When I saw today’s theme I immediately thought of all the beautiful old stone walls – including those of our cathedral – which are coming down here in Christchurch. We used to be a city full of beautiful neo-gothic architecture. Now, despite the fact that much of it still stands – and could be saved if there was a will to save it – most of it is going to be demolished. Our cathedral has already received its death notice – and demolition began a few weeks ago.  I wonder if there is any other city in the world that would so easily give up on its cathedral?

Demolition has, however, been temporarily halted due to the howls of protest from many in the city. They are due to start again in early June if we can’t persuade them otherwise. These buildings can never be replaced . . . it seems so very strange to make such hasty decisions to bring them down. What’s the hurry? Why not wait and see whether it is possible to save them? That’s what they do in other cities apparently. Why not here?

When I saw the theme for this week I immediately thought of this photo – taken over 10 years ago now – of my sister Helen and her little daughter Sophie. Helen always seemed to me like mother incarnate – with her gentle ways, her long auburn hair and her Botticelli Angel face.  I, on the other hand, used to be very determined that I would never have children – for lots of reasons, too complicated to list here – but whenever I would see Helen and how she was with her children I would weaken a little and think – well . . . maybe.

And sure enough . . . 5 years or so after this photograph was taken I gave birth to my own beautiful daughter.  The experience of becoming a mother is probably one of the biggest gifts a woman can ever have and hardly a day goes by that I do not feel hugely grateful for being granted that gift.

I have finally gotten around to listing my photocollage print ‘La Traviata’ on Etsy.  It’s taken me a while to do this – partly because it feels more ‘risky’ to list a straight print of one of my photocollages (someone might think I think it is ‘art’!) than to list cards and bookmarks with my photocollages on them.   I can probably give most of the credit to ‘The Artist’s Way’ (mentioned in this blog post) for getting me beyond that kind of thinking and ‘just doing it’ . So what if someone thinks what I am doing is ‘naff’ – the main thing is that I have enjoyed the process of making this thing, I love the end result (because I am a hopeless romantic), and I may as well put it out there and see if anyone else does

The front door of our cottage – framed by our two funny-looking topiary bushes. We ordered a couple of little trees when we landscaped our front garden 18 months ago and these are what we ended up with. They remind me of something out of Dr Suess. We weren’t all that happy with them to start with but they’ve sort of – excuse the pun – grown on us! Not that we’re looking after them all that brilliantly. And we’re certainly not keeping them trimmed as regularly as they should be.  Ah well . . .

I remember thinking when I first saw the theme for this week’s Corner View – ah, that’s a lovely one, I’ll try and do something really creative with that. Sadly the week went by and despite having the theme written in my diary so I could think about it during the week – I didn’t.  Today I ended up resorting to taking a very average photograph of our very average looking (and particularly so given all the roses are looking very autumnal) front courtyard – the view from our living-room French doors. Ah well . . .

Life just seems to get away on me sometimes – try though I might to keep on top of things

Right now we are not sure what the future holds for Southern Opera – but we’re all crossing our fingers that we can keep singing together and that one day we’ll all be back on stage helping to bring opera to life in Christchurch again.

Frittata and Coleslaw

I’m not sure we really have a ‘typical’ family dinner – we’re like the United Nations of food here! We eat a lot of Asian food, particularly Thai. We eat food inspired by the cuisine of Greece and Turkey. We eat Italian food, we eat French food. We even eat a meal which – so the book says – comes from Russia. The meal I’m featuring here is a pecular mix of Italian-inspired – the frittata, and Asian-style – the coleslaw. I have already posted the recipe for the coleslaw here,  but for anyone who is interested here is the recipe for our all-time favourite family frittata.

Frittata

• 6-8 eggs
• 6 medium-large potatoes
• 3/4 cup chopped sundried tomatoes
• 150g feta cheese
• 2 TB olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Cut the potatoes into cubes (you don’t need to bother peeling them – I never do) and steam until tender. While your potatoes are cooking slice your sundried tomatoes and chop your feta into cubes. Beat your eggs in a large bowl

When the potatoes are ready heat 2 TB olive oil in a big heavy-based pan (I use my cast-iron pan for this) and when hot tip in the boiled, cubed potatoes. Fry until crispy and golden-brown.

Next – tip your golden-crisp potatoes into the egg mixture and add the cubed feta and the sliced sundried tomato. Stir gently and tip the whole lot back into the hot frypan – you might want to add an extra TB of oil at this point if the pan is a bit dry.

Cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes and then pop under a hot grill to finish off the top. Serve with coleslaw, salad or mixed vegetables. Yum!!

One of Helen and Ben’s books – A Booming in the Night (about a love-struck Takahe) won the Picture-book of the Year in New Zealand’s premiere children’s book awards a few years ago.  As well as illustrating books Helen is an artist with paintings in a number of private collections and her work is currently being exhibited at The Little River Art Gallery.

The Great Orlando is quite different from anything Helen and Ben have ever done before – most of their previous books have been about New Zealand birds – and I think it’s one of their best. It’s quite a dark little story – dealing with themes of loneliness, loss and neglect – but it’s beautifully written and, of course, gorgeously illustrated. It’s about a young boy called Sunday Jones whose mother has recently died and whose father is a nasty piece of work. Then one day a talent show is announced at his school and Sunday decides to transform himself into a magician called The Great Orlando and from that point on the reader is taken on a strange and slightly surreal journey where nothing is quite what it seems and nothing turns out quite as you would expect.

Yesterday I finally finished a Steampunk Postcard set for my Etsy shop – complete with aged edges. I have already got a few postcard sets listed with these same aged edges and a few people have asked me how I do them. It feels a bit silly doing a tutorial on something so very easy – but here goes anyway

Stamping Ink and Sponge Applicator

Here are all the tools you will need – a stamping ink pad in your desired colour (I have used Espresso – a nice dark brown), a sponge applicator and some newspaper (or a craft mat) so you don’t get the ink over your table.

Then you get your postcard (or whatever it is you want to age) and lay it on the newspaper. Grab your sponge applicator and press firmly onto the stamp pad – like so . . .

Then start gently dabbing the inky applicator onto the edges of your card – starting from where you’d like the ink to go to and then pulling the applicator outwards to smudge the ink. Keep pulling until the applicator comes right off the edge and you get ink on your newspaper. Then repeat, working your way along the edge of the card. You’ll probably only get only a few centimeters done before you have to reapply the ink because it fades as you go along.  This gives a slightly uneven effect – with the ink being applied strongly when it first goes on and then fading as you go along.

Now just keep on working your way along the edges of the card, turning it as you move along – until the whole card is done.

I’ve also tried this using a mixture of gold and brown inks as in this Tosca postcard set which I am about to list on Etsy. It’s a bit hard to see the gold in the photograph . . . but it gives a lovely subtle glittery sheen to the edges. As you can see I have applied the ink much more intensely than I have on the Steampunk postcards. You can experiment until you get the effect you want for your project. Easy!

Eggs . . . well . . . Easter having just been and gone we do have rather a lot of them – of the chocolate variety –  in the house right now. This little plastic box is just a tiny sample of the huge number and variety of Easter eggs that Brianna managed to collect over the course of the holiday weekend. She got about 5 big hollow chocolate eggs, several smaller caramel or marshmellow eggs, a couple of chocolate Easter Bunnies and a few other bits and pieces.

I also have a dozen tiny little free-range pullets eggs – which I bought by mistake thinking they were normal-sized eggs. I took two of them out of the fridge this morning and I used them to make my new favourite breakfast – fresh apple, carrot and pineapple juice eggnog. Yes, I know, it sounds strange – but it is GOOD!

The eggs before they went into the eggnog

JUICY EGGNOG  - How to . . .

This is really easy to make if you have a juicer. You can put any fruit you happen to have on hand in to it. I’ve tried it with orange and lemon juice and with orange and apple juice. You can also use vegetables – though sweeter veges like carrots are best.  Today I juiced 3 apples (Cox’s Orange & Granny Smith), 1 large carrot, and a large slice of pineapple. Then I tipped the juice in the blender with 1 tablespoon of LSA (which is a mixture of almond meal, ground linseed and sunflower seeds) and my two little pullet eggs. Usually I would just use one egg but these are tiny. Blend until frothy, tip into a glass and drink. Yum!

Corner View is a weekly appointment – each Wednesday – created by Jane and currently curated by Francesca, where bloggers from all corners of the world share their view on a pre-arranged theme. If you’d like to join in, please leave a link to your Corner View post in the comments at www.fuoriborgo.com, and be sure to visit other participants too. This week’s Corner View theme is ‘Eggs’.