Slowly gathering material....

Hello! And Happy Thing Celebration to you all. I hope your festive event has been more fun than stress; more bling than blah; and certainly more food than you ever thought you needed! My day with friends and family yesterday set what I believe to be a purrsonal calorie high. Mind you, temptation was thrown before me in lavish quantities - just the dessert portion of the meal went like this:

1. A very fine brandy and macadamia christmas pudding

2. An equally fine blueberry trifle, and

3. A massively rich chocolate mousse

... served with...

4. Whipped cream

5. Double cream

6. Pouring cream

7. Brandy butter

8. Superior vanilla icecream, and

9. Custard

I'm sure there's a number 10 in there somewhere I've forgotten (even tho my eyes were indeed bigger than my stomach, an amazing feat of re-arranged physiology not to be thought about too carefully...).

I feel very spoilt and cherished by friends, family, gifts, unexpected good wishes, lots of contact from people I haven't kept up with propurrly, and not least of all, the weather. We've had some very hot, windy, dry dusty smoky horrible weather recently. Christmas Eve was everything one could actively hate - hot, dry, the house stuffy from days of heat, and the stove on for hours. Even with the portable cooler I was a hot hot purrson all day. And then, overnight, a cool change blew through, bringing with it steady, delicious, freshening rain. Maybe it spoiled a few picnics and barbecues, but I was delighted. I AM delighted! It's still cool and rainy, and long may it last. There's plenty of summer left to be hot and sweaty.

The gardens look so green, so invigorated, so wonderfully fresh. The mulch looks dark with water and usefully heavy with purpose, keeping roots and soil damp and cool. The day lilies are drooping with water and the roses and just .. fabulous. FABULOUS!

We have a few days before leaving for the coast, to read our christmas books, eat our christmas goodies, arrange our gorgeous new christmas fruity bits, drink our christmas bottles, and enjoy our christmas bling. I'm so delighted with my new resin necklace (thank you, darling M) that I've been wearing it in bed while I read. It's made of different lozenge shapes in reds, oranges and yellows, and is very me. For which read colourful, informal and a bit funky.

The last few days brought to you by sore feet (cooking requires much standing); several hard-used aprons; and a series of favourite purrfumes: Prada, the end of the bottle of Gucci, one evening's worth of Thierry Mugler's 'Angel', and quantities of Jo Malone 'Vintage Gardenia'. I urge you to try the Gardenia; it's delightfully balanced and flowery without being heavy or cloying. It goes very well, for example, with a chocolate mousse and shot of bourbon supper!

Calming down, sorting out, digging deep...

Hello blog,

Somehow since last week and the depths of abstract anxiety-coping mechanisms, I have found the middle ... sort of. I blame Cath, she made me get up on Saturday and go to Bungendore for a cooking class with native limes. It's hard to be deep when you're whisking lime sabayon and making your first successful shortcrust pastry for 12 years. I won, I won the whisking! Everyone else had to swap with other ppl, but I being ambidextrous as to whisks, was able to make it all the way through about 15 minutes of sabayon creation without a pause. Even Mr Cook was impressed. AND the lime tart was delicious. I enjoyed the vinaigrette in that the ingredients were quite fancy, but I can't say I'll use it again - I don't really like salad dressing. And the third option - native lime and gin icecream - moves me not at all. I can't taste icecream, for one, because it's too cold. It seemed a waste of lime, cream and gin to me. I thought, as I watched the icecream machine whirring, that it would be much nicer if it was all being whirred in a blender with a bit of sugar syrup and turned into a cocktail. But that's my sad preference!

Then, abuzz with achievement, I reviewed myself. After the cooking class (and the rather fine lunch it led to), Cath and I took to wandering the other shops. We passed by the Woodworks, because of serial cafe offences earlier in the year. I went straight to the Secondhand and Antique Emporium on the corner ... where ... I ... bought a hall stand. You know how you do? I HAVE been looking for some time for such a thing, finding it difficult to locate a stand which was narrow in width and depth, for a particular not very spacious place in my house. And there it was - on sale! You just can't argue with the gods when they provide so spectacularly as this. I will need to work out how to get it back here, but I think my sainted father (hi dad!) will lend a hand with a trailer and some lifting muscles.

My next satisfaction is to announce that all the mats have been hosed. What with contributions from cats, winter feet, and less-frequent cleaner activity, they were kind of furry. So I've been giving the geraniums under the washing line a real bonanza of furry water - they seem to like it, and the mats are immatulate!

Sorry.

All this led to a determination to finish unpacking the posted boxes of stuff from Over There. It took ages to get into the extremely well-packed breakable items - clearly I have no faith whatsoever in post-handlers, because some of my things had three layers of bubblewrap, over tissue, then bound all about with wide sticky tape, and then stuffed into socks, jumpers, hats and the like. Then again, this obsessive packing meant that nothing got broken, cracked, chipped, not a skerrick. Wonderful!

This (are you still with me?) meant that I could then make up the spare bed, cos it wasn't loaded with boxes any more. THIS means that if a marital partner needs to bail in the middle of the night cos the cat is snoring too loudly, there's somewhere else to sleep. Cos, like, the arse fell out of the sofa while we were away...

To complete this list of virtuosities, I have made a huge leap forward in study (the room, not the process) management. I have seen the top of my desk, and it is dusty. I have inspected the contents of storage tubs, shuddered, hastily closed them again, and put labels on them. I have established that my mobile phone is far too missing to expect it to ever be seen again. I even found the Lego (WHAT was it doing in my study? The last time an offspring of mine used it was about 15 years ago!). Oh well. I guess if I get really bored when I'm losing my Curse of the Pharaohs game, I can build another squared-off dinosaur or something.

Today I did even more useful things. Tomorrow I will be mobile-phone enabled at last. All I'll have to do is re-establish my address book, which is a pain. I bet, I just bet, that after the last 9 digit number of the eleventy-three ppl I know is entered, my old mobile leaps up from its hiding place and gives me back my old SIM card.

Life, always, is like that.

I have to go to Adelaide on Thursday to see the uber-doc. Again. He will inspectigate me, sigh, and write me prescriptions for uber-drugs which will have to be applied in unladylike ways to work properly. They will only be available from special compounding chemists, and it will be a PAIN. He will tell me that ... I have a tricky problem. Yeah? BUT in breaking and super-wonderful news, my darling dorter is coming with me. She's never been to Adelaide before, so the rellos are lined up ready to meet the princess-goddess-wondergirl. I've given them the protocol, signed off on the security system, and ordered the caviar. I just hope my brothers remember the colour-coordinated Holdens...

Today brought to you with optimism, a cat full of bloody burrs, and a good dose of Toni. You should all try this, except she's my special mate and I don't know if I'm generous enough to share her with everyone. But you can try the Trussardi "Inside" perfume, that's open slather. It's potent, smooth and long-lasting. Hmm... sounds like a good drink. I'm off, then!

Riga; Monday 1st September

Riga, Monday 1st September.

Hey, it’s spring in Canberra which makes it autumn here, I expect the autumn weather in Riga is warmer than Canberra temperatures.. I hope I’m wrong though. It’s been a balmy 18 degrees today, sunny with a light (and, it must be said, slightly chilly) breeze. We’ve had a very romantic day.. what with the miracle of M wanting to go shopping, and the weather, and the wonderful closeness we’ve had all day. Could this be because we’ve engaged in the ultimate relationship intimacy??? - no need to blush, I mean the shopping, for heaven’s sake!

First stop, breakfast. I had a good sleep, but was still terribly bleary. I struggled into my jeans (I LOVE MY JEANS) and tottered out with M. The breakfast room is outside the hotel, across the alleyway, and into another room via a door which BANGS closed. It opens and closes a lot, and the BANGS drive me mad all through the meal. No, I don’t have a hangover, it’s just too damn early for noise. I was partly mollified by finding porridge, very creamy porridge, and salted but no so much that I couldn’t cope. Yes, I am a weirdo who eats porridge (and eggs, and even chips, I hope this confession doesn’t mean I lose half my readers!) without salt. Prefers these things without salt. Finds the salty versions anything from somewhat unpleasant to downright inedibly horrid.

No muesli or fresh fruit in this buffet. There’s salad and cottage cheese but that’s lunch food. You see my problem, I have these funny ideas about what gets eaten when. With what. And whom, definitely with whom. One can’t show one’s morning, or even early afternoon, face to just anyone. Seeing anyones running off shuddering is so lowering... yeah, I can’t pay attention to myself tonight. Hang on, I’ll try a bit harder...

Erm.. oh yes, breakfast. We fiddled around in the room writing our shopping list and getting the princess vertical and purrfumed and laces tied and eyes open with brain somewhat connected.. and leave at 12ish. Doesn’t matter, the shops are all open until 6pm at least. We leave the hotel, walk about 20 steps, and we’re in a store selling Latvian linen, a stupendously low-priced speciality. And in the SALE box is a loose weave linen table cloth that we fall for totally; immediately; quick as a flash. Out with the Visa card to limber it up ready for a busy day... next stop is the amber shop. Darling A, my Latvian angel, has given us more information about Riga and its environs and shops and attractions than we can do justice to in a month, never mind our attenuated visit of only three days. One of the items she’s given us is a card for a particular amber business, which is perhaps 250 metres from our hotel. However this branch of the shop is now closed and the other is further away than we want to go, today. We’re shopping while walking around the northern side of the Old City, so we return to another amber business nearby. I like this shop’s wares, they have modern settings of the stones, and they have a huge range of the different colours and styles of amber. In we go!

M tells me that in Latvia, amber is traditionally worn in three forms: beads, brooches and blouse fasteners. I’m not sure what a blouse fastener is compared to a brooch, and I can’t see in the shelves of goodies anything which differentiates between the two. I quickly rule out necklaces, because I want to see the amber too. I don’t wear earrings, so that’s two big lots of stuff we can pass by... I’m drawn to bangles and rings. M finds brooches, and they are a mixture of engraved pieces - very traditional styles - and huge circles and butterflies. I don’t like them much, and they’re very expensive. Nup. Let’s look at bangles. There are some styles I like a lot, butter yellow rectangles of amber strung on elastic.. elastic doesn’t seem posh enough for a flash birdy present. The bracelets made of pieces of amber set in silver and linked into a chain are even more expensive, and although we both like them a lot, we do need to eat on the rest of this trip!

We end up focussing on the rings, which are every shape and colour of amber, and of course a range of sizes.. I bought a beautiful tear-drop shaped piece of honey-coloured amber in St Petersburg, to wear on a chain. The rings which catch my eye are butter yellow. The rings M prefers are a glassy olive green with amber highlights. We look around a bit more and I see a small yellow amber heart. So a decision is reached - I’ll get the heart for myself, to wear on my arctic silver fox pendant chain, and M will choose a green amber set in silver ring. So, dear patient readers who wade through my long descriptions, I have now a humungously beautiful and large gorgeousness of a ring, which I may not take off for several years. All day, since we bought it, we’ve been holding my hand up to the light to admire it. Shall I try to describe the design?.. hmm... it’s a sort of rounded-edge triangle, an isosceles triangle, set in a flat band of silver about 4mm wide. The stone is not flat but ground into a rounded but bumpy surface... and it’s kinda big. Kinda.. as big as .. half a large marble? As big as .. bigger than I thought we could afford, bigger than I deserve and certainly bigger than I’d have the nerve to buy for myself. It’s LOVELY. It’s a very special gift and I feel much better about the nought* now!

* I mean the nought on the end of my age...
~~~~~~~

I also had a fun time in a ‘beauty’ shop - just skin care, hair stuff and makeup. But it’s fun re-stocking things like soap and shampoo by inspecting brands I’ve never seen before, and trying to translate the Latvian words for ‘sensitive skin’ or ‘mild mint’. I end up with a big bag of loot; olive oil soap and tea tree oil - this more for the smell than any practical purpose, although I know it’s an excellent mild anti-bacterial - and new hair clips and a real sea sponge for the shower and a third lipstick!!! Profligate consumerism. Heh.

Our next stop is an internet cafe so M can do some money stuff. No laughing. This is not irony but a check on our money-management dudes in Australia, to see if a transfer has happened. Yes! Then M finds a little ‘milk bar’ which has, oh bliss, a half-decent American newspaper (The Noo Yawk Herald Tribune), and some more trashy mags in English. Maybe all I really wanted for my birdy was a bunch of mags! [And speaking of which, last night I was thinking to myself, in a wakeful patch, that I might ask me mum to post me two things which would make the last few weeks of this trip super-fabbo - a tube of my preferred toothpaste, which is not available Over Here, and a few bits of the Sydney Morning Herald for general marital consumption. No, not Vegemite, I can manage without that. But having the right taste in me gob after scrubbing would be kinda good. It is the littlest things, when you’re travelling...]

My next triumph is finding a store called New Yorker, which sells women’s clothes. For young, slim, trendy women. Chicks, if you must. There’s nothing for me in there, but I find some cute things for my teenage nieces, my darling dorter (hi dollink!), and a friend who has hoped for fabric but alas I have not found anything for her. At the counter I find tights in mad colours and patterns and grab a handful, they can go in the ‘general gifts’ box along with the silly socks I bought in the beauty shop. Yellow fishnet ankle socks anyone?

After this we need lunch. We return to the Double Coffee cafe, because we know they have actual sandwiches. And good coffee, and freshly-squeezed juice, and comfy chairs. Easy.. then the happy spenders return to the hotel for a siesta. I fall into bed surrounded by plastic bags of goodies, but still wearing my new fabbo gorgeous spiffy and love-given ring. Lucky, lucky me...

At 6-ish we’re refreshed, I’ve squeezed out another lot of shirts and such to dry all over the room, and M has identified a walking tour around more of the northern are of the Old City.

It’s a lovely two hours we spend here - passing through the streets of graceful old buildings; churches; romantic laneways; the Swedish gate and Jacob’s Park; sculptures (probably) of martyrs; Parliament House; the Danish Embassy; a small part of the river embankment... I took zillions of photos and some film; M was very patient when I kept stopping to snap close-ups of bits of building. I like old doors and fancy ironwork and cherubs and columns, and peeling old walls and bits of ancient woodwork and mossy bricks with trees growing out of them three floors up; and uneven stone steps and huge doorknobs and dates carved into mantels. And shots of M when he doesn’t know I’m taking them; and steeples against the dusk clouds; and any cat, live or handmade, that I can find.

M’s leggies are falling off as we return to the square where we started. We stop in the Four Rooms cafe, which is housed in a building dating back to, truly, 1207. Jaw drops to floor... I took a few pics of the stone walls, the beams and the rafters. They didn’t come out too well, the flash bleached-out details, and the natural-light shots may be too shady.. we’ll see.

The meal is delightful - I’ve opted for darling A’s recommendation of potato cakes with salmon and sour cream. This restaurant serves the dish with large pearls of red caviar.. double nom. Our waiter is very friendly; when we get chatting we discover he’s emigrating to Australia in a month, hoping to enrol at Canberra University! We’re suitably amazed; even more so when he produces some Canberra contact info for his course and the lecturer is a colleague well-known to M. The world is indeed very small. Of course we invite him to contact us; M produces his name card (I MUST make a name card for myself; I’ve been mulling over what I’d say about my ‘work’ - a source of great amusement to me. Like, how to describe a life filled with optional activities? I totally refuse to say Home Duties or even Domestic Manager; I don’t do anything particularly more than anything else. It’s far easier to describe myself when travelling, thus: A Dag; Abroad; Again. I must work out how to translate THAT into a life/work description!) and we make sure that he understands that we mean it when we say please contact us. His name, it deserves to be recorded, is Dmitri Stroganov. This stroganoff is following me around!

Now, I’ve opened all the goodie bags and played with the contents. I’ve discovered that the new ring sends little glints across the screen as I type, and we’ve had a very magical day. With luck, more of the same tomorrow - magic I mean, not all that shopping!

Today brought to you by Prrrrada by the bucketful; overlaid by Chanel No. 5 ditto; the aroma of the real, propurrly made cuppa tea at the Four Rooms place; and Essence de Hubby, a peerless and powerful nice thing.

Goodnights to you all! And please pat your cats.f

Tallinn to Riga; Saturday 30th August

sWe’re sorry to leave our very comfy hotel in Tallinn.. sorry to leave Tallinn, and Estonia, where far too little has been seen and done. Whenever I say to someone “I must come back” they respond skeptically, travellers don’t come back, they always go somewhere new, apparently. Not this little birthday girl, I’ve been dreaming of a visit to Estonia for at least fifteen years, and twice I’ve not done it justice - two years ago we didn’t make it to Helsinki OR Tallinn, because of time, health and money problems; this time our time has been squished up by circumstance..

I did enjoy the little bits of the city I saw - yesterday we toddled downtown to post nearly 10kg of stuff home - more books than usual; and an accumulation of purrchases from St Petersburg (dear ones, just wait for Christmas!). I have been buying shawls, they satisfy my need for textiles which is otherwise very hard to satisfy - I can’t see dress fabric shops, or wool shops, or even general haberdashery, in the shopping centres I’ve found. Purrhaps these are more suburban-centred, and I’m not going far enough afield. There’s never enough time... I’ve been skirted around textiles, finding prints (they have patterns too), handicraft items (like socks and hats), shawls, sometimes there are books about handicrafts, that sort of thing. But for those of you who may be hoping for parcels of fabric, patience, patience.. I WILL find some, I am a very determined purrson. But it may take until Berlin and/or Freiburg, where we will be helped firstly because M speaks German, and secondly because we are visiting family in Freiburg and they will be able to help me find stuff. I hope!

M and I had seen ads for a City Tour bus, one of those jump on/jump off circling buses which have earphones with a spiel on various languages. We found the bus stop, just down the road (and across a rather scary triangular road/traffic island/tram track arrangement, death hurtling towards us from every direction).. but the Red Line bus didn’t leave for an hour. We were cold, there was a chilly wind and even I, in a jumper (TWO layers of clothes, it will never catch on) was not too keen on just walking around. We headed for a shopping centre where we could see we could walk through in the warm... and what a find! You know by now that M is no shopper, unless it’s newspapers, books or cds. Well!!! We stumbled into goodies all around - first of all, excellent heating; then a huge stationery sale to replenish our rubber bands, staplers and notepads. I (ever the sook) bought some little notepads with cats and l lions on the cover.. M went looking for newspapers and dunnies. The dunnies were (it’s alright, you can keep reading without taking your pill) extremely posh and fabbo for a big shopping centre. Excellent, big tick of approval. AND!!! we found a newsagent which had several shelves of magazines in English. SIGGGGGGHHHHHH.... I have replenished my trashy magazine supply, lavishly. I LOVE the English “HELLO” magazine, with its photos of ‘the young royals”; snaps of snooty-looking society grrls (there is a very particular look of the rich, young English lass; very groomed and well-dressed but just slightly edging into bizarre [eg high fashion dress, iron-straight hair, but tarty tarty fake fingernails in fluoro pink; or that weird look of a French manicure on one’s toes, those little white lines on the toenail tips look really strange to me], topped off with a flinty down-the-horsey-nostrils glare into the camera. If you look like a very-well dressed horse, couldn’t you smile a bit?? Horses don’t seem grumpy to me...

.. where was I? Oh yes, trash reading. My second choice was a British “My Home is Better Than Yours TM* “ which is full of fantastically over-decorated homes converted from dairies, tar factories, coal miners cottages and fallen-down 60s council homes. The best bits are the careful not-mentioning-of how obscene the amount of money was spent to remove the cowshit and uproot the local rat population; and the casual mention of designer items - nearly always a strangled chair or a pony-skin toaster (I kid you not; I have it in print, a snap of a toaster with a pony-skin .. well, skin. Not a cover, but actually attached to the outsides of the thing. WHO thought of that? Had they forgotten their little white pill that day???). My third choice was In Style, which I am saving up for as long as I can stand to wait. M asked me at dinner tonight if I was enjoying my fix of Hollywood gossip and I had to disappoint him - no news of Brangelina or Paris; no ‘beeped’ photos of Britney doing something else without her underwear; no faked gossip about Our Nicole or Their Scarlett.. cripes, just writing this is making me fret. What if something really juicy has happened and I am the only person in the world who doesn’t know about it?

After our purrchases (M found a German magazine he likes but no English papers) we started looking for a Money Exchange and a coffee shop. Getting closer to the time for the Red Line bus - and of course I saw an Estonian handicraft shop and was lost. Mucho goodies found there, including some small but very characterful knitted cats. I’ve given one to M as a good will and anxiety-lowering token. He took to the little cat (black and white stripes with glinty green eyes) at once, and presently it is sitting on Andy the Norwegian bear’s shoulders, getting ready for some nocturnal mischief as soon as it’s lights out.

There was just enough time for me to stop at Robert’s Coffee (an English chain, but quite a superior operation) for a giant takeaway fix, before we nipped our shivery way back to the bus.

First we took the 'Red Line tour' - an hour around the 'best bits' of Tallinn. There's a strong focus on architectural history - information about pre-war )I and II) styles; Stalinist features (exclusively grey, forbidding and dingy); modernist and a return to the Estonian 'style' - very much influenced by Peter the Great, of St Petersburg, so we see a lot of the gracious pale yellow and cream palace-styled buildings. The commentary is in English, via headphones, with two speakers - a very Amurrican bloke and an English woman with a lovely Zoomerzet accent, lots of gggs. M is tired after this so he goes off to rest. I stay, encouraged by the driver who points out that our tickets cover all the tours, all day. I hop back on and take the 'Green Line' tour, which goes further afield and shows off some of the coast and harbour. Once again there is a strong focus on architecture and the history of building/rebuilding/fires/renovations etc. I took lots of photos, but reviewing them I see I was mostly capturing details of colours and quirks of buildings and the scenery, rather than 'standard tourist spots'. And, writing this paragraph nearly a week later, my impressions have faded.. mostly I recall that it was fun being on the top of a two-decker bus, seeing at least something so I know what I'm going back FOR, and being able to rest while seeing something.

The trip to Riga was MUCH easier - a comfier bus, and the only thing that happened at the border was a brief stop while a nice black doggie had a snuffle around in our luggage (under the bus0. We'd seen everyone getting out their passports, so we did too, but there was no need for them. The driver hopped back onto the bus smiling broadly, and took off with a bit of a wheelie. I gather he was pleased there had been no mucking about. He was a nice bloke, and not as addicted to the smokes as our previous driver. Still no food/loo stops, but we were better prepared with water and some snacks. We arrived in Riga in the late afternoon, so no problem getting into the hotel or finding dinner etc.

Riga (the Old Town, where we stayed in a hotel converted from a monastery, with a few little bits of the old walls and niches left in the re-build) is far too beautiful - romantic and pretty and dignified and full of people who smile.. not so much of the rich totty element as there was in St P, and the streets were full of music, from buskers and cafes and shops.. so welcoming.

We had been told of a concert tonight, at a nearby church, featuring choir and bagpipes. I've collapsed into a sleep, but M goes along to have a peek. He watched a bit of it, enjoying the spectacle of seeing the piper march in down the aisle to the choir - he was watching through the glass doors in the foyer, thus avoiding the expense of a ticket. After a bit he charged back to the hotel to wake me so I could see just a little bit of the spectacle. When we got back to the church, the doors were closed with signs saying 'CD recording'. But a woman right behind us ignored all the signs (in four languages) and grabbed the door handle and went in. Orright.. so we went in too. A woman (perhaps a concert manager, or perhaps a church warden) came over to berate us, but M put his finger to his lips and went 'Shhhhhh!' and we turned our backs. It worked - she went away.. the choir was purrforming a new work (sorry will have to post details later), a very wonderful piece, with some very clever lighting effects, and a lovely, spare orchestral accompaniment. We watched, spellbound, until the very last whisp of sound floated up into the church rafters.. and the applause burst out. We'll be looking out for the CD, the choir was I believe the Latvian State or National Choir, and they were indeed very good.

We retired to eat - and found a cafe/bar called 'Velvet'. The music - dance music - became progressively louder throughout our meal, and we could see another table of large German men peering at the bar. All was soon revealed (as 'twere) - M went over to get something and blimey, there was a dolly-bird dancing on the bar! All set up with a pole to swing on. She was almost wearing some scanty black gym gear, with hot pink bands around her curvy bits. And super-high heels. She was very wiggly, and there were a number of men seated on barstools at her feet...and one guy, somewhat relaxed, who was sort of wearing around and dancing back at her in a very loose-limbed fashion. Of course I had to have a look! - the Germans were a bit surprised, kept staring at me while I watched the dancer.. maybe nice girls don't watch pole dancers? I dunno. I thought she was a good dancer, but SO uninvolved with her worshippers.

That day was brought to you by a bucket of Prada; somewhat raised eyebrows, and the excellent vegetarian meal I had - stuffed zucchini, cream potatoes and a very fresh salad.

~~~~~~~~
Two days later we attended another concert, at another church, this time as paying customers. This was also a premiere, of .. hmm, brain won't co-operate, sorry, I'll add it, I will! ..., with organ, soprano, and a saxophone quartet, followed by a saxophone octed. Very very wonderful, amazing acoustic - a lovely high sound drifting up to the very high arched ceiling, quite warm, and with some interesting cross-echoes. We managed to shake hands with the composer (so laden with flowers he could hardly get a hand free!), and M went crazy with the CDs on sale - four of them are currently on their way home.

Tallinn, god sei dank..

WE GOT OUT OF RUSSIA YESTERDAY.

This is FAR more important than any mere detail about it being my umptieth with a nought on the end birthday. I got two presents - M was discharged from the klinik, and we got stamped out of Russia and into Estonia. Pheeeewwwww...

I have tons of stuff I wrote about our time in St Petersburg when we were only tourists, and some stuff about the time M was in hospital, so I'm going to post it on top of this. I can't be bothered going through it all after posting and altering the dates so it goes in the blog in strick date order. Yes, yes, I KNOW I'm a Virgo, but I also know when I'm beat. And today, I'm free!

I've been doing this: sleep, up for brekkie - where we had real food; muesli, fruit, proper cuppa teas; scrambled eggs, wow - back to sleep, and then some very elegant lolling around in the hotel room. Silk nightie, red toenails, iPod favourites and a bucket of purrfume. Now I am in the hotel foyer making good use of the free WiFi while M is snoozin;. He's ok btw, very tired from the journey (you'll see why), but getting back his appetite and relaxing.

Today brought to you by relief, safe drinking water in the taps, and latte heaven.

Last night on M/S Polarlys, sailing to Kirkenes

We’ve had a pretty good last day - quite a few highlights in one day, altho I didn’t think it would work out that way - I didn’t sleep well, and after getting up for breakfast (firmly taken behind dark glasses) I went back to sleep until lunch time. M was meantime sailing happily into Honnigsvard, where he went exploring for the usual - post office, newspapers, etc. We lunched on board and then set out together, first to the post office, to send 4kg of stuff home - another accumulation of newspaper cuttings, brochures, acquired goodies, unneeded clothes and sundry bits and pieces which, three weeks into this trip, I know now for sure I won’t need.

Our next stop was at the local gift and wool/fabric emporium! The women there (we forgot to ask her name, I’m sorry, she was so helpful and friendly) performed a vital task and finished the translation of my little Norwegian knitting project. It was something to see - she and M bent over the bench while I went fossicking for more products! He took excellent notes, and with my knowledge of knitting terminology in English (‘knit one; purl two’), her ability to turn Norsk into Southsk, and M’s quick research-writer note-taking, we soon had the task done.

I found many wonderful things in this shop - gifts, knitting wools, glass beads, bobbles, fabric, etc etc. I bought quite a bit of stuff, and we realised as we carried the bag back to the boat that I had pretty much replaced the entire 4 kg of stuff we’d posted home. Oh well .. tomorrow in Kirkenes there will be another entirely efficient Norsk post office and I can spend as many hours as I like (and as it will take) sending lots of little parcels to my dear ones. [Tomorrow goes like this: we have already taken our 4 main cases to the drop-off place on the ship, from whence they will be de-boated onto the bus into town. We will then dump them (and as much hand luggage as we can) at the hotel, and take off to the post office. The remainder of the day as it comes. Then on Saturday morning, late-ish, we get on a bus to Inari, and repeat but without the boat. And, perhaps, without 4 more kg of stuff. But no promises!]

We sailed from Honnigsvard at about 4pm - we both immediately had a good Net fix, altho I ran out of time for poor old T and S because of needing to send purrsonal emails. That done (eeeeeek my family are emailing me about Christmas! I am in DENIAL about that) M returned panting from an info session about leaving the boat, to tell me we had two deadlines to meet if we wanted maximum help with suitcases. At this point we were sailing through open sea on a windy afternoon, so we spent quite a funny couple of hours falling over while we tried to encourage our possessions to telescope back into our bags. Not helped by me doing another presto vwala with the outgoing vs incoming - I went up to the gift shop to get stamps and post a last lot of cards (for franking on board) and while I was there I ahem oops seemed to leave with a number of things in pockets equalling or possibly overtaking the weight and dimensions of what I’d posted. Sighh .. I am a consumer, not always happily, but if I explain that one of these things was a cat, would you furgive me???? I hope so. She is a very nice little green glass cat with rather wonderful reflective green glass triangular eyes. You DO see how I couldn’t resist?

And, once again, the time slipped away with no mark, because there is no night as such this far north in the summer (the barely 9 degrees with a howling wind off the sea summer!). M had to drag me away from finishing our laundry, so we could go to dinner. It was a seafood feast, to mark the end of the voyage north for all the passengers; to farewell those sturdy souls taking to the land; and (I presume) to stun the return passengers into a calorific daze so they don’t feel like the trip home is the same again backwards. Even the captain made an appearance, so we were informed. But I am very peeved to report that he didn’t come to OUR table to say hello. Maybe we weren’t consuming enough Aquavit for only another umpty kroners per teaspoon ... the seafood feast was just that, a huge buffet of wonderfully fresh designer goodies - salmon done three different ways, crab, prawns, lobster, filled crab shells, ‘Light’ fish (which Steve warned us is always described as ‘an acquired taste’, which to all of us translates as ‘don’t feed to a dead dog’).. as well as reindeer stew (tasted like beef strog to me), umpteen veggies with cream, and the usual array of rich sauces and salad creams. As the boat was still in open sea, the sight of dozens of passengers simultaneously trying to cram their plates and stay standing was most amusing. I ended up with three bits of damage - a little American lady attacked my wrist with the lettuce servers, I fell off my left foot and nearly dropped my plate, and a hefty Norsk elbow rearranged my right boob for me, en passant. I thought it had been quite well-behaved lately, so I guess it’s a good thing it was taken care of...

Everyone at our table ate very well, everyone also had a big bowl of dessert, well for heaven’s sake there was creme caramel again, as well as chocolate mousse, fresh icecream, apple cake, redcurrant and blueberry compote and other bad, bad things. Served with 3-pint jugs of fruit jus, pouring cream and maple srrp. I had a bit of nearly everything, with a bit of nearly everything on top. It was fabulous. And yes I did also have blackcurrant jelly with cream at lunchtime, so ner. Be jealous!

At about 11pm the M/S ? passed us on the return voyage. There was much hooting and camera flashes and flapping of banners over the side of the other boat. I don’t know how many on this boat went out to wave back. It was a fine sight to see ourselves sailing away in the other direction - the M/S ? is exactly the same shape etc as this ship. We could see them for some time in the fading grey rainy light, a liner in full flight does kind of stick out on a grey sea and sky background. I thought it was magnificent. Very quick though... I tried to take some photos but I think they’ll be poor quality because of me being on the inside of a double-glazed window. But anyway, THAT’S what WE look like!

Now it is 11.30pm, purrfectly light outside (the type of grey light you get on a fairly rainy day, which it is - I can’t speculate on the amount of sunshine you might see because it’s been grey and squally since Tuesday afternoon); M has taken our cases away, and our cabin looks anonymous again without all our interesting stuff everywhere. I will have to leave behind the beautiful red roses, even I can’t think of a way to manage them as hand luggage for three days. We’ve had a most fascinating time doing this cruise, learned a lot of things, and seen some sights I could never have dreamed of. Successful all round, and most instructive as to what we might change if we did something like it again.

What would I do differently? Mostly I’d go somewhere warm, so I could spend a lot more time outside on the boat. It’s been far too cold to do more than nip out, try to suck in a breath of cold air untainted by cigarette smoke, and nip back inside again. The vacuum-sealed nature of the common areas has bothered me; I have literally popped my ears a couple of times when the pressure has felt odd. So, yes, I think I can’t claim to have fulfilled a long-held fantasy of lying around on a deck chair while a nice purser with tanned legs brings me a margarita on the half-hou, until I roll off... I’d perhaps try to find a cruise where water wasn’t treated as such a luxury item. Even for water-wise Aussies, having to pay for ordinary drinking water when you are surrounded by bloody vats of the stuff just lying around waiting to be filtered, is a bit of an insult. And the price-hiking of booze annoys me a bit... it costs several crucial limbs to pay for the cruise anyway!

The coffee-deal would have impressed me if the standard of coffee had been better. The coffee WAS filter coffee, always pretty fresh, but why why WHY was fresh milk only available at breakfast for the cereal? The ship certainly took on and off many tonnes of goods at every port, including French people, so why don’t they supply fresh milk? They can’t claim to be too far from civilisation when they can produce fresh tropical fruit every day. Tsk tsk Hurtigruten. I tried the non coffee-deal coffee twice - I saw ppl drinking espresso so I thought I’d cough up for a latte. But that came out of an instant latte machine - once again, fresh coffee, but with an auto-milk-frother, so you got the latte made as a milk-coffee mix. NOT the same. Fresh milk I think, but auto-frothed. This all affects the flavour, which is what I’m really going on about.

The final minor key for me was the row of silent, unmoving grey nomads in the Observation Lounge - all the way up at the top and front of the ship, their chairs set in a row as close to the windows as they could get. And so they sat, hour after hour, day after day, watching water moving towards them. A lot of the time they were asleep. This afternoon when I went up there briefly to knit, I swear about 10 ppl in a row were a neat line of motionless, sleeping heads. Missing it all... people didn’t seem to be very keen on interaction; unless they were sticking to fellow countrymen. I vote the Norwegians as the happiest travellers, even the somewhat irritating fellow up there this arvo, who kept whistling the same bit of Don Giovanni thru his teeth while I was trying to count my rows. The Germans seemed to be having the least fun; looking dour and never cracking a smile. The Americans, in my extremely jaundiced view, were feeling ripped off because it wasn’t exclusive enough. The other poxy passengers weren’t dressing for dinner, or being suitable impressed by being in their august company, and as for the food! No poptarts! No plain green salad! And ‘soss’ on everything. Not good enough. The British? I put them in two groups - the ppl we got to know at our fixed seating lunch and dinner table - we made a hearty group and much jollity was experienced. Other (generally more elderly) English people seemed to be a bit lost - they were wearing their special ‘touring trousers’, ‘holiday boots’, and matching marital backpacks, but they didn’t seem to quite know what to do and where to go. As for the French, they were harmless enough .... Madame la maman could have washed her hair last week, and Papa le comic didn’t share the child-minding enough for my liberal views, but the little boy was charmant.

Enough. T and S was always intended as an opinion-venting outlet, but enough! I must sleep so I can get up too early for my liking and hump bloody plastic bags full of STUFF around at unnatural hours of the day. And possibly suffer for a while before I can get a cup of coffee the way I really like it. But that won’t kill me. Meantime, today brought to you by eau de very fresh sea wind, that wet-fresh smell of just-washed cotton clothes, and a blast of Gucci across the prawns. And I must quote Nigel, who described Troll Fiord as ‘a wet cul-de-sac at midnight’. That’s how to kill poetry!

GAWjuss!

I gots me some wonderful new trousers!! Thank you Mr. Tailor. They are worth every kilometre of nerve-endings shredded in the process. Ppls, you will be delighted to know that I can now swan off around the world in colour coordinated, long enough, wide enough, pocketed, placketed and elastic-waisteded daks, fit for a queen, or better still, a woman thrice-crowned. Yippee!

I even got a discount of nearly a fifth of the price cos two things I specifically ordered didn't get done - the wool trousers weren't lined, and the other wool trousers didn't have the silverfish holes in the bum mended. Mr Tailor offered to fix them on the spot for a mere !!!! $35 dollars, but dorter and I exchanged swift glances and I said no. She/I/we can mend them for about 30 cents, if we get to it, or as my ever-practical darling girl said "just wear black undies and no-one will notice". True. Cos they are dark grey daks. So that part of the precision-packing process is in my opinion finito. Phew.

I also decided that trying to find time to go to pick up ultrasound films of both my hips, for future reference, was fairly low in the pecking order. The radiology business which made them neither delivers to my gp, nor agrees to post anything. So they can have the pleasure of being able to look at my ball-joints for the next three months, til I return and make the effort to give a stuff about retrieving them. And, for the record, the jury is still out on the overall effectiveness of the shots of steroid. I am not perhaps as stiff or sore in the hips, but as my daily routine is highly disordered atm, it's not a level data-recording playing field. I think the real test will be how easy it is to walk/manage luggage when we get off the plane in Bangkok after 8 or so hours of high-altitude sardinery.

We had a big family dinner tonight, several branches of us converging on an unsuspecting Italian restaurant. Parents, two sibs plus offspring, plus husband's sis and her husband. It went well in spite of the rather slow production of food from the kitchen. The youngest member of the party was was getting a bit crunchy, but the waitress spotted the restless girl and came over to reassure her that tucker was only minutes away. Unfortunately the gwown-ups had to wait a bit longer.

This makes me wonder (a lot) about rituals - the farewells. It seems to me that we all need to touch base with important people to say our farewells, and the bigger the reason for the absence, and the longer period it covers, the greater the need to invest the farewell with meaning. Meaning which is often (somehow) gathered through sharing a meal, exchanging gifts, pressing messages of goodwill and hope onto the leaver and the leavee, elaborate assurances of the possibility of communication upheld, and a sort of 'final requests' conversation about items, deeds, events and plans. All in all, as if one were about to die.

I'm not very good at farewells, especially when combined with airports. Too many occasions of real wrenchings of the heart, like when my kids were flying off to their interstate home... and once, knifing into my heart, my son point-blank refusing to get on the plane and sobbing as if HE were about to die. Such a dilemma, and going totally against my instinct, which was to say 'of course you can stay with me darling'. I won't forget that. He did agree to fly, but walked down the hallway to the plane with the flight attendant, his little back shuddering with sobs.. no amount of gin and tonics or chocolate fixed me after that experience. Since then I've been even more hopeless at airports. I start getting homesick for myself before I get into the carpark! Meeting ppl at airports is marginally less worrying, altho the mind can always summon up a quick cartwheeling aircraft hitting a cow on the runway, a mis-timed bolt of lightening, or a missing-the-plane disaster at the other end. Sigh. An imagination is a terrible burden sometimes isn't it?

Getting myself onto a plane, with so many good wishes and heartfelt farewells and promises of things to come - it all makes me uneasy. It CAN'T be so simple!!! I don't think I have a death wish, or any kind of determination to be pessimistic about the trip. I just hate all the noting of my departure. The absoluteness of it. Too much like 'here ya go, just wiggle ya hips and the coffin will fit nicely. Now, can I get you a neck pillow or a pre-flight champagne???'. Nup. I want to creep away, waving a very little wave at my cats, and leave my natural orders happily, quietly, naturally ordering themselves around in their informal way without me, so it's all just waiting here for me when I return. So that the BIGNESS of it stops feeling so bloody big! So that rather than carrying the burdensome 'my gosh aren't you lucky WHAT a huge trip how will your health stand up where will you be for your birthday did you have a typhoid shot as well you WILL send photos and cards to us all did you remember the iPod" thoughts of the umpteen ppl I leave behind, I can just sort of be around on email; be just as impossible to ring up before lunchtime; and can ease my way back into physical contact with as little fanfare as possible. Why, ppls go away all the time. They do. And do we spend months worrying about their welfare and being aware of their physical absence and thinking what a hole they leave behind and goodness won't their hair have grown? Well, I hope not. I know that the more you care for the ppls, the more you think of them and want them to be here for hugs and such. And I do like it that ppls care for me, really I do.

I think I just want the uber-crazy fare-thee-well take care HERE I AM HAMMERING IT IN THAT YOU WILL BE GONE stuff to stop. I know I'll be gone. But I has a secret - I know I'll be BACK. I pwomised the cats.

Today brought to you by a strong feeling that the catbox needs changing, a good application of Prada shower gel, and for tonight, a two-generational wrist and cleavage-ful of Enjoy. Yes, dorter and I wearing matching purrfume. Dags R Us!

Tra-la, tra-la...

My mate reminded me of singing four-part harmony on the deck, champagne to hand, a warm sea current waiting to wash any cares away, and the company of good friends... summer holidays, no stress, excellent coffee.... cake, even!

Our weekend hasn't been ANYTHING like that. In fact the only four-part harmony was probably when we were all whinging for dinner at once - a whimper, a request, a mrow and a biff (in LMW-speak biff counts as a complete vocabulary, and I might say is remarkably effective, especially when it draws blood). The cats got the better of it, they got fed. M had to resort to yet another tin of tuna, and I probably ate either muesli or toast. Yes, when in doubt, have breakfast again. I *have* been trying to 'eat the freezer' (defrosting interesting lumps of icy stuff to see what they are), and we've had some fun - the lump labelled "M's potato bolognaise" defrosted into some roast chicken with herbs. Who knows where that mutant bog got to? Bread is easy to identify, and the smaller lumps are invariably yet another packet of gourmet coffee beans. There's a bit of a gap in the fresh veggies and herbs department though..

My crisper is empty. Most of the open packets of pasta, rice, weirdo curry pastes, pickles, rubs, mustards and that bit of wedding-cake icing I forget buying, have gone either down the hatch or in the compost. The bottom of the fridge is so clear of food, all you can see is a row of bottles of grog (now THAT'S an organised fridge, a fridge with its priorities straight).

The linen cupboard got tidied, folded, culled and labelled in a huge Virgo attack some months ago. I've washed all the cotton rugs. I've arranged for new paths around the house to be made while we're away. I've left a life-time supply of cow manure for Alice the Garden. I've mended the washing line, put away all the knitting, piled up all the important papers I have ignored for weeks into a really tidy bundle, thrown out my old sneakers, and looked behind the bed.

I've written CLOTHES HORSE on my right wrist three days in a row, to try to remember to buy one before we leave, because clearly if I don't I will fret all the way around the Baltic States that our house-sitter won't be able to get her stuff dry on our crappy little old one.

We went out this afternoon to have a meeting - a strange marital habit leftover from the days when a step-dorter was involved in the household mix. We used to go out (neutral space) and thrash out any co-existence problems over coffee and cake. There was an agenda, a chair, and a scribe. It took hours. Then the step-dorter would happily announce 'but ya know, cos I'm a teenager, I reserve the right to forget all these agreements sometimes'. Step-mother used to gnash and wail.... anyway, as I said, we had a meeting. We drew up very competent lists of days, items, appointments, chores, memos, reminders and must-dos.
After some pages, I saw that nowhere on my list does it say "PACK". So apparently I am going away for 12 weeks to exciting northern hemisphere destinations with no luggage. Meh. But think what I'll leave behind! - the most incredibly well-organised household, cats, parents, house-sitter, extended staff (gardener, builder, plumber and cleaners), workroom and study.

OK, OK, I lied about the study. I'm going to continue putting things in piles to look efficient and hope-to-fuck nothing important gets forgotten, or rears up as a narstly problem for someone else to fix while I'm gorn. And I'm going to put all the purrfume away in a nice dark place so it doesn't go off while I'm gone. Except for what I take with me. Last time I believe I started out with only two bottles, succumbed to the fun of buying some in mid-air with my shiny new Visa card, and picked up at least one more along the way in a Duty Free shop. My bathroom bag probably weighed about 7kgs. Fortunately it was in those long-gone days when one could carry liquids on board big silver birds. Now I am in a pickle - how to either decide which one to take (one? ONE!!!! I can't survive 12 weeks smelling the same kind of gorgeous every day!!!), or what to leave out from the rest of the packing so I can wrap up lots more in socks n stuff. You see the trials I am faced with?

And, just for fun, tomorrow I must have another shot into my hip, and on Tuesday I must be attacked by a dentist to have a permanent crown stuck in me gob. So the medical habit continues, right down to the line....

Today brought to you by the aroma of Segafredo lattes (thanks to Tilleys), and a strong reminder of yesterday's 'Ange ou Demon' via my bra. From the over-active squirts I applied last night before going out to an extremely spiffo dinner. Nom!

The Numba Wun post!

It has often been said of me that I am never short of an opinion.  So here is an official blog for me to share this frightening talent and allow the rest of you to have your say.

Thoughts and Snorts is an outlet for brain downloads, deep and shallow observations, complex remarks on the perils of living with cats, and raves about gardens, friends, food, and the stuff that is generally known as 'what the @**! is the universe doing to me NOW!'

And perfume.