What Matters Most

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On Friday, a very dear friend came to visit me. We have been heartfelt mates for over 25 years. We studied natural therapies together, as well as other very interesting things, as you do when you step into the alternative lifestyle! It’s probably been more than ten years since we have seen each other. It’s actually hard to remember the last time we met, as even though we only speak a few times a year, we are always present in each other’s life. Much has happened during that time, and as true friends do, we have shared the sorrow and the joy. Yes, we indeed have a special friendship, and it seems to weather every storm.

We had spoken to each other earlier in the week to organise the day, but we didn’t set a time. And as we’re quite a distance from where she and her lovely new man were staying, they set out rather early. The result was that they arrived mid-morning ~ just as I was starting to prepare lunch! The kitchen was covered with uncooked food, there was stuff everywhere, and the vacuum cleaner was still sitting unused in the hallway … definitely not my style when greeting guests! Generally, I am Mrs Organised. The only thing we had managed to do before they arrived was set the table!

But you know what? We were so happy to see each other it didn’t matter a scrap! Between hugs, introductions, laughter, non-stop talking, the chopping of vegetables and the clanging of pots and pans, it all got done. I’m usually not good with people in my kitchen space. I like to get the cooking done on my own, by myself! So I created an imaginary no-cross line, and fortunately, they hung with Hubby on the other side of the kitchen counter while I got on with it.

When lunch was finally cooked, my humble offering was a winter vegetable soup served with beef rissoles, bread buns and chutney, and for dessert, we had chocolate cake with ice cream and strawberry sauce. When it comes to cooking I’m a taster and I add seasoning and flavour as I go along, so my recipes are never quite as exact as they should be, however, here they are:

Winter Vegetable Soup

I think everyone knows how to make vegetable soup ~ it’s pretty basic cooking. I generally make it with whatever I have in the fridge ~ the vegetables I used were as per the ingredients below, but I often also add peas, zucchini, and bok choy about 10 minutes before it’s cooked. It’s really up to you as to what you use and the quantities. I generally like lots of greens, but I used what I had. You can top each bowl with your favourite grated cheese and add sun dried tomatoes as shown below on the right, or add cooked sliced sausages, pork belly or chicken. That’s the beauty of a big pot of vegetable soup ~ you have an excellent base for a different meal every night from the leftovers in the fridge.

Veg Soup1

Veg soup with Sun Dried Tom and Swiss Cheese

Ingredients:

  • 3 parsnips
  • 1 smallish turnip
  • ½ large butternut pumpkin
  • 5 small new potatoes
  • 3 large carrots
  • 3 sticks of celery
  • 200-300 grams green beans
  • 1/4 cauliflower
  • 1 small broccoli
  • 20 snow peas
  • 1 large leek
  • 20 asparagus spears trimmed
  • 2 bay leafs
  • A few peppercorns
  • Enough water to cover the vegetables
  • Your favourite stock ~ mine is Marigold Swiss Organic Vegetable Bouillon Powder which is available at most health food stores and also online.
  • 1 tin of baked beans ~  butter beans are also good
  • 1 tin of creamed corn ~ if you want to use fresh corn then add it at the beginning with the other vegetables
  • Bunch of chopped flat leaf parsley

Method:
Chop all vegetables to about the same size, except for the leek which should be cut into half rings. Place all the vegetable bar asparagus, broccoli and snow peas in a large pot and add the water. Add a few tablespoons of stock powder and then taste about half way through the cooking to see if it needs more. Alternatively you can use pre-prepared liquid vegetable stock if you’re happy with the flavour. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 30 minutes, then add the asparagus, broccoli and snow peas and cook until tender. When ready mix through the baked beans and creamed corn. If you want to thicken the soup a little, blend some of the pumpkin and the potato. I served each bowl topped with flat leaf parsley, or as mentioned above, you can add almost anything you like! Also, note that soup is generally better the next day when all the flavours have had a chance to meld, and had I been energetic enough the night before, I would have made it then!

My Mother’s Rissoles

These are very yummy and also very tender. You can use any minced meat, even chicken mince, and add your own flavours and spices.

The Buns and The Chutney

My Mother's Rissoles

Ingredients for 16 Rissoles:

  • 500 grams of medium minced beef
  • 4 slices of bread ~  either white or wholemeal
  • Enough milk to cover the bread ~ if you have dairy issues, use oat or soy milk
  • 2 eggs ~ I usually whisk them before adding to the mix
  • 1 large onion finely chopped ~ either brown or white
  • Seasoning to taste with stock powder, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce
  • Flour for rolling the formed rissoles ~ I generally use rice flour
  • Olive oil or butter for frying ~ butter, of course, is more flavoursome

Method:
Soak bread in milk till it’s very soft, then squeeze out all the moisture. If the crust is not soft enough or a bit lumpy, then remove it. Cook the chopped onion till tender. When the onion is cooled slightly combine it with the bread and all the remaining ingredients, and mix together well with your hands. The mixture must be a sticky consistency. If it seems a bit sloppy then add some flour. Also, now is the time to taste it for seasoning. The mix needs to be fairly well seasoned, or the rissoles will be bland. Form mixture into rissole size balls and roll each one in flour. You can season the flour if you feel you want more flavour. If you will be cooking them later, then don’t flour them yet. This must be done just before cooking. Melt enough oil or butter (or both) on a medium to high heat to cover the base of the pan, add 4 to 6 rissoles at a time depending on how large your pan is, flatten them with a spatula, and brown on both sides. Then cook them on low heat for 3 minutes until cooked through. I served my rissoles on buns with the soup, but if you’re serving them on a plate with vegetables, you may want to make them a little special. When they are cooked, pour the fat off the pan, add back all the rissoles, and then add enough double cream to make a sauce. Be warned, everyone will love this so don’t skimp on the cream. Simmer covered on low for a few minutes. Taste the sauce to see if it needs seasoning. Generally it doesn’t. This makes a very rich, but beautiful, sauce.

Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Sauce and Ice Cream

This is so easy. It’s my favourite chocolate cake, and it’s a bought mix too ~ just follow the directions on the box. I always choose the ‘full fat’ ingredients as below, as I find the reduced fat option is a bit springy, and I don’t like it.

Choc Cake and Strawberry SauceChocolate Cake

Ingredients for Cake:

Ingredients for Strawberry Sauce:

  • 2 punnets of chopped strawberries
  • Water to cover half the strawberries
  • Castor sugar to taste
  • Squeeze of lime juice

Method:
Place all ingredients into your saucepan and cook for a couple of minutes till strawberries are soft but still have their shape. Remove strawberries and reduce liquid by half. Add strawberries back into the reduced liquid and blend with an electric hand mixer. Taste, and add more sugar if required. Serve warm or cold with chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream.

So that’s what we ate, and it was delicious! I must admit that I’ve never been caught out before not ready to greet my guests, but as I said, it didn’t matter. We spent our time lost in laughter and memories, and not for a second did we focus on our surroundings or how the meal came to the table. What matters most is the friendship ~ it’s what made our time together special. My friend lives in another state, and it’s quite likely it will be another ten years before we see each other again, but that’s OK! We had enough hugging and joy to last us a very long time.

P.S. We finished the soup three days later and the very last bowl was definitely the best!

Inara Hawley © 2013

A Winter’s Lunch

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Last weekend we had friends to lunch. Now I know I’ve said I’m the No-Cook Cook, and as a general rule, I am. I would rather do something else. That doesn’t mean though that I won’t make an effort ~ I will, as long as it’s a quick and easy effort! Every time I think I might make something a little more special (which really means a little more complicated) I just cast my mind back to last winter. I had a week of madness where I decided to make proper pies ~ you know, the kind with two different pastries. Meat pies, apple pies … large ones, small ones … all very nice, but a nightmare ~ so fiddly and time-consuming! And whilst I was in the middle of crimping the pastry around the edges and popping on the egg wash, I suddenly thought, what am I doing? Am I mad? It’s like the time I decided to make crab-apple jam from our fruit-laden tree. The heavy branches were begging me to cook those luscious little apples! And it was delicious ~ I froze it and we had it over ice cream for two whole summers (it didn’t set like jam so we had lovely crab-apple sauce instead). But never again! Have you ever tried to core a couple of buckets of crab-apples … it’s painfully slow but has to be done ‘cause them little pips do not dissolve by themselves no matter what the recipe says!

Now back to our lunch! As I said, I’m happy to make a quick and easy effort, but having read my blog post about not cooking, I think our friends arrived with perhaps a touch of trepidation as to what they were going to get! They were after all bringing the wine, which by the way, was wonderful. But while I may not enjoy spending hours cooking on a daily basis anymore, I am happy to cook a beautiful meal for beautiful friends. Long gone though are the days when I want to impress anyone ~ what I put on the table these days has to taste and look good, but what’s most important of all, especially to me, is the heartfelt sharing of food with friends. It can make the simplest meal the most memorable and delicious.

So then, what to cook? Being winter, it’s still quite cool and as it was lunch it had to be warming and light. And as our friends love their food and wine I decided on four courses. He is a wine connoisseur currently writing a book on the subject, and they both love to cook, so I wanted to make my offering just a little special, and finally decided on French Onion Soup ~ delicious, Salmon ~ always good, Poached Pears ~ yum, and a Cheese Platter. And here are the recipes:

French Onion Soup with Cheesy Ciabatta Bread

Wine:
1999 Meerea Park Alexander Munro Semillon which won 5 Gold Medals
It’s been years since I’ve made French Onion Soup, and it was truly delicious! Even though this took a bit of time, it was worth it and it was also very easy. I didn’t have to stand over it and was able to do lots of other things while it was cooking.

A Winter's Lunch ~ French Onion Soup

Ingredients for 4 People:

  • 60g chopped butter
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 6 thinly sliced onions (about 1kg) ~ I used 3 white and 3 brown
  • 2 teaspoons of brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons plain flour
  • 4 cups of beef stock ~ I used ready made beef consommé
  • 1 loaf of sliced ciabatta bread
  • 1 block of Swiss cheese

Method:
Heat butter and oil in a heavy-based saucepan (this is important as you will be cooking the onions for quite a long time). Add onions and salt, and cook uncovered on a medium to low heat for 45 minutes stirring often until onions are very soft. Stir in sugar and cook for another 10 minutes stirring until onions caramelise. Then add the flour and continue to stir for2 minutes. Add the stock and about 1½ cups of water. Reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes. For the cheesy bread top the ciabatta with Swiss cheese and heat in 180 C oven until melted.                                 

Salmon, Potatoes and Mushrooms with Honey Mustard Sauce, Asparagus and Carrots

Wine: 2011 New Zealand Babich Sauvignon Blanc
Salmon with asparagus is a favourite in our house, but I wanted to give it a bit of zing so added baked potatoes and mushrooms with honey mustard dressing. All of this was also very easy to make ~ one just needs to be organised so everything is ready at the same time, and organised is something I’m always on top of!

A Winter's Lunch ~ Salmon

Ingredients for 4 people:

  • 4 skinless salmon steaks
  • 6-8 small new potatoes scrubbed and quartered
  • 1 bag of medium sized button mushrooms cut into quarters
  • 4 bundles of asparagus with woody ends removed
  • 3 carrots julienned
  • Olive Oil, Butter, Salt and Pepper

Ingredients for dressings ~ Serve over salmon, potatoes and mushrooms:

  • 3 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
  • 3 tablespoon of whole-grain mustard
  • 3 teaspoon of honey
  • 6 tablespoons olive oil
  • 3 tablespoons chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

Method:
Toss the quartered potatoes in olive oil, salt and pepper, and bake in 200 C oven in a large bake-to-table dish until tender. Cook the quartered mushrooms in a large pan until slightly browned, and add to the potatoes in the oven when done, to keep warm. Cook the asparagus and julienned carrots, and toss in butter. Sear the salmon on both sides and cook as desired from rare to pink. Serve salmon with the potatoes, mushrooms and dressing, and the asparagus and carrots in a side dish.

Poached Pears with Raspberry Sauce and Ice Cream

Dessert Wine: 2006 Riverina Wolf Blass Gold Label Botrytis Semillon
Poached Pears done in red wine were always a favourite in the seventies, but raspberries sounded just right for lunch. Again, an easy dish to make especially as it was done in the slow cooker. I switched it off when it was done and turned the pears a couple of times so the colour was pink all the way around. As for the dessert wine, I’m not a great wine drinker these days but I did try it, and it was really good. Perfect with the pears!

A Winter's Lunch ~ Raspberry Poached Pears

Ingredients for 4 people:

  • 4 pears
  • 1 cup castor sugar
  • 150g frozen raspberries
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
  • 2 cups cranberry juice
  • 1-2  cups of water depending on how strong you want the mix

Method:
Combine sugar, juice and water in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook stirring until sugar is combined. Add vanilla and raspberries. Place pears in the slow cooker and add enough of the juice mix to cover halfway up the pears. Cook on high in slow cooker for 1¼ hours or on the stove top until the pears are tender turning every now and again so the colour is uniform all the way around. Place the balance of the mix in a saucepan and slowly reduce to a thick sauce. Serve pears with the reduced sauce and ice cream.

Coconut Milk Ice Cream

I even made some coconut milk ice cream for myself (I tend to get cow belly), and it turned out very well and was great with the pears though I don’t think I’ll make it again. It took practically all day having to blend it every hour. An ice cream maker would have made it lot easier of course. I used to have one, but never used it so gave it away. I think my sister might have it, and I don’t think she uses it either!

A Winter's Lunch ~ Coconut Ice Cream

Ingredients:

  • 1 can of coconut milk
  • 1 can of coconut cream
  • 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
  • ½ cup of honey

Method:
Blend all ingredients with an electric hand blender and pour into a large freezer-safe bowl. Freeze covered for about 30 minutes, take out and re-blend. Return to freezer and blend again every half hour until ice cream is creamy and frozen through. This takes quite a long time so start making it early in the day. Then pour into a freezer dish, smooth down with a spatula and press plastic wrap to the surface. Freeze overnight. If it freezes rock solid, which it’s not supposed to but mine did, leave it out for 15 minutes before serving and it will be perfect.

Cheese Platter

A Winter's Lunch ~ Cheese Platter

It’s always nice to linger over coffee with a cheese platter, but at the end of the day, it was a touch too much food. It was, however, was absolutely delicious for dinner that night as we sat in our comfy chairs and thought about how nice it was that friends made the effort to come such a long way to see us. It was well worth cooking something just a little special!                       

Inara Hawley © 2013

The Best Years

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Today is my 37th Wedding Anniversary. It’s the second time around for Hubby. Not for me though, and while the research says that second marriages are more likely to fail, they obviously got it wrong when it came to us. Ours continues on in all its glory and bliss.

Our Wedding Day

Our Wedding Day in 1976

Like everyone, we’ve had our ups and downs and spits and spats, but the hard times, and there have been some very hard times, pale into insignificance when compared to the love, joy and happiness we’ve shared ~ it abounds and bounces around like glittery stars, and with each bounce creates more and more of the same!

So, after all these years how did we celebrate? Well, we did our favourite thing ~ we had a lovely breakfast followed by a quiet day in, enjoying each other’s company and reminiscing about what a fabulous life we’ve had. And we have! We’ve done so many things together ~ we’ve worked as partners in business from day one creating and building our best life, travelled the world enjoying fabulous moments and wonderful friends, and created an enduring family filled with love and joy. Not everyone could take being together 24/7, but for us it’s been easy! We knew from the very beginning we were a good team.

Words of thanks, especially those which are written, are a wonderful thing. Eleven years ago when Hubby celebrated a special birthday these are the words I wrote …

‘We have enjoyed 28 wonderful and eventful years together, 26 of them in a committed loving marriage. We have spoken many times of the gratitude we both feel to be so very blessed. Over the years we have not only been each other’s most important support, but we have given each other many special gifts of love, hope and joy. Before our beautiful child was born, our life was only about us. Now, having shared the joys of parenthood and the many paths travelled together I am cushioned by the wonderful memories of the past and the ones yet to come.

I look forward to every day with you. You light up my life. You are a rock and a comfort … my handsome everlasting love. Thank you for the romance, the nurturing, the spoiling, the wit, the humour, the fun, the good times, and also the hard. You have never wavered for a moment. You have always done your best with a kind and giving heart. And thank you for being so understanding, for loving me so completely and always allowing me the freedom to follow my own pursuits… and also, for sharing your sadness and your joy ~ for sharing the real you.

Oh how our life together has grown, only because we have been so united and so confident that it would. We have shared so much yet the time has been but a blink of an eye. But we have never, nor will we ever waste a moment. We will always fill our lives with laughter, joy and happiness. As always, my heart is full. I salute and serenade you with love, love, love.’

The Best Years

Hubby and I today!

Those words are just as true today. People often ask me, how is it that we have such a good marriage, and the answer is easy ~ we’re worth it! We respect and hold each other in very high esteem. We have never tried to outdo the other ~ competition has no place in a marriage ~ instead we always work to each other’s strengths. And we learn from each other too ~ impetuous me for instance, has learned to ‘sleep on it’ while Hubby has learned to slam a door! We laugh every day, especially at the things that annoy us, and we do ‘silly’ a lot. We spoil each other, we celebrate the special moments, we have loads of fun and most important of all ~ we play the mutual admiration game and trust each other completely. My marriage is the most comfortable place in the world. I am treated like a princess by the kindness, most caring, funniest and gorgeous bloke I know!

We’ve had 39 wonderful years together, and if you were to ask me which were the best? My answer would be: all of them and every single one yet to come! As I was writing this, Hubby came in, took my hand, kissed it and said, “We got it right!” Yes, we most certainly did!

Inara Hawley © 2013

The No-Cook Cook

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That’s me ~ the no-cook cook! I simply don’t enjoy cooking anymore. If it’s not easy, I don’t cook it. In fact an in-house chef, possibly named Herb or Basil, is on my wish list!

When I think back on the huge amount of cooking I used to do I can’t imagine being there now, so as this is a post about how much cooking has changed in my life it’s very appropriate that it is the first in the category of ‘Food Glorious Food’.

The reason cooking has had such a metamorphosis over the years is simple ~ it has changed with the changing chapters of my life. They say there is a time for everything, and when I think back that’s certainly been true for me. I’ve had my glamorous years when I was at the beauty salon regularly having top to toe sessions, my creative years when I painted, sculpted and sat with my mother sharing quiet winter evenings with only the sound of our clicking knitting needles, my craft years when I marshalled a whole school community into making all manner of things for annual fairs, my volunteering years where I spent much time joyfully giving, my gardening years when I turned a barren hillside into acres of magnificent garden, my studying years when I buckled down and became a herbalist and got a teaching degree. Yes, there are most definitely special times to do certain things in one’s life, and in looking back, my culinary endeavours have moved with those times.

Formal Dinner Party TableSo back to cooking! In the seventies my world was a whirlwind of formal dinner parties, and they were very, very flash! Never ending four course dinners with no less than ten guests sitting under sparkling chandeliers was the norm! I usually started preparing two days in advance. Why? Because we were all on a merry-go-round of cooking authentic French food … rich, creamy and delicious!

In reality, we were all absolutely crazy in the seventies with our over-the-top dinner parties. I even kept a guest book so I knew not to serve the same dish twice! My table was set with crystal glasses, silver cutlery and linen serviettes. The soup was served in the finest tureen, the crepe suzettes were cooked at the table and there was a different wine for every course, including after dinner liqueurs served with frozen grapes, Turkish delight and brie. It was grand indeed, but to be fair, for us, many of those dinner parties were business related ~ we often had overseas associates at our table and the bank manager was a frequent guest ~ so being on top of my game was rather important. There was a five year period where business was so brisk we had a formal dinner party every Friday and Saturday night. It didn’t take long before I could make the perfect boeuf bourguignon and crème brûlée with my eyes closed! Life was very impressive and quite often, rather extraordinary.

The No-Cook Cook - On The BBQThen came the eighties, and it was all about el fresco outdoor dining. Cooking became far more casual. Hubby was king with the barbeque tools and I swanned around with an outstanding afro perm, big earrings and shoulder pads! Upmarket barbeques with dips, fabulous salads, trifles, cheese boards, quiches and cask wine were all the rage, but as I was studying and dispensing herbal medicine in the early eighties, everything in my house was made with the biodynamic and organic food which filled my cupboards. A juicer and a seed sprouter had pride of place on my kitchen bench. My life was immersed in motherhood, school, craft, volunteering, the alternative lifestyle and lots of good healthy food. But there was also lots of fun too. We were all youngish parents with growing children, and together we all had a ball ~ life was one big party! It was an exhilarating time.

And then came the nineties and I was studying again, this time for a teaching degree. We also had a new business and were building a new house, and for the first time in my life I was creating a garden, so life was extremely busy. Cooking was still healthy, but it had to be simple and quick ~ there was no time beyond getting it out of the cupboard and onto the table. Yes, the nineties were demanding and proved to be very challenging, and apart from special occasions, cooking food was almost an afterthought.

And now in the two thousands, I have more important things to do than cook! I would raThe No-Cook Cook - Banana Pancakesther sit and write. That doesn’t mean we don’t eat beautiful food, we do! Just last night I cooked pancakes ~ 1 banana, 2 eggs, honey, vanilla and cinnamon. A quick whiz, on the pan and ten minutes later they were done! Easy peasy is what it’s all about in my kitchen these days. The crystal glasses, the silver cutlery and the wine carafes have long since been given away and now grace other tables. Life is quiet and joyful, and food is quick, easy and simple. I have however, kept my three dinner sets and bouillabaisse dishes just in case. So Herb and Basil, if you’re out there and can hear me, my home is your home!

Inara Hawley © 2013

Dreams Do Come True

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Do you believe that dreams can come true? I’m not talking about those special goals we make and aim for ~ I’m talking about the miracles we wish for. In this busy world of ours where everything moves so fast, many of us don’t have time to sit and dream about miracles. But miracles do occur, and it’s when we hold tight to a burning desire with passion, that they come true.

So let me tell you a story about a miracle. In1936, a few short years before the Second World War broke out, a desolate and very unhappy young girl was living a miserable existence in an orphanage. Her legs were scratched and bleeding from the rough woollen socks she wore, her feet were wet because she had no gumboots, she was lonely, and she was sick. For you see she had spent most of her life in hospital suffering from tuberculosis of the spine. When it was time to leave she had no family to go to. Her parents and her grandmother had long since died, and her only close relative, her grandfather, had fallen on hard times. He lived in a rented attic crammed full of memorabilia, and the authorities would not allow him to take her, so the only place left was the state orphanage.

The safe refuge of the hospital was gone, and daily life was now about the survival of the fittest. But unfortunately her lungs and spine were badly damaged and still very weak, and having to fend for herself and deal with the harsh daily regime was not easy. She slept in a twenty-bed dormitory, and her life was dominated by bells. There was a bell for everything; for washing, for dressing, for eating, for school, and for sleeping. Bell after bell controlled her every movement. There was never a moment to recover. She had to be sharp and fast, something which was very difficult for a girl who was not physically strong. She even had to fight for her food ~ breakfast was a case of the quick or the dead, and she was not quick.

Getting around was also very difficult. There were lots of steps and it was slow going. She didn’t walk like other children, nor could she run or play as she still wore a spinal brace. And because her gait was different, the other children made fun of her and pushed her over. Years of living in an institution had left its mark ~ she was insecure, fearful, and lacked self-esteem. So she spoke with no one, and no one spoke to her. Her only respite was school ~ she loved it. Learning became her sanctuary and she excelled. It gave her something to hang on to and feel proud of.

When she was discharged from the hospital and moved to the orphanage she was given a parting gift ~ a book of her favourite stories, and the one she loved the most, was about an angel who was sent to earth at Christmas to do a good deed. The angel’s mission was to find a child for a broken-hearted mother whose baby had gone to heaven. The angel searched and searched, and on Christmas Eve, found the child he was looking for ~ a destitute orphan who desperately needed a mother. And in the words of the book, ‘by the love in the light of a candle flame’, the angel brought them together.

With heart and soul this little girl believed it to be a true story, and with burning faith, believed it was also her story. She slept with the book under her pillow and knew the words by heart, whispering them to herself every single night and praying to God and the angels for her miracle to come. So deep and intense was her belief that she was convinced her prayers would be answered with the coming of Christmas, only weeks away. Just like the story, the angels would send her a mother, exactly the right mother, to fill her life with love.

In this lonely existence, one day she had an unexpected visitor ~ her grandfather. And what he found not only shocked him, it made him very angry. He may have lost his wealth, but he was not about to let his granddaughter get lost in a world of poverty and struggle. He was still owed money from the days when he was a wealthy man, and if he couldn’t get the money, he was going to make damn sure those who owed it to him met his granddaughter’s needs. And so without ceremony he made his way to the doorstep of the man who owed him the most.

His actions set some very powerful wheels in motion ~ the wife of the man he visited decided to go to the orphanage and see for herself this child he was so passionate about. She was a kind and loving woman, and it was with a caring heart that she sat down beside a frail little girl in the dormitory. And as if it was heaven sent, the child beside her instantly knew this was the miracle she had been praying for. This kind lady with the loving eyes was her mother ~ she was certain of it. And without a second’s thought, she looked into her eyes and said, ‘Mother, when are we going home?’ These words were the turning point in both their lives.

Dreams Do Come TrueSo yes, dreams do come true. This was the miracle she had been longing for. The young girl was my mother and the kind stranger was the only grandmother I ever knew. And so it was that my mother spent her first Christmas in ten years in the care of a loving family. And as time went by their bond grew. With the blessing of my mother’s grandfather, within a few months they adopted her, and Omi and Opaps, as we always called them, became my grandparents. Omi did everything in her power to bring my mother back to health and Opaps lived up to his responsibility and gave her everything she needed, and more. Omi saved her life after years of illness and Opaps kept her safe during the war.

My two siblings and I became much loved grandchildren to our Omi and Opaps. Even though they had a natural granddaughter of their own, we were a loving part of their family, and many years later, when the meagre proceeds of their estate was distributed, it was divided equally amongst their four grandchildren. So their debt was finally paid, both in honour and in obligation, and the miracle of love lives on.

Inara Hawley © 2013

*This story is an abridged extract from my book, ‘Conversations With My Mother’, published for the family in 2010*

Through Grateful Eyes

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Some time back while scrolling through a social media site the following words caught my eye … ‘I don’t believe in gratitude’. Well I do, and that my friends, is what this blog post is all about ~ the good fortune of connecting to conscious gratitude.

Now I understand that life can be very hard sometimes ~ we all have our mountains to climb, but we also need to learn from them and move on. It’s when we can’t see the blessing for the pain that we allow ourselves to be held captive by the past, and gratitude can then be very hard to find.

Of course no one feels particularly grateful when they are in the midst of suffering or drama, but in my experience there is always a lesson which lies within it. And when we find it ~ when we see it clearly, feeling grateful is a big part of letting it go and moving forward. And then, when we bring gratitude into our daily experience we find more and more to be thankful for.

I connected to the magic of conscious gratitude over thirty years ago. For a short time I kept a gratitude journal, but as I got into the habit of feeling grateful on a daily basis my journal became more and more superfluous. Instead I started a new ritual, one which I still practise today ~ I never fall asleep without finding five things to be grateful for in my day. And as you can imagine, falling sleep became a divinely uplifting experience. Every night I drifted off amidst thankful thoughts with a smile on my face. And every morning, I woke with the same smile and the same thankful heart.

As you can see I’m a huge believer in gratitude, but this doesn’t mean my life has been without its challenges these past thirty years ~ some of the mountains I’ve created have been very steep indeed. What it does mean, is that being consciously grateful for what I’ve learned, and for the simple joys and blessings in my day has been part of what’s helped me stay positive through some very hard times.

Many of the stories I’ve told in this blog have been about overcoming past hardship. But in the telling of them I can honestly say I am not emotionally connected to any of the hard times, and it’s because I am grateful. For me the challenges are stepping stones. I look for the lesson, the catalyst for growth ~ that’s what I identify with and what becomes part of who I am. That is the gift. I connect to what I’ve gained, and move forward. And in my world, there is always a gain ~ something for which I feel enormous gratitude.

When we look for things to be grateful for we begin to appreciate all the little things ~ the simple pleasures that we once took for granted. So I live with the joy of both appreciation and gratitude ~ I appreciate the joy of every moment and I am grateful that I experience it. And today, I still have my nightly gratitude ritual, albeit somewhat improved. I now include five things that I am grateful for in my future. I feel the gratitude as if I already have them in my life, and appreciate and visualize each desire in all its glorious detail. It’s a magic thing to do. Try it ~ you will be amazed by what starts to happen when you live in the state of gratitude and appreciation! It opens your heart like a flower.

And remember, a belief is just a thought and we can change our thoughts anytime we choose. As they say, what you resist persists and where focus goes energy flows!

Inara Hawley © 2013

Building a Deck

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I married a builder. Now this doesn’t mean that I’ve lived with Mr. Handy for the last 36 years ~ far from it! He put his tool bag away long before he met me and went into corporate work, where he rose to dizzy heights. Then he married me, and in addition to being life partners, we also became business partners.

This made for a very busy lifestyle, and as most Australians do, we moved around quite a bit. Over the years we’ve lived in six houses ~ built one from scratch and improved the others with either big or small renovations, all done by hired builders. But now that Hubby has retired, he’s a man possessed ~ renovating has become his passion! From early morning to mid afternoon he’s out there hammering away at something, creating his version of a great place to live. And it’s a good thing too, as this house is badly in need of repair. I’ve never lived in such a run down place. It was a sad old house indeed when we moved in ~ very unloved, and it took me a bit of time to get used to the fact that it was falling apart inside, but as Hubby said, it had good bones and he fell in love with it at first glance so here we are, and here he is doing what he set out to do when he first saw the place ~ fix it up!

Our Country HomeWe had a general idea of the renovations we wanted to do, but apart from what tradespeople like electricians and plumbers did, there was a long list of bits that needed doing first, like repairing verandah boards, lining cupboards, replacing doors, fixing steps, making rails and pump covers, repairing fences, planting trees, and the biggie ~ painting the outside of the house. Only then could we think about what we’d do with the mess outside the kitchen door. The back porch was small and downright dangerous, and the ground area was wet, sloppy and awful (that’s girl talk for it being a ‘rainwater sump with rotting deck timber’) so hubby decided to build a decent covered deck. My thoughts were, given that he was doing it all by himself and there was lots of heavy lifting and tall ladders involved, it was probably a bit beyond him, but he was resolute … he was building the deck. My idea of a decent covered outside area was a large roof, a bit of a porch, and some pavers and gravel for sitting around the barbeque, but no, no, no! He had a plan and he would not be swayed, and in case I didn’t hear him the first time, he was BUILDING THE DECK!

Hubby Building DeckRoof Nearly DoneDeck StepsDeck Boards DoneAnd so it began. With measurements in hand Hubby took himself off to the local hardware store and connected with his new best friends … yes, there were days when he needed to pop up there three times in the space of 6 hours! And of course the locals (hubby does all the shopping so he knows everyone) have all been kept up to date as well. The owners of the post office, who nearly bought the place when it was for sale, expect a blow-by-blow of everything we do plus photographs! And anyone who’s ever made a delivery of materials has also taken a moment to check in on the building progress. All I can say is, you’ve got to love the people in small country towns!

So bit by bit and board by board, our deck grew into something rather fabulous. But of course building it without fixing the surrounding garden simply wouldn’t do. So there was also a lot of moving of dirt, retaining of garden walls, filling and planting, and covering the very grotty broken pathways with pavers and gravel. And in doing all of it Hubby only fell off the ladder from a great height once! It was a big ‘ouch’ and under instructions from wife and four daughters he took a week off! Fast forward five months and everything is now finished … it’s been a huge job, and it looks fantastic ~ even the cats love it! Compared to what was there before Hubby has created something very special. He has a flair for designing just the right thing for the right space. And Sheep Man, who owns the little flock on our land, is coming over in the next few days with his strong-man brother-in-law to carry out the barbecue.

The Finished Deck!So that’s the deck done! And now we sit out there with swelled chests admiring it and loving that we can soak up the beauty of our surroundings in such a luxurious space. It’s a pleasure and a joy, and my man is a miracle worker. He is so special and I am truly blessed.

Inara Hawley © 2013

The Path to Teaching

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In hindsight, the path leading to the important choices we make is usually very clear, even if the beginnings may appear to be somewhat tenuous and difficult. But sometimes, it’s precisely because those beginnings are difficult that a particular path is taken.

When I was five years old I started school, but because I couldn’t speak a word of English I walked into a very scary and confusing world. Had it not been for the little boy who lived next door taking me by the hand on that first day, I would have been totally lost. But the truth of it was, when it came to school, I was lost … for quite a long time.

4th Class School PhotoWhether it was the xenophobia which was rife in Australia in the 1950’s or the fact that I was so quiet no one noticed how much I was struggling, my early school life was a soul destroying experience. And because no one bothered to reach out, isolation and a lack of confidence became my daily school companions ~ quite a paradox for a child, who outside of school, was lively and confident, and gave piano recitals and ballet performances regularly. Of course by the time I was in second class I knew the drill ~ I was no longer confused, just isolated and afraid to speak up. That’s me above in the front row holding the board in my year five class photo.

It seemed that I could not touch the heart of any teacher until I was in the last year of primary, when low and behold, my teacher was not Australian, but Polish!  She not only noticed me, but praised me. And suddenly my world changed ~ I excelled, and I topped the year! I also found my first school friend that year, a German girl who, like me, had her own struggle ~ she had a debilitating stutter. For the year we were together we became firm friends and I was in heaven ~ a friend and a teacher who both cared. It was bliss!

During the years up until then I was very much alone, even in the playground. I was so reticent and shy I can’t ever remember playing with the other children. I guess it was because I was different, and of course I was! So I sat by myself in my short uniform ~ everyone else wore theirs below the knee, with my warm winter woolly undershorts ~ usually a nice bright colour knitted by my grandmother, eating my black bread sandwiches filled with either jam or liverwurst. While modern day bullying didn’t exist in the 1950’s, differences were not accepted as they are today. If you didn’t fit in you were not included, and I didn’t fit in simply because I didn’t know how to bridge the gap. I was too shy.

Path to Teaching - My Family in the 1950sApart from that last happy year, it’s hard to remember any really joyful events in primary school. Those happened at home with my family and the kids on our street with whom I played every day ~ I had no problem fitting in with them. It’s there that I felt confident, comfortable and happy ~ all the things I didn’t feel at school. Kindergarten for instance, was a nightmare. The teacher was a witch and in fact proved to be a very cruel individual. It would have been blatantly clear that I didn’t have the language skills to ask for anything, let alone wanting to use the toilet. The day came when I could hold it no longer, and as we all stood in line holding up our paintings, I felt the warm trickle of a puddle spreading at my feet. I not only had to clean it up, but that became my spot for the rest of the year! I was 5 years old, but even a 5 year old can feel overwhelmingly humiliated.

And there were lots of instructions which passed me by as well. There was the day I sat outside by myself while the whole school community was in the main hall enjoying a performance. I was sitting there alone because I had not paid my money. It’s not that I had forgotten … it’s that I had not understood I should bring it. I was only in 1st class. And then there was the day I fell ill. It was the middle of summer and very hot, but rather than telephone my mother to come fetch me, the school told me to go home. I had a raging temperature, but stoically started walking! By sheer coincidence my mother was on a bus going into town. Shocked to see her 7 year old daughter walking alone on the main street in searing heat, she jumped off the bus and reached me just in time. My legs buckled and I collapsed. She picked me up and carried me home.

With this level of incompetence and insensitivity, you would be right to wonder why my parents didn’t hit the roof. They did the best they could, but unfortunately they were having as much trouble as I was trying to integrate into the Australian way of life. As it was, by the time I was seven I spoke the best English in the house. And it was not the European way to let children sleep over or go off to someone’s house for the day without parents, nor was my mother comfortable with letting me go on school excursions. In those very raw years after the Second World War we were very protective of our own, particularly in a country where we were not openly accepted, so we kept to ourselves and created our own communities. While I became far more self-assured in high school, and my parents became more relaxed as well, a pattern had unfortunately been set and I found no joy in being at school or in learning ~ then friends and rebellion were more important, and my education fell by the wayside.

While this may sound like a sorry tale, it isn’t. It’s certainly a shameful tale about the school system at the time, but not about me. The education system may have failed me, but I didn’t fail myself. None of it made me crumble, and none of it made me feel like a victim either. It actually made me stronger and more determined to do well in life, which is exactly what I went on to do. In years to come I understood that being ‘me’ and having had ‘my’ experiences was my greatest strength. Even though at times I may have aspired to be ‘the same’, it was actually the fact that I was different which turned out to be one of my greatest inspirations ~ the memory of how difficult and lonely those early school days were inspired me, as a mature age student, to become a teacher. I wanted to make a difference, especially for those who struggled. And what I found was that I not only got the university education I didn’t pursue after leaving school, the children I taught satisfied a deep longing within me to see every child shine.

Without doubt teaching has a special place in my heart, but what is abundantly clear is that when we choose to use our challenges, past or present, as inspiration rather than allow them to defeat us ~ when we treat them as a launching pad, we ignite passion and fill our world with purpose. And we can make that choice at any time … about any challenge.

Inara Hawley © 2013

From Doing to Knowing

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Busy WorkingSometimes there are events in life which catapult us into a completely new reality. For me, becoming a mother was one such event. This of course is true for all new mothers ~ it’s a life changing experience, but the extent of that change depends on where you were before your bundle of joy enters the world. Prior to my daughter’s birth I was totally focused on work. Hubby and I had both been in empire-building mode for a number of years, and it took 100% of our time. I was in fact so busy ‘doing’ that I hadn’t really given much thought to what would happen when the baby arrived. To be honest I think my feeling was that I’d give birth in the tea break and carry on, but oh how wrong I was! Not only did my life and priorities change in an instant, my connection to ‘doing’ and ‘knowing’ as it was, changed dramatically as well.

It was late November, a hot and sticky time in Australia, and I was due any day. I’d given up going to the office the previous month to prepare for the birth, but instead of relaxing, in my organised way I spent most of my time cooking food and freezing it. Overall, it had not been an easy nine months ~ I was one of those pregnant women who had morning sickness the entire time, so let’s just say I didn’t bloom and I was well and truly ready to replace my baby bump with the real thing.

Early in the pregnancy I had a serious scare. In the moment when I realised I was in danger of losing the baby I instinctively sent out the strongest message to the little life within me to ‘hold on and stay’ … and she did. That should have been the first inkling of what was to come, but I didn’t connect to it just then. I spent ten very quiet and still days feeling anxious until the danger was over. And when it was, I went back to being busy and doing ~ so busy that I didn’t buy a thing for the baby till I was seven months pregnant. When I finally did launch into a shopping spree, like everything I did in those days, it was all purchased, delivered and assembled within two days!

So by the time I was full term, I had very little left to do. The bassinette and cot was organised, the baby clothes were washed and folded, the nappies were ready, the baby’s room was decorated and the house was in perfect order. So I decided to weed the garden … you know that burst of energy just before the baby is born? Well that was it. A few months earlier we’d moved into a lovely turn of the century house, and the garden was a work in progress, and I was full of energy. So, on my hands and knees in the shade of the Jacaranda tree, I pulled weeds for most of the day. When hubby came home, I made one of my cordon bleu dinners and we went to bed early to read. Half an hour later my water broke, and with bag in hand, we headed off to the hospital.

MotherhoodIt was a long night and an even longer day which followed. Suffice to say that by the time I’d been in the labour ward for a few hours, I was not only stroppy with hubby, but with everyone else who walked through the door. I will however be forever grateful to the intern who panted with me for hours! Having had an induction I was launching from one pain to the next without a break until suddenly … everything stopped. The labour ward was becalmed! After more than twenty one hours, for me it was a welcome relief. And for the next thirty minutes doctors and nurses leaned against the walls and chatted about their weekend plans!

Then all of a sudden, I felt an almighty thump from above. It hit my stomach with full force and without thinking I shouted, “It’s a girl”, and out she came! It was quite a moment, one which I have never questioned because I just knew. And there it was ~ all of a sudden I just ‘knew’. Giving birth switched on a light, and it was significant. My new awareness felt so alive and awake that it was almost as if my previous existence was a dream. There were many things I was to learn and experience in the years to come, and while my life was still filled with lots of doing, it was now quite different ~ the divine connection between mother and child had been forged and the door to the most wonderful and remarkable ‘knowing’ had opened.

Inara Hawley © 2013

Our Backyard

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How life has changed, and it seems to me it’s our backyards which reflect it the most. Not only are they smaller these days, houses are enormous and the backyard has become an outdoor room.

Now I’m all for a nice deck, a barbeque, lots of greenery and a bit of paving, but really, an outdoor room? Where is the expanse of grass? Where can the dog dig a hole? Where is the aviary or the chook pen? Where can the kids run through the sprinkler or play chasings? Where’s the mulberry tree, the passionfruit vine and the rhubarb? All disappeared to make space for the outdoor room. In my day it was a place exclusively for kids, not a group of allocated designer spaces. But alas, the backyard has gone the way of many things today ~ it’s small and compact, roughly one third of the size it was in the 1950’s. And as a result indoor and outdoor living spaces have become blurred, and the child-friendly, free spaces that once were backyards are not what they used to be.

Franjipani FlowersBut I’m one of the lucky ones. I grew up in the fifties, and my backyard was big and it belonged to me! There was no such thing as landscaping when I was a kid ~ our yard was filled with our life! We had a frangipani tree out the front which we were very proud of, hydrangeas along the side of the house which filled our vases with flowers, patches of freesias here and there which magically appeared, and out the back ~ paling fences covered with passionfruit, a neighbour’s overhanging fig tree laden with forbidden fruit, sunflowers which reached the sky, a veggie patch, aMagic Willow Tree bush just the right size to jump over, a rotary clothes line we swung on, a proper cubby, an aviary filled with finches, budgies and canaries, a sandpit, and if like me you were lucky, smack bang in the middle of the yard there was a magic willow tree to dream under. Our backyard was a safe wonderful place where we kids played, created make-believe worlds and had a heap of fun. The backyard was ours ~ all of it!

And it was not only us kids who enjoyed our backyard ~ all of our animals did as well! Over the years we had a menagerie that lived with us ~ chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, rabbits, birds and even a lamb. Dad, a farm boy, was very comfortable with all of it, and Mum, for a city girl, managed our menagerie amazingly well. When it came to the chickens it was our job to feed them and collect the eggs, but she cleaned their pen and hatched the new chicks, and that, was an amazing experience. She brought in the eggs that were ready, put them in a large box near the warmth of the gas oven and then we waited. When the chicks and ducklings popped out the kitchen became a madhouse, especially when they escaped, but it was great fun and we delighted in the wonder and joy of it all.

As for our dogs, all oPuppies of My Bed!f them were females, so we always had lots of puppies. One of them even had her pups on my bed! And any of our cats which were females, always managed to give birth in the wardrobes! We watched the babies being born, watched some of them die and watched with sad hearts when it came time for them to go to their new homes.

Our LambAnd then there was the lamb! He came to us via friends who found him wondering on the road. He occasionally snuck into the house as well, which was a riot. He stayed with us until his horns got so big that he started attacking anyone who wasn’t family … then it was time for him to go! Our backyard really was a farm yard ~ we even had a ring-in pet dog that fell in love with my baby sister and only went home for meals!

Of all the animals we had, the funniest was the flying duck. We had hilarious times watching him learn to fly ~ his take-offs were absolutely hysterical. We really loved him however, once he learned to fly, the neighbours didn’t! Come to think of it, I don’t blame them one bit ~ they were probably very sick of having to throw the rooster back over the fence every couple of days! So back to the flying duck, unbeknown to us children a decision was made that he would be fattened up for Christmas and so he was caged. Mum took pity on him a month or so later and let him out for a stroll. Freedom of course was just too tempting. He took off like a rocket and was never seen again! Secretly, I think Mum was very pleased.

So it was that our life was interwoven with our backyard. There was always something going on! It may have been very plain by today’s designer standards, but it was filled with everything you could ever want ~ fun, joy, and loads of love.

Inara Hawley © 2013

Weeping Willow photographed by (Christine Westerback) / CC BY-SA 2.0