Friday Five: Engineers

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Apparently engineers are the salt of the earth - so says Him Outdoors. So this post is actually his. I asked him to name the greatest engineers that sprang to his mind and these are the results.

5 Great Engineers:

1. Isambard Kingdom Brunel - dockyards; railways; steamships; bridges; tunnels... need we go on?
2. Robert Stephenson - him of Rocket fame; the father of the railways and bridge-builder extraordinaire.
3. James Watt - according to Him Outdoors, Watt's improvements to the Newcomen Steam Engine were fundamental to the Industrial Revolution.
4. J. Robert Oppenheimer - for better or worse, his work on the Manhattan Project changed our lives in unforeseeable ways.
5. Charles Babbage - credited with inventing the first mechanical computer, he revolutionised modern technology.

Century Cockatoo

Fred is 100!

Fred, the sulphur-crested cockatoo turned one hundred years old this week, which was cause for celebration at the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary just outside Hobart in Tasmania. In the wild these cockatoos live to about forty, while in captivity their life expectancy doubles. The old bird received a letter of congratulations from the Queen, and the wildlife sanctuary threw him a party attended by children (and adults) in costume. 

I had no idea they could live that long, and I'm sure the diet of plums, apples, pine cones and peaches from the trees in our back garden is good for them. Many happy returns, Fred!

Friday Five: Adelaide Rocks!

Some members of my family are fascinated by rocks. They have degrees and PhDs in the subject. I am not one of them. Words are more my passion. However, some of these aggregate lumps have tales of their own to tell, and as I wandered around the Minerals and Meteorites exhibition at the South Australian Museum, I found myself to be pretty interested in their stories.

The colours and names are wonderfully poetic, and, even without knowing the geology behind them, they intrigue me. Quartz, malachite, smithsonite, berthierite, freibergite; sparkly with points and nodules; bright hues of blues, greens, reds and purples from Wallaroo, Burra Burra, and other places in South Australia.

5 Special Rocks:

1. 
   
   

   

   Fluorescent rocks from the Sterling Hill and Franklin mines in New Jersey. They really do glow in the dark!

2. 

   Malachite - how beautiful is that!

3. 
   
   
   

   

   Gypsum - probably not as soft and fluffy as it looks

4. 

   Someone has organised these colourful pebbles in a way that appeals to my OCD nature.

5. 

   Opalised shells from a piece of ancient sea-bed.

Friday Five: Furniture

A Welsh dresser

For our current production of Blithe Spirit, I have been rootling around in the props department for the necessary furniture. The stage set requires a several tables, desks, chairs, a sofa and a piano. I'm not sure that a piano counts as furniture, but we've got one anyway. 

In attempting to describe exact requirements I have learned that there is a standard size for a writing table, as opposed to an escritoire or a spinnet desk. It has caused me to reflect upon the specifics of furniture in a way that has hitherto passed me by.

5 Favourite Furniture Items:

1. Tallboys and lowboys - chests of drawers to some, but it seems odd to keep a tall boy (or a low boy, or indeed, any kind of boy) in the corner of the room for the purpose of holding one's clothes.
2. Whatnot - a delightful name for a stand used to hold ornamental pieces of china and other 'trifles' (also known as dust-collectors).
3. Welsh Dresser - traditionally a utilitarian wooden piece of furniture with shelves and cupboards used to store and display crockery, but it also puts me in mind of Rhys Ifans' character Spike going out in his 'goddamned underwear' in Notting Hill. 
4. Chabudai - a short-legged table from Japan which has given rise to the term 'flip the chabudai' as in having a strop and flipping over the table.
5. Occasional tables - this is all very well but as a child I used to wonder if they were only occasionally tables, what did they do when they weren't? I liked to imagine them living entirely separate secret lives - much like part-time traffic lights.

Friday Five: Charades

On my recent trip to South Australia with my family, we entertained ourselves in the evenings with rudimentary games of charades. Each person would put five suggestions into the special vessel and we took it in turns to act them out. 

Nephew Aidan and Niece Niamh enjoyed the game so much that they extended it by pretending not to guess the title of the film/ book/ song and so forcing the poor actor to suffer endlessly through the interpretation. It was a lot of fun, and apparently one of the highlights of the holiday.

5 Titles of charades acted out on our holiday:

1. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit 
2. The Mystery of Cherry Tree Lane
3. Far for the Madding Crowd
4. How to Betray a Dragon's Hero
5. There is a Light that Never Goes Out (as demonstrated by Hoggy, above)

My Newest Favourite Thing: Sarah & George

Home again!

When I returned from my fabulous holiday seeing my brother and his family, Him Outdoors had bad news for me: Chester had disappeared. He was last seen on Friday morning and hadn't been home since. We've not got a cat flap as we are renting and have to lock the doors and windows when we are out, but we leave the door open when we are home so Chester can come and go as he pleases. 

As a side issue, I have always had 'outdoor' cats since being a child, and was raised to think that keeping an animal permanently indoors is cruel. Domestic cats still have a wild streak, as do domestic humans, and if you told me I could never go outside and run and play and roll around in the grass freely, I would probably bite and break things too. There is a proposal for Canberra to become the first contained-cat city in Australia. I appreciate the arguments for this, but I just can't agree. It would be like having an animal confined permanently in a zoo with no hope of rehabilitation and no purpose of education.

To return to the point: Chester was missing. I spoke to all the neighbours; I made up leaflets and posted them in letterboxes; I put up flyers; I phoned the local vets and the RSPCA to ask them to look out for our cat (he is de-sexed and micro-chipped and wears a collar with my contact details); I posted messages on Facebook and the Canberra Lost Pet Database (a great resource, incidentally). I received many words of support and encouragement - Chester has a great many friends and admirers - but no-one had seen him. I was in despair.

We missed him desperately. We missed his adorable little face, his fluffy tummy, his soft, silky paws, and his chattering, trilling and purring. We missed him running up to us when we came home from work, nuzzling his nose into our neck, curling up on our lap and snuggling in behind the crook of our knees to sleep at night. Our house felt empty without him; it wasn't a home.

Yesterday morning I received a phone call from a lady called Sarah in a suburb 10km away, across several busy roads and on the other side of a (snake-infested) hill. She said she knew that cats generally made their way home, but she had found ours crying outside their house that morning. She had given him a drink and checked his collar and decided to give me a ring. I practically burst into tears and asked if she could keep him in until I got there, then I raced round to collect him. He had been entertaining her three-year-old son, George, who had been showing Chester his dinosaur collection and playing hide and seek around the sofa.

Chester with new friend, George

Chester is a little on the skinny side and very hungry, sleepy and clingy, but otherwise seems okay. I have booked him into the vet for a check-up to be sure. He keeps sitting on my lap (Chester; not the vet) and refusing to let me get up. When I do, he head-butts my legs until I sit down again, and then he snuggles back onto my lap. He is sitting there now as I type, which is a little awkward, but I am so glad to have him back that I don't mind a bit.

Chester will not reveal his adventures, so I will never know where he went nor how he survived. I only know that I am incredibly grateful to Sarah and George for being good people and doing the decent thing. I appreciate the support we've received from everyone who cares about Chester and cares about us enough to know how important he is in our lives. I realise that people aren't 'things' but Sarah and George are my newest favourites anyway. I'm thankful our world still contains such humanity. It's a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but it's a massive thing to us. Thank you.

Friday Five: Wineries

Yes, of course we did other things in South Australia, but we did visit several wineries - well, you've got to, haven't you?

5 Wineries in South Australia:

1. Jacob's Creek - A big flash building with its own visitors' centre and a number of different tours to cater for all budgets and tastes. We went self-guided. My favourite was the Steingarten Reisling ($48), while Hoggy's was the Centenary Hill Shiraz ($70). Yes, I know; champagne taste on a beer budget...




2. Chateau Tanunda - a lovely chap hosted our tasting, augmented with many recommendations of places to go and things to eat! I tried the Reisling, Chardonnay and blended white; Hoggy got stuck into the Shiraz.




3. Reilly's - located in Mintaro in the Clare Valley; a lovely little village featuring a collection of old stone buildings. I tasted my way through a line-up of delicious Reislings, including a sparkling variety.




4. Pike's River - Good Reislings and an excellent cab sav, but not the best presentation. Renovations are currently underway, so it could well improve.




5. Sevenhill - Sticking to whites, I tried the Reisling, Chardonnay and a fabulous fortified Verdhelo. This was the first winery in the Clare Valley, established by Jesuit monks from Austria in 1851, and it has a very picturesque setting and an underground cellar.