Ordering in

We're 27 km from the nearest pizza bar and I don't think that they deliver.


I'm writing this, back after Bathurst Markets/Spotlight for Xmasalia (there's even enough to satisfy me)/Legall Patisserie (there is life down there, after all, but no website) on a warmly humid with t-storms threatening afternoon (now cool and t-storms gone off towards Sydney).

The jungle lawn is in limbo as I am trying to avoid the cold which appeared yesterday and can't face wrestling with two stroke and mulched grass. Will water and wrap tinsel around gate posts in the cool of evening if it doesn't rain (did after bedtime last night but potted garden now looks wilty).

Am in the very slow process of ordering clothes in outrageously large sizes from Ralph Lauren in the USA through a company based in Bendigo, VIC called Price USA.

Slowness seems to be from Ralph's Flash rich site although my constant friend telstra seems involved at times.

I was told about this company by a very helpful sales assistant in Sydney on Monday when I said that I wished that the larger sized Ralph that I have bought in NYC and London (at Rochester) was available here. He said that if I used Price USA I could order from Ralph Lauren.com in the US.

There has been a lot of comment in Australia recently about taxing/gsting purchases from overseas because they have been increasing with the rise in the Australian dollar and local retailers think they are missing out on something (money).

This has come at a time when I seem to have made a few orders of watercolour paper/books from Amazon/a book from Amazon UK as a Xmas present for my mother/clothes from LL Bean/diaries from Smythson's/a New Yorker(although one buys from here) 2011 Diary (I wonder who that's for?. Not me.)

Some of the comments are silly; I have been ordering online for years mainly from Lands End/Eddie Bauer/LL Bean and Smythson's in London; I usually order items I can't get in Australia. In some categories our choices are very limited. When I'm in a big phase, like now, clothes are limited to stuff from High & Mighty in Sydney and Melbourne (no website) or Target Big & Tall (RM Williams also has a big boys section which is sold in their stores and in their many stockists [each country town seems to have one]). Much of what is available is not to my taste (which is for Ralph); Monday produced some good shirts and shorts from High & Mighty several of which they kindly ended up posting to me arriving, on Friday morning as I couldn't get back to the city on Tuesday.

ATO for the last few years has sensibly set an $AUD1,000 limit on value of items before they collect GST. In years gone by it was always hit or miss whether tax would have to be paid; I didn't usually but did on occasions.

Actually one problem with slowness and irritating behaviour at chez Ralph (I don't want 2 Pima cotton jade heather sweaters, just one, but it keeps defaulting to, and charging me for, 2) is that they're having a special promotion weekend as a carry over from the Black Friday sales day, so site is probably crowded. A couple of items that I'm looking at have been reduced. (Clueless in Hampton has just remembered the international dateline:: it's still Black Friday in the US. Doh.)

Now everything is having trouble reloading. Telstra to blame.

Order finally done. System is provide information/ Price USA then checks and confirms charges / pay Price USA by PayPal, credit card or "wire" whatever that is / goods are ordered. Isn't as fast as a direct order. Ralphlauren.com accepts international credit cards so they know that people from outside US are ordering. Reason for not selling directly into Australia is apparently local
franchise agreement. But local franchise won't import big sizes.

Big mouthed Gerry Norman* should realise that this is why people like me will order from overseas and will become very snarky if thwarted, and may vote with our feet and buy less from his stores in retaliation (although I bought a colour laser printer from Harvey Norman Lithgow on Thursday)::and returned a Hewlett Packard that was non Mac compliable on Friday to Officeworks in Orange.

There was true snarkiness in Byng Street in the afternoon over that ( in a further blog post).

* The story/ies have vanished from www.smh.com.au; now it's about people who buy the house next door and demolish it and turn it into a garden (the height of indulgence in land poor real estate expensive Sydney).

Image of Classic-Fit Oxford in New Rose, in better condition, copyright Ralph Lauren USA. Used with love.

Labels for this post ran over 200 characters so last lot deleted.

Greening, greening, gone

Today we drove to Orange via Oberon, O'Connell, The Lagoon, Perthville, Georges Plains, Newbridge, Blayney, Millthorpe and Lucknow (aka "the back way").

This is mainly a very pretty rural route with roads in average to good condition – no unsealed roads. It's all signposted (ie to the next town) although there are some sharp turns.

We are just past the greenest time of the year at the end of spring, with many yellow, purple and white flowers on the roadside.

The road over the high(ish) country from Newbridge to Blayney is my favourite, with rolling fields full of cows and sheep with many calves and lambs. (The return direction from Millthorpe to Blayney is pretty good, also).

Some of this country will eventually appear in my slowly emerging paintings (I have the lost and found again Sennelier HP watercolour paper, back at three times the price, I have paints in many hues both opaque and transperent, I have brushes, I am composing images to photograph as I drive by. It's going to happen Real Soon Now. Truly)

[I'm trying to upload pdf of the route map, badly cut by me from Google Maps, and Blogger is beside itself, so have attempted to re open Photoshop CS2 to convert pdf to jpeg #@$$%*(&^% ... unhappy Photoshop, a curse on blogger. A Great British Menu Friday night judgement break is indicated.] I think closing Firefox was part of the solution. And Blogger doesn't like pdf's.

The lost point of all this is that we are already at a turning of the seasons, between high spring and high and dry summer (the driest time of year in these parts) and the roadside grass is turning red/yellow/brown and we won't see this much lush abundant green until October 2011.

I had only known this area as green and lush and was surprised to arrive here on 22 January 2010 to collect keys to find a lot of brownness. Don't know whether this will happen again, as we are in an La Nina oscillation and have had very wet autumn, winter and spring, running about two weeks later than Spring 2009 by my estimate (based on when trees have come into flower).

I don't think that there are four seasons a year; I think that the Japanese are right in their 26 x 2 week periods (eg the fortnight of bluebells, the fortnight of clear mornings and rainy afternoons).

Some wiki -ing has shown this to be 24 equal periods known as 24 Sekki which, for your eternal edification are:

• Risshun (立春): February 4—Beginning of spring
• Usui (雨水): February 19—Rain water
• Keichitsu (啓蟄): March 5—awakening of hibernated (insects)
• Shunbun (春分): March 20—Vernal equinox, middle of spring
• Seimei (清明): April 5—Clear and bright
• Kokuu (穀雨): April 20—Grain rain
• Rikka (立夏): May 5—Beginning of summer
• Shōman (小満): May 21—Grain full
• Bōshu (芒種): June 6—Grain in ear
• Geshi (夏至): June 21—Summer solstice, middle of summer
• Shōsho (小暑): July 7—Small heat
• Taisho (大暑): July 23—Large heat
• Risshū (立秋): August 7—Beginning of autumn
• Shosho (処暑): August 23—Limit of heat
• Hakuro (白露): September 7—White dew
• Shūbun (秋分): September 23—Autumnal equinox, middle of autumn
• Kanro (寒露): October 8—Cold dew
• Sōkō (霜降): October 23—Frost descent
• Rittō (立冬): November 7—Beginning of winter
• Shōsetsu (小雪): November 22—Small snow
• Taisetsu (大雪): December 7—Large snow
• Tōji (冬至): December 22—Winter solstice, middle of winter
• Shōkan (小寒): January 5 Small Cold—a.k.a. 寒の入り (Kan no iri) entrance of the cold
• Daikan (大寒): January 20—Major cold

(links probably won't work); interestingly Melbounre Cup Day (first Tuesday in November) is considered the beginning of spring in Hampton/Oberon; one can plant tomatoes and basil (as if) out of doors in more or less unsheltered positions (basil still turns to green slime in rain and damp 6 C degree fog). Tomatoes have actually revived, basil now ready for second attempt.

We expect our first frost in March; our growing season is about 100 days, in shortest category in Digger's Seed Club Calender (Google it!). Kate Llwellyn who wrote about gardening at Leura (more of this later) said that an elderly woman neighbour had told her that snow has fallen at Leura every month except February. We are 1100 metres, Leura is 985 metres and may get better western sun than we do (goes behind Mt Bindo 1363 metres on whose upper slopes we live).

Am planning to attempt to match Japanese seasons with local weather.

Now Great British Menu Northern Ireland Region Judgement Night (we are well behind the UK).

Stihl here after all this time (just an innocent source of merriment ...)

One year and nineteen days later, I'm back: older, poorer, sicker and with a lousy internet connection (thanks to the folks at Telstra).

There are fireplaces, no visible neighbours (from the house), we are over 1000 metres (1100 according to the topo maps) [I wish Blogger would learn to speak Her Majesty's English rather than The President's]; there have been snow capped peaks (and snow on the ground, 6 times this winter). There are no ruined castles, alas.

Being in the country the letterbox does not always overflow with junk mail, although it is full of Hermes, Amex, DJ's and LL Bean litter plus the occasional bit of local fluff:: (there was a brief, nasty struggle with Photoshop CS2 (this is the country) before this would load) – as usual at the top of the entry not here where I would like it.

The powerful combination of blogger, telstra, 30 windows open in firefox has sent my poor oldish MacBook black into a tailspin. And now there's thunder.

But please no hail.

What happened to October?

Just disappeared!

Experiments in virtuality

and photo placement in Blogger.

Some paintings from autumn (southern hemisphere) 2008 of country seen: these are the small images – professionally photographed, not by me:: Blogger is still defeating me with placement although the images are much better. A bit small though. I'll try later with larger versions.

These are all Old Holland/Schminke/Holbein on Sennelier hp watercolour paper (I think).

Two a day!

Well at least this will be in a different position on the page ... (but no sprinkles).

Cupcakes trial

Malaise du blog seems to be continuing. This is a scanning trial to see if I can work out how to improve my scanning-of-watercolour skills (which are very limited):: although my blogger placement skills still aren't much better. It's above the text and I want it to be below .....