Book of the Month - Picnic at Hanging Rock

On St Valentines Day in 1900, a group of chantilly lace and straw hat clad school girls set out from their school, Appleyard College, for a picnic at the foot of Hanging Rock, a craggy violet volcanic rock protrusion to the north west of Melbourne.

That afternoon, as bugs and snakes lazily scuttled and slid through the brush and scrub, something quite mysterious happened. All the watches carried by the picnic party stopped at midday, and as most of the party snoozed at the base of the rock, three girls and one teacher wandered off into the scrub and simply disappeared.

Beautiful Miranda, studious Marion Quade, heiress Irma Leopold and tightly corseted maths governess, Greta Magraw.

(Miranda (we never learn her surname) the country girl from Queensland who disappears and forms the empty heart of the book)

Picnic at Hanging Rock is the story of that disappearance, and the tragic after effects. Written by Joan Lindsay (1896-1984) in 1967 it was made into a wonderful, iconic Australian film by Peter Weir in 1975 and it is hard to discuss the book without reference to the film, which I suspect about 90% of Australians have seen.

Here are some scenes:

(French governess Mademoiselle Dianne De Poitiers, one of the few sane and calm voices following the Picnic)

(the girls post lunch)

(Miranda and Irma on the Rock)

(walking, trancelike, further up the Rock)

(a nice 1970's mystical shot)

(part of the Rock)

( a visitor to the school following the events at the Rock)

Joan Lindsay married Sir Daryl Lindsay in 1922. They spent their time travelling the world, he with his watercolours, and she with her notebooks, writing. (She was married to him for 52 years until his death). Sounds like rather a nice way to pass the time.

This book is relatively short, absorbing and a must read if you can find it.

What happens when the most popular, angelic and beautiful girl in the school vanishes? This book explores the deep fissure which is left.

Joan Lindsay deals with some quite modern themes in a Victorian context, and also some which you see repeated in many Australian novels. Specifically:

• The Australian country side as spiritual and malevolent. For more on this, read Songlines by Bruce Chatwin (spiritual) and for the malevolence, any Tim Winton book.

• The difficulty even wealthy people had living in Australia before the advent of electricity and air conditioning. People were continually aware of and battling against of the elements, all day and all night

• The ripple effect of tragedy, which spreads out in waves, changes lives, and leaves lasting scars on all who were even peripherally connected to the picnic. This disappearance led to other deaths, and deeply affected all in the community: the police, the local gentry, the other schoolgirls, the headmistress, the staff, gardeners, horsemen, shepherds in the area and many other locals.


• The pyschologically tortuous effect of not knowing (which of course makes the story resonate even more - an unsolved mystery like this really stays with you).

• The difficulty of communication in that time. In the case of Miranda, this is what happened - she disappeared on Saturday, they looked for days, on about Wednesday the headmistress wrote and posted a letter to her family on their isolated farm in Queensland, which would have been received possibly weeks later. Imagine your child disappearing and not knowing for weeks afterward. It is impossible to imagine that today, where you would have an email or text within minutes.

It is also possibly a metaphor for Victorian represssed sexuality, and that is certainly contrasted with the sultry heat and steam of the countryside.

Many people are obsessed with the Picnic story. Many are convinced it is true. Many more purport to have 'solved' the mystery. Of course it was just a fiction. It was written as if real, and Joan Lindsay even included an extract from a newspaper story in 1913 reporting on the mystery.

The author herself said 'whether my story is fact or fiction, readers much decide for themselves'.

After Joan Lindsay died, she gave instructions for a final chapter to be published. I have not read it and I probably should. Reviews indicate that this chapter suggests the missing women were caught in some kind of time space vortex....

(polyvore by ophelia_lives)

PS this is Martindale Hall in the middle of nowhere in the Clare Valley in South Australia. It was used as a setting for Appleyard College in the film. Many years ago we stayed there for the night. We were served dinner by colonially dressed maidservants and watched the film before dinner on a tiny television in the upstairs area. Victorian is not my thing, but it was certainly an evocative enviroment to sleep in.

(Images (1) Convictcreations.com (2) - (9) (11) screenmusings.net (12) Flickr)

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Pink-a-rama

Have you noticed how verbose my posts can be? I have.

Today, an almost word free post, with pictures from a little birthday party we had over the weekend.

(watermelon hearts)

(pastel pink meringues)

(football scarf striped coconut ice)

(Disco ball in motion. Something Britney-esque playing in the background)

Oh to be 7 again.

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Restaurant Inspiration - Da Noi and Sardinia

My parents travelled a lot during the 1970s when I was little. They would return with stories of magical places and (most importantly to me I have to confess) little gifts - a knitted poncho from Peru, a cotton Chinese doll from Hong Kong, a little English shop from London.
They even travelled to Libya once (on business but that's another story).

But to me the most exciting place they ever travelled to was to Sardinia to stay at the Cala Di Volpe (translates as Vixen Cove).

My geography lessons had taught me all about the Mediterranean Sea and its islands, and this hotel, sitting squat on the glittering harbour with its adobe style structures and jewell colours evoked pure 1970s disco fun to me and my fertile imagination.






To this day I still want to visit, and stay here in this room:



And eat at this little restaurant:


In Melbourne there is a Sardinian restaurant in South Yarra called Da Noi. My exhaustive 30 second Google search tells me that there are no other Sardinian restaurants in Australia.



There are many things to love about this restaurant:

1. The owner\chef's name (Pietro Porcu)

2. The lack of a menu (well there is a menu but rarely used. You largely just eat what is brought to you)

3. The lack of a website (anyone who sensibly flies in the face of technology should be applauded).

4. This business card (a tawny misty morning shot of three fabulous Italian boar shooters)




On a recent visit we ate pork cheek terrine, eggplant and tomato salad, marinated octopus, oysters, a salty caper, saffron, olive and white fish risotto and lamp shank with smoked potato mash.

Dessert was a tasting plate of mandarin pannacotta, a tiny square of tiramisu, honey and yougurt cake, some kind of fennelly icecream and little pink square of watermelon.

And I especially loved the cannellini mush we had as part of our appetisers.

This is very easy, and healthy (beans are healthy aren't they?).

Method

Drain and rinse a can of Italian cannellini beans.
PIck over and finely chop a sprig of rosemary
Finely chop a large clove of garlic.

Warm a good slosh of olive oil in a saucepan, add the garlic and once its scent rises add the beans and rosemary. Cook slowly for 10 - 20 minutes. Add more oil if needs be. Some of the beans will break down. They are ready when they become a bit creamy. Add lots of sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Perfect on toasted sourdough or just in greedy spoonfuls.
PS a less overtly lazy search has now revealed at least two other Sardinian restaurants - Cose in Brisbane and Pilu in Sydney. There may be many more, indeed.




(Images (1)-(4) Caladivolpe.com)

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Walpole House - a little slice in time

Here is Walpole House, one time home of Thomas Walpole, nephew of Sir Robert Walpole who was the first effective Prime Minister of Britain between about 1721 and 1742 and responsible for the growth of the Whigs into a major political force in the 18th century.

Robert Walpole is one of those English politicians who crammed so much into his short life he puts us all to shame.

He coined some marvellous phrases including my favourite 'every man has his price'.

And for those too numerous to count people who seem to think that what we are living through now is new and unique, bear witness to Sir Robert's investment in the South Sea Company (and the consequential South Sea Bubble in 1720). This was a plan whereby the Company would assume the entire debt of the government of Great Britain in exchange for the issue of lucrative bonds. People invested madly, and Sir Robert was only saved when a banker advised him to sell his shares before the company collapsed. (Helpful really, as he was also first Secretary of the Treasury at the time so at least his interest was not too personal).

He was also impeached by the Tory House of Lords, jailed for 6 months in the Tower of London and expelled from Parliament. The old Parliaments were great guardians of representative democracy (if you accept that those being represented were a tiny percentage of men in England at the time), weren't they?

The house was also the setting for Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Girls in Vanity Fair, thanks to William Thackeray who lived in it as a schoolboy.

It was also the home of Barbara Palmer, First Duchess of Cleveland and mistress of King Charles II until her death in 1709.

(by John Michael Wright c. 1670)

And in one of those aberrations of history, it is not known as Becky Sharp's House, or Barbara Palmer's House, but Walpole House, even though he only lived there for 5 years.

I wonder how Thomas Walpole would have felt about the Jasper Conran 2008 renovation of his home which is located in Chiswick Mall and looks out over the Thames.

I suspect he would have liked it.

I saw this in World of Interiors, and have not seen it anywhere else. Hence the scanned images.

I know I am a Georgian lass (preferably of the aristocratic, auburn haired, violet eyed kind) at heart but I really love these interiors

So many many things to love not least a very disciplined minimalism which is hard in such large spaces.

Rush matting in the living room which needs to be watered, yes watered, to keep it preserved. And how about the very plain cotton white sofa covers? It must have been tempting to upholster these in something else.

It's a not easy to make out but the smaller dining room has De Gournay wallpaper and an 18th century Murano chandelier.

Lovely Elizabethan portraits (oh that, that's just a family portrait)

Not one but two gilty mirrors in the bathroom.

Incredible Princess and the Pea style tester beds with coverings in hand woven mohair and wool custom fabric.

Authentic old basement kitchen.

Incredible wrought iron chandeliers which I wrote about here.

And just a little while after this house was featured, Mr Conran up and sold it for record price (only 2 years after purchase).

I hope the new owner preserves it.

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Lift me up

This week it is my daughter's 7th birthday. I feel a bit elderly saying this but I can still remember the day she was born as if it were yesterday. Her clear almond cerulean eyes gazed calmly over me, the hospital room and all the people crowded around, as if to say, what is all the fuss about?

She is no different seven years later, a little fey sprite who looks upon the world and its foibles with a bemused smile, interpersing her invented faery songs and woodland dances with carefully considered cross examination style questions (clearly the daughter of two lawyers). As several people have observed, she has the soul of an Edwardian lady.

Here is a little pen drawing she did for Mother's Day last year. The larger skirted lady is me and the smaller person is her.

I realise that in posting this image I am breaking one of my own Top 10 Rules of Blogging (do not imagine your own children's art is interesting to anyone else) but I think it illustrates really well the way small children view the world and their parents - as something much bigger which overshadows but nevertheless still protects them.

I have framed this drawing and I hang it in a place I walk past frequently as it reminds me of something very important, which is this:

At those times when I am being impatient or busy or irritated or distracted (which I fear is probably way too often) I need to remember that this drawing reflects the way my daughter sees me, as someone with the strength to hold her up high. And that I should always try to lift her up rather than drag her down.

The greatest challenge of all is not to taint the relationships we have with our children with our own insecurities, preconceptions and dark bruises of the past.

These are my thoughts today, as I finish planning for a little girl's Disco Pop Diva party for this weekend, complete with disco ball (provided I can install a hook in a very high ceiling without breaking a leg).


By the way - any thoughts on a glittery microphone cake? My microphones always look like icecream cones, so I am thinking instead of something square, pink and straightforward.

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Through the looking glass

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. (William Makepeace Thakeray)

Stage 1.8 of the sitting room fix is a gilded mirror. I have an unyielding view about such a mirror, namely that it must be large and it must be above the fireplace. I suspect this, like some other unyielding views I have (orange tinted art in the kitchen, Persian carpet in the hallways, green and pink in a children's room, hardly any furniture in the bedrooms) come from my childhood. I think we are very influenced by the environment we grew up in.

To demonstrate the point here are some mirrors above fireplaces looking nothing short of divine:

(Well this is actually over an oven but the point is the same)

Even Alice understood the importance of a mirror over a fireplace.

I also love the idea of a leaning against the wall mirror, like these:

This is what I have learned so far:

(1) the dirtier the mirror the less expensive (and I love that hard to see through look).

(2) new reproduction mirrors are often the same cost as a 200 year old antique.

(3) price is not necessarily an indicator of quality or age or even nice gildedness.

So - how big is too big? Does anyone agree that the fireplace must be be-mirrored? Or is this a fixed idea I should rid myself of?

(Images: (1) Homes and Gardens UK (2) via Plush Palate (3) Homes and Gardens UK (4) Decorno (5) Atlanta Barlett (6) Homes and Gardens UK (7) Better Homes and Gardens Aust (8) fromoldbooks.org (9) littlefrenchgardenhouse.blogspot (10) the gildedmirro.com (11) avantgardedesign.blogspot)

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