The Maroon Diaries

...which is not at all surprising, seeing as we are officially living in a sub-tropical rainforest, but, my goodness, it's a bit of shock to the system for this winter-loving lady. I'm aware that most people from other countries have an impression of Australia as a generally very hot place, and for the most part of this nation's landmass, it's quite true. But I have lived most of my life in the southern states of Victoria and Tasmania, enjoying a proper cycle of the four seasons in a fairly regular European fashion - cold winters requiring woollens, firewood and raincoats, and hot summers with ice cream, sunglasses and broad-rimmed hats. I've always adored the colours of the autumns and the thrill of the icy winters, and barely tolerated the hot summers, hiding indoors as much as possible in the daylight hours. And now I am here, where it's summer nine months of the year, and winter is something that only happens in the night hours, and retreats each day at ...

Aye, and I've been a terrible bad, bad blogger again. Not only that. It's worse this time. Not only did I stop blogging again, but this time I stopped following the blogs I love, as well. And now I know. Life is less without blogging. I miss it terribly. So, what the hell happened, Lady Demelza, to get yourself into such a state? Ah, well, that's where the exciting news comes in. I left off blogging when I got too busy with the mission of moving house. This is where I live now. It's so beautiful I could just burst. I started out with the best of intentions, and a long list of half-finished draft posts that I intended to keep me going through the busy move. But the process of packing, sorting, cleaning and moving proved more than I could handle as it was. The digital world seemed less relevant as the physical world became so very full and demanding. Then I arrived, and as fate would have it, there were some 'issues' with the Internet connection ...

How many times a day do you see some advertising in all our varied forms of media that is really stupid at best, or horribly offensive at worst? Probably really quite often, unless you live in a cave in Outer Mongolia. How often do you speak out and try to do something about it? Probably not very often. You might have tried once or twice and become discouraged at how hard it is to find someone responsible for the ad to listen to you. Or maybe you're just so overwhelmed by the enormity of this issue and don't know where to start. I want to give a HUGE congratulations and thank-you-for-fighting-the-good fight to Lucy from the wonderful blog Lulastic and the Hippyshake for her her fantastic response to an incredibly stupid AND horribly offensive ad for Weetabix in the UK. Bonus points for sending Barbie through the mail. Really, have a look, it's gorgeous. I must admit, only twice have I ever bothered to actually put my outrage into a formal complaint. The first time was...

I read a fabulous book recently, as I often do, and I want to tell you about it, which is something that I also often want to do, but often don't. I had a little epiphany about why I don't get those thoughts out and onto a blog post. I've been using the term 'literary review' in the titles of posts about books. This is because I like literary reviews, and they're definitely a good thing to do. But now I realise I need to stop using this expression. I have too many constrictive ideas about what a literary review actually is, and many of the thoughts I have about books don't seem to be part of my definition of a literary review. So I'll just write about books. If you would like to read a more conventional kind of proper literary review of this book, there's this one here on Goodreads and this one on Novel Niche , both of which I quite liked. To begin with, my story about a book begins quite a bit earlier than when I actually read it. First, there ...

My family and I have had at least our fair share of health problems and hospital stays, but I never really understood how much pain there is in the world until I became Mr CJ's carer. When he first became unwell, I knew that it would take a long time and a gazillion tests before they worked out what was wrong with him. But I was still naive enough to imagine that once they worked out what the problem was, they would be able to treat him, and he might not get cured, but at least be able to manage and learn to live with it. That was four years ago. It turns out that even with all our whizz-bang medical technology, there's not much they can do with him other than prescribe addictive painkillers that just dull the pain, just a little. He's still in almost constant, intense pain. Whenever I look up from what I am doing, whether it's the dishes or a puzzle or blogging, the first thing I see is Mr CJ heroically bearing up under incredible pain. The first thing that happens...

I had to have a little chuckle when I came across  this post this morning, where  Stan Carey describes his 'to-read' stack of books as a mountain. Then he corrects himself and points out that the mountain is actually more of a range. Now there's a man who's honest with himself, I thought to myself. I am still in total denial, obviously. I'm still just calling mine a 'pile' - though now I'm suddenly aware that this is a terribly inadequate word. Since as long as I can remember, there has always been, somewhere, in some form, a pile of books that I intend to read. This is what my Pile looked like a fortnight ago when I started writing this post. Then I procrastinated, which of course is something I'm very good at... though now I'm kind of glad for it, because I got to find that gem about the Pile becoming a mountain range. In the meantime there was another trip to the library. And now my Pile looks like this. These pictures, however...

1. Suffer miserably through another record-breaking heatwave. Climate change? - well isn't is obvious ? 2. Wake up after the cool change has come through and have a meltdown, because it's so much easier to have a breakdown about something after the fact, rather than while you're busy coping with it. 3. Try to take it easy but end up feeling sick with over-exhaustion by evening. Become driven to distraction by a powerful craving for something , only you don't know what it is. Something to do with nutrients that the heat sucks out of you. 4. Go through every item in the kitchen, looking for whatever it is that you don't know what it is yet. Find a bag of frozen blueberries in the freezer. Oh, that's it. Or close enough. 5. Wonder what goes with blueberries while they are defrosting. Go through the kitchen again and come up with yoghurt, honey and linseed-sunflower-almond meal. Mix them together in a bowl. 6. Hmm. We're getting there, but it's not...