It's lovely, being pregnant in so many ways but also just so weird. I don't think I anticipated how weird it would be. There is so much going on in my body these days that I'm not a part of and I don't have a say in. It's not that we've ever been all that simpatico, my body and I. But now I'm being reminded of it every few minutes instead of now and then. I'm not running this show anymore.
Wearing: Black dress and Navy tights: Asos, Jacket: Gorman, Doily scarf: DIY, White loafers: Ebay
When we moved here we inherited a small collection of juvenile citrus trees planted by the previous owners. A naval orange (good), a lime (good) and 3 mandarin trees (why?).
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike mandarins, I’ve just never seen the point of them. Why, when you could have an orange or a lemon would you choose the insipid mandarin? Perhaps I should decide afterall that they chose us.
Between them, our tiny orchard produced enough fruit to send me into a tiny panic about what we were going to do with all this bounty. (The basket shot above only represents what was leftover once I could peel and bottle no more. Please imagine it packed to overflowing.)
Determined to get my country housewife, preserving apron on I eventually settled on mandarin marmalade. I used this recipe from A Table for Two which has beautiful pictures and is written by one of the Australian Masterchef contestants. I only found that out when I went back to the page to find a recipe link, but there you go.
Sadly, my mandarins must be low in pectin as I couldn’t get the silly pot of goop to set on its own and ended up having to add jam setta.
The verdict? It’s really very nice. The bitterness of the zest puts some punch into the bland stand-alone flavour of the mandarin but it is definitely a mandarin marmalade. Next year, when I’ve forgotten how long all that peeling and chopping took (and I'm not pregnant) I might try adding some whiskey to the mix as well for even more kick.
No matter how accomplished a country housewife I become I don’t think I’d ever be up for making this more than once a year. Prepping all that fruit took forever, even once I roped my mum in when she came over for tea. (I’m paying her in marmalade.)
NB: The drink in this photo is hot Milo. I’m not sure that many people outside Australia understand or appreciate the joy of drinking hot Milo on a cold winter morning and it is truly their loss.
A few weekends ago we made the trek out to Ikea to help kit out the nursery and one of the things we came back with was the Malm chest of 6 drawers in white. Ours in still currently in flatpack form but this is what they will look like.
The plan is to use the top of the drawers as a change table but I've been mulling over what I want to do to the front panels to make them a bit more awesome and less boring. I was contemplating wallpapering the fronts of the drawers until I saw this tutorial for upholstering Malm drawers in fabric and padding instead:
So cute. I think I'm going to give this a try with our drawers but instead of using contrasting colours I'd like to try this ombre look:
(via A Brooklyn Limestone in Progress)
(via this)
But in this kinda colour scheme.
Things might change a little as we start to put the room together and depending on what fabrics I can find but this is where I'm at right now.
I'm seeing this tiltshift video style all over the place at the moment, including all the vignettes at Eurovision so it must be v. trendy.
So it follows my home city must have it's own tiny toy town moment. So sweet.
Little Big Brisbane from Anders Goberg on Vimeo.
