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izmeinaYesterday was a grand day out for Izzie. Went to Fremantle and had the best of intentions of doing our "Changing of the Green" ritual where we swap one finished and fully squiggled in green spiral notebook for a crisp and crunchy fresh one. These evil green notebooks are where we keep many of our postcards and letters - both those received and in the process of being sent plus bits of twigs, leaves or flowers and all sorts of bits and pieces of sentimental value.
The garden in our favorite lunatic asylum is our preferred place for indulging in this ritual - usuall y accompanied by a glass or two of red wine, cheese and our favorite variety of crispy wafers.
First stop was the hairdressers to dump all those snakie curls which were snug and cozy in the Euroland autumn but seriously suck in the Oz summer. Felt like a whole kilo lighter and at least 3 degrees cooler. So then it was on to Abhi bakery which is one of the few bakeries here in Dursleyville that make organic bread that tastes delicious rather than just dreary and healthy. Getting such withdrawal symptoms from the Dutch, German and Austrian varieties. There's also a shop near there that does organic fruit, vegies, cosmetics and household cleaning stuff amongst others.
Was hoping to get some calendula flowers but they did not have any. Did notice they've got some of the wickedly wonderful Weleda stuff. Was amused to see that so much of it was made in New Zealand but all with European price tags.
Since they also sell essential oils and cold pressed oils such as almond, walnut and sunflower oil, is no reason why we cannot get those and try make such stuff ourselves - or at least a reasonable imitation.
Since they did not have the flowers, decided that we'd make do with a packet of seeds instead and try grow the little weeds ourselves.
They did have organic cold pressed canola oil as well as the Austrian pumpkin seed stuff at a much less reasonable price.
Ended up, spent far more time than we realised peeking at all their stuff and before we knew it, was already just before 3pm. And 3pm is the start of Happy Hour in the Juicy Beetroot - one of Izzie's favorite haunts for munchables.
Got there at 3.30 only to discover that while they still do half price after 3pm, they've now taken to serving take aways only at that time in order to give them extra time to clean and tidy up the place before closing at 4pm. So ended up eating our munchies at the lunatic asylum. Damned delicious it was too but since we did not have a bottlie with us - did not feel quite in the mood for doing the switching ritual. Aside from that - there was another minor problem. Two weeks back and still not in possession of a pen behaving properly. Not any old pen but our favorite fountain pen.
Had the inspired idea earlier in the week that maybe the reason it's been so blotchy and scratchy lately is that we have not been feeding it Parker ink. Mind you - that did not explain why the spare cartridges we'd brought with the pen to Euroland were not working either. So, decides to top up with the bottlie we got around the corner from Hundertwasser Haus (Oh such wonderful memories) and then realised that of course we'd taken out the converter in order to use crappy cartridges while on our overseas adventures as bringing bottle of ink overseas is a silly thing to do. Spilling everywhere is the least of their problems.
And we'd put this converter in such a safe place that we can no longer remember where it is. Looked in all the usual and most likely places but is nowhere to be found. While the memory of rinsing it empty of all that green ink came back so vividly - what happened after that is just a total blank. Guess the only way to jog those ickle green cells is to go out and pay precious silver sickles for a new one.
But other temptations awaited. While on the way to a fix of sushi on Monday evening, for the first time since end 2001 - took a serious peek in the windows of a shop that has been there since 1907. Spied some gorgeous Italian calligraphy and fountain pens - the sort with wooden holders and nibs. Some of these sets also had seals. Then we noticed that some of the seals could be got by themselves. Seen such things on our overseas adventures but they were ridiculously expensive. But then around the corner they had the single seals but also the wax sold separately. There were several pretty colours - red, blue, gold - but the Izzie's eyes were immediately attracted to the green and silver ones. And what did we see right next to those but a big fat green feather quill with a gold coloured nib. Looked like just the sort of thing that Rita Skeeter would have in her collection. And since it comes with its own nib - the feather itself is just decoration so never gets worn out or needs to be replaced.
"Now be a sensible serpent" thinks the Izzie. "Silver and green seals are perfectly OK but you already have a perfectly functional fountain pen plus the pretty silver thing you got on Halloween Eve" ( but had to leave behind because the accompanying box and ink pots were just one of those critters that had to go in the attempt to get our case weight to below 20kg)
But reason never has a chance against desire. So we conceded by waiting but by Wednesday had resolved to add the evil green quill to our collection of wickedly wonderful objects
So now Izzie has all these pretty pens, quills and things, the only thing that remains is to actually write with them instead of just drooling.
The garden in our favorite lunatic asylum is our preferred place for indulging in this ritual - usuall y accompanied by a glass or two of red wine, cheese and our favorite variety of crispy wafers.
First stop was the hairdressers to dump all those snakie curls which were snug and cozy in the Euroland autumn but seriously suck in the Oz summer. Felt like a whole kilo lighter and at least 3 degrees cooler. So then it was on to Abhi bakery which is one of the few bakeries here in Dursleyville that make organic bread that tastes delicious rather than just dreary and healthy. Getting such withdrawal symptoms from the Dutch, German and Austrian varieties. There's also a shop near there that does organic fruit, vegies, cosmetics and household cleaning stuff amongst others.
Was hoping to get some calendula flowers but they did not have any. Did notice they've got some of the wickedly wonderful Weleda stuff. Was amused to see that so much of it was made in New Zealand but all with European price tags.
Since they also sell essential oils and cold pressed oils such as almond, walnut and sunflower oil, is no reason why we cannot get those and try make such stuff ourselves - or at least a reasonable imitation.
Since they did not have the flowers, decided that we'd make do with a packet of seeds instead and try grow the little weeds ourselves.
They did have organic cold pressed canola oil as well as the Austrian pumpkin seed stuff at a much less reasonable price.
Ended up, spent far more time than we realised peeking at all their stuff and before we knew it, was already just before 3pm. And 3pm is the start of Happy Hour in the Juicy Beetroot - one of Izzie's favorite haunts for munchables.
Got there at 3.30 only to discover that while they still do half price after 3pm, they've now taken to serving take aways only at that time in order to give them extra time to clean and tidy up the place before closing at 4pm. So ended up eating our munchies at the lunatic asylum. Damned delicious it was too but since we did not have a bottlie with us - did not feel quite in the mood for doing the switching ritual. Aside from that - there was another minor problem. Two weeks back and still not in possession of a pen behaving properly. Not any old pen but our favorite fountain pen.
Had the inspired idea earlier in the week that maybe the reason it's been so blotchy and scratchy lately is that we have not been feeding it Parker ink. Mind you - that did not explain why the spare cartridges we'd brought with the pen to Euroland were not working either. So, decides to top up with the bottlie we got around the corner from Hundertwasser Haus (Oh such wonderful memories) and then realised that of course we'd taken out the converter in order to use crappy cartridges while on our overseas adventures as bringing bottle of ink overseas is a silly thing to do. Spilling everywhere is the least of their problems.
And we'd put this converter in such a safe place that we can no longer remember where it is. Looked in all the usual and most likely places but is nowhere to be found. While the memory of rinsing it empty of all that green ink came back so vividly - what happened after that is just a total blank. Guess the only way to jog those ickle green cells is to go out and pay precious silver sickles for a new one.
But other temptations awaited. While on the way to a fix of sushi on Monday evening, for the first time since end 2001 - took a serious peek in the windows of a shop that has been there since 1907. Spied some gorgeous Italian calligraphy and fountain pens - the sort with wooden holders and nibs. Some of these sets also had seals. Then we noticed that some of the seals could be got by themselves. Seen such things on our overseas adventures but they were ridiculously expensive. But then around the corner they had the single seals but also the wax sold separately. There were several pretty colours - red, blue, gold - but the Izzie's eyes were immediately attracted to the green and silver ones. And what did we see right next to those but a big fat green feather quill with a gold coloured nib. Looked like just the sort of thing that Rita Skeeter would have in her collection. And since it comes with its own nib - the feather itself is just decoration so never gets worn out or needs to be replaced.
"Now be a sensible serpent" thinks the Izzie. "Silver and green seals are perfectly OK but you already have a perfectly functional fountain pen plus the pretty silver thing you got on Halloween Eve" ( but had to leave behind because the accompanying box and ink pots were just one of those critters that had to go in the attempt to get our case weight to below 20kg)
But reason never has a chance against desire. So we conceded by waiting but by Wednesday had resolved to add the evil green quill to our collection of wickedly wonderful objects
So now Izzie has all these pretty pens, quills and things, the only thing that remains is to actually write with them instead of just drooling.
