Lest We Forget

  

ANZAC DAY 2017:  So much upset this year, caused by the thoughtless use of the phrase ‘Lest we Forget’.   And I am not comfortable with the use of this now sacred phrase to promote a political point of view – and yet, when I asked around, in person and on-line, no one could tell me the origin or the deeper meaning apart from a ‘reminder to remember’.

I think it’s a warning, even a veiled threat – and with good reason. We need warnings and we need to understand consequences – that does not stop when you grow up.

I like to look at origins when I am interested in a subject, to help me understand the meaning even if it has changed from the original. I was not surprised to find that the phrase comes from the words of Moses, in the Old Testament.

Deuteronomy 6:12 (KJV)  Then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

-        It is a reminder, a warning that when we come into a time of ease and plenty our attention can slip so that it focuses only on the good things we have and not on where they came from.

Inspired by this verse, Rudyard Kipling wrote his poem/hymn, ‘Recession’ in 1897.

A recessional is music or a hymn that is played at the end of a religious service. Kipling wrote this as a reminder of the fragility of wealth and power (of the British Empire) – a warning that if we forget how we achieved success, where it came from, we may find we are lacking when we need extra. It was not written as a memorial to those fallen in war.

God of our fathers, known of old,
  Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
  Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

etc….

As these words were heard again and again, at the end of five verses, and the close of the church service, it is easy to see that the words and meaning would be applied to other areas as a reminder of great loss.  

There are a number of modern ‘lest we forget’ quotes but the meaning is not always the same.  It seems that, if a passage begins with Lest we forget and then states what we should remember, or lest we forget pops up in the middle of a sentence, the meaning is not the same as the simple, lone warning at the end of the text.  Lest we Forget.

After WWI the phrase came into common usage through the British Commonwealth, appearing on war memorials, headstones and in epitaphs as a plea to not forget the sacrifice made by so many.

In Australia 'Lest we Forget' is a registered trademark, owned by the RSL on behalf of our returned service men and women.

The first Anzac commemorations were held on 25^th April 1916, a year after Australian and New Zealand soldiers set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula. By the 1920's it had been established as a National day and now, sadly, it goes beyond that single anniversary and we honour all who have died in war or conflict since.  We hear words such as honour, courage, mateship and sacrifice linked with national identity and Australian spirit. All this is good and true and an important part of our culture, but the phrase we have attached to the day is still a warning that we must heed and we must pass down the generations - because we do forget.  

Life with insects

They say that as you get older you often feel imaginary things crawling on your skin, but it's just

some sort of nerve damage.  I feel something crawling on me every day.  I brush it away, as you do and find there actually is some tiny little beetle or flying thing on the back of my neck or climbing up my legs or arms. I suppose that is normal for the sub-tropics.

The really amazing thing is - they are all so different.  Just while writing this I've flicked off a flying ant and a tiny spider and squashed a long narrow climbing thingy. They all share my living room.

So, how many different types of insects are there?

Just in Australia, the number of insect species is estimated at 300,000.  And, scientists tell us that there are more insects yet to be discovered than we already know about.  In fact, there could be as many as 200,000 insects on the planet PER person.

Lots of creatures eat insects, so they are handy to have.  Entomophagy is the eating of insects by people.  Three thousand ethnic groups around the world include insects in their diet, including cicadas, ants, grubs and worms.  Crunchy!

I like looking at the pretty ones.

will you still feed me?

My Aunty Joan is my living hero.  Now, almost 97 she has finally come to the place of knowing she can't live on her own anymore.  She is almost blind.  She's had a couple of falls, no serious damage, but enough to show it's not safe to be alone. The little timber cottage in Gatton has been closed up and Joan waited in the local hospital for the next step. That step was something she could not handle herself so her daughters, son and their spouses had to organise a residential home for her. It took a while, but finally she is installed in a lovely unit of a large bedroom/sitting room and a large bathroom, all kitted out with movement sensors and emergency buttons.  There is a dining room and a TV room, and a swimming pool.

"Will you swim?"  I asked.

Joan was never a highly sociable person. As a child she disliked helping with her mother's fund raising bridge parties when she wanted to crawl into a corner to read a book.  Through her teens she studied nursing and as a young woman she faced hard work in several areas.  Later she nursed her husband through heart disease and during his last days Joan slept on the floor by his hospital bed, just to be there for him.  She was 85 when he died.  So then she lived alone for almost 12 years, eventually adjusting to the busy social whirl of meals on wheels deliveries, a fortnightly home help cleaner, visits from a nurse/social worker and an occasional shopping trip on the bus for the elderly. She told me she loved the mango tree that filled the backyard. It was her retreat. When life got too much she'd go out there to feed her face and calm down.

I was interested to hear about social life in the new 'home'.  She is pleased to be one of only three at her table in the dining room. One of the other ladies is very  quiet, and that suits Joan. The other one chatters non-stop and Joan says she just has to accept she will be asked if she takes sugar in her tea over and over again throughout each meal.

95th Birthday cake

She said, "I thought I'd be nice to this poor woman so when she said there was a good film on the television I went with her to watch it. Of course I couldn't see anything as we sat at the back of the room, and I couldn't hear it but she seemed to be enjoying herself and I just tried to stay awake and think about other things. Then the next day I said to her, 'That was an interesting film we saw yesterday'.  And do you know, she didn't have a clue to what I was talking about.  She said, 'What film, I didn't see a film, I went to bed early'.  So that was a waste of time." This was presented in the tone of dry humour that is my Aunty Joan. The humour that wraps around ordinary things and makes them amusing from her point of view. 

I choose to phone her rather than visit because visits are physically exhausting for her.  Joan has children who visit her regularly and I have phone calls - and she phones me as often as I phone her.  That is very special.  She told me once that she has the names of her children and grand-children written in a notebook by the phone so she can remember who everyone is and who to ask about.  And one day I realised my end of the family is on the list too as she asks after my sister and brother and then our children in order, during conversations.  I'm delighted to be 'on the list'.  My daughter she calls 'your girl' and my granddaughter is 'the little one', as she knows them the best from the family gatherings for her 90th and 95th birthday celebrations.  "And I'm not having another one for 5 years", she said each time.  

It was wonderful that for the 90th birthday her cousin Ian came up to Brisbane, from Sydney, for the event. Their mothers were sisters and though Ian was a bit younger he spent a lot of time with Joan and my mother. Now he is no longer available for parties or anything else leaving Joan as the surviving member of that generation, in our family.

But, Joan was not born as an old lady.  She was a vibrant young woman who did well at school and wanted to continue studying. Her exotic looks were not appreciated by her blond haired, blue eyed mother so Joan grew up thinking she was not attractive and would have to fend for herself.  Careers for women were limited to nursing or teaching and Joan followed her mother and aunts into nursing.  The war came and she was patching up Aussies wounded in the mountain jungles of New Guinea. One wounded soldier staggered down the Kokoda track and into her life.

My uncle talked of their meeting at their 50th Wedding Anniversay celebration.  "Joan was an Army nurse. After being wounded on the Kokoda trail I was delivered to her at a Military hospital in Sydney in Dec 1942. Joan was an energetic business-like officer with two pips on her shoulders and me a lowly corporal with two stripes on my sleeve. I was a little the worse for wear but was slowly brought back to working order with her help. Then Joan was sent off to the war in New Guinea and I went to work in Sydney for a firm of wool brokers."

His elbow had been shot away so doctors gave him the choice of having the arm permanently set straight or bent.  He chose bent so he could ride a horse and shoot a rifle. As he had studied wool classing before he joined the army Don went back to that city job, but the 'bush' was always in his heart. When Joan returned from the war they were married and Don worked as a station manager, just west of Charleville and a year or so later moved to Murweh.

Joan told me, "Don finally won the soldiers ballot for free land. Mogera was 80,000 acres of rough country inhabited by dingoes.  We chose a paddock near a dry dam and pitched a big army tent for a bedroom. Don built an iron shed for a kitchen and a bough shed to 'live in'! Our fourth child was born at Mogera 1952."

The iron shed was too hot so cooking was on an open fire outside and the baby was hung in a sling from the tent post, to protect him from snakes. The children played in the dust under the gaze of wild dingoes - starving in the drought and on the lookout for easy prey.  They had no water, no fences and no grass. Don pushed down Mulga scrub for the sheep to eat and guarded them on horseback. Then the wool boom burst and the price went down overnight. Don had a fall from the horse and a long stay in hospital.

Eventually a house was built, the station sold and another bought closer to town. At least the children could attend school but the school burnt down and Joan had to teach them at home after all. And, as Don described it, this venture turned out to be a non-profit business. Life was a battle with heat, drought, snakes in the wood pile, distance from family, from friends, even from the post office. Visitors were few. Sheep had to be cared for, fed, sheared, drenched, sometimes killed and eaten. Dogs and horses had to be trained, fed and cared for. Shearers were accommodated and fed, cows herded and milked, fruit cakes baked, dingoes and wild pigs hunted, kangaroos discouraged, snakes killed, beggars and thieves chased from the door, children educated, clothes made, books read by lantern light, clothing washed by hand, wood chopped, fires put out, fire breaks burned, neighbours helped, illnesses treated, wounds bandaged, vehicles repaired and each day started it all over again.

Finally a generator added evenings to their day, better vehicles brought the town closer and telephones connected the family. The outback station was sold and a smaller produce farm, a few hours from Brisbane, became home. Four children turned into two nurses, an engineer and business woman, six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.   

The house near Charleville - Joan's sister Margaret (my mother) visiting.

Of course Aunty Joan is not the only person to live a life of struggle and difficulty and she told me that herself when she talked about the desperate situation of other families during the depression. She has memories of going in the car with her father to deliver food parcels, until the family business closed and they could no longer afford to help others as they were also eating wild caught rabbits and home grown potatoes. The family lost their home and when her parent's marriage broke up Joan was sent to live with her mother's sister - not a big disaster for Joan as her cousin Claire was her best friend. Little sister Peg stayed with Mother while Father moved in with his former secretary. The loss of her father that way hurt Joan deeply, a hurt that is still there today, though it lives in the shadow of losing her oldest daughter to cancer, the same year that Don died. 

Joan once said to me - "We each have our own life and how we live it depends on the bits we inherit from parents."

And so I asked about her new home.

"It's all very nice," she said. "In fact it's luxury but I suppose I'll get used to it."  lol  "I'm not sure about the pool though."

'What do you do during the day?

"I read, I've got a nice chair here and there is a library. In the afternoon someone brings me a cup of tea, it's all very nice. I have lots of little sleeps. I can go to the TV room if I want, but I'm not interested in television now."

"Do you need anything? A fruit cake or a packet of biscuits?"

"I have some biscuits in the room but I can't eat them because I'm always full."

"Maybe I'll bring you a little bottle of coke when I come."

"He he, yes, that would be nice. But I have to be careful because I only have rotten teeth left."

"How's the food?"

"Oh, it's ..... it's alright. There's plenty of it."

Hmmmm - change in tone. She won't explain unless I insist.

"What is wrong with the food?"

" Well... it's not what I'm used to."

"You were used to meals-on-wheels."

"Yes."

"And this is different?"

"It's .... the way they ... present it."

"How?"

"It's frozen."

"Oh!"

"Apparently, this is what all the big hospitals do."

"And the meals-on-wheels were cooked fresh each day."

"Yes......  it was like I used to cook myself."

"Some frozen food is okay."

"Some is."
"Even meals-on-wheels is going to frozen dinners in some places."
"That's a shame."
"So you're eating airplane food."
She laughed. "They do whatever they do to heat it and it tastes okay. Rice is a bit .......... well ... let's say I've had enough chicken and rice to last me."

I am so sorry. So sorry that we can't give our darling oldies fresh food, sorry that our infirm get microwave dinners served in cardboard trays, with instant mashed potato and dried out beef. So sorry that your reward for a life of caring for others is that we can't afford to feed you properly. Forget about the wounded soldiers, the dust and dingoes, the barefooted children and snakes in the woodpile - forget about the sacrifice, the pioneer spirit, the building of family, here - have a frozen dinner.  

Caring for our elders should be part of family life. Children who don't see their grandparents regularly, if not daily, are missing an important part of their development and they lose track of where they are in history.

In traditional societies people look forward to living out their last years surrounded by their children and aging friends. Ancient Chinese society was held together by the belief in family. The greatest virtue being devotion to one’s parents.  They still respect the declining abilities of the aged to tend gardens, care for babies, assist in the education of children - allowing the young adults to work. Value is given to craft work, sharing skills, knowledge and understanding of life and passing on the family stories.  In sedentary farming societies around the world, the elderly are fed and cared for and live in the same hut or one near their adult children.

With nomadic people the elderly can become a burden and occasionally tribes were forced to abandon their aged and infirm. There is even a word for it.  Senilicide. It loosely means doing away with the olds.  When there is enough food to go around, everyone gets a share, even those who are not productive. During times of famine not feeding the elderly often saved the young.  When desperate, the Inuit left their old folk outside to die of exposure or starve to death, considering it to be assisted suicide. It was often a mutual decision.

Today's elderly live away from their children. After they do the expected retirement road trip they're supposed to quietly disappear into assisted living villages or nursing homes - if they can afford it, or a council flat, out of sight, until required for weddings and funerals. They feed themselves, they feed cats and lap dogs and sometimes go without.

We are all part of the aging population. Grannies struggling to keep up with technology give the smart young things the impression that old people have no place in the modern world. These old people are eating food, breathing air, using up valuable natural resources and clogging the medical system - becoming a burden. Some hospitals have a policy of treating young people first, some doctors prescribe drugs with little attention given to good health for the elderly, it's easier and cheaper. A version of senilicide has been practiced in hospitals and nursing homes for centuries - withhold food and they fade away. 

Often they don't really mind - being very old is not fun. But what is old? It's getting younger every year. Applying for a job is difficult at 55 and TV ads tell us we should be buying funeral insurance in our 40s. The Protestant work ethic of measuring a person's value by their ability to work - has led to our youth centred culture in which we idolise individualism and independence. In 2004, France had to pass decree requiring citizens keep in touch with their geriatric parents after a heat wave killed 15,000 people - most of them elderly and many bodies were not found for weeks because of neglect by their families. Also, France had the highest number of pensioner suicides in Europe.

So what are we going to do? Maybe these huge modern houses with parent retreats, teenager's living area and home theatres should also include granny flats, for us - but that depends on our children becoming millionaires. The question of where we'll end up when we can no longer manage independently is a big one.

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, 
when I'm sixty/eighty four?

False alarm on the reef?

The article below was written by Viv Forbes who is a regular contributor to pickeringpost.com where I find some very interesting ideas and information.  As this article as already been copied and shared on facebook, and I'd like to keep it as a reminder of some of the many false alarms we hear, I am sharing it on my blog. We hear so many false alarms as fashions ebb and flow - from eggs are bad for you to the coming of a new ice age - it's hard to keep track of it all.

False Alarm?       -------------

Corals – the Great Survivors by Viv Forbes

For at least fifty years, agitated academics have been predicting the end of the Great Barrier Reef. Now international “experts” are also sprouting coral calamity. But despite the alarms, the reef is still there.

An early scare focused on the Crown of Thorns Starfish which was going through one of its sporadic population booms. Such plagues come and go with the natural cycles of growth and decay. But the reef survived.

Then experts got scared in case someone drilled for oil on the Reef – so we had a Royal Commission and banned all that. However marine life seems to flourish around all artificial reefs such as jetties, shipwrecks and drilling platforms. Rigs have to be regularly cleaned of marine growth. 

Natural hydrocarbons have been part of the wild environment for longer than corals, which may explain why corals are remarkably tolerant of hydrocarbons. Despite natural oil and gas seeps, man-made spills, and hundreds of offshore drilling rigs, corals still thrive. 

After the worst oil spill ever during the First Gulf War there was no clean-up attempt apart from oil skimming because the 700 oil-well fires had priority. Fresh crude oil floats and is a danger to sea birds, but it soon reacts with air and salt water to become solid tar balls which sink to the sea floor. An inspection of the sea bed later to catalogue “the disaster” found teeming wildlife, with sea-grass, snails and fish thriving after the fertilising effect of the oxidising oil.

Corals are even thriving at the exact spot in the Montebello Islands where two atomic devices were tested by the British in 1952.

Another scare concerned coastal development and agricultural run-off. Again destruction of the Great Barrier Reef was forecast. Academics were summoned and a huge national park was established for their playground. Run-off still occurs, rivers still flood, but the reef is still there.

Lately global warming scares such as coral bleaching and ocean acidity have mesmerised the media. These are supposedly caused by wicked humans burning hydrocarbons and using energy by doing things. So we introduced a carbon tax, despite the fact that no unusual warming or acidity can be measured. And the reef is still there.

Now we are told that port dredging near Bowen is going to destroy the Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is 2,400 km long – stirring some mud at one small spot 40 km from the reef is unlikely to be noticed by the coral. Moreover, the stuff being dredged is comprised of natural material eroded from the land and put there over millennia by coastal rivers. Compared with the silt load discharged by rivers like the mighty Burdekin in a normal wet season, or stirred up by cyclonic surges, dredging is a non-event. The Reef has been coping with sediments like that for thousands of years.

All plants and animals need minerals for optimum health. Marine life gets its minerals from erosion of rocks on the land. Coastal rivers (and dredging of river silt) stir up the minerals which supply the off-shore environment. Like all nutrients, some is necessary, too much brings harm. 

Corals are among the greatest survivors on Earth and have been here for about 500 million years. Many of the types of corals found on reefs today were present in similar forms on reefs 50 million years ago.

Since corals first appeared there have been five mass extinctions when over 50% of all life forms on land and in the seas died. These episodes usually included massive volcanic events that filled air and sea with debris, lava, heat and acid fumes. And still corals survived.

Then there were asteroid impacts that created huge craters that dwarf man’s puny ports. Debris, rock, mud and slush were flung in all directions – far more and further than man’s dredging will ever do. Corals even survived this.

Corals also survived several deadly ice ages when sea levels fell so low that many coral reefs left their skeletons stranded as limestone hills on dry land. But always some colonisers followed the retreating seas and survived.

Then came the hot climate eras when the great ice sheets melted and sea levels rose dramatically. Some coral reefs drowned, but others just built on top of the old drowned corals forming the beautiful coral atolls we see today. Corals flourish in gently rising seas such as we have today – it gives them room to refresh and grow vertically.

And if the water gets too warm, coral larvae just drift into cooler waters closer to the poles. The Great Barrier Reef would move slowly south.

Corals have outlasted the dinosaurs, the mammoths and the sabre-toothed tiger. Captain Cook’s ship was almost disembowelled by the sturdy corals of the Great Barrier Reef in 1770. If Cook came back today, he would be unable to detect any changes in the Reef.

We should of course minimise soil erosion, human pollution of offshore waters and direct damage or interference with the Reef. However, green extremists would like to sacrifice all of Queensland’s coastal industry on the coral altar - exploration, mining, farming, land development, tourism, forestry, fishing, and shipping. They need reminding it is only rich societies who can afford to care for their environment.

No matter what the future holds, corals are more likely than humans to survive the next major extinction.

In the event of yet another Ice Age we must hope that reef alarmists have not denied us the things we will need to survive - food, energy, chemicals, shelter, concrete and steel generated by carbon fuels.

-----------------------------------------

How did you MAKE that?

So many blogs I read are on arts and crafts and I enjoy looking at all the lovely things being made - so I thought it's probably time to show my work. It will have to be something a little bit novel as my crafting skills are just average. This latest project surprised me when it came out as well as it did.

I make laundry bags for Aussie Hero Quilts and Laundry Bags, to send to Aussie personnel deployed overseas.  I enjoy it because I know the bags will help people keep track of their laundry and that saves time often spent trying to find a clean uniform.  Also I can also be as creative as I like.  More information is available on the AHQ blog - http://aussieheroquilts.blogspot.com.au/

Laundry bags - cotton drill, and printed duck with kangaroos

Probably most of the AHQers make quilts - I've not done a large project like that for years, and quilts are mostly repetitive - that's not a put down, I love quilts, I love traditional patterns and modern styles. I love the fact that so much work goes into them. I especially love scrap quilts and crazy quilting, but - for me, once the design is decided the most interesting part is over.  Until it's completed, that is - holding up a quilt you have made yourself, or that has been made for you, is a very special feeling.

We had a dinner in Brisbane for the Qld AHQers and along with speeches, door prizes and a pretty good raffle, there was a laundry bag competition.  The theme was open, but the Aussie flavour seemed to be the most popular. I wanted to enter just to be in it and thought maybe I could have fun and be really creative.

I had a picture in my head of a photo bombing giraffe I'd seen on line and a painting by my little grandniece, Izzy. I thought of making a wall hanging or cushion from that image - but with an Aussie animal. Earlier in the year I'd used left over strips of fabric for the desert landscape above, with Ayres Rock and a kangaroo -  I could do that again.

Giraffe by Izzy

My plan was to draw onto calico with fabric pens, fuse that to the bag and see if I could draw more into it with the sewing machine - not embroidering, I'll leave that to the very clever ladies with wonderful computer embroidery machines -  just drawing with sewing thread using the common straight and zigzag stitches.

Now to the design.  Australia = big blue sky, bright sunshine, orange earth, lots of green, and blue ocean. Recently I'd made a block for a group quilt with these colours - it was included in the quilt they raffled at the dinner.

Aussie theme patchwork block

Choosing animals. I like kangaroos but they are not easy to draw - they can turn into huge mice or rabbits if you aren't careful. I wanted something orange to contrast with the blue I'd chosen as a background so I tried a kangaroo.

Years ago I made papier mache animals as stage props. They were the size of small children and were carried across the stage by the small children.  One was an emu. He'd be perfect.

Drawing animals is not easy for me and I always need to research. Once upon a time I'd be searching through books and magazines, then photocopying the pictures, but now we can google anything. I cfound animals in the positions I wanted, copied them. turned them black and white, erased the details and outlined the shape - just love PhotoShop.   I worked out the size I wanted then cut the pictures up in the program, as my printer only takes A4.  When printed I stuck the bits together, cut out the shape and used it as a guide to get the outline and proportions, drawing around it with a 3B pencil. The choice of picture is important because any foreshortening does not translate to a flat image.

Once the outline was on the fabric I filldc in the details with ink, looking back at the original photo on the computer screen. The pose or expression can be changed at this stage.  Colour and shading was done with fabric ink pens I bought on line.  When I felt it was ready I cut out the calico animal. The kangaroo looked uncomfortable - but they look that way in photos too. I had high hopes for the emu.

The background had to be sky blue but I didn't have the right colour. I like to use a medium weight cotton drill or printed duck for the laundry bags because it's sturdy and nice to sew and comes in lots of colours.  But my usual ebay sellers couldn't help me with sky blue drill or similar so I was forced to actually go to a shop. I'm not an expert on fabric but love to handle it and finally found some cotton chino in the right colour. I'd never seen Chino before.  It was a bit lighter in weight than the fabric I usually use, and felt a lot softer, but looked almost the same.... hmmm.

The blue alone lacked richness so adding a strip of bright yellow desert, in cotton drill, to the bottom made a big difference. Using a fabric fix I ironed/glued the animals to the chino.  Ugh. Chino is not the same as drill.  It stretched out of shape and twisted. Also it was very humid that day and the fixative came away from the backing and didn't iron on properly. That turned out to be a good thing as I was able to pull the calico off and stretch the chino in the other direction - almost flat.  But, it meant the glue didn't take hold at the edge ... so all the edges would have to be covered by stitching. These little accidents along the way have a part in defining the finished piece, and I love that. Art often wanders in a different direction to the pattern.

Heat fusing the sketches on calico to the backing and stitching on Kangaroo

Stitching, stitching, stitching. I changed top thread colours but kept a neutral in the bobbin. The back of the piece was almost as interesting as the front. Some areas were straight stitched first, outlining the eyes and some long feathers, but most were zig zagged in different widths, making sure feathers or fur stitches covered all the raw edges.  I worked on the stitching for 4 or 5 days - in spurts. I loved it.  Maybe it wasn't exactly like drawing with thread, a little more like painting at times, I was learning what my machine would do in the way of free stitching and it was exciting to see the animals develop under the sewing machine.  I love the eyes on both of them and Emu's little grin is his own. Kangaroo looked a bit nervous so I added a stalking emu and then Emu needed a kangaroo to chase him.

Ironing the back of the fabric to smooth out puckering  - stitching feathers onto Emu

There are no instructions to give because the stitching is like drawing, you go with what feels right at the time. I did spend time unpicking tiny stitches when the Chino stretched our of shape, several times. And no, I didn't win the competition - I didn't really expect to. I find the sort of things I make never get the popularity vote, I think my designs have to grow on people - and, the judges were male soldiers. They are not into fabric art, they want something to give them a laugh, to tell jokes about and that's what they chose.  Congratulations to the winners, who understood the nature of their recipients.

At this stage the bag was one flat piece. I decided on where to fold it, ironed, stitched the side seam (three rows of stitching), ironed, added the channel for a drawstring, lined the bag with flannel shirt type checks and ironed again. While sewing the bottom seam I realised the bottom of the Emu and Kangaroo would meet in an ugly, thick lump. All I could do was sew in another folded strip of fabric to at least make colour break. The final job was to thread the drawstring through. I use cotton sash cord because it feels so nice.

OOppppsssss I had cut out a yellow sun which was to be over-stitched in white, but I  forgot to attach it before sewing on the drawstring channel. By that time I'd done so much sewing and unpicking ... I just couldn't do anymore. The sun was left off.

One flat piece - side seam stitched and ooopps, the sun wasn't included - bottom seam done with inset strip
- Kangaroo on a full laundry bag.

I posted the bag away and found I missed Emu's face for days, almost like losing a pet. When I saw it in the display a week later he seemed to have settled down and was sitting fairly flat.  I wonder who will open a parcel one day, pleased to get a new laundry bag, and find my Emu looking back at them. I'd love to see that.

The finished bag - Kangaroo's side with the lining hanging out, Emu in all his glory
and demonstrating how he'll look on a full laundry bag. He might be a little bit scary.

for all the TEA in China

In my grandmother's day everyone drank tea - there was very little else to drink and in some places drinking tea was actually better than drinking plain water because the water in the tea had been boiled.  The whole family drank tea for breakfast, lunch, dinner and in between.  It was relatively cheap,  refreshing in hot and cold weather and gave people something to do when socialising.  The process of boiling the water, brewing the tea, pouring and sipping helped to solve all problems, calm the spirit and to heal all wounds.

Tea is a hot drink made by infusing dried crushed tea leaves in boiling water.  We often refer to the infusion of other leaves, plants or flowers as tea, or herbal teas, but that is not real tea.

Real tea is made from the leaf of the tea bush, Camellia sinensis, which is native to southern and eastern Asia and has been grown as a cash crop for hundreds of years. The plant is a close relative of the camellia.  In Mandarin it was called ch'a, which is the origin of the char and chai words for tea, and in the Amoy dialect it was T'e.

The tea drinking habit came to Australia, from the United Kingdom, with the first settlers. For middle class England tea was served with a light afternoon meal  of sandwiches and cake.  I think the main meal was in the middle of the day and they had supper of buttered toast and cocoa late at night.  For the working people tea was the evening meal and both these concepts became part of the early Australian culture.

High Tea was a tradition from around the mid 1700s as a late afternoon meal for working men. They were usually grubby and smelly after work, so had their tea standing up, or sitting on tall stools at a high bench and it became a 'high' tea of scones, toast and fruit cake, served with tea.

Later, this evolved into an early meal for 'well to do' people, before a night out at the theatre or playing cards so High Tea was a light but nourishing meal. Later in the evening they returned home for supper, which was often cold meat and veg as the servants had gone to bed.  Around this time the Fourth Earl of Sandwich had the idea of holding a slice of meat between two slices of bread - so he could eat while playing cards - and the High Tea sandwich came into being.

My grandmother, who was born into a large family and grew up in a one room shack on a dairy farm, liked to feel that as she had trained as a nurse and made something of herself she could put on a few airs and graces. 'We' never referred to the evening meal as tea. That was for working class people.  In our house 'we' had dinner in the evening.  I was never quite sure about meals because on Sunday, when the lamb roast was served in the middle of the day it was also called dinner and on Sunday night we had early tea of toasted sandwiches and later on a supper with hot chocolate. So, if you had lunch you could have dinner, but if you had dinner at lunch time, then after tea you got supper.  I'm glad elevenses remained in England.  It all depends on who your grandmother was.

Until the 1960's tea, in Australia, was made in a pot and the left over tea leaves were disposed of by the back door, usually into a vegetable patch where they acted as fertiliser and mulch, or into a pile of maiden hair ferns that seemed to grow where people tipped tea leaves.  People who didn't have a back door often emptied the tea pot into the loo and at one family gathering I remember a small cousin came back from a visit to the toilet to announce to the room of relatives that 'someone in this house has a very sick tummy'.  Apparently Great Aunty had emptied the teapot and not flushed.

In the Aussie bush tea was brewed in
 tin billy-can over an open fire

An Australian tradition is billy tea - still make in camping grounds all over the country, it just takes a fire, a tin can of boiling water, a handful of tea and a gum leaf.  Tea and rum were the drinks, and at times currency, of early settlement days but real tea was not always available to people in the bush. The Leptospermum tree, from the family Myrtaceae, is commonly known as Teatree, from the practice of early settlers soaking the leaves in boiling water to make a tea substitute. I can't imagine what that tasted like.  I live near the town of Nambour which gets it's name from the local Aboriginal name for the tea tree.  

Tea tree oil distilled from Melaleuca alternifolia is popular for it's amazing antiseptic, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral properties.  

But, back to real tea, a visit to a Chinese tea shop will cause confusion because hundreds of different types and blends of tea are on offer, but there are only a few basic categories of tea and they all come from leaves of the same Camellia Sinensis plant. The processing of the newly picked leaves is what determines the tea's colour and taste.

Black tea is exposed to air until the oxidation of the leaf brings on its dark colour.  

Green tea comes from quickly heating the leaves to prevent further fermentation, and this gives the green colour and milder flavour.

White, yellow and the oolong teas are in-between, with different grades of fermentation.

Picking tea in India

History tells that tea travelled to Europe around 1590 when a Portuguese priest visited China and got permission to take some tea plants home, but until the 19th century nearly all tea was grown in China and most of it was exported to Great Britain.  

When political and business problems made trade difficult the British managed to get hold of (make off with), enough tea bushes to start tea plantations in Assam and Darjeeling in India, and Kenya in Africa, where it is still produced.  And, though China is still the biggest producer of tea, India comes a close second.

Apparently, for 300 years, at the London Tea Auction, tea was sold ‘by the candle’ system; bidding for lots went on until an inch of a candle had burnt away.

Water is still the most consumed beverage in the world today, but tea is a close second as we drink more than 3 billion cups of tea a year. The biggest consumers - and this may be a surprise - are the people of United Arab Emirates, followed by Morocco and then Ireland! 

Elkhorns

My grandmother, and her sisters, treasured their tea pots - one for every day, one for special occasions and one for decoration but today most people don't own a tea pot because teabags have replaced brewing in the pot. But, tea post are still included in children's toys and cartoons. Gone are the tea pots and knitted tea cosies, tea caddies and spoons, and the tradition of one for each person and one for the pot. Even the ferns miss out as tea drinkers who don't want to waste the used tea bags 'feed' them to elkhorns in their garden.

Some healthy things people say about tea: 

Green tea and white tea especially are praised for many health benefits, including antibiotic effects, anti-cancer properties, boosting of the immune system, lowering of cholesterol levels and improvement of cardiovascular health.
Tea contains vitamins B2, B1 and B6 and is also rich in potassium, manganese, folic acid and calcium.
Tea contains half the amount of caffeine found in coffee.
One cup of white tea contains the same amount of antioxidants as 10 cups of apple juice.
Tea can help soothe a sore throat, black, green and oolong tea have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that may help alleviate symptoms.

Times to avoid tea:
Black tea can block iron absorption from foods and supplements so it's best to avoid tea when taking vitamins or eating foods that are rich in iron.
Green tea is a significant source of vitamin K, which can interfere with the effects of blood thinners such as warfarin.

A few other uses for tea: 

The used tea leaves can be beneficial as fertilizer for the garden.
Used tea leaves can absorb odours in the refrigerator.
Tea in a foot bath can eliminate some foot odours.

Interesting things said about tea:
The water source, temperature and brewing time effect the taste of the tea.

Half a kilo of loose tea can make about 200 cups of tea.
An experienced picker can collect over 30 kg of tea a day!
Until the 19th century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia.
Tea breaks are a tradition that have been with us for approximately 200 years.
Drinking 4 cups of tea a day is recommended for health.
Tea is a natural source of fluoride that could protect against tooth decay and gum disease.
The first book about tea was written by Lu Yu in 800 A.D.
Apart from tourism, tea is the biggest industrial activity in India.
98% of people have milk in their tea, but only 30% have sugar.
Tea bags were invented in America in the early 1800s. 
Tea bags were originally made of silk and were used to hold tea samples from India.

Slightly damp tea leaves can repel insects.

And I don't know if any of these things are true.

'Women are like tea bags. They don't know how strong they are 

until they get into hot water.'   Eleanor Roosevelt.

ICE TEA FACE TREAT

2 cups water

1 green tea bag, or loose green tea (for antioxidants)

2 teaspoons turmeric powder (antibacterial, exfolient)

1 tablespoon honey (moisturiser and softens)

2 -3 teaspoons rose water (smells nice)

Prepare:

Steep the tea in boiling water until you have a brew of very strong tea.

Open the teabag if using one, the leaves act as an exfolient.

Stir in turmeric, honey and rose water. 

Pour into a standard ice cube tray and into the freezer.

Use:

Wash your face with warm water to open the pores.

Rub a tea ice cube all over your face for several minutes, paying attention to the forehead, nose and chin.

With your fingers, gently massage the turmeric/tea leaf residue over your face to exfoliate.

Rinse off with cold water.

Finish with a splash of witch hazel or other toner, and moisturise.

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