Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Good morning, friends!

Pete and I have just celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary, and I thought this mash-up might make you smile – the photos were taken 36 years apart.

The first you’ve seen before – it was snapped by our best man Yuji in Cath’s bedroom at college in 1984. Back when photos were on negatives and sent to the chemist to be processed. Back when I wore berets and wristwatches.

The second was taken by my darling sister at Big Boy and Monkey Girl’s wedding in February last year. We’re still so grateful that it all happened before COVID19!

Wishing you all a very happy day! ♥

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♥ With love from our family to yours! ♥

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Everything changes…and that’s a good thing!

Apologies for the radio silence, but a lot has been happening here.

After twenty years in a busy admin role, I have finally retired, and much of the last month or so has been taken up with the handover. It was a very happy decision (a surprising number of people have assumed otherwise) and one which was made possible in part by this frugal, make-do, semi-sustainable lifestyle that we’ve been sharing with you over the past decade.

I’m pretty excited to see what comes next!

For now, though, I’m enjoying the time to meditate, walk the park with Small Man, and create things with my hands. 2020 has been a shitshow of a year and I’ve been feeling battered and worse for wear. Time to concentrate on shoring up my psyche and finding ways to serve the community. The great Muhammad Ali once said “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.” It’s time to pay the rent.

So what does this all mean for Fig Jam and Lime Cordial?

I suspect you’ll see an increase in posts on sustainability and community, as well as ideas on living frugally in retirement. Baking and cooking, of course. Expect randomness as well, because sometimes it’s just nice to pop in and share what I’m up to with you all. Oh, and lots of posts about mending and repair and creating things, because they’re the things which truly spark joy in my life.

I put the word out recently that I was taking on basic mending projects (I’m not a dressmaker, so alterations more complicated than hems are beyond my ken), and was overjoyed to have pieces dropped in by friends and neighbours. None of these will go to landfill this year!

My neighbour Sharon has as much trouble throwing things away as I do! Her sons are tough on their clothes, but these teeny pants still had a lot of life left in them, if not knees…

So I machine patched them with little foxes, cut from a $1 scrap of vintage flannelette found at The Sewing Basket (if you’re a Sydney stitcher and haven’t been yet, you’re missing out!)…

My farmer friend Ian and I are playing a game of mending chicken with his old Wrangler jeans. I mend them; he trashes them (not deliberately, of course). I’d mended them twice already when the butt wore out. I convinced him to let me have another go…

Et voila! All patched and ready for another six months on the job. I did warn him that he’d need to wear them with a belt now because they were starting to get seriously heavy…

Here they are on the job, drenching sheep…

My wonderful young friends at The Carpenter Cafe in Leichhardt are now roasting their own coffee – they very kindly gave me their surplus hessian sacks. I shared half of them with my neighbours for use in their worm farms…

And turned this one into little useful bags…

Anna made them look good!

Finally, we’re still sewing masks for charity! We’ve donated three batches to Addi Road, and last week, we made some for the Exodus Foundation who support the homeless and disadvantaged…

Production time for the last batch was greatly reduced because my neighbour Johnny who owns an acrylic fabrication business made me cutting templates…

And of course, the Friday Night Finishing Crew (Kevin and Carol) came over to complete the job!

. . . . .

Happy days! It’s nice to be chatting with you all again. Hope you’re all having a brilliant weekend! ♥

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I always try to post positive things whenever I can, but I never want to present an overly polished, shiny version of our lives. Honesty and authenticity have always been important, but they’re particularly essential as we all struggle to deal with a relentless pandemic and its devastating consequences.

So let me share this: whilst our lives are always filled with love and community and a great deal of wonder, there are also times when my anxiety runs riot. I’ve written about this before and it’s taken me fifty years to accept that it’s just the way I’m wired. It’s not a weakness or a flaw, but it can sometimes feel overwhelming. I’m grateful for the amazing support I have from my family and friends, but occasionally I’ll just hide in my cave until it passes, hence the dearth of posts in the past couple of weeks.

Having said that, I’ve found that one of the best ways to deal with the emotional roller coaster is to keep my hands busy.

So…I’ve been sewing masks for the Addison Road Food Pantry. When I heard that this wonderful organisation needed masks for their volunteers, I stitched 50 for them from rescued Sewing Basket scrap fabric, interfacing and elastic. It was a win all around – the $30 I paid for materials went directly to Achieve Australia to support their charity work, the materials had been diverted from landfill, and I had a soothing couple of days immersed in craft…

Our friends Kevin and Carol came around for Friday night takeaway, then they, Small Man, Pete and I finished up and packaged the masks. I wouldn’t normally package in plastic, but I made an exception for these, as I felt it was important that whomever received a mask knew that it was hygienic and hadn’t been overly handled. I used cellophane bags that I’d originally bought for Christmas chocolate over a decade ago…

More upcycling…we figured out that 2cm strips of our stripey socks (the story starts here if you haven’t heard about them before) made a perfect substitute elastic for masks…

I used them on my new favourite mask…

I also read this article by Nancy Zieman and after some experimenting, figured out that I could divvy up drawstring elastic from The Sewing Basket Newington (donated to them by Bonds, apparently) into mask elastic and cord for mesh bags. The elastic isn’t quite as robust as hat elastic, but there’s a shortage in Sydney at the moment, so we’ve had to improvise. This particular one doesn’t fray at the cut edges, although it won’t work for every type of elastic…

The leftover middle section is gorgeously soft and stretchy. It will make perfect garden ties and kitchen bands…

In non-sewing news, we’ve been teaching Small Man to cook! He whipped up a brilliant cottage pie from leftover roast beef and 50% more potato than the recipe specified…

…and a delicious chicken curry! As he was putting it together, he said “this is ridiculously easy, Mum”.

“Shhh…” I replied. “It’s a family secret. No one knows except everyone who reads my blog.” (The “recipe” is here.)

Finally, Pete and I escaped the house for a couple of hours yesterday to visit the Biennale of Sydney at the newly reopened Carriageworks. It was uncrowded and spacious, but we wore masks anyway because it’s the right thing to do. There are half a dozen or so installations to view, including this wonderful stain glass window by Indigenous artist Tony Albert. I think it might be my favourite piece of the entire Biennale…

The work by Teresa Margolles is also worth seeing – beautiful and serene, although both of us felt it could have been improved with more content (perhaps video or photographs) about how the materials were actually collected…

. . . . .

What’s been happening in your world? I hope you’re all traveling well and keeping safe. ♥

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