Looking for inspiration

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GenghisCon is a project that’s been dear to my heart since it’s inception in 2001. I’ve watched it grow and blossom from a fledging idea hatched in our lounge room into a full-grown, successful annual convention.

It’s fun to see what the changing committees come up with in terms of ideas for convention activities each year and how much the Genghis-community pitches in to help out.

With the 2o17 GenghisCon on the horizon, I’ve volunteered my services to be ‘Market Day Liaison’. This is really just a fancy (and short) title for trader-wrangler and organiser of fun stuff associated with the market day.

I want to make the market day to be a draw card and have some cunning plans in mind. I’m thinking that having some entertainment to entice people into the market area would be fun. Perhaps a few different items/events, each running just enough to be entertaining and draw the crowd in. We could have some roving minstrels, a fairy floss machine, random juggling, handouts of cookies (baked by moi and other lucky ‘volunteers’), a raffle… and whatever else I can come up with.

This will take a little while to plan, so I’m starting now to avoid the aargh-factor later on. What I’d REALLY like is to get some help from anyone with ideas / time (just some) / creative spirit / musical and/or juggling abilities. Help?

GCon Traders 2017

Linocuts revisited

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A couple of years ago I took part in a one-day linocut workshop in the Swan Valley. I headed home on a high of creative inspiration, full of plans to print up a series of Xmas cards. I’d get some lino and carving tools, create a couple of designs, then print them up in various colours… Voilà!

linocut wkshop_25oct14

But, when it came time to carve, I found that the lino I’d bought was very different to the medium we’d used in the workshop. Silk Cut Lino  is advertised as being ‘easy and pleasurable to use’ – but I found it significantly harder (stiffer) than expected and really quite tricky to carve. It may have simply been my novice technique, but the cuts were disappointingly wobbly.

Of course, in my excitement, I’d bought quite a LOT of the lino… the not-so-easy-or-pleasurable to use lino. So I ended up simply put the whole idea on hold for later…

Time passed… and then a friend sent me some information on a (free) linocut demonstration at Jacksons Art Supplies last week: “Printmaker Shana James will be in store this Friday to demonstrate how to carve and hand print a lino block. Come and see how Shana creates her beautiful whimsical lino prints.”

Shana’s linocuts are lovely – and whimsical, my favourite being the charming hand-coloured pink and green tricycle. It’s such a joyful, light-hearted image 🙂

Shana James linocut tricycleWe didn’t actually get to see a print being carved, but she did demonstrate the printing process, using one of her existing designs. She also showed us a process for adding colour to lino prints called Chine-Collé. Using a glue stick, Shana rubbed some glue on one side of a small piece of very fine, hand-inked rice paper and then placed the glue-free side directly onto the inked-up linocut block.She then added a second layer of (different) coloured rice paper over the top of the first.

Shana James Chine-collé1The next step was to place the printing sheet (plain paper) carefully over the top of all this, effectively sticking the coloured paper to the printing sheet. Shana then used the back of a spoon over the whole design to transfer the ink to the printing sheet before lifting it off the linocut. Magical!

Shana James Chine-collé2Shana’s pro-tip re carving lino that’s really stiff? Warm the lino to soften it. She suggested a number of ways of doing this: iron the lino, using a low temperature setting, with a layer of paper or fabric between the iron and the lino; warm a wheat bag in the microwave oven and lay it on the section of lino you’re about to carve; or leave the lino in the sun for a little while. So simple!

This means that linocuts are  back on the agenda – possibly even for Xmas cards this year. I’ll start with a test piece next week and see how I go.

Delving into the gubbins of Joomla

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In a dim and distant past life I thought it might be a good idea to try to learn a general purpose programming language. Those in the know were keen for me to learn C, on the basis that it’d been around for a while, is easy to learn… and they were using it themselves. But, as it turned out, learning in a vacuum has low appeal for the object-oriented. When pointed at some C tutorials and left to my own devices, I found my interest waned fairly quickly. For best outcomes, I need specific, measurable goals – preferably ones that are useful to me in some way.

Many years later I had another stab at programmery-things, this time to meet a university unit requirement. The goal was to create a little test-website as part of a project, using HTML. There didn’t have to be much content, but it had to be seen to work. This gave me something to aim for and I set to with more enthusiasm than skill. Fortunately I had some in-house tutors in the quirks and mysteries of HTML when the wheels tried to fall off (the project). DaughterDearest and BoyChilde, each computer wizards in their own way, displayed remarkable patience when I yodelled for help with some of my more elaborate errors during the learning phase.

Whilst the programmery-skills I picked up remain in the minor-league, I’ve retained just enough HTML to do some low key fiddling about on a couple of websites I’m contracted to update, although my involvement is largely content management rather than programming of any sort.

One of these sites was set up for a local community centre by a small media company in Perth. Frustratingly, with many of the mysteries of the Joomla set-up and templates restricted, any changes to the site structure currently have to be done by the set-up guy. I find not knowing how it all hangs together or how to change things myself a source of continual low-key irritation. I concluded some time ago that only way I’d be able claim a higher level of website management control would be to learn how Joomla works and then take it from there.

Glyde-In Community Learning Centre has a contract with the same media company and has had similar concerns regards to access to their website. Having come to similar conclusions with regards to site management access, the coordinator decided to organise a couple of Joomla training sessions and invited me to join in. Since Joomla has been on my to-do list for a while, I accepted with alacrity (thanks, Ann).

The sessions were informative, although more an overview than a hands-on. We looked at different levels of access and what they enable people to do on a specific website, recent changes to that website and how they were made, and managing file systems and template structures.Our tutor, Lorenz, was well prepared (always a plus!) and answered our questions clearly, using relevant examples to show what he meant. By the end of the second session I felt a renewed sense of purpose.

It’s pretty clear that if I want to learn anything of substance, I’ll have to get stuck in and poke around in the gubbins  of Joomla, creating and breaking things to see how they work. I’m thinking of mirroring one of the sites I work with regularly to see what happens when I change things. It’s as good a way as any of figuring things out, I reckon, but I’m open to suggestions from those of you who’re already Joomla-savvy.

I’ve taken the first steps by installing Joomla and XAMPP locally, both on my laptop and on my Mac (because, reasons). This took up a large portion of my afternoon yesterday and was intensely frustrating. No doubt you’re thinking, as I did, Ah yes… installations… that fun-filled circular pastime, abundant with satisfying outcomes… 

joomlaadventures1I am getting there, but must admit to loosing heart to some extent after spending what feels like a ridiculous amount of time on the installation two-step so far. Still, once it’s all installed (!!) and running (!!!), I’ll be able to start playing (theoretically, anyway). Woe betide the offspring if it isn’t working soon – their combined computer-wizardry may be called upon!

Teatime baking

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I enjoy baking. Well, cooking, really – but baking perhaps a little more than any other option. This was great when the children were young and had troops of ravenous friends stampeding through the house on a regular basis. Cookies, slices, cakes, scones – they all disappeared in record time, consumed by ever-hungry and surprisingly undiscriminating youngsters. Ours was the house where there was always something tasty to eat.

Sadly, these days everyone seems altogether too grown up and concerned with figure shape and weight to make the most of one of my baking frenzies. So I’ve had to devise a cunning plan: I’m baking a little less often and, when I do, I’m making batches of smaller items. That way we (and guests) can enjoy a small tasty treat with our cuppa, and the rest of the bake-a-thon goes into the freezer for another time.

Mini bakes

Mini banana loaves have been a hit, as have these very tasty peanut cookies. Both freeze really well and taste very yummy as a mid-week treat or emergency teatime offering when people drop by unexpectedly. The nutty muesli squares didn’t make it to the freezer, but did provide mini lunchbox treats for Himself for a couple of weeks 🙂

My next foray into mini-bakes is a variation on a recipe I found in a delightful book called Traditional Teatime Recipes. It’s full of simple yet tasty sounding offerings – many of which are now on my list to try out over the next few weeks.

tradional-teatime-recipes

First off the rank is the orange tea bread. The recipe apparently originated at Moseley Old Hall, in Staffordshire. Whilst that’s vaguely interesting, I’m actually making it (today) because it sounds delicious, we have guests this evening (dessert, anyone…?), and I have a fridge full of oranges from our neighbour’s tree.

Here’s the recipe, in case you’d like to give it a go too.

Orange Tea Bread – adapted from Traditional Teatime Recipes

75g butter, softened

1 cup plain flour

1 cup almond meal

1½ tsp baking powder

1 large egg, beaten

⅓ cup caster sugar

2 oranges <juice one, zest both – reserve second orange>

50g walnuts, roughly chopped <I used pecans>

1 – 2 Tblsp extra caster sugar  <reserve this for sprinkling on top of the cake>

FIRST: set your oven to 180C  (350F) and prepare a medium sized loaf tin <or, in my case, 6 mini loaf pans>

THEN: rub butter into flour and baking powder, then stir in the sugar and chopped nuts.  Mix in the egg, then add the juice from one of the oranges and the zest from both of them. Beat the mixture well, then fold in the almond meal.

Spoon mix into the prepared loaf tin / mini loaf pans

NEXT: cut the pith off the outside of the remaining orange. Then, holding it over the tin/s <to catch the juice>, carefully remove the segments. Arrange the orange segments over the top of the cake/s, then sprinkle with the extra caster sugar

FINALLY: bake your loaf in preheated oven for about 45 minutues – or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave the cake/s in the pan/s to cool… if you have the patience. Such yum!

MORE NOTES: the original recipe didn’t include almond meal; it called for 1½ cups of plain flour. It also gave the baking time as 1¼ to 1½ hours.

Orange teacake

Is Generosity Seasonal?

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Does spring seedlings 2016the weather affect you from day to day? I’d guess that, at the very least, your clothing choice depends on the weather to some extent – and perhaps your choice of transport and activities does as well.

I’m certainly more inclined to get stuck into the garden, walk or use public transport in dry weather – and most enthusiastic about it in spring, once the rain’s gone and before the heat starts to bite.

Weather does seem to act as a happiness barometer for most of us. No matter how satisfied we are initially with the changing seasons, we soon start grumping about the temperature (too hot, too cold, too variable), the humidity, the rain (or lack thereof), the wind, etc. It’s an endless source of meaningless background social noise.

Nevertheless, I find that people are generally chirpier on warm, sunny days than on cold, drizzly ones. Perhaps we’re more inclined interact positively with our surroundings and with other folk on pleasantly sunny days, than when it’s very cold (or hot). If this is so, does the weather also affect our levels of altruism?

In November last year I started planning our epic family Xmas gathering. It takes a fair bit of resource management and people wrangling, so I tend to start early to avoid the last minute panic-factor. Then I came across an article on something called the reverse advent calendar. It made me stop and think: about resources, about good fortune, about family – and about the staggering number of people who have so much less.

I discovered that 1 in 200 people in Australia are homeless and that over two million people are dependent on food donations in order to survive. Considering how relatively affluent Australia is, that rocked me rigid.

Donating one food item per day for the advent period (the four weeks leading up to Xmas) sounded like a great idea. It was something simple, tangible and practical that my family could get behind. So I set up a mini food collection programme and, just before Xmas, DaughterDearest and I delivered our combined advent donations to Foodbank.

We all felt a little glow of achievement, of having done something – however small – for people less fortunate than ourselves. It was a good way to start our Xmas celebrations.

But of course people are hungry and homeless all year round, not just at Xmas. So it seemed like a logical next step to set up a quarterly food drive and invite others to join in. A number of people got involved and we’ve made two deliveries of food donations to Foodbank so far this year.

These deliveries are partly what prompted my question, because I delivered 55kg of food on 31 March (a bright sunny day) and 25kg on 30 June (a cold rainy day).

This does seem indicate that people may be more inclined to be generous in good weather. Perhaps it makes us feel cheerful and encourages a more outward focus? Or could it be that, as a community initiative, the food drive really only worked as a one-of?

Either way, we’ve been gradually filling up some boxes and I’ll be heading back out to Foodbank again at on 30 September to deliver our next quarterly contribution. It doesn’t really matter how much food I take along. Every single item will be appreciated by someone, somewhere.

July-September Foodbank collection

If you’d like to get involved in our food drive – even if all you can donate is a single can of beans – let me know. Join our Facebook group to keep track of what’s happening, if you like.

You’re most welcome to pop past our place to drop your contribution off, just ping me to let me know. Stay for a cuppa if you have time 🙂

food appeal poster