The Effects of Traveling on the Heart

Zara in Sydney

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Originally uploaded by maiairell

In mid-April, Zara and I flew to Sydney for a short trip of 3 days to visit with Katie who was there on the Star Trek publicity tour. We took a ferry, stayed on the harbor near the famed opera house, walked around the city and had a blast.

hot hot hot

Surviving a heat wave down under, have sought refuge at local pool that has Olympic size and a baby pool to boot.  We're melting...

I can't believe the last time I wrote on this thing was April. I kept waiting for the spirit to move me, though I know better. My bad. We are in Daylesford, Australia, just returned from a week of camping at the beach which was lovely, all the more so

I can't believe the last time I wrote on this thing was April.  I kept waiting for the spirit to move me, though I know better.  My bad.  We are in Daylesford, Australia, just returned from a week of camping at the beach which was lovely, all the more so because we missed the heat wave here in Daylesford.  The ocean was perfect, a world class aqua blue and short, sandy beaches.  I haven't written in ages, have kept myself away from it for some reason, so I am happy to be back to it now.  This is just the bebe step.  Speaking of which, Zara is 18 months old now, we have been overseas to the US and Italy, introduced her to her loved ones and could not get into a work though I grappled with it a lot.  It's the life I left behind and at the time we revisited the states, breast feeding and being with Zara took absolute precedence over my love of my old job and colleagues.  Now, as my savings spindles and spits its last legs I wonder if anyone wants to come to this gorgeous town to shoot a commercial...

Our trip to the states was great (although a bit too long in LA and way too short in NY.  A wonderful month in Italy.  Now it's good to be back down under, though of course I have a long of longing and missing of people I love.  Our house is coming along nicely, the fruit trees are dripping with all sorts of goodies: pears, apples, plums, persimmon, cherries (we surrendered those to the birds and hope not to do the same with the rest of the fruits when they are ripe).

Zara is replying with lots of "no"s to any question we ask, an occasional "yea" with a nod of the head.  She's eating pasta and avocado next to me in her high chair as I write this and she's ready to get out, just tipped her pasta over on the tray.  i gotta go now.

it's freezing

lighting a fire, frost covering the grass, cold, cold, cold.

Leaves are turning firey red and sweet chilli yellow

I was feeling a bit down yesterday and haven't written on here in too long, so here, I am back again, sorry for the delay. Zara is still asleep in our big, king size bed and for fear of her waking up & rolling off the bed, I have set up my little morning office on the floor next to the bed with my ears and eyes alert for any little noise she might make as a signal that she's waking up. Because when she wakes, while she is still half asleep, she has a habit of turning over and up and starts crawling, usually towards the wall at the head of the bed. A bit of a rude awakening if you ask me, so I stay close and help her out when she needs it.
She is growing like a bean, everyday there's something new she's studying and/ or master (this happens simultaneously as expected and it's a joy to witness). Lately, she mastering standing up on her own, so for days, she has been practicing by crawling to a chair or table where she can pull herself up and balance by holding on. Yesterday she started letting go and remained standing for maybe 8 seconds- very exciting to see! She's been waving a lot too and now, if I wave at her from across the room, she'll wave back at me, oh lala, what a thrill! We play a lot, she loves nursery rhymes and so, from the depths of my own memory, they come wading back to me, some in pieces, some whole, some come a little more each time I sing them.
HUMPTY DUMPTY SAT ON A WALL
HUMPTY DUMPTY HAD A GREAT FALL
(I've been on this one for weeks because we sing it at swimming class, and last night my friend sang the next verse and I thought, RIGHT! that's the rest!)
ALL THE KING'S HORSES AND ALL THE KING'S MEN
COULDN'T PUT HUMPTY TOGETHER AGAIN

Zara loves it, always makes her smile. I feel so happy and blessed to have Zara. She is a special kind of spirit, she has a peaceful way about her and a happiness, a lightness of spirit I have had to work for because things for me were heavier, there was a lot of emotional pain inflicted in my immediate family and of course we all pick up on that stuff and get tough, right? Toughen up. Toughen up. And we do, eventually. I'm not saying poor me, I'm just saying Zara is a light and I feel like a lucky lady.

Zoran is at work on the ranch where they film The Saddle Club. We have bought a house in Daylesford. His brother, Vasko, bought us out of the house we bought jointly (I should say he and his new wife, Claire, they had a beautiful wedding a month ago), enabling us to get something new which we love. It's a cute house on an acre with a spring fed dam and a creek running through it. There are mature fruit trees (pears, apples, plums, peaches, chestnuts, walnuts, grapevines...) and a big vegetable garden that we look forward to planting out, caring for and harvesting as we have this year
Aha, Zara just woke up, she started making little noises like a baby cub and prompty turned over and started heading for the wall which is when I grabbed her and now she's smiling, have a bit of boob and waking up to a nice, autumn morning.
Time to go make breakfast for her, I grind up oatmeal in the coffee grinder and cook it with banana or figs, figs lately since they're falling off the trees in the yard of the local, fancy hotel. We sneak into the garden to pick them as no one seems to notice and no one else appears interested since most end up on the ground.

the heat won't stop

We are onto day 4 or 5 of a heatwave that should end in a few days (!!!). I love the hot weather but this is just out of control and without relief. 36- 39 degrees Celcius everyday. We close up the windows and curtains in the house which keeps it coolish inside til noonish at which point the sun penetrates our tin roof and brings a stifling heat. Yuk. This weekend, Zoran, Zara and I escaped with a drive to Ballarat to check out their very lovely art gallery that contained great art and was air conditionned, whewee, we were living it up. Zara had her first fever last week and then came a heat rash (luckily, she doesn't seem to notice it) and at the moment, I am sitting on the bed next to her as she sleeps, it's about 10 am, she's getting in a good 13 hours and looks so cute with her rosy cheeks.
It's Monday so Zoran is back at work. Zara and I will head out to take cover at the library where she loves to watch the ceiling fan go round and round. There's a nice kid's section where she plays and I read sitting on a bean bag near her. She's crawling and pulling herself up already!
In spite of or because of the heat, our vegetable garden is going full steam ahead. Yesterday I picked 50 tomatoes and today there will be more ripening a ruby red for sure. Zucchinis, yellow squash, chilis, green peppers, broccoli, oh la la, I'll be preserving for days. Made fresh tomato sauce yesterday, yum!
Looking forward to coming to the states, it's been a year and a half already.

follow up to sault

Oh and by the way, we had a lovely dinner at Sault with Zoran's work friends. It's on a lavender farm and the light falls just magically at about 7-7:30 pm so we had nice, crisp, local white wine that attracted the light even more and reflected itself not only in our glasses but in our eyes as well, so our conversation was enchanted by that light and when the food came, it was great (and on local's night, a glass of wine and a meal for $20 which is a nice treat). I had the salmon with mashed potato and spring onion; Zoran had the steak, rare. The evening had a chill in the air, as I wrote before, an early autumn, but it was lovely to get out and have a nice din.

Autumn on the rise already

The weather is much colder now than it was this time last year. Autumn seems to be upon us and yet our zillions of green tomatoes, plump and on the verge of ripening, are still waiting to turn red. If the chilly weather keeps up, we might be preserving green tomatoes which I guess would be more like pickled tomato.
It's 7 am here and I am drinking coffee in bed (homemade latte style, made on my stovetop espresso
maker), Zoran left for work an hour ago and Zara is in bed asleep wearing her cowboys onesie- she is so
gorgeous, I want to eat her and often exclaim to her, to myself or to the air at large that I had no idea
how big my heart could feel, sometimes I feel it will burst with love for her and am reminded of great poets
words like Pablo Neruda (from 1000 Love Poems & A Song of Despair) and Wordsworth ("The world is too much with us").

Yesterday we had swimming lessons for Zara which she seems to thoroughly enjoy. Her teacher does the dolphin with the kids which is basically dunking the babies, head first so they don't get water up their nose guiding them underwater for what must be very brief yet we mothers wait what seems like longer for them to emerge. And they do so happily. We sing nursery rhymes like Humpty Dumpty and they are learning to splash & kick & when we blow bubbles, the babies maybe watch us or each other but don't do so yet.
Our garden has lots of vegies now: I make fritatta with zucchini, brocoli, fresh basil, onion... My eggplants are growing, one is about the size of an oval shaped baseball and purple, purple, purple. Artichokes too. So many that we can't eat fast enough so they flower with their luminescent, purple blooms and compliment the greens of the garden. Still waiting on a zillion tomatoes that are growing but still green. Will try to get on my preserving groove as I pick zucchinis as fast as I can but they're still going buckwhilin' crazy growing.
Just got a recipe for preserving tomatoes from our local post office lady and am even thinking of joining
her quilting group.
Ah, life in the country. This morning, Zara and I are off to baby-mama group at Daylesford Lake where the ducks and swans roam near us and the babies are really starting to interact with each other.

Epicurious

Locally, the food and wine in this region is just wonderful. Tonight we are heading out to Sault for local's night and I'll report back on how it was later.
sault.com.au

update on the garden

By the time it cools down enough to get in the garden, it's about 8 pm these days. Days have just been scorchers, so the lettuce I planted in the late afternoon the other day just looks burnt to a crisp today. Though I staked the tomatoes a couple of weeks ago, they growing larger so I reinforced them last night. We can only see the beginnings of tiny green tomatoes now. I used up the last of our beautiful snap peas and put them in a pesto pasta last night (fresh basil from the garden and my new food processor that I picked up for $10 at the Daylesford market made this pesto extra tasty). Still have plenty of zucchini, artichokes and beets, waiting on the rest of our vegis like eggplant, peppers, corn, yellow squash...
Our fruit trees are doing great, as they get all the grey water from the house.
Zara is waking up, it's about 9:30am and we're planning to go to the big city of Ballarat for an excursion and a change of scenery. So we're off.