Anzac Happy List

It’s the evening of the Anzac Day Public Holiday here in Australia. It’s been nice to have time off, and it’s also always nice to see how the country honours its fallen from World War 1 (and the other wars, too, now). It’s not a story that was familiar to me, except in a global sense, because I wasn’t weaned on Australian history. There were dawn services and, if I would bother to plug my TV in, I would have been able to watch special shows on the theme. Last year there was a great documentary about the women of the war: the pinup girls who gave the soldiers a reminder of what they were fighting for.

This weekend has also marked what would have been my fifth wedding anniversary, and the end of the 12-month cycle of ‘firsts’ alone. Friday was a sad day. So, the first item on my list this week:

• A good lunch on a sad day (see below). Made by me, for me

• Cooking for people. It’s one of the greatest pleasures in my life, especially when they enjoy the food. I love having people in my home, and I love feeding them. This weekend, I made Tuna Tataki, impossibly glamourous and impossibly easy, and for brunch, scrambled tofu with pesto
• The tofu brings me to Sophie Dahl’s book, Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights. I cannot tell you what an amazing book this is. You just have to go out and buy it. And no, I am not being paid to say this. It’s full of the kind of food I like to eat, like quinoa and tofu, but prepared in a such a way that you could feed it to anyone, even non-hippies, and they would enjoy it. I might even have to dedicate a whole post to her sometime soon
• Yippie = yuppie + hippie = me. Hilarious! What I get for simultaneously smelling of patchouli (I do, it’s an ingredient in my current deodorant) and carrying an iPhone
• ‘You move like a cat’. Why, thank you. Compliment welcomed, accepted, and stored
• Brunch and excellent coffee at Mart 130. It’s been on my List Of Melbourne’s Best Coffee Places to Visit for quite some time. All expectations were met. It’s so funky, too – look at the decor!

• The Sunday Afternoon Drive. There is only one thing better, and that is the Sunday Afternoon Nap. But if you’re driving to see Black Spur, which is spectacular, and the weather is crisp and clear, and you have good music playing (even if there is a little conflict about whose iPod will be plugged in, or maybe especially) the Drive wins
• Scones on a Sunday afternoon, mid Drive. How civilised!
• Coffee…
• Friends
• Melbourne. I heart you Melbourne. Thank you for being my home
• The weather finally turning towards Autumn. It’s been cooler, and that makes it easier to sleep. Harder to get up though
• Long weekends. Two Sundays in a row, so decadent!
• Frankie Magazine. It is the ONLY magazine I buy. All the others, I read at the library. But Frankie is just so cooool. Art*Fashion*Music*Craft*Life, they say. Oh, Frankie, I say