Late March. Tips on why you shouldn’t remove your ugly kitchen with a broken chef knife at 2am
Who am I kidding. It’s actually April but I cant believe its been that long.
Life is starting to slow down in the Far South. Well thats what I told myself last week however it frankly didnt happen - actually I think it temporarily sped up. But I think, if I don’t stop fluffing around and start to take my own advice, get this stuff swimming out of my head and down here in words, I’ll never get this substack newsletter thing going. So this is my take on daily ‘Life Glitter’ of whats going on in my Tasmania.
Well I picked a basket worth of the pears from our orchard - we have this tiny orchard with about 10 trees, I didn’t really notice much of what was going on with it, when we moved here a year ago. But now it’s full of fruit. Applies + pears mainly. The gathering of a baskets worth didn’t make a dent on the tree… and I’d like to say I’ve beautifully preserved them with some of the accumulated tipshop boxes worth of No 27 vacola jars that I have hoarded in the outside larder. But no.
I haven’t looked at the pears twice since - and they are still tucked under the table in the basket in the kitchen ‘that is not a kitchen’
Feels more like a train-smash Reno art instillation instead.
.
Yes it’s been earmarked to be a kitchen, eventually. Eventually really means after a lot of hard earned silver is going to be thrown that way before thats even anywhere near ready.
Earlier this month, when Sarah was away in the west, I woke up in the middle of the night with a shocking headache, so got up to get water and somehow decided that then, at 2am I’d take to slowly removing the ugly 1980’s pine and cherry red cabinetry in the old skinny dark kitchen. It’s got to be removed as this entire space is earmarked to be the cottage pantry. Ok I’ll have to draw a map to explain this layout. Its rough but it gives your a visual outline of what Im rabbiting on about. Also note… this cottage is really small. Less than 100m2
.
Subsequently I didn’t stop at just the doors and over the next few hours, decide impromptuly to remove the entire kitchen with a slightly snapped chefs knife. Swiftly followed by then burning the evidence outside on the fire before the sun came up. Yes, the kitchen had to go, but probably not right at that moment, as in hindsight, I hadn’t really thought of what life would look like after the sun came up…. And here we are 6 weeks later with still no kitchen, a tap hanging from the side of house and winter looming though the cracks.
Moral is to make sure you have Panadol in the house. Less impactful on life.
A few days later Sarah’s returned home and that conversation about what happened to the kitchen was interesting. She informed me it’s beginning to become a pattern of mine to ‘do something drastic’ each time she leaves the state to pick up her boys. Turns out last time she left, I ripped the pantry doors off. The time before I took the chainsaw to the bottlebrush plant I hated in the front garden. Shes away this week and I can feel that creeping tingle of me looking around the property to see what needs altering.
So this time Im playing a new mental game of ‘pause & reflect’ with myself on all the projects I currently see that need attending without Sarah. Actually, shes in luck - as I’ve got too much on my plate right now to do drastic. ( however theres still 3 days left before I pick her up at he airport)
I remember making toffee once with this same idea. Unexpectedly left to my own devices, as a young thing on the farm, I tried to make a huge pot of toffee, and not mature enough understanding rolling boiling points of sugar - my ‘toffee’ syrup crystallised - in the pot. I recall prior to making the mess, having dreams of a large clear block of toffee that I could crack with a hammer like they did in Lolly shops. But that was far from my reality. I also recall burying the entire solidified pot out in the back side garden of the house near the large carob tree on the farm. And later, recalling my mother hunting the cupboards for that pot.
I also do remember checking on the pot, and the ants coming. I don’t recall ever making toffee since. I wonder if the pot is still there.
Yes. I was that kinda child…. And maybe that kinda adult too.
Current seasonal Tasmanian Life Hacks
I stood behind Analiese Gregory in queue at the post office while I was buying clear packing tape last week and passed this tip on to her. Analiese has a great cookbook with a really good mussel dish I use regularly - mussels are plentiful, free and easy to collect off the rocks all year around in these parts. So it’s a good staple to have.
‘Post office clear packing tape makes excellent house crack cover. It works well on sealing out chilly wind seeping through windows/floors and if the gap is too big? Use clear contact paper - what you would use on covering school books. And then tape the edges down with the tape. The post packing tape seems to be the best. Shiploads contact is great - just dont get the clear tape also there. Its useless.’
Analise has a beautiful old house too, equip with a century worth of gaps like mine - but unline mine - her stove is in… Mines still wrapped up in a box on a pallet in storage. Get her cookbook here if your into other recipes of foraging & wild food. I find it a really good resource to have at hand or just ask the library to order one in if they don’t have it. Analiese’s Cookbook + Life.
Glitter Life
- Maggie MacKellar’s new book ‘Graft’ launch is next month - in 21 days time to be exact - I spied to day you can get 19% off it here .‘Graft’ Publication If you’re not familiar with her work you should be. And for our cottage it’s actually all very exciting, as although it seems yonks ago, I drew a map of her farmhouse and surrounding paddocks - which is being printed just inside the cover. Its the first time I’ve ever had something published. And Sarah too - shes filled the book with illustrated birds. For those who love escaping to country life, Maggie has a wonderful substack newsletter that I subscribe to - I love dearly to read her weekly life updates on life on the east coast of Tasmania. I passed her farm the other day heading north and dropped off a couple eggs at her postbox. With the chooks stating to lay, egg production is high at ours.
Mates of mine, a cartooning chap that draw for The Guardian who also just happens to live across the river as the crow paddles, First Dog on The Moon have a little play that they have going on this April and theres a ticketed $10 event next week at Fullers Bookshop First Dog Launch with chats with producer Marta Dusseldorp and her chap Ben on the 11th April. I’m going. Theres a cool wine bar place next door to the Bookstore called Lucindas Wine Bar that you can go to after for a drink. Or before - or maybe both. They do nice snacky things. I’m rather partial to snacky tasty things myself.
I’ve got a few Instagram Reel workshops next month up currently. Finally finally put the April May ones up here Reel Workshops I really have loved teaching these. Last month I was in Melbourne and that was so much fun I’m flying over and doing it again at Melbourne Stylist & Designer Lynda Gardener house. She has just launched a new accomodation place called The Johnson - Fitzroy
28th April Lynda Gardeners residence in Melbourne, Victoria
12th + 14th May at Salamanca Art Centre
5th May in Fremantle, Western Australia
27th Launceston Tasmania ( to be confirmed)
My Sarah has been painting the cottage weatherboards. We are using Colourbond ‘Surf Mist’ and that took about 3 minutes for me to decide on a colour in Bunnings. Theres a young chap at the Bunnings Kingston who turns out to be excellent on knowing all the finer details of colour choice and it makes perfect sense to pick this in case we ever had money to do additional buildings on the property. They would match. And on the topic of paint, theres also a really lovely and clever lady Christine who lives up top of the state whom I met at a workshop once, who lives in the north of the state and makes her own milk paint at The Patina Factory She has a sold out 2 day workshop running at the
next month, but check there and her insta link here for future workshop dates, as I’m keen someday to do this - as its a life skill. If you want to see what the paint looks like in real life - shes also just launched in the last week an air bnb Twiss Street thats filled with her traditional style of painting and restoration. It’s a work of art initself.
Theres lots of other stuff I could ramble about but I’ve got lots of other other things to attend to. Like feeding the zoo and putting the chooks away.
So next time. So till then…..
….. x Jo
So many interesting people at your fingertips
Ah Jo. You're such a breath of fresh air!