Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Our Small Man is a trooper.

As those of you who’ve been reading along for a while would know, despite serious health issues earlier on in life, he’s now an interesting, quirky sixteen year old. So delightfully quirky in fact, that whereas most teenagers admire actors or athletes, Small Man’s personal hero is veteran voice actor Rob Paulsen…

When we discovered that Rob was going to be a guest at Oz Comic Con in Melbourne, we immediately booked flights and tickets. After all, how often does life give you the opportunity to meet your heroes face to face?

It turns out that Small Man is a good judge of character, because Rob Paulsen is a really nice guy. Our son paid for a professional photo, and Rob was so pleased to see him – he shook his hand enthusiastically before chatting to him for a couple of minutes on how they should pose for the shot. Small Man left the photo booth with a grin plastered on his face for the next hour.

A little later that afternoon, we queued up to get the print signed. Rob, bless him, remembered Small Man, talked to him for a while, and made him feel special. I sheepishly gave Rob a box of brownies that I’d baked for him the night before and brought to Melbourne with us. I wish I could have given him more, because honestly, he made my son the happiest kid in the world that day.

Mr Paulsen, thank you. x

. . . . .

Oz Comic Con was a blast!

Sadly my suggestion that we attend in costume was vetoed (I wanted to dress up as ABBA, but no-one was willing to go in drag). Before we even walked in the door, we ran into The Lord of the Rings contingent…

The great thing about events such as Comic Con is that the people who attend are almost universally nice. Folks who’d put a lot of effort into their costumes were delighted if you asked to take their photos, stall holders were invariably charming and interested in the geeky details of their product, and the management was chaotic but helpful. I took 300 photos, but have just included the highlights here for you.

The Ghostbusters were drawing a big crowd, and deservedly so, as their costumes were fantastic…

For the Doctor Who fans, there was a Tardis…

…and an impressive Weeping Angel…

Star Wars fans weren’t disappointed either (and there were certainly a lot of them there)…

The guys from Resident Evil (apparently it’s a game – I had to ask Big Boy) would have been scarier if their “victim” hadn’t been grinning quite so much…

A Spiderman villain, or so I’m told…

Brave Sir Knight had trouble sitting down in his outfit – I watched him struggle to get up from the games table…

True geek heaven – there was an entire section dedicated to board game play…

There were TWO onsite tattoo booths…I felt a little queasy watching (I’m such a wuss)…

There was merchandise galore!

If you had the body for it, you could have bought a corset in every colour…

Cartoon artists occupied an entire wall of stalls, offering their brilliant pieces for sale…

The card collectors were well catered for…

I was astonished by the number of stalls offering coloured and fantasy contact lenses…

The Hulk was a true collector’s piece at $799…

…and I resisted a Sheldon Cooper doll (but was very tempted!)…

Finally, a couple of pics of my favourite stall, selling gorgeous steampunk costume pieces…

More photos from our Melbourne trip to follow!

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I am a little frazzled at the moment.

It all got a bit too much the other day, so I went outside, sat on the deck with the new heater on and a cup of herbal tea, and read my Kindle.  At present, I’m feeling a bit like the photo I took – slightly washed out and raggedy around the edges. Life is so rarely completely smooth sailing. Nonetheless, I felt blessed to be able to sit quietly for an hour, enjoying the peace and serenity of our backyard.

Thankfully, our plans for the weekend involved old friends.

Mireille and Blake lived across the road a few years ago, and they popped in for a catch-up lunch with their gorgeous children.  It was an easy and relaxing few hours spent chatting and laughing. Mireille brought me these beautiful tulips…

I baked sourdough rolls and dragon tail baguettes…

…and made Lorraine’s dip using a wheel of Adelaide Hills organic triple brie that I’d picked up at Costco for just $11.90…

The cheese was sliced in half like a sponge cake, then filled and topped with finely chopped garlic, homemade quince jelly and thyme…

It needed just ten minutes in the oven…

Gooey perfection for a cold and rainy Saturday…

Small Man, who has been home with a chest cold all week, is finally on the mend. I recorded a few seconds of him practicing his card flourishes…

…and building a stack of Tarata balancing animals…

Onwards we march. x

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A month or so ago, Tanja said…”Hey Celia, can you teach me how to temper chocolate?”

We arranged for her and her husband, the adorable Lucas, to come over for morning tea yesterday and, as BJ’s birthday is coming up, I invited her and The Hot Pom to join us as well. And we had a blast.

Tanja baked the best apple strudel Pete and I have ever tasted. It’s a northern Bavarian recipe with Bohemian/Czech influences, and Pete just couldn’t stop eating it. It’s filled with apples, pecans and cinnamon, all wrapped in what Tanja called a “poverty pastry”, made with oil, water and flour…

It was a gloriously warm day, and a recent visit to Ikea has made our outdoor entertaining area much more accessible. We’ve added cushions…

…an infra-red heater, and a couple of wall lights. We’re still debating whether the image on the glass shade is meant to be a peacock or a dragon – what do you think?

After brunch, which included freshly baked focaccia, cheeses, tabbouleh, spiced nuts and deli meats, we all sugared up on Turkish delight, chocolates and gourmet jelly beans (I need the occasional glucose hit for my exercise program, but perhaps a 1.8kg jar was overkill)…

Small Man was in absolute heaven, because he was able to discuss linguistics (his current area of fascination) with The Hot Pom, and Lucas is a fellow card magician who knows all about Transformers and Animaniacs. Our youngest son pulled out some blindingly fast card tricks…

Beej and Tanja fed the chooks, and Lucas, who by this stage was well and truly hyped up on caffeine and sugar, fell into the pond. Pete’s still laughing about it – last night he remarked, “you know, Lucas is the only child we’ve ever had fall into the pond”…

As it was Beej’s birthday, we gave her a set of Tarata Balancing Elephants. These New Zealand wood puzzles are some of our favourite and most enduring toys. We bought four sets back in 2005, and they’ve been played with regularly ever since…

Each set is carved from a single block of wood and fits together neatly…

They also do this…

The dinosaur set can even hang off a bench…

Much of the afternoon was spent sitting outside, playing with these wooden toys. The Hot Pom proved to be a natural at the sport of balancing animals…here is his two-pack stack…

…and his and BJ’s three-pack creation…we’re still not sure how the ape and top elephant are actually attached – they seem to be suspended in mid-air…

And the photo of the day, taken by Lucas, titled Beej and the Face of Triumph…

It was such a fun day! As they drove off, Small Man turned to Pete and asked, “Dad, how long have you had these cool friends?” He thinks we’ve been hiding them from him!

PS. We did temper chocolate as well – we made six dark milk feuilletine Golden Ticket bars – but we were having so much fun with everything else that I forgot to take any photos!

PPS. If you’re interested in the balancing animals, the Tarata website is here. They have an online shop, and they ship all over the world. They’re a great company to deal with!

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