Paradise abounds

Dear Friends,

As usual we were a little sad to leave our own little paradise at the cottage in Sweden at the end of August, but apparently we were returning to paradise in Australia!

Many scenes in “Return to Paradise”, a spin off of BBC's “Death in Paradise”, hubby’s favourite detective series, were filmed just a few kilometres north of our house. They conveniently omitted the many industrial sites along the Illawarra coast, aka the Coal Coast, but sharp-eyed anoraks will spot the electric suburban train snaking its way along the hillside above “Dolphin Cove”. Was it called “Dolphin Cove” because “Porpoise Spit” had already been used? 

The filmmakers had to turn to Sydney’s northern beaches for some filming locations, but mixing up locations is common to get the best effect, the opening scene in “The Sound of Music” being a classic example.

“Paradise Found” was filmed partly in Australia. Is a pattern developing here?

There were advertisements a few months ago for locals to be extras on the sets, with an emphasis on people doing sports typical for idyllic beaches - e.g. running, surfing or yoga. Should we have sent in the following photograph, and pretended that we were just about to go para-sailing?

Bald Hill features prominently in the series

That photograph of our family all together was taken ten years ago, but little has changed since then, or so I keep telling myself.

I am not a great fan of "Death in Paradise", so I somewhat reluctantly watched "Return to Paradise".  It is similarly formulaic and quirky, but it was fun trying to identify the local scenes. Maybe you can stream it where you live.

Pictures at an exhibition

Dear Readers,

I mentioned earlier that one of hubby's cottage industries in retirement is making shadow frames for the many paintings that I have done since coming to Australia.  He had to kick it up a notch when our elder daughter needed 16 frames for her paintings to be presented at an exhibition in Barcelona in May.  

Elder daughter and hubby looked at making the frames in Sweden last summer, but gave up, mainly because suitable profiles of timber were not readily available.  That was surprising, considering that Sweden has a lot of pine, and a lot of timber houses. Then again, Sir Rod Stewart, on his recent visit to Sydney, made a visit to a branch of the main hardware chain here just to buy profiles of timber that are not available in the UK.

Anyhow, hubby got the frames done in time, with protective wrapping that son-in-law said could get him a job with Amazon.  Posting them to Sweden cost about the same as the raw materials, but, hey, that's what parents are for.

Economies of scale?

Individually gift wrapped ...

... and ready to be boxed. Five frames are inside.

The exhibition, which featured four artists, seemed to be a success, in that many people turned up for the vernissage.

Psst, you are looking the wrong way!

Our favourite artist

After the three weeks of the exhibition, just a few works had been sold, though.  Elder daughter also had to fly back to Barcelona from Gothenburg to collect hers that had not been sold.  

It is a tough gig, being an artist, or indeed a gallery owner. Perhaps the statement by one of elder daughter's artist friends in London that there are just 50 or so painters in the UK who can live off their art alone is not so far from the truth.

We are very proud of her, anyway.

Vivid Sydney

Dear Readers,

By far the majority of attractions in Australia are natural ones, with beaches, rock formations, forests, waterfalls, lookouts, animals, and expansive isolation at the top of the list.  The few castles are mostly quirky, parts of amusement parks, or glorified mansions and oh-so young; no centuries-old, battle-scarred fortifications here.  The old joke "What is the difference between a pot of yoghurt and Australia? Yoghurt has a living culture." notwithstanding, there are a few cultural events that are worth a detour, at least if you are already in that state or city.  

One example is Vivid Sydney, a visual-audio show held around the CBD of Sydney each southern-hemisphere winter.  The Sydney Opera House, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the old Customs House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge are the main canvases, but far from the only ones.  The show has gotten better and better, year on year, since it started 14 years ago.  There is now so much to see that you need several evenings to visit all the sites. Hubby and younger daughter went to it twice this year and still did not see everything.  You need to be prepared to walk though since many of the displays are around the harbour walk from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour and some transport modes are suspended due to the crowds.

Sails pitch or a sign?

One feature in 2023 was a drone show - the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, for what it is worth - in the harbour off Circular Quay.  Hubby and younger daughter were able to see it, but with great difficulty due to the crowds.  Ten minutes before the start they could move no further and put up with the light pollution where they were.  Their photographs from there were not great, but the experience was.  Then it was a long walk back with the crowd to the first available public transport.

It was much better in person.

Fortunately there are many dining opportunities ranging from street stalls to regular restaurants around Circular Quay, in The Rocks area, and around Darling Harbour, for when the crowds or the walking distances get to you.

Lofty aspirations

Dear Readers,

I have recently become fascinated by tiny homes, in part because our son is looking at taking his first step into the property market by buying a rural block on which one can only have temporary accommodation, like a caravan or a mobile home.  I must have clicked on something on Facebook, because I now frequently get images of the latest models without even searching.  

The Sydney Tiny Home Expo was held at the Hawkesbury Showgrounds in Clarendon a few weeks ago, and hubby used that as an excuse for another excursion to a new part of Sydney, at least new for us.  It was a rare rainy day, but I still went alone for the ride, although not to traipse around the exhibition.  If the homes are really mobile, they can come to me!  Hubby, however, went into every exhibit, and not just to get out of the rain.  

After a while, though, he thought that each one was pretty much like the last one, especially since the requirement that they should normally not exceed certain dimensions to be transported as trailers seriously constrained the layout, until he saw a few that included lofts or consisted of two trailers joined together with an offset.

That's more like it, size-wise.

It is interesting to see how (most) essential facilities are squeezed into the tiny footprint of a tiny home, although I do not think that we could quickly adapt.  Where would we put our eight IKEA Billy book-cases for instance?

Some essentials are outside.

Several sales representatives said that the majority of the current customers are buying them to serve as granny flats or for Airbnb rentals in residential areas, rather than as accommodation on isolated country blocks as shown in very flattering ways in most of the brochures.  

That part of the Hawkesbury area was completely new to us.  There is a lot of new housing, even a third Sydney IKEA, then suddenly horsey countryside.  The Expo was at the Showgrounds, after all.  Next to the Showgrounds is the Richmond RAAF Base, which has been in the news lately due to the use of forever chemicals in fire-fighting foams.  Suffice it to say that we drank only alcohol when we ate at the Clarendon Pub at lunchtime.

That lofts are popular in tiny homes reminded me of the loft bedrooms that my first hubby built in our rental apartments in New York and Gothenburg.  Despite the ladder used for access, they did win us valuable living space, and when you are young, you can cope.  When present hubby and I were building our house in France, a friend told us "You need to build three houses to get it right."  I guess that that applies to lofts as well, since first hubby learned to include additional space around the bed for a small table and serving shelf in the third attempt in Gothenburg, to avoid having to climb down and up too many times.

Loft #1, New York, 1970. Only for the young and agile!

 

Loft #2, New York, 1971. Better not sleep walk!

Writing this has worn me out.  I think I'll take a nap, thankfully not in a loft.

A smörgåsbord of cottage maintenance, fun, and mishaps

Hello again, dear readers,

Since restrictions on international travel from Australia had eased as 2022 progressed, hubby and I finally booked in April to return to Sweden, for three months from the start of June 2022.  Our cottage on the island of Orust, north of Gothenburg, had pretty much had to fend for itself the three previous years, with just a couple of short visits by my nephew near the Swedish mid-summer holiday.  Our elder daughter and her Senegalese husband had also planned to move to Sweden from Spain, using our cottage as a base at the start.  Despite my trepidation about the flight, it all went quite smoothly with passenger assistance at departure, the two transits (Bangkok and Helsinki), and on arrival.  One curiosity was the flight path to deviate around Ukraine.  

Due to a slip on our part, the electricity at the cottage had been cut at the end of 2021, but we were able to arrange for it to be reconnected for our arrival.  Then it was a case of gradually restoring internet access, satellite TV (two of life's essentials!), cutting the lawn, and getting our 15-year-old Nissan from France back on the road, after it had sat for four years out in the open in our driveway.  All it needed was a new battery, a couple of new tyres, a new fuel injector, and a lot of TLC with a sponge and detergent.  It took three tries to get the car through the road-worthy test, one of which was preceded by a lap or two of the local roads at high revs to lower the CO reading.  Hubby got that tip from the internet, which certainly made the monthly subscription worthwhile.  

Our daughter now has a car to use, which is essential in view of the location of the cottage.  She burst a (new) tyre on a rock outcrop in the gravel road leading to our cottage the morning that hubby and I were leaving to return to Australia, the fan belt has since had to be replaced, and a most recently the alternator gave up the ghost, but, touch wood, the Nissan seems to have survived.  

There is a bit of work and a few tic bites ahead of us.

Hubby had several DIY tasks at the cottage to keep him occupied, including repainting two outside walls.  The weather was fantastic for much of our time there, which is fine if the walls are not south facing, but they were.  He had to wait for cloudy days to avoid the paint drying on the brush.  Red wooden cottages are all very cute, but they do require work.  We should not complain too much though; we have only just begun to repaint walls that were last repainted in 2010.

The five tree stumps near the house had turned into ants' nests.  Sweden has no termites, but an ant infestation is not so desirable.  The blokes-weekend method of trying to burn the lot after a good dousing with petrol is not great near a wooden cottage, but professional stump removal is not cheap.   Son-in-law came to the rescue with Herculean effort using axes, saws, a crowbar, and a lot of sweat. 

The stump near the well.

It was not all work though.  We had very enjoyable quasi-simultaneous visits by friends from France and the UK, with the obligatory silly-hat competition.  The demand on the bathroom was intense, to the point that hubby had to use the outdoor shower - great for the first few minutes when the sun has warmed the water in the hose, a bit bracing after that.  

Overcautious - hats in the shade

Look what came down in the last shower

Hubby spilt glasses of red wine, not once, not twice, but three times.  He could 'blame' the first two spills on the irregular board hidden beneath the table cloth, but the third time was all on him.  To make matters worse, the third soaked a large-print library book that I had foolishly left on the table.  It was part one of two, so we had to pay for both books to be replaced.  Personally, I quite liked the antique look of red streaks on most pages, but not the librarian.  We looked on in amazement at all three spillages, since it is so unlike hubby to be so clumsy; perhaps it was the wine.

My nephew has been nagging us to go to an antique warehouse near Uddevalle, about 30 km from our cottage, for many years.  Last year he was even more insistent, since he was keen to find a stuffed capercaillie (who isn’t?)  So we went, and, lo and behold, they had four of them!  The salesperson did say something like “We don’t get that many people looking for these; let’s take x kr off the price, just to seal the deal.”  My nephew was very satisfied, although he has yet to find a secure way to attach it to a wall in his apartment.

In Melbourne, 'grouse' means something
wonderful or amazing.  That sums it up.

Grass cut, walls repainted, paths and flower beds 
weeded, stumps removed - just in time to fly back
to Sydney.

All in all, it was a great visit to Sweden after a three-year absence, and so nice to be really home.

All those days that came and went; little did I know that they were life

Dear readers,

I was a little surprised to see that my last blog entry was posted as long ago as November 2020, but not overly surprised.  As for many of us in many countries around the world, the rolling lock downs and further self-imposed isolation during the pandemic sapped most of my enthusiasm for doing anything new. Without anything new, what is there to blog about?  To some extent though, the mundane of shopping locally, watching TV, and staying safe, gave us comfort during that time, and reflected an oft-quoted line from Stig Johansson's poem Förlusten: "Alla dessa dagar som kom och gick / inte visste jag att det var livet" - see this entry title for a translation.

Anyhow there were some events of note in those 18 months, at least for us.  Here are some of those up until early 2022:

Now that we owned a house again, it was time to consider installing solar panels, if only to be able to cut short the numerous cold calls with a clear conscience, and to tell ourselves that at least we were doing something to reverse Australia's poor reputation regarding climate charge.  It took some time to choose a company for the installation, with numerous telephone calls and checking of credentials via internet.  Like many, we spent ten times more time coming to a decision than we would have taken to buy a dodgy second-hand car for the same price.  The work and safety rules seem to be a little lax here, but no-one was hurt in the installation, and it looks like we will be earning real money from the panels in less than four years.

I guess they do this every day

Hubby turned 70 during a partial lock down over a year ago, so we just went with our two kids in Sydney to our favourite local restaurant, rather than have a party with closer contacts and the health risk that that would bring. It was a great day, especially for me who had lobster.  Hubby did go down to Melbourne by train, an adventure in itself, a few months later for the 70^th of a close friend, and to catch up with several members of his family.  Face masks were still the order of the day on public transport, but all went well.

Happy 70^th!

Our meals out locally were often take-away on a bench in a park with a view of the ocean.  I will never get tired of those views.  Even outside, there are guides posted for social distancing, in terms the locals can understand.

I think I would want to be at least one
adult kangaroo away from another
adult kangaroo!

Our younger daughter jumped onto the property ladder at the end of 2021.  She surprised us by making a decision after inspecting just half a dozen apartments in a four-week period.  That shames our two-year search that I wrote about in November 2019.  Her apartment is really nice with a wide balcony on two sides, and is close to several of the hip(ster) parts of Sydney.  She is really enjoying it.

A balcony with a view?

Hubby formally retired in early January 2022, just as another lock down kicked in, which unfortunately prevented him having a farewell party.  He still continues with a little professional work, but the new-found freedom also gave him more time to spend on projects at home, for example framing numerous paintings by our elder daughter, friends or me!  My preference is for floating or shadow frames, which, despite being fairly simple, are still expensive to buy ready made.  That meant a visit to hubby's favourite hardware and purchase of a table saw and dressed timber lengths.  Tens of frames later, he has the production down pat, but he should not give up his day job, no wait, he has no day job!

I've been framed!

From an early age, our son has wanted a dog, but hubby is a cat person, and I am not really a friend of any animals.  Thanks to lack of work during the pandemic, our son had boomeranged back home near the end of 2021.  We have the space, and could profit from the extra company.  We thought little of it then when he volunteered to dog sit a chihuahua for an acquaintance of our younger daughter.  It is not as though a chihuahua takes up a lot of space, but they do take up a lot of affection, cute yet time-consuming.  The dog sitting has turned into a life-long commitment, with begrudging acceptance by our son's cat who is also here.  Nacho is now part of the family!

A reluctant sailor

That pretty much covers my life up until hubby and I flew to Sweden earlier this month, of which more in my next blog entry.

Opening up

Warm and hearty greetings, dear readers,

Here we go again with a little update of our life Down Under. We are getting some nice early summer weather and hubby is out every morning checking on his plants. Unfortunately they are not always doing so well. Plants that used to grow like weeds in France where we lived before struggle here and even die. 

We went to visit some friends that have bought a house just after we did in a place called Epping.  It took us a good two hours to get there. There were lots of blossoming jacaranda trees there, something that we don't have a lot of where we live.

Their house was built on a previous farm where they grew apples in the old days and neighbouring their property lived a lady called Maria Ann Smith. She grew little green apples that got the name Granny Smith and are now sold all over the world. There is a Granny Smith Memorial Park in her honor but we didn't have time to go there this time.  By coincidence, Granny Smith apples were a clue just two months later on one segment of my favourite Swedish TV program, På Spåret (On the track), and the train trip shown went from Wollongong to Sydney, passing just a few hundred metres from where we live.

Our friends had prepared a delicious lunch with steamed oysters as a first course. Tell you the truth, I was a little hesitant at first since I had had a projectile-vomiting episode involving oysters some time ago but it turned out to be delicious.

The day before this I was invited to a local Swedish girls-night-out dinner which was nice. The fact that we all ordered something Thai beforehand to be delivered at the hostess' place made it easy for everyone. It was a very nice evening. It turns out that there are quite a few Swedes down this way so I look forward to more of theses get-togethers in the future. We can now have 10 people together which is nice.

Two of my friends from the painting group have also been down for a visit. We have not had any painting lessons at all this term due to Covid so it was very nice to see them again. 

And last but not least, we also had the end-of-the-year ladies' lunch at my art-teacher's place in Miranda. She had just had a big gazebo put in, in the back of the yard, so that is where we had our lunch.