, is also the website’s green owl, a mascot who keeps urging you on in that intermittent re-inforcement fashion that psychologists have shown to be most effective at keeping people trapped in their addictions.

When you least expect it, he pops up to your right

*… to give you that little frisson of satisfaction and convince you to keep going*

or to your left,

It’s much more interactive and engaging than the classes I remember at school in the ’60s taught by the rather quiet nun who’d never been within cooee of France, and the rewards (points to amass, promotion to a higher grade, or just flattering encouragement) are frequent enough to satisfy, but inconsistent enough to keep you returning.

Peer pressure works well, too. Other students will often follow you in the hope of being followed back, so you can send and receive congratulations when you both achieve your goals.

But after six months, and having successfully graduated from beginner’s to intermediate classes, it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn’t enjoying it so much any more.

Each day became filled with too many messages urging me to do even better, work even harder, amass more points, and maintain my position. And if I slipped behind, or was about to be overtaken, the messages arrived as relentlessly as those in the opening scenes of Harry Potter, impossible to ignore.

But still they kept coming, reminding me what I’d achieved that week and what I could do the next:

Finally the shaming began. I was going backwards:

*Oh no! 93 minutes less than last week. A pathway to disgrace*

Things had to change.

I realised that something I was doing for pleasure, purely to keep my mind active—and to prove that I could almost recognise every fifth word spoken during an SBS French film—was turning into a nightmare. I had no time to sleep, no time to eat, no other enjoyments in life. And as I was never going to stroll along the Seine again on a warm Parisian afternoon, would I ever need to ask directions or enquire as to the cost of croissants?

Enough, I decided!

So I’m back to an enjoyable ten to fifteen minutes revision every day.

*Yes, every day. I’m on a roll, you see, and what would Duo think if I suddenly stopped?.*

Who cares about points and promotions?

Anyway, I have a new love now. A friend introduced me to Quordle, and I think I’m hooked.

#109 Play Around with Works of Art

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If you’re ever watched the UK programme Fake or Fortune, you’ll know it involves experts investigating the provenance of little known works of art submitted by the owners in the hope that their find is a long lost piece by a Great Master.

Am I the only one who, by the episode’s end, is thinking ‘if it’s so hard to tell the difference between the real thing and this newly discovered offering, does it really matter?’ Although this admission might suggest I know nothing about art.

But the show gave me the idea for a topic to interest my Discovery friends at one of our recent afternoon get-togethers. Why not—

#109 Play around with Works of Art

—to see if we can reproduce them, for better or worse?

The brief was broad. Take any work of art you like and using materials of your choice, recreate it. Then show us a photograph of the original art work and your copy.

To allay any anxiety about the need to create something wondrous, I provided a couple of examples of what could be achieved with simple tools:

On the left is **Untitled** by R Ryman. It sold for $3.9 Million USD. On the right is my copy—*Wall—* worth $0

And another:

On the left: **Still Life with Fruit** by artist Belinda Nott. On the right: **Lemons from the Garden**.

Everyone was given a couple of weeks to prepare their masterpiece, and they rose to the occasion with fabulous offerings. I challenge you to pick the original!

One of these is Margaret Olley’s **Pomegranates 1** and the other isn’t

Can you tell the real Kandinsky **Colour Study** from the fake?

The mood of Clarice Beckett’s **End of the Garden** has been cleverly reproduced.

Can you tell which is Whistler’s **Arrangement in Grey and Black** and which is the imposter?

An excellent reproduction of Picasso’s **Woman with Dove**

McCubbin’s **Lost (Child)** set among gum trees has morphed into **Lost (Wallaby)** in the scrub

A masterful recreation of part of Bosch’s **The Last Judgement** (top half)

Portion of **Blue Moon** by Mirka Mora—copied using Aldi crayons

Vermeer’s **Girl with a Pearl Earring**—and a few years later?

Art in nature. The rainbow lorikeet, but which one is the fake?

A lovingly recreated **Tea Set** by Charles Sluga

Impossible to pick the real Botticelli’s **Birth of Venus**

A little-known Chagall: **Composition with Goat** cleverly reproduced.

And another Clarice Beckett: **Moonlight and Calm Sea** beside smokey **Sunlight on Lagoon**

Despite the less than perfect results, our intentions were pure, so surely our imitations can be seen as flattery?

It’s not like a certain famous Swedish furniture company that recreated Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party and van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters so they could build the sets to advertise flat pack furniture no less!

The featured image is from a still life by painter Abraham Mignon (1640-1679). The bouquet to its right was gifted to one of our participants.

#108 Make Soap (yes, really!)

2 Replies

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

With the Omicron peak waning, most of us happily vaccinated and lockdowns and restrictions a thing of the past, adventures far from home beckoned. So this month’s blog should have been about fresh fields, exotic travel, excitement, restaurants and glamour.

And yet here I am, explaining how to

#108 Make Soap (yes, really!)

Constructing new cakes of soap out of neglected, leftover shards of old soaps is reminiscent of the sad, lonely, lockdown-type activities of 2020 or 2021, but due to a recent spontaneous fracture in my leg (insultingly called an ‘insufficiency fracture’ as though I neglected to care for my bones sufficiently) I’m on ‘minimal-weight-bearing-until-it-heals’ orders from the orthopaedic surgeon.

And so it’s back to finding new activities that can be done without venturing from home. Or walking really.

So I scoured the internet to find instructions on how to convert all the bits and pieces of old soaps I’d found in the bathroom cabinet into brand new hearty bars of soap.

*Gather together about a cup of old leftovers. It speeds up the process to shave or grate them into smallish pieces, as I discovered too late.*

Place them in a saucepan, cover with cold water and leave overnight till the mixture becomes a slushy mess.

Add a tablespoon of olive or vegetable oil and a few drops of a fragrant essence or lemon zest and stir over medium heat until all the soap has melted. It can take a while —up to 30 minutes.

*It helps to have a jazzy stirrer like this, but a wooden spoon works too*

It ends up looking like the smooth custard you’d prepare for a Portuguese tart, but sadly cannot taste.

Add a few drops of food colouring and pour into silicon moulds to set:

Leave for 24 hours, then remove from the moulds and dry on a wire rack for a few more days before using.

The websites I found speak of packaging these small soaps in pretty shapes adorned with ribbons and giving them away as gifts,

but although they’ve been sterilised by boiling for ages, I’m a bit uncomfortable about forcing them onto unsuspecting friends. And they’d not win any beauty contests.

However, to my surprise, the fully dried cakes of soap work extremely well and I’m excited to see if I can collect all the shards from this lot to create even more batches in the future.

It will, of course, follow the laws of diminishing returns, but I’m hopeful it may be some time before I ever have to buy soap again.

#107 Explore Christmas Trees and Decorations

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Growing up, I was lucky enough to live on a rural 5-acre property with a small pine forest as our back garden and a much larger, slightly spooky commercial pine plantation behind that.

So for my first eighteen years, obtaining Christmas trees was not an issue. My Dad would walk out the back and chop down a likely-looking specimen for us to decorate. But once I left home, it wasn’t so easy to find the perfect Christmas tree.

Should I search for a real one with its heady aroma of pine oils that scream ‘Christmas Time!’ but horrible habit of dropping needles on the living room floor before the entire tree browns and shrivels and ends up as an unloved discard on the front footpath in the anonymous big city? Or—quelle horreur—invest in an artificial tree?

#107 Explore Christmas Trees and Decorations

Without children, it was easy for me to do nothing for years. And years. But in 2021, with house guests arriving over Christmas, it was time to rethink the whole Christmas tree shebang.

What decorations are in vogue these days?

I began by checking out the council-inspired and commercial offerings in my district:

Tolerable, but hardly avante-garde or wildly beautiful.

In fact, over in the US, a Fox News Christmas tree in Manhattan, (described by Fox anchors as the ‘All-American Christmas Tree’) so annoyed somebody with its ‘ho-hum’ appearance that it was set alight:

Finally—a truly spectacular commercial Christmas Tree!

There’s always the problems with storage for decorations that are only used for a couple of weeks a year, so I decided any type of large artificial tree was out of the question.

External house decorations are fun to view on an evening drive:

But climbing up a ladder at my age would be just silly, so house decorations were out.

Then I came across a delightful Christmas tree in the neighbourhood made out of palm tree bark:

And friends of mine have made a clever ‘twig’ Christmas tree:

Top marks for artistic merit and clever design for these two.

I finally settled on a small [fake!] tree for the hallway pedestal, jazzing it up with some mood lighting and bundles of gaily wrapped presents at its base.

So happy days and may the New Year treat you well.

#106 Try Calligraphy

#105 Revisit Yindyamarra Sculpture Walk

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Time seems to stand still during a pandemic.

Early September arrived, and I realised with a shock that it was the first anniversary of losing Ziggy, my quirky little whippet. It seems like only yesterday.

More disturbingly, it hit me that without Ziggy, I hadn’t been on many of our previously shared outings for a whole year.

Time to:

#105 Revisit Yindyamarra Sculpture Walk

This walk was one of our pleasures, displaying wonderful indigenous sculptures in rambling bushland nestled between the Murray River and winding lagoons.

When it opened back in early 2015, I detailed the artworks in blog post #26 ‘Explore Your City like a Newcomer’.

In 2018, another sculpture was added: