Two fruit related dreams

These two dreams occurred on sequential nights when I was staying at my dad's house.

Ice hockey match

In this dream there are huge fruit jellies playing an ice hockey match. They look like comical mascots but are distinctly recognisable as to which fruits they are. They have humanoid arms and legs and wear jerseys like normal ice hockey players.

I am the referee and feel rather amused by the sight of a giant lemon chasing the puck... I blow the whistle and at that moment feel a wave of dread wash over me. I look at the clock and it says 0.03 - three seconds left on the clock. The fruits also look up and see that they were robbed of 3 seconds. They start to argue with each other and soon they are in a giant brawl.

There is a live replay like those point contests in tennis matches. The camera zooms into a solitary brown figure at the edge of the rink, away from where the lemon was chasing the puck. He surreptitiously takes out a whistle and blows it... so I didn't blow the whistle at all?

I realise that it is a chestnut that has blown the whistle.. but chestnuts are not fruit?
Then I wake up.

An awful slice of watermelon

In this dream I am at a house I do not recognise and there are a bunch of teenagers inside having a party. The normal party vibe is there - loud awful music, lots of drinks and high pitched laughter drifting across the lawn. I see my mother there as a 15 year old and wonder how the roles could have changed.

Something goes wrong, but I'm not sure what it is. The police are called and they arrive in several police cars. I think to myself that they would never understand I was a parent - how could I be old enough to be a parent to a teenager? But obviously I am, and they don't bat an eyelid. The officers run inside to the house to interrogate the kids, and I retreat into a garage on the side.

I open the door and step into the cool abyss. It is totally dark until I switch on the light, and it looks exactly like my office in Hurtsville Private. There is an air conditioning unit on my left, a large desk taking up the far wall with a laptop, a document tray and a telephone - very nondescript, an armchair on the right and utterly nothing on the walls. It is as sanitary as a jail cell.

But there is one difference. On the table is a big white bowl, in which there is one single slice of watermelon. Upon closer inspection it looks deeply red, as if it has been injected with something. I take the piece of watermelon out and it feels heavy in my hand. I bite into it and it floods my mouth with the taste of something wrong.

Then I wake up

Two recent dreams

Breakdown on Pennant Hills Road
(This is a very vivid dream I had in Budapest)



In this dream I am driving along Pennant Hills Rd with my dad in the little Polo. Shortly after we pass the Bunnings in Thornleigh, the car starts to slow down and I feel the weight under my foot is strange.



I see ------Batch------ flash up on the dashboard and wonder what it means.


The car sputters momentarily and comes to a silent stop. We are in the middle lane and the cars are zooming around us. I restart the car and it is silent but somehow it inches into the left lane and we manage to stop.



I get out of the car and call NRMA while my dad looks over the car. The lady asks me for the nearest cross street so I run down to the next street. I can't read the sign in the fading light so have to strain - Erknautz lane? The lady says she's never heard of the Batch problem but will send someone.



When I get back to the car my dad says he has looked all over and can see nothing wrong. Out of nowhere comes a man with a metal detector thing and he passed it over the car. We start to protest but he shows us a thumb tacks he got from the rear tyre.





Where did that come from? I wonder and wake up






Cello exercise and stretchy program




(This is the first vivid dream I had after returning to Australia)




In this dream I am at a concert with Em and we are at a venue I do not recognise. It is on the smaller side and circular in shape, around the stage in the centre. Dvorak's New World symphony is playing, and we are about halfway through the first movement. It sounds somewhat strange though, as if the orchestra is languid and needs a coffee to really wake up.




Suddenly one of the cellists stands up and shouts, Everybody out! She is so emphatic that everyone stands up and starts to shuffle out. We leave the hall and there is a large area outside where many people are milling around murmuring about the abrupt end of the concert.




From the hall, I hear a solo cello playing C.. E... F.. C.. C... on the C string. It sounds like an exercise for the C string, which of course is the most deep and resonant of all the cello strings. It winds its way up the string and back again, repeating the same major 3rd and 4th intervals. It is etched into my head.




I am still holding the program from the concert and in fiddling with it, realise it is actually pliable and soft as though it was a fruit rollup. I fold it in half and try to tear it, but it is yieldy and hard to control the edges. I stretch out one corner of the program until it is almost transparent. The words are no longer on the page and it seems like some sort of painting.




Em says we should busk in the foyer and I realise I am holding my dad's old violin case from the 1960s. When I open it, the violin is actually neither mine nor his, but some other violin I don't recognise. The hair has completely come off the bow and flops in every direction like a released bunch of flowers. I pluck the strings and they are completely out of tune. I turn the pegs and manage to break both the G and A strings whilst tuning. I am completely puzzled as these are not usually the strings that break.




Whilst contemplating what to do with this half broken violin, M comes over and I stop fiddling with the violin to introduce him to Em. He looks much younger and much thinner, with a whole head of curls. It is like an alternative version of him in his early 20s, a version that never existed. He is wearing a cream cable knit jumper and a dark gray blazer, so stylish that could never possibly exist in real life.




Then I wake up.

In my kitchen: June 2018

In the month of May, I spent a week in Budapest playing music and a week road tripping in Romania. I took Barney to Europe so we could have lots of fun baking! He slept for two days after arriving in Budapest but woke up nicely.

Hungarians really love their flour. I was most amused that flour in Hungarian is called Liszt so we were buying random bags of Liszt! There were many types of flour including some "Super fine" flour which Barney loved. There was also flour especially for strudel. The Hungarian rye flour (left) was delicious and so cheap compared to how much it costs in Australia. We also got some buckwheat flour (middle) which had a strong earthy flavour.

Barney made some handsome loaves in Europe, and this was probably the best one that I made for our Saturday afternoon string quartet with the Hungarian boys. Again eyeballing rather than using scales worked out pretty well.

We ate him fresh out of the oven with a selection of cheeses and some excellent Hungarian wine. Sour cherry jam was also delicious, as well as this red onion cheesy dip that a random lady recommended at the market. Music is always better with food!

We ate some incredibly fresh produce in Hungary and Romania. Everywhere we looked there were vibrant colours beckoning to us and we couldn't believe how cheap it all was. The strawberries were amazingly juicy and sweet, like they must have been in the years before they turned into insipid watery strawberry-shaped objects. The tomatoes would just burst with juice as soon as you sank your teeth into them, also an incredibly strong flavour. The radishes were impossibly crisp and spicy. Everything tasted just how it should taste.

Pengy with a selection of market goodies 

 Strange Romanian tomatoes

More strange Romanian tomatoes

 Romanians love their cheese

Beautiful bowls and cups from Romania

Finally, a picture of the Romanian white bean dip that I reproduced at home when I got back to Sydney. We ate this delicious garlicky bean dip topped with smoky paprikay caramelised onions in Romania and absolutely loved it. The home version to go with Barney was great too.

I'm sending this to Sherry's Pickings who runs the In My Kitchen series.

The epic road trip: moving Barney across the continent

So there are some things that Barney doesn't like:
- Fluctuations in temperature
- Fluctuations in humidity
- Movement

And all these things were going to feature strongly in our road trip... so to prepare for the trip I dried some of Barney out for backup. Then we set off with Barney in his original form, packed into my lunchbox with a couple of cold packs. We took him out every night to rest in the fridge, and then during the day he would stay in the lunchbox. He was unfussed through the whole trip! I fed him a few times, but mostly I just used him to bake like I usually would.

The first oven we came across was at the Swagman’s Rest apartments in Alice. It was a gas oven but hardly heated to a temperature high enough for baking. Shaping into rolls made sense then, and they did cook through though hardly browned after more than an hour in the oven. 

The second oven we baked in was at the Airbnb in Adelaide. This was a pretty standard oven and probably was hot enough. Unfortunately he was over-proofed and these rolls ended up being too crusty and flavour-wise on the too sour side.

Third time lucky, we stayed in an Airbnb just across the road from St Kilda beach. Here we were able to make a real loaf of bread, though he got a bit burnt probably from uneven heating of the top coils. The other loaf came with me to piano quintets, and was baked in the lovely cellist’s kitchen. Her oven was having problems with the temperature control, but she had a real casserole dish, so it worked out really well. What a beautiful thing to eat with quintets!

Baking by eye was also really fun! I usually weigh my ingredients and so don't pay too much attention, but this was a great challenge to see how it would work when just eyeballing it. I found that once the dough was formed / proofed a little bit it felt too dry, but then it was too late to add more water!

The epic road trip (4): Crossing into Victoria, and home

Day 10: Kangaroo Island - Donovans

We loved our stay on Kangaroo Island, probably because there were hardly any tourists around except at the main attractions. We found it easy to get away from the crowds and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

Another early start saw us on the 8:30am ferry back to the mainland.

The GPS took us through some strange roads - lots of towering trees and later through some gorgeous wine country.

We drove for a long time next to the Coorong lakes - a huge expanse of freshwater that seemed forgotten. We had planned to eat lobster in Kingston, but lobster season had finished! Larry the Lobster is pretty humongous, on sale for $300K if anyone is looking for a career change!

A little while later we got to Mount Gambier. It was a cloudy day and also the wrong season, so the Blue lake wasn't that vibrant blue of Google images. Still, it was an incredibly tranquil place to relax and breathe in the fresh air.

We spent the night in the most adorable Airbnb ever in Donovans, a tiny town half an hour outside Mount Gambier. The country cottage was just so sweet, and we loved picking a few apples and lemons, then settling down in front of the fire with Enid Blyton.


Day 11: Donovans - Anglesea

I had thought this would be a leisurely day, but had completely forgotten how difficult the actual Great Ocean Road drive is. We crossed the border into Victoria fairly early, and then we were shocked by the tourists. The GOR is one of Victoria's premier attractions, and it's easy to see why so many people come here. 

Bay of Islands 

London bridge

Loch Ard Gorge

Since the last time I visited GOR in 2003, the 12 Apostles have partially fallen down but the visitor centre now has to be seen to be believed. Huge numbers of tour buses and big tour groups crowded around the short walk to the apostles. It was hard to appreciate the beauty with so much noise and commotion around!

We found our own tranquility though, having lunch in a deserted forest.

Some spectacular viewpoints along the GOR. Google tells us that it is the biggest tribute to World War I in the world, having been built by the soldiers who returned from WWI to commemorate their fallen colleagues.

So many Chinese tourists... so the road signs are also in Chinese. Can you believe we are in Australia??


Day 12: Anglesea - Melbourne

We spent the night in sleepy Anglesea and headed to Melbourne the next day. There was crazy smog along the road that day with poor visibility. Traffic was awful as we went for a round town drive and then checked into our Airbnb in St Kilda.

Melbourne people are busy, right! So they even have professional dog walkers.

Sunset at St Kilda pier. We saw a few fairy penguins here, but the number of people there was phenomenal!

That night I caught up with my lovely friend Amy who had bought a beautiful house in inner city Melbourne. It was such a nice change to eat non-Chinese food after eating Chinese food non stop along the road trip! We started to play some piano duets but 1.5 Beethoven pieces later, the neighbours complained about the noise... those uncultured Melbournians..


Day 13: Melbourne

There were a lot of grand plans for Day 13. I had made a dough with Barney (more on that later) and planned to take it with me to piano quintets. But the air conditioning was really difficult to control and the apartment was so warm that the dough just grew to gigantic proportions...

In the morning I caught up with my amazing friend Sam. We met in Mexico over two years ago and have kept in touch since, which is just so lovely in this day and age. We went to a hipsteriffic veg cafe in St Kilda (of course, where else!) and I had this delicious buddha bowl with a tasty beetroot hummus.

In the afternoon I went to play piano quintet with my friend's string quartet. Driving along the Monash freeway was a good induction back to real life. I was struck by the kindness and generosity of the host, and also by what an incredible quartet they were. It was the first big group event I've played in where the participants are actually so in sync with each other they don't have to do the 1,2,3 counting..

We played Dvorak's piano quintet no.2, such a gorgeous piece that I found myself swooning at multiple points. There are some really bright and gregarious parts, alongside some beautiful melancholic melodies.. then we played a little bit of the Brahms piano quintet in F minor. Funny that I've never played Brahms. He's not too bad really..

Our last dinner on the road was these dumplings made with barney. The chewy slightly sour flavour of the dumpling skins has ruined me for instant dumplings... forever.

Day 14: Melbourne - home

This was one of our epic drive days and we were all in a great mood and looking forward to home.

The fog was pretty heavy again.

After about three hours we got back to New South Wales!

It's odd there's a big submarine shell in this little town in the middle of nowhere..

Last stop in Goulburn with the Big Merino.

Last sunset on the road

Home sweet home, 6000km later. We had spent two weeks traversing three states and one territory, seen a diverse range of beautiful landscapes, spied a whole bunch of animals in the wild (camels, horses, countless kangaroos, 1 dingo, 1 emu, 3 koalas, lots of eagles, buffalos, cows, 2 penguins) and drunk much much coffee (both drinkable and non-drinkable. I think only when one is on the road, one can really appreciate how huge Australia is and just how raw the land is. It is an incredible country we live in.

The epic road trip (3): Kangaroo Island

Day 8: Adelaide - Kangaroo Island 

It was freezing and raining as we got up super early for the 1.5hr drive to the ferry at Cape Jervis. The road was completely dark and it was incredibly hard to see in the rain. My dad soldiered on driving at speeds I would never have been able to achieve. The light began to lift as we got closer, but the rain continued. We just made the ferry with barely a moment to spare! Had I been driving, we would have definitely missed it.

The trip across was short and very choppy. It continued to rain for much of that first morning. We stayed at Baudin Beach apartments which was very nice, a cosy little hut in a small village.

I've never seen this strange grape like plant anywhere!

Sweet little ant that came up to visit while I was reading on the porch. 

The lady next door raises orphaned kangaroos and had a few that hung around her place that were practically tame. I dropped into the art gallery too, and had a chat with the woodwork artist who was stationed there that day.

 

We headed out to American River for some oysters, and saw heaps of black swans along the way. 

Along the estuary, we saw some discarded stingray carcasses being picked over by seagulls. A friendly local walking his dog told us that unknown fishermen had picked these up and dumped them on the shore. It made us quite sad.

In the afternoon we headed to Emu bay, where the white sand was beautifully soft.

We had planned to attend the pelican feeding at Kingscote, but this had stopped for the season. The pelicans waited patiently on the platform, allowing themselves to be photographed by the big crowd there.


Day 9: Kangaroo Island

We took a day trip to Flinders chase NP which was just one of the most spectacular places I've ever visited.

It was a wonderful day of stunning blue skies and an incredible sea wherever we turned.

We went to Admiral's arch where the sea washed up violently onto the rocks. 
 

There were seals everywhere!

At the end of the walkway is the actual arch, the limestone worn away by the sea. Here we saw lots of seals frolicking in the water and lazing about. The baby seals were really playful, dashing around and trying to annoy the adult seals. 

Then we went to the Remarkable rocks, which were really remarkable. 

We stopped for snacks here, setting up under one of the dramatic rock formations. Nature is so incredible in transforming rocks to all these different things.

On the way back we stopped at the visitors centre to spot koalas. Literally 2 minutes after we left the visitors centre area, we saw 2 koalas! They are the picture of sweet tranquility, sleeping the day away in a tree.

We stopped for a late lunch at Vivonne Bay, setting up next to the beautiful Harriet river washing into the sea. 

Feeling a bit tired, we headed home to rest. At sunset we headed down to Baudin beach and saw this solitary pelican.