Those three weeks earlier this year were exhausting and in many ways I didn’t feel very settled during my time back here. Perhaps it was the excitement of introducing T to my favourite people and things of A-Town or the energy that pervades the city in the lead-up to Fringe and the festival. And the previous visit home was for a frantic month as I packed up, sold my things and rather rudely told Adelaide that things were over between us.   Luckily, despite the fact that my Dad is getting older and frailer due to his lung disease, I feel suprisingly relaxed and happy on this return trip.

A lot of my current feelings towards Adelaide have a lot to do with maturity and finally beginning to feel at home in Linz with T.  So despite missing T like the blazes and really wanting to have him around to support me as I help my family, it feels good to be back here and to begin to assess my old home with the eyes of someone older (remember, this is the town you settle down and have kids with).

Another big reasons for loving my hometown this time around is that it’s winter. I’m missing the summer in Linz, but in some ways the chill of a hibernating Adelaide is so satisfying. It’s tea and toast time, eating soup and good bread with friends weather rather than all-out party season.

It’s actually been raining here, so for the first time in almost four years I’m seeing Adelaide (and my old garden) with green growth, both good and unwanted. There’s something wonderful about a cool weather garden and the smell of soil and decaying leaves as you pull up weeds. As much as I love being able to container garden and finally have a balcony to fill with plants I have missed the mindfulness that comes from weeding an actual garden bed.

The other day I battled, pulled and dug against one of my favoured old enemies for a half hour while my father rested in the living room.  Looking after Dad is a very slow, sometimes sad and frustrating business and I needed some active destruction to balance me out. Besides the stress relief of weeding and the satisfaction of dirt under your nails and a visible change to the space, I love weeding as it lets me observe the techniques that plants use to spread themselves around.

My weeding enemies - the unidentified climbing succulent plant, plus ivy and soursobs (oxalis)

On Friday the plants I attacked were ivy and some weird succulent climbing thing that I don’t know the name of, but would love to identify so I can accurately curse it.  The plant is growing up and around an overgrown shrub and despite intermittent and zealous attacks over previous years it persists and spreads around.

This plant just makes me get all awe-full and think about evolution. It is incredibly cleverly constructed and seems to propagate itself as you weed it. The leaves and sections of this plant fall off far too easily and forgetting pieces on the ground gives them a chance to take root and spread themeselves around.

This kind of promiscuous growth demands action and despite only being back in Adelaide temporarily I started down the dangerous path of Significant Garden Plans for the family home. Obviously the leggy shrub would go, but the winter weather calls for replanting the front beds with fruit trees, which leads to reading plant catalogues and considering just where a pizza oven could go.

At some point I looked up and realised that it felt like I’d never gone away from here. Tim, Linz, Berlin, working on School of Webcraft and all of those things seemed light years and lifetimes away.

Oh, it is a weird feeling to be here and to feel so very comfortable and to feel the pull of this place pulling me back. At the same time Tim and the actual everyday life I’ve chosen is in Linz and as I fall asleep I’ll be wanting to wake up back in our bed and go for a run along the Danube.

A couple of friends started to write their own lists and a couple even made it up to 100. Recently Pete Hindle, returned to his list of 50 things and updated it with comments as to what had been achieved and his current thoughts on his list. Pete almost died and so has a) a really good excuse for not finishing things on his list b) his life has changed drastically which definitely changed his opinion about some of his learning items. It will be interesting to see if the life changes I’ve gone through (finally meeting a good man, getting a job, getting another job, travelling away from Berlin a lot) have affected how I feel about items on my list.

100 Things I Want To Learn (More) About… Updated!

1. Botany
   Hmmm. I haven’t yet learnt to identify plants using a taxonomy. So. No.
2. A musical instrument: guitar or cello
   Let’s just say that 360 days ago I was given a beautiful guitar and can barely play 3 chords. So this learning task is active, but moving slowly. Actually taking lessons might be the next step.
3. Haircutting
   I can cut boys’ hair if they have some curl to hide the mistakes. The mistakes aren’t as often or severe as they used to be. But I haven’t learnt any fancy techniques (yet).
4. How to make a sponge cake
   Really, why would I make a sponge when there are so many other amazing cakes to bake out there? Not Yet.
5. How to maintain my bicycle
   In general I’m better at working with bikes thanks to a couple of sessions at Regenbogen Fabrik’s bike workshop. But my bike in Berlin is not currently maintained – sadly the type of maintenance I know won’t make it better, it will just keep it existing for longer.
6. How to make bagels
   Nope. One day, when I’m making brunch for people. I do finally have a recipe I want to use.
7. Throat Singing
   Hah. I find the idea of throat singing fascinating, but I don’t want to learn it that much. Let’s just say I may have still wanted to impress my ex at this point.
8. Bookbinding
   Not yet. I don’t have anything I want to bind at the moment, and it’s pretty easy to get amazing notebooks in Berlin.
9. Basic Arabic
   Nada. But my amazing new flatmate is doing Islamic studies and she can write essays in Arabic.  I know who I’m going to ask for help.
10. How to make better Karelian pies
    I’ve not made a Karelian pie for ages. I think that visiting friends in Finland and buying Karelian pies has to be higher priority than making my own… I’m getting really good at making Spinach pancakes, one of my other Finnish food desires.
11. How to seed save from fruits like tomatoes
    I have nowhere to grow the tomato seeds that I’d save. Maybe not in 2011, but hopefully by 2012 I’ll have access to some proper garden space suitable for tomatoes.
12. Permaculture
    As above. Though I do like the idea that permaculture design principles can be applied to non-garden systems. See Fo.am: Groworld
13. Sociology basics
    This was related to the Friendship component of the DIY Masters. Sadly, the Friendship project was the most interesting, but has been the hardest lot of learning to start. I’m hoping that a related course will pop-up within P2PU one of these days.
14. Crocheting
    I need to sit down with someone who can crochet… I get the basics but get lost when I try to follow a pattern. In the world of crafts Knitting or Crochet is a question along the lines of Cats or Dogs and Tea or Coffee. I’d really like to crochet a granny rug like the one Claire from Loobylu is working on, but before I can do that I need to crochet one or two squares successfully.
15. Japanese rope work
    Ahem. Yep. I know more about this. Let’s just say that it’s a lot of fun.
16. Drums
    Guitar has to take priority. I don’t know if I was planning to start a one-girl band or something. I don’t think you can go from primary school recorder skills to multi-instrumentalist without practicing even one instrument.
17. Punctuation
    I don’t suck at using punctuation, but I’m not sure if I’m using it correctly all the time.
18. English grammar and editing
    Slowly working on improving my knowledge of this.
19. Basic electronics
    I don’t have anything I need or want to make at the moment. And electronics is a fairly empty skill to have if you’re not actively using it. I can make a light flash on an Arduino. I’m not sure if that’s even basic electronics though.
20. More screenprinting skills (especially light sensitive emulsion)\
    Nope. No time. But I have made some cool stencils for Time’s Up Boating Association.
21. Multi-coloured linocuts
    I finally bought myself some linocutting equipment and used it once to make a stamp for a gift. I did do multi-colour stencils. Does that count?
22. How to layout designs for laser cutting
    Not yet. As with electronics you need to have a project to work towards for this kind of stuff. I do finally have an idea of something that would actually be useful to make using a laser cutter…
23. Basic woodworking and carpentry
    I helped build a goddamn boat. Yes.
24. How to change a washer on a tap (relearn)
    I haven’t needed to change a washer lately. But when I do I will learn how to do it.
25. Pattern drafting, better skirts, shirts and trousers
    I made a skirt. I can’t imagine when I’m going to have the time to sew anything for at least a year. Yikes. But I am better at knitting socks now.
26. Typographic theory
    Nope.
27. Better CSS skills
    Slowly slowly. Not that you’d see evidence of this on my personal site.
28. Another CMS apart from WordPress, Drupal and perhaps Moodle
    I learnt how to use Silverstripe for my last job. It was great. I’m not convinced of the ease of use of Drupal and I’ve been on the student-end of Moodle. It sucks.
29. More knowledge about OS educational packages
    I’ll be helping out at the P2PU techsprint and have been doing a bit of work on a Personal Learning Environment (PLE). I’m really excited to see how Big Blue Button works.
30. Basic Esperanto
    Ne.
31. How to cut dogs’ toenails / claws without feeling icky.
    I don’t have a dog (yet).
32. Fishing: how to catch and clean a fish
    Yes! At least the head bopping kill bit and the cleaning up part.
33. Butchery: how to kill & dress a chicken
    Nope.
34. Basic charcuterie
    I’m good at eating bacon, but haven’t made any yet.
35. How to do a headstand / handstand in yoga
    No. But yesterday I downloaded a podcast which will apparently help me to master inversions.
36. Unicycle
    I wrote this when I was 29. Maybe I felt that street performance skills and the risks of broken bones were still a valid life choice.
37. Better knife skills for cooking
    I bought a sharper knife. This made the cutting easier and meant that I had to keep my fingers out of the blade’s way.
38. How to make the ex-beau’s chilli.
    I can spell A.S.S.H.O.L.E. now. And I can read recipes. Let me amend that to How to make good chilli.
39. How to make Mum’s tomato pie
    I have the recipe! Now to make it.
40. How to make baklava
    I live in Kreuzberg and am surrounded by Turkish stores. Learning how to make baklava right now would be a waste of baklava eating time.
41. How to write grant applications
    I figure this road to hell will enter my life soon. I also think that we might be developing a learning resource as part of the Free Culture Incubator workshop series.
42. How to write residency applications
    Not an artist. Maybe one day.
43. How to train a dog
    Still needing a dog to do this. One day. Apparently after our first child is born.
44. More Linux / Terminal commands
    sudo makemeasandwich -cupoftea
    no seriously, i can use VI now without even thinking about it.
    
45. How to talk about what I want and need with a partner without ending up crying all the time
    I am so good at this that I’m now engaged to be married.
46. Better German
    
    Yes it is better, but I’m not confident about it and still need to find time to attend more classes.
47. How to look after my heart better (emotionally, but physically too)
    See 45. Also I do exercise a lot more regularly.
48. How to start a project and stick with it
    I built a boat and knitted socks amongst other things. I think part of the trick here is choosing a project you actually are interested in working on.
49. Better money confidence – eg. how to invoice and get paid what I’m worth.
    Slowly, slowly. I still feel sick when I think about writing invoices, but at least I do it now.
50. How to make really good coffee / latte art – even if I can’t drink it.
    Not only does my flatmate know Arabic she is also an amazing barista. I know who I’ll get to teach me.
51. How to home brew beer.
    I realised that beer makes me depressed. My fiance doesn’t drink it either. I do like to help other people do homebrew, but I no longer see the need in learning to make it.
52. How to sail
    Yes! And I love it!
53. Falconry
    Really? I wanted to learn falconry?
54. How to make a great Manhattan
    I’m hoping to never work in a cocktail bar again. So this is very low priority.
55. How to make a whiskey sour
    Despite 54. I still like to drink whiskey sours. May still learn how to make this.
56. How to make the amazing soup dumplings from Shanghai
    I want a recipe, but have not yet found one that seems right.
57. How to pack light and look great with only a few clothes
    Slowly getting better at this. I really need to update my wardrobe. The only new clothes I seem to get are free Mozilla and P2PU tshirts.
58. Basic car maintenance
    I haven’t driven for almost two years now! But once I get back to driving more frequently this will have to be learnt.
59. How to prune roses
    Did I mention that I really want a garden?
60. How to prune fruit trees
    No really. One with fruit trees and roses. Crazy huh?
61. How to tune a guitar
    Yes! An electric tuner makes this so much easier. Electric tuners do not make it easier to get motivated to practice though.
62. Origami page fastening – no staples or paper clips
    Using a computer requires no paper fasteners. I actually pick up paper clips from the ground when I see them and then reuse them. And when I have readings from Uni I end up having to staple or bind them as there are so many pages.
63. Audio recording and editing to the level required for good podcasting
    Not yet.
64. Video recording and editing to the level required for good vodcasting
    I did actually do some vodcasts. So yes.
    Yep… I do need to make more videos…
65. What key I can sing in naturally / most easily
    How can I learn this? It would make transposing guitar tab a more directed exercise.
66. The value of my time
    It is valuable, but now I need to manage that valuable time a lot more effectively.
67. Better massage skills
    This doesn’t guarantee that other people can massage you any better. Sad but true.
68. Yoga exercises for my back
    Yep. Also, a laptop stand and a keyboard can make your life much more comfortable.
69. How to make an Iyengar style yoga bolster
    €55 at the Iyengar shop. Problem solved. Buying materials to make a heavy enough bolster would have cost just as much.
70. Meditation
    Since I don’t have a garden (yet) and have nothing to mindlessly weed I really do need to work on the meditation thing. Are there any non-sucky guided meditation podcasts out there?
71. Better public speaking
    I seem to engage my audience. I’m looking forward to more opportunities to improve on this.
72. Better Kitchener bind offs while knitting
    My socks have beautifully finished toes.
73. Better Illustrator / Inkscape / vector drawing skills
    Low priority.
74. Manual SLR Photography
    I just need to take more photos full stop, regardless of my manual skills.
75. How to say No to things I don’t really want to do.
    I’m getting way better at this.
76. Curry pastes from scratch
    Not yet, but what a good idea.
77. Plant grafting
    This comes under the heading of “Requires a garden space”. I’m getting pretty good at propagating pot plants but it’s not really equivalent to grafting an apple tree.
78. How to make Kway Teow
    I’m not sure that I even like Kway Teow anymore. Will have to research and eat some when I’m back in Adelaide.
79. How to make good laksa
    My urge to make Malaysian food is reduced to due to fairly lousy inspiration and supplies in Berlin. Making rocking Laksa would be awesome though.
80. Pasta making
    Just haven’t had the time.
81. Whittling
    This would be fun, but I’d rather knit.
82. How to be happy even when the sun isn’t shining
    Friends, drinking enough water, exercise, candles and fleeing to Australia over winter are all good remedies for this.
83. Belly dancing
    Not yet. Getting back into poledancing would be more interesting, but Berlin doesn’t seem to have classes in the same way Australia did.
84. Tai chi
    Nope.
85. Time management / project management software
    This would be really useful, but I have an aversion to Microsoft Project on moral grounds. Not sure what I should look at learning instead. Ideas?
86. A martial art
    Nope. I reckon tai chi would count though.
87. The rules of cricket
    I’m fleeing to an Australian summer. I’m going to make a lazy Boxing Day’s attempt at this.
88. The rules of football / soccer
    The World Cup and another season of Australian Rules have passed me by. Let’s just say I’m not interested at all.
89. How to be more self-reliant in a relationship
    A year and a half of a long-distance relationship mean that this is not an option. Yes.
90. Basic letterpress printing

Would be nice, but I don’t have a press.

91. How to run a small business
    I guess I’m trying to do this as I’m now contracting my work as a freelancer. It is so hard learning this in a non-English context.
92. Basic upholstery
    I keep on finding neat chairs that would be better recovered but am not finding any fabric in Berlin that I’d like to use. Still quite a practical skill but low prioirity.
93. Repeating fabric designs
    I think I wanted to learn the vector skills (73) and screenprinting stuff (20) in order to achieve this. It’s still interesting and I did a little of it working with Sprout Design back in 2007. Now I think I’d rather just buy someone else’s nice fabric and sew with that.
94. CPR refresher course
    No. Please don’t hurt yourself near me as my First Aid Certificate is well out of date.
95. Forest / countryside gleaning
    Getting better at this in Austrian contexts. Berlin’s offerings are often dog and human pee laden.
96. Food canning / preserving
    I made jam last year! I’d love to do some more canning. This summer I was far too busy and barely at home.
97. That martial arts type thing where someone kinda rolls their body up to standing.
    Why? It would be cool, but I can’t imagine when I’d use this skill. Obviously I wanted to do this for a cool recovery when I’d fallen off a unicycle.
98. How to be content with what I’ve got
    I am so happy with my life. I guess I’ve learnt how to do this, but I’ve also learnt to look for opportunity too.
99. How to write at an academic level
    I got an HD for my last assignment, but I just want to be able to articulate ideas clearly.
100. Better research skills: databases, academic journals and articles, Google scholar etc.
     Slowly slowly. I must work on my boolean search skills.

Phew. I reckon updating this list took more time than writing it the first time around!

Rather than regret not doing anything and returning to Australia in the next month or so, I’m going to take the safer risk and stay in Sheffield for a while to actually get to know this young man. So, the hunt is on for a job, a flat, some dirt to garden in and new experiences.

More to come…

There are the usual “Aussie Tucker” suspects of Vegemite, meat pies, pavlova, lamingtons, spag bog and Anzac biscuits. But in comparison to people who’ve come from most other countries (Canada and USA are probably the other exceptions) we can’t really identify distinct food cultures and rely instead on a few recipes and a salty, yeasty brand name. Our national identity is defined by events taking place during a little over two centuries of (primarily European) migration, and doesn’t really reflect a cohesive culture.

So I’ve thought and I’ve thought about this concept of food and national identity. Historically the French, the Italians, the Finns, the Spanish, the Germans, the Chinese, the Indians were not nations of people, they were many smaller regional and cultural groups who just happened to live within more recent borders. Migration, globalisation, the media, supermarkets, freezers and microwaves didn’t exist for thousands of years and so regional food cultures evolved out of eating seasonal, local foods.

Where people seem to have gone wrong in identifying Australian food culture is by looking for one food culture to rule them all rather than letting many smaller, localised food cultures emerge. Even the true food cultures of the Indigenous Australians seem to have been reduced down to a “bush tucker” of witchetty grubs and wattle seed, quandong, honey ants, lemon myrtle and kangaroo, ignoring the full spectrum of groups living on foods specific to the coast, rainforest, arid grasslands and bush.

Other people have probably come around to this idea before, but I’ve only just articulated this thought: As Australians we should be looking to our immediate bioregions as a way of identifying the seasonal foods which will then shape a plurality of culinary cultures. We should be taking pride in our local brands, environment and farmers, recognising the layers of food cultures, both indigenous and immigrated and working out what grows best where and when. Once we know what plants and animals are best suited to our local regions we can learn how to cook and eat the foods that make up our food culture.

Currently I can identify only one type of edible wild mushroom and teeny tiny native cherries, but part of my longer term garden plan is to plant a couple of areas with indigenous plants including those suitable for food. In the meantime I’ll be feeding my summer guests Vietnamese cold rolls with seasonal vegetables (some coming from my garden), suggesting they drink Coopers’ beers, Bickford cordials and local wines to be be followed by Haighs’ chocolates and local fruits.

Maybe in two hundred years my descendants will be able to say with more certainty what dishes make up the contemporary Tandanya bioregional food culture, but right now I’ll just have to play it by taste.

A couple of times a day I’ll hear it laughing and lately it’s taken to perching on the mandarin tree or the main electricity wire coming from the street. I’ve finally had a chance to observe the brown and white patterns on its chest, the size of its massive beak, the helmet like crest on its head and the slight turquoise markings on the wing which mark it as a member of the kingfisher family of birds.

Today when I went outside for a break from style sheets and cms wrangling, I saw the most amazing thing. The kookaburra was surveying the yard from the wire and suddenly its entire stance changed, a ripple seemed to pass through its chest as it tensed up. A few more seconds passed and I followed the kookaburra’s line of sight down to the grass near the path – I couldn’t see anything…

And then, not as fast as I thought it would, the kookaburra gracefully drifted down to the path and picked something up in its beak. As the kookaburra whipped it’s head around, I saw the shine of a skink’s belly and heard the actual crunch of the little lizard being consumed.

“Wow”, I realised, “my kookaburra just caught its own food, and I got to watch!”

Earlier this winter I’d hopefully planted seeds primarily so I could use the nettles as a nitrogen rich green compost, but they didn’t grow very well, so I’ve been looking out for some wild plants to harvest from. I’d seen some nettle-like plants by the side of the road earlier in the week, but my tentative stroke of the leaves didn’t result in any stings – so yesterday I took a braver approach and put my hand flat onto the leaves which did confirm my suspicion that the plants were indeed nettles.

It’s not that painful. I figure that nettle stings are the discomfort equivalent of eating warhead lollies – some people are braver or have a higher tolerance than others – luckily for me the sting is bearable.

So I borrowed some rubber gloves (I’m not yet brave enough to enter a nettle patch with bare hands) and scissors and picked a bag full of prickly leaves, ready to be dried and made into tea.

What did seem really weird that it was just over a year ago, in Finland’s early summer that I helped Ninnu prepare nettles for tea. But temperature wise I figure that there’s not much difference between July in Australia and early June in Finland.

Now of course I’ve remembered that nettles can be added to soup (fresh and dried), risottos, pancakes and used as a hair tonic as well as being a tea for people and gardens.

Aliese, it looks like I’ll have to come over this weekend and do some “weeding” for you!