soothing the senses...

what a wonderfully quiet, relaxing weekend i’ve had…

i decided that my next non-working weekend would be spent just being with allie and shadow and enjoying their company, catching up on some reading and savouring the peace, quiet and serenity of home life - of course the domestic stuff like cleaning up wee and washing pissy towels is part of every day, but i'd 'shopped in advance' for the weekend so i didn't have to go out saturday or (what turned out to be a bleak, cold and wet) sunday!!! finally, this weekend was the one i'd been waiting for!!!!

friday evening saw me settling down with a yummy vegie pastie (rye pastry), sweet potato wedges and rocket salad with a balsamic dressing - a couple of glasses of wine – howling wolves from margaret river (another new vegan-friendly find) - along with a few bongs, a cat on the knee and a dog stretched out next to me (letting me know in no uncertain terms if i wasn’t patting her in the right place!)... what more could i want - "being human" was on telly - i’ve taken quite a liking to this show – it’s a tad ‘darker’ this 2nd series which i'm enjoying so i got comfy with me gang and looked forward to a long, lazy weekend...

the only other thing i really needed was the beautiful fragrance of one of the soy wax melts from australian soy candles by lisa jane creations – lisa is a young womon running a small “cottage” industry in rural victoria which allows her to work from home and be with her children – she has all things soy wax and uses essential oils to create beautiful scents - my favourite is black raspberry and i had one left - another sensuous and sensory indulgence for the evening...



i decided to keep the computer turned off on saturday but before i settled down to read i gave allie a bath which was an added bonus with it being quite sunny and mild (no, she doesn't like baths - but i bet she feels so much better now - she's soooo very soft and smells lovely - sensory pleasure for both of us!!!)...

i have a number of books that need to be read – so many reserved!!! so I decided on 31 bond street by ellen horan for this weekend – a mystery based on a true 1857 story centred around the murder of new york ‘society’ dentist harvey burdell and the trial of emma cunningham, the womon charged with the crime. well it didn’t disappoint. It is a well crafted story and I was fascinated to read in the author’s note which characters were actually fictitious – and she very skilfully threaded the slave trade and disenfranchisement of the native people through the story (it's set 4 years before the american civil war)…

having finished 31 bond street on sunday and enjoying it immensely i was encouraged to have a bit of a search online and i came across this interesting blog “butchery on bond street” which I’ll have to read in more detail some other time… it’s written by a volunteer archivist in the green-wood cemetery where there is apparently a 'trove of treasures' related to this crime...

so, with it being monday now and the weekend just about over i better think about doing something - there's more washing to be done, a visit to be made to the mother, a trip to the supermarket for some much needed shopping, cleaning, blah, blah, blah - okay, guess it's back to reality...

later tonight though i’m anticipating starting ‘time’s legacy’, latest offering from barbara erskine, a skilled wordsmith who weaves tales between the past and present – sometimes ‘herstorical’, sometimes ‘historical’, always mesmerising...  maybe I should just settle on ‘theirstorical’ because I certainly can’t use the male-centric terminology of our language – but back to barbara erskine… she’s been a favourite author since i first read ‘lady of hay’ in the 80s and with many novels to her credit will probably remain a favourite for many years...

a 'vision-ary' tale...

there are some things i really don't look forward to, especially if it  involves an 'implement of torture'... and i definitely dislike someone i'm not intimate with invading any part of my 'person'...

least favourite are doctors, pap smears and the vaginal speculum (ooooh, think i'm way overdue for one of those!!!) - breast checks - internal ultrasounds - hey, let's face it, medical 'procedures' in general...

dental technicians - being fitted for new dentures is no fun at all - they fill these moulds with dental 'putty', shove 'em in your mouth to obtain gum impressions but yuk - the putty squishes out and down the throat and there i go, dry-retching!!! (luckily visits to them are years apart these days - but ohhh so expensive and uncomfortable!!)

i have to add hairdressers to my list - some people just shouldn't be allowed near scissors, 'product' or hot water  - i actually love the scalp massage when done well though... but there's also the brightness of the 'salon' (hurts the eyes), the sometimes very loud, intrusive, not-my-idea-of-music 'noise' (scrambles the brain and hurts the ears), the fact they ask what you want done but then don't listen - they keep saying 'yeah' they know what you mean, while doing something totally different (exposure to too much 'product' perhaps!!! - i've had a number of bad experiences over the years - and very bad hairstyles!!!)

needless to say optometrists fit into the category too - unfortunately it's been getting harder and harder to read - so i had to stop procrastinating and psych myself up for the inevitable... i hate things being done to my eyes - i can't even handle eye drops... watching anything coming towards my pupils turns my eyelids into steel clamps - anything touching my eyeball - nuh, no way - that's never going to happen - nothin' is gettin' passed the defenses of these 'lids - they clamp shut of their own volition!!!! that external contraption is bad enough!!!

my eyes have deteriorated (umm, that's why i made the appointment in the first place!!) so it's new glasses for me... i had thoughts of rimless frames (also cutting down on styles and designs to be overwhelmed by!) alas that proved to be "champagne taste on a beer budget"!!!! the frames alone were nearly $600 - with the lenses i need (they're $550 by themselves!) my glasses would have cost over $1100 - for 1 pair!!!!! i settled on semi-rimless, at less than half the price of the rimless frames - $758 all up... not exactly cheap, and i have to wait up to 10 days for them!!  it's an expense i could do without so there's a frugal few weeks coming up!!! sigh, sigh... there goes my 'splurge' on a nice piece of art for the lounge!!!!

i did treat myself (on a far less grand scale) on the way home though - hey, it's me birthday... i needed a new oil burner so i called into ishka where i  found some soy wax melts, "...a fantastic alternative to oils in oil burners. The soy wax allows for sensational scent throw and is an economical way to enjoy elume's beautiful selection of fragrances." i'm melting a frangipani scented one at the moment and it's delightful, and you can  notice it throughout the flat... i bought a couple of other fragrances to try out too - but i called in to see me mum and she 'snaffled' the lemon-myrtle one...

she was having a bit of a 'bad day' today - exhausted without doing anything - and, unlike her, was still in her dressing-gown and couldn't be bothered getting up when i left... she's sick and tired of not being able to do anything - so i'm cooking lunch for her and my aunt on thursday and shouting them a taxi around to my place - she wanted to take me out for lunch or cook for me for my birthday, but she finds both an effort - and let's face it, with her very limited 'cuisine likings' and dietary requirements, my veganism (which she's trying to get her head around!!) i can make something delicious that we can both eat - and she gets a few hours outside of her daily routine while feeling comfortable in the knowledge that she can lie down should she have to!!!!

 

 

i'm going to leave you with a photo of her on her wedding day (minus my father - no pics of them together seem to have survived their separation!!!!) 

 

and, coincidentally, they were married on 21 april 1950 - 
5 years to the day before i was born on 21 april 1955... hmm, that could explain some things about our relationship!!

 

with my grandmother (centre) and great-grandmother (known to all as 'nanny great' - a very stern and scary womon!!!)

 

 

 

with her brother kevin (and i just don't recall his ears being that 'noticeable' before!!) ... sadly her younger brother graham has just been diagnosed with early stage altzheimer's - he's only 66...