Photo books from fotobuch

They say in business that if you under-promise and over-deliver your clientele will keep coming back. I was reminded of this today when ordering photo-books.

Almost 10 years ago a friend in Germany told me she had tried several of the producers of photo-books and had found fotobuch.de the best. I ordered one shortly afterwards. Fotobuch.de has custom software that you download onto your computer.  To make the book you open the software then load your photos either automatically or manually.You add captions, or poems or other descriptors, choose the page background, photo frame size and colour etc. I always place photos manually and spend lots of time fiddling to make each page looks as good as I can make it. I have made quite a few over the years and each time I discover new features.

The main problem for me is that they don't ship to Australia so I have to make them when I am in the EU or get others to bring them for me. Two days ago I realised that the photobook I had made of recent photos could be brought home by traveling family members if I ordered it quickly enough and had it sent to Scotland where they are staying. They leave next Friday.

I put the order in on Wednesday evening, Wednesday morning their time. The fotobuch.de website says it takes 3-5 working days to produce books, and because I ordered two somewhat different books (one for me and one for them) I guesstimated five days but hoped for four.   If they were sent Monday evening they might just make it to Scotland in time.

An hour ago, Friday evening (Friday morning their time) I received an email saying the books have been delivered to DHL. Production took only two days and now they are on their way.  I was sent a  shipping number, so I can track them on the DHL website, which currently says they are being delivered to the local distribution center.  It looks promising, but I have no idea of shipping times in Great Britain. Surely books that have been produced in two days could be delivered in six?  I have my fingers firmly crossed.

[To fotobuch.de if you are reading this: I love your product, but please consider shipping to Australia!]

A story about coffee machines

I don't live near a large shopping center so when my old Sunbeam coffee machine needed replacing I had to drive some way. I had done a bit of online research and discovered my machine was no longer in production but that a similar small Sunbeam got good reviews.  I bought one of those from Harvey Norman, refusing the extra long warranty the shop assistant was very determined to sell me.

I took it home and followed all the instructions for prepping a coffee machine but when I tried to make my first cup of coffee next morning the machine didn't work. No water throughput. So I called the Sunbeam people, got a number and took it back to Harvey Norman and swapped it for a new one, the same brand and model.

It was a Mini Barista and once again I took it home and prepped it and all seemed in order. I couldn't believe my eyes when I tried it the next morning and it didn't work. I took a video of it not working as it seemed so unbelievable, but the Sunbeam man didn't seem to think it unbelievable and just said I should ask for my money back.

Before I returned to the shop this time I went to the local library and looked up coffee machines in  Choice magazine. I was chagrined to discover that this machine got a very low rating when compared to others (so much for google 'research'). I made a list of the top four and set off again to the shopping center. I returned the machine for a cash refund then looked around for something else. None of the top machines were sold by Harvey Norman so  I went around the corner to a Bing Lee shop where they were all on display. I bought the one at the top of the list and although I was asked if I wanted extra insurance there was  no hard sell.

Breville Barista Express

My  new machine is a Breville, rather more fancy and expensive than the other but it works like a dream and makes much better coffee than my older simpler one. Despite all the driving I consider myself very lucky the two Sunbeams failed and I ended up with a much better machine. The experience taught me to do better research than just looking on google before buying such items and it also made me wonder about Harvey Norman, Would I have got my insurance back for the failed machine? Why are they selling only substandard models? Is that true for all their products? Questions, questions.

Bread with porridge

Today I made the best bread loaf ever. It was a surprise as the bread was an experiment. I had added the rest of my uneaten porridge to the mix. I had to put in a few more spoons of flour when it became sloppy.  

My bread book said oats can be successfully added to bread but still I crossed my fingers hoping that I had not wasted the other ingredients by varying the recipe. I didn't expect it to produce my best bread ever.

I was given the bread maker several years ago. It had been an op-ed shop buy and has been a wonderful addition to my kitchen. Bought bread now tastes like fake bread to me so I'd have to replace the breadmaker if it broke. Or I could be like my mother who made her own bread with little kneading until she was over 90. 

Haferstuten= oat loaf

Addendum. The bread looked good but was not suitable to toast as it was so dense. Perhaps I added too much extra flour. Bread with porridge - not really recommended!

Musicians in Wellington

Last weekend I was captivated by two very different musicians. 

Simon O'Neill, the New Zealand tenor was one. He is one of those rare tenors who can sing Wagner repertoire. Since I heard him in 2014 his voice has deepened. It is now a rich and resonant treat. He sang the Wesendonck Lieder and his German diction was flawless. Congratulations Simon, it was a wonderful concert.

The NZSO, with whom he sang, played Bruckner's 4th Symphony after the interval. It is a long and demanding work but they played wonderfully well. . Bruckner is not my favorite composer, mainly because it is difficult to tune your digital player to play the alternating very loud and very soft music that characterises his work - if you adjust to hear the quiet parts the rest blasts you out of the room. In a concert hall however it is a different story and I loved the orchestra blasting out their forte parts - the audience vibrated with the music as the strings and horns threw themselves into the music. They must have needed masseurs the next day.

The other musician I saw on Sunday was very different. He was sitting at a painted piano on the Wellington (NZ) waterfront.  He played the way my self-taught father used to, with the left hand strumming time to the right. I found myself humming his tune all evening.


Addendum 23 June: Today I read that shortly before the Wellington concert, Simon recorded a lullaby in German and Te Reo Maori with the NZSO as a gift for the new baby of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. (More about the recording here.)

A hat on a chair

Interior with chair and hat

I am taking an art class at the local art Centre, partly to connect with a few more members of the community, but also to practise working with a palette knife.

Today's effort frustrated me so much I scraped the whole thing off then drew into the mess left behind with the knife and a wet rag. I enjoy scratching away with a palette knife.  Tonight I decided to draw into it with Indian ink but discovered that my bottle of Indian ink has long since dried up. Tomorrow I will buy a new bottle.

Addendum (next day) I discovered today that Indian ink is no longer sold as people use it to tattoo themselves. I will have to check art shops because surely it is still needed for Calligraphy? (The man from the office supplies shop told me that typing fluid is also no longer sold as it was being sniffed. It made me wonder how many other products have been disappeared for our own good.)

I added a little more colour and strengthened the darks.

Electric winter

Knitted wool jumper - old now, but warm

I am not keen on the idea of electric blankets, that is, I not keen on the idea of lying on an electric current all night. Every year I say to myself that a hot water bottle will be a good substitute this year, and then June arrives. My house is an icebox in winter and the bedroom the coldest place of all, being on the south-side and (I am guessing) having no ceiling insulation. 

Once again I have succumbed, the electric blanket is on the bed. I switch it on in the evening so I have a warm bed, but switch it off before climbing into bed. I still don't fancy lying on an electric current all night.

Yulianna Avdeeva in Sydney

Riveting. That is the word for Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva's performance in Sydney last week. Not showy, not flamboyant, but so persuasive that she captured her audience from the moment she began playing. 

In Sydney last Monday a lot of the audience had autumn sniffles but there was not a movement or a cough during Avdeeva's entire performance, such was the entrancement. Avdeeva won the International Chopin competition in Warsaw in 2010, the second woman to win this coverted prizde (Martha Argerich was the first) and has built a solo career since then. I had the feeliing that she played exactly as the composer would have played. The last time I had that sensation was listening to Sebastian Knauer playing his Wilhelm Kempf tribute and it is a sensation one doesn't forget..

Avdeeva played Chopin then Liszt, in an intelligently curated program, with one piece melding into the next where that was fruitful. I could have listened to her all night.

Neighbours are a treasure

My neighbour ordered some bulbs and this evening she came over to offer me some. It is just the right time to plant bulbs and I am delighted to have some to plant out in the autumnal sun. They are just ready to sprout. I think I'll plant them in a pot so I can retrieve them more easily post flowering.

Pot of bulbs

My mother planted a great paddock of daffodils that flowered every year. Remembering this, I planted some daffodils in the lawn one year but they didn't thrive, flowering only one season. My mother's soil was temperate clay and fertile, while I live on an almost tropical sandbank.

Addendum (next day):
They're in the pot, watched over by Ms/Mr Kiss

The bulb container watched over my Ms/Mr 😘

Selby and Friends, in Turramurra

Concert sketch: Leppänen, Selby and Valve

Kathryn Selby is a fine pianist who chooses excellent musicians with whom to play. On Sunday it was Vesa-MattiLeppänen who is concert master for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Timo-Veikko Valve who is Principal Cellist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. 

Hearing these exceptional musicians in an intimate setting (the Uniting Church hall in Turramurra) is a special pleasure and word must have spread as the concert was well attended. Several attendees were in wheelchairs. I hope if I ever need a wheelchair I live near a venue visited by such wonderful musicians. 

I went with two people who are seated much more often on bicycles than concert chairs. 
The were captivated and commented,  "Oh they are so completely in time!" and 'What fun they are having - they obviously like playing together!' What fun to experience the concert through their eyes.

Selby and Friends are playing in Melbourne, Adelaide and at the City Recital Center in Sydney this week.  Catch them if you can.

Fire in a glass

A glass of fire before the concert ....

Nicole Car and the Australian Chamber Orchestra

 

Nicole Car: songs of suffering

If you sing songs of desperation and despair, and so many opera arias are, you look like this even when, like Nicole Car, you have a winning smile and graceful deportment.

Today Nicole sang songs of Mozart, von Bingen and Beethoven in a very cleverly curated Australian Chamber Orchestra program that included not only the three composers mentioned but Handel, Puccini and Verdi. It was a real treat.

Nicole  got a very enthusiastic reception as did Satu Vänskä who played a short solo on her new violin which has the most remarkable clear sound. I am sure you have to be a virtuoso to elicit this sound from a violin but I was captivated and astonished by this instrument in her hands.

Ayse and friends at the Sydney Opera House

'I learned on my trip to Turkey last year the ability of the Turks to create joy through the appreciation of simple things, even in the midst of  life's difficulties.'

The speaker is soprano Ayse Goknur Shanal who together with three fellow musicians (kemane player Ali Yıldız, bağlama player Deniz Şimşek and pianist Ashley Hribar) gave a wonderful and wonderfully heartfelt concert 'Anatolia', at Sydney Opera House Utzon Room on Sunday. They were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the signing of a migration agreement between Australia and Turkey with a concert of Turkish folk songs.

From left: Ali, Ashley, Ayse aand Deniz

Personally I had a multicultural experience that evening such that few cities can offer. I was there to hear a group of gifted first and second generation Turkish Australians play Turkish music, but before the concert I stumbled on the 'Lighting of the Sails', an Aboriginal inspired light show with projected images on the smaller opera house sail. It lasted 5 minutes from 6pm. I was joined by lots of Asian tourists who all recorded it on their phones, so it is probably a much uploaded travelogue entry.

Lighting of the Sails

Then I met a Chinese tourist who was also attending the concert I was seeing. On discovering I paint, she showed me (on her phone) her personal collection of art works. They included some astonishing needle-worked art that she said were very expensive (artist unknown). This was her third visit to Sydney but her first to the opera house.

My other neighbour at the concert was a Turkish woman who was an avid opera fan and who spoke excitedly of the many operas she had seen at the opera house or on the harbour.

The day had been much hotter than usual in April and I had almost left my woollen shawl at home. However, I was very glad the hot weather had not diverted me as the venue was cold then even colder. As the concert progressed my shawl crept over the knees of we three women and my two neighbours were as grateful as I was for the warmth. Being linked with these women in such a way made me think of  Ayse's words about deriving joy from small things. 


If you use Facebook, the concert (part 1) can be viewed here.

Hamilton Gardens in 2018

The Hamilton Gardens in Hamilton, NZ, are remarkable. I visited for the first time in 2014, but they have expanded in the four years since then and the new gardens are just as innovative. There is a Tudor-inspired garden, Alice in Wonderland make an appearance and several new additions are based on directions in modern art.

In the Concept Garden: a nod to conceptual art

Pan plays his flute

Mad Haters tea party: "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"
Answer: "There is no answer."

Tudor garden - keeping the hedge clippers busy

An explanation of the mounds in the Maori garden tells us that Kumera (New Zealand sweet potato)  rot when too wet so they are planted in mounds and then stored in a dry place such as this food storage building.

Food storage house

Fence and Kumera garden

Hobbiton

Yesterday I visited Hobbiton near Matamata, a pretty town in the Waikato region of New Zealand.

Hobbiton probably needs no introduction because, as I discovered, it is still wildly  popular. Tours were setting off every 10 minutes the day we were there and some of the more popular tours with food included  were booked out months in advance.

My travel buddy got the last two tickets to a lunch-included tour a month ago because the tour which included an evening ''banquet' was book out. (Yes, she is doing nothing by halves and I am swept along for the ride, which I confess to finding very interesting, if just to experience the enthusiasm of the fans. ) I was rather afraid the food might be substandard bain-marie fare, but it was very tasty.

A friend who majored in sculpture at art school spent time in Matamata last year painting the hobbit house doors and props and I must say she's done a fine job. They look just as they did in the Hobbit movie.

Huka Falls, NZ

The most tranquil of water will turn into a torrent if you force it through a narrow enough channel and so it is with placid Lake Taupo which turns into a heaving tumult as it passed between the narrow gap in the rocks at Huka to flow on as the Waikato River, feeding power stations on its way to the sea.

 The force of the water at Hula Falls has to be seen to be believed.

Lake Taupo at Hatepe

Huka Falls

Trees in New Zealand

Trees in Taihape

There are some magnificent native trees in the North Island of New Zealand, those that survive. Most were cut down last century, leaving scared hills that tend to slip and slide. Coming generations will, I hope, take to replanting native bush .... once the colonial mentality finally fades.

Hobbits and more

Dwarf from Lord of the Rings

I am travelling with a hobbit obsessed travel partner so we are going from one hobbity thing to another.

The WETA workshop has tours every half hour and they are very well attended. The level of interest in the art of film making seems to be high for every generation. The tour we joined was mainly over-60 year olds from Australia.

Retro comfort

The Cambridge Hotel is an upmarket backpackers/hotel in Wellington with a nice vibe, lots of wood and a lift like those you see in 1930s films, with an manually closing cage and outer door.

There are delicious aromas wafting out of the one man kitchen. Might eat in tomorrow.

Sign: enter at your own risk ...just possibly.

My little garden friend

It is autumn and the spiders are building huge webs to try to catch their local human. They are succeeding.

Plum cake

It is the time of plums, those little freestone sugar-plums, with their purple, white sheened skin and yellow flesh. They are perfect for plum cake (the German Pflaumenkuchen) and this year I made the recipe with cake mixture base instead of the yeast base. It rose and rose ... next time I try it I will half the recipe for the same amount of fruit.

The secret is to put as many plums on as you can.

Plfaumenkuchen (cooked).

A couple of years ago I painted the plums, but this year I couldn't wait to eat the cake.

Sugar plums and flowers