The B and S Ball 2007, Scone

Yes! we said when asked to help at the B and S Ball on 19th May. Lend a helping hand, have some fun with fellow workmates, their spouses, and other generous helpers and support Strathearn Village’s annual contribution to the Horse Festival held in Scone. With no background briefing about the B and S Ball or Strathearn’s involvement we went with an open mind. Would I dress up? What did our ‘help’ entail?

I was advised before hand to wear something warm, so decided on the traditional waiting ‘blacks standard’ with a twist – cashmere stole secured with a festive brooch, er, not for the husband though! Yep, it sure was cold!

As we walked onto the paddock near the Racecourse I thought we had the venue wrong! Was this a paintball Skirmish? Some of the ball attendees had gone to a lot of trouble to dress up. But what were they all painted with? Of course I had to ask what the go was (hoping against hope that us olds would not be targeted) Everyone was plastered with some sort of dye, and I mean plastered – faces, clothes, hair!

‘Oh yes! That’s what we do – spray each other with food dye. It’s a tradition of the B and S. Great fun!’ The op shops must have done a roaring trade as many commented on their Op Shop outfits. I guess if their ball clobber got trashed by food dye they wouldn’t be so concerned.

So our help on the night? Approx 25 volunteers at the B and S served Roast Beef rolls (see photo above) and sausages in rolls from 6.30pm to 2am and breakfast from 6am – 8am to a bright, enthusiastic and energetic crowd, a little bleary for breakfast maybe! The numbers? 200kg beef, 600 sausages, 35kg bacon, 80 dozen eggs, 1800 bread rolls, 130 loaves bread. I assumed no-one went hungry!!! We can’t forget the cooks and washer uppers and planners working behind the scenes to make a truly great night for patrons and volunteers alike.

The cashmere number? A bit overdressed maybe…

'We Need to talk about Kevin' by Lionel Shriver

Here is an excerpt of an interview from a very interesting website on Lionel Shriver talking about her book.

http://www.identitytheory.com/interviews/birnbaum118.php

Lionel Shriver's latest novel, We Need To Talk About Kevin, is her seventh. Her previous novels are Double Fault, A Perfectly Good Family, Game Control, The Bleeding Heart, Checker and the Derailleurs and The Female of the Species. She attended Columbia University and has lived for many years in Belfast, Northern Ireland and has written for the Wall Street Journal, The Economist and the Philadelphia Enquirer. Currently she lives in New York and is, as one might expect, working on her next novel.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is the story of Eva Khatchadourian's retrospective account of her son's life up to and beyond the day he went to his high school and began shooting his classmates. As Suzy Hansen writes at Salon.com: "What we get … is an interesting, thoughtful, and surprisingly credible thriller. We Need to Talk About Kevin is about motherhood and the possibility that one's ambivalence about breeding might influence the growth and development of a child. Eva, in her scathingly honest and often witty recollections of her relationship with Franklin, her agonized decision to give up a life of traveling for motherhood, and her painful years with (the truly hideous and apathetic) Kevin, faces the question head on: Am I responsible for what my child has done?"

I loved this thought provoking book. Shriver's writing style is articulate and very detailed but her exploration of human thought is very real. As an Aussie I couldn't really relate to the issues of schoolyard crime, nor that of possession of handguns as our life seems so remote from the spine chilling phenomena of schoolyard massacres that we hear on the news from Amercia all too often. I guess the issues are still the same - if you wake up one day and realise that your son is a potential killer, what steps do you take, whose side will you take, and will you defend your own even though they have committed a henous crime. Will you blame yourself?

Our little piece of paradise

Here are two photos approx 6-7 months apart of our back verandah and our family of pot plants. A lot of the plants came from Melbourne back in '98 and were already very very old, I'm talking 20-30+ years in some cases! I lost a lot of beautiful plants in the move to Port Macquarie as they didn't like the coastal climate and were probably traumatised a bit like myself at the time, but they are thriving here. Thankfully, the vintage potplants all survived both moves. The conditions are pretty harsh here - extremes in temperature and frosts etc, but the shadecloth area is a bit protected also by the ornamental grape vine for 6 months of the year and it just seems to be a good spot that they like! Perfect little nest to relax and read a book or dream or drink coffee.

The rest of the yard is 'Crunchville' - very dry and not much growing. We are still trying to keep the citrus trees alive but sometimes it seems obscene to be giving them so much water when we are in such desperate need for this precious commodity in Upper Hunter. We have become used to our arid back yard, but there is hardly a blade of grass at the best of times and when it rains, the grass has just adapted to extreme temperatures and lack of rain and made its own hybrid variation of 'grass/slash weeds'. Quite odd, but certainly not uncommon around the Upper Hunter.

Luv CheleBelle & Nigers

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Welcome to the Hartrick blog spot

Ooh, I'm really into this blogging stuff! This is the second one I have created tonight! t'other one is mostly for knitters inspiration.

This will be mostly a private blog for friends and I'll include photos, recipes, reviews and other musings from our happy little life here in the Upper Hunter Valley. Not sure where Upper Hunter is? http://upperhunter.local-e.nsw.gov.au/ or even better: http://www.horsecapital.com.au/uhrw/Scone%20map.htm If you go to this url and go to map west of Scone you will find our street.

Luv to you and yours,
CheleBelle and Nigers