Category Archives: Family, Friends and Home

#118 Make an Achievable New Year’s Resolution

July 21st, 1969 was a memorable day for me.

While many people who were alive at the time remember it for Neil Armstrong’s immortal line: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, I recall an even more memorable quote.

You see, it was also the day of my grandmother’s funeral, and as her coffin was slowly lowered into the ground, my cousin uttered a plaintive, melancholy whisper: “Did anyone get nonna’s recipe for gigis?”

To understand the significance of his question, it’s important to remember that we didn’t have anything like Google in the ’60s, so once a recipe was lost, it was essentially gone forever.

And so the importance of passing on beloved family recipes was fixed in my mind on that day.

#118 Make an Achievable New Year Resolution

It’s so much easier to do this today.

Researching for this post, what should I come across with the click of a button but the very recipe my cousin thought was lost:

However, this doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile compiling an electronic file of your favourite family recipes, and what better time to bring it to fruition than at the start of a brand new year?

With a clever little app called Recipe Keeper

you can quickly create a bespoke recipe file crammed with all your favourites ready to be converted to a PDF file and shared.

The absolute beauty of this app is that — while it’s possible to type and do the lay-out for each recipe yourself if you’re a masochist — it gives you several simple, painless options for compiling your favourites.

You can copy and paste an online recipe, import a recipe from a website, or scan it from a photo or scan it from a PDF or even take a photo from your own old recipe book and it miraculously knows that there’s a precious recipe to be plucked out amongst all the chatter and cooking stains. It then automatically displays it in a perfect layout with any accompanying photo. Only minimal editing skills needed!

You’ll end up with a file on your iPad full of recipes that look stunningly professional.

I can, however, see one potential problem.

There’s always a chance a distressing murmur will ripple around the mourners as someone asks:

“Does anyone know the PIN for nanna’s iPad?”

…you can even print a real book

#117 Avoid a Scam … Or Neglect a Friend?

# 115 Give Christmas Shopping a Surprise Twist

#114 Communicate in Chinese

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I’m not sure if typing ‘English <=> Chinese’ into Google translate’s website counts as using Artificial Intelligence, but if it does, I’m here for it.

#114 Communicate in Chinese (or 用中文交流 for the aficionados)

During a recent Friends Quest in the on-line language program Duolingo where I’m trying to improve my French, I noticed that the player with whom I was occasionally paired—who from his picture appeared to be of Chinese origin—changed his nickname frequently from one set of incomprehensible Chinese characters to another.

Intriguing. To date, I’d not noticed anyone else changing their name on Duolingo.

Why would he do this? Was he giving himself the name of a Chinese Superhero, perhaps, or was this a secret game he was playing, a game that non-Chinese speakers couldn’t join?

So I took a screen shot of my new friend’s latest name change and copied it into Google translate, only to discover he was indulging in something much deeper than a frivolous nickname upgrade.

He was making an existential comment on his life:

Now my interest was well and truly piqued.

Several weeks later, when we were paired for a Friends Quest again, I noticed he’d given himself a brand new moniker.

I wondered if he were feeling any happier now the worst of winter was over.

Not a bit of it.

Whoa!

was clearly unhappy with the team running Duolingo and wanted them to know it.

A couple of weeks later, his nickname became more pointed:

One of the drawbacks of these Friends Quests is that your success is quite dependent on which partner Duolingo assigns you. It’s like those awful school group projects where if you were the pathetically conscientious one, you ended up doing the brunt of the work.

And so it was becoming with my new friend .

Together we had to complete 20 lessons to be rewarded, but it was looking like bunnykins here was doing most of the heavy lifting:

Hoping to encourage , I changed my own name from the prosaic <Carolyn> to <我们做得到> which translates to <we can do it>.

At least, I hope that’s what is says.

I thought this might be all the encouragement needed to complete a couple more perfect lessons.

Not a chance. Instead, my friend changed his nickname—and his photograph—again, to something I didn’t have to worry about putting into Google translate:

I guess this is an excellent insight for a native Chinese speaker to have, but it didn’t help me.

Our next pairing became even more unbalanced:

GRRR!

So when another friend on Duolingo — one whom I know in real life— sent me this text message …

… I realised it was time to call it quits.

As Duolingo is now letting me choose who my new quest friend will be, I’ve decided to give the flick.

The friendship that had burned so brightly is over now.

As they say, exploit me once, that’s on you, exploit me twice, I’m the idiot.

I’ve moved on to a better friend now. Someone who sticks with their nickname through thick and thin.

And someone who really understands the Yin and Yang of group projects.

#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!)

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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.

#104 Turn a Guilty Pleasure into a Treasure Hunt

#103 Cheer up Family and Friends in Lockdown

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When Sydney entered lockdown in early July, several Melbournians posted ideas on how to keep up the spirits of lockdown-ers. After their own hideous experience of prolonged lockdown in 2020, the Victorians knew what they were talking about.

So with family and close friends now into their fifth week of misery in Sydney, and as I’m spared the bulk of that pain because I live in regional NSW, I came up with a plan to

#103 Cheer up Family and Friends in Lockdown

Fortunately, the digitally-savvy ones knew how to create a WhatsApp closed group, so we’ve been holding daily photographic competitions to keep up morale.

At around 8 am each morning I post the topic of the day, one that is amenable to being photographed within the confines of the Sydneysiders’ restricted lives working from home:

Entries are posted throughout the day, then at 8pm, once I’ve chosen the winner, we have the ‘Rose Ceremony’ where the lucky person gets to accept a [virtual] rose.

Decisions, decisions!

Joey, the adorable Covid puppy who has literally been ‘growing’ in the garden …

It was great to see that even in lockdown, they were managing to spoil themselves:

Sushi platter and baked, stuffed apple [Maggie Beer recipe] for afters

Another readily accessible topic was this one:

We’ve had to become more flexible with the topic at times!

Fond memories of an earlier trip to Port Stephens “back when we were free”

The next challenge was especially good fun …

… because it produced these two rip snorters among others:

At the end of the week, we move onto the People’s Choice award where everyone gets to vote for their favourite entries of the week and an overall winner is declared.

Because I can still go out browsing and shopping, I’ve collected an assortment of small gifts to be bundled up and posted to the winner each Monday.

Bits and bobs to go into the weekly Lockdown stocking

The aim is to find items that create a spark of joy, like yummy chocolates, fast-growing seeds for planting, items from craft shops that can be readily constructed, painted and decorated, or an engaging book to read.

When life is tough, you realise that having something to look forward to, however small, is so important.

My main worry is that if this goes on as long as it looks like it might, I’ll run out of engaging topics and be reduced to asking for photos of things like the fluff gathering underneath everyone’s beds, or dust motes floating in the sunlight.

Perhaps all these small glimpses of locked-down lives can eventually be collated into a book I’ll call “Passionless Moments”, in homage to Jane Campion and Gerard Lee’s 1983 short film which reduced my sister and me to helpless, uncontrollable, side-holding, rib-hurting laughter in a small Melbourne cinema all those years ago.

It’s the small, seemingly insignificant moments of life you recall the best.

outsidethesquare101

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