wombat pic


Introduction

Workshops and garden tours

Biography

Awards

Childrens' books

Gardening books

Which book

Information for projects

How to buy books mentioned

Complete(ish) list of books

More about some of the books
[Useful stuff for assignments]

Browse online book catalogue at HC

Read extracts from some books

Advice for writers

How to get your first novel published

Writing for kids

Writing tips

Recipes

Links

Wombat Dreaming



Jackie's December message . . .


Intro - The queens have arrived!
Mothball News
Book News
Awards
Schedule for next Year
Wombat Jokes!
Some Recipes (including a home made weed killer plus others that won't poison you)
Last minute Christmas presents- including what to give blokes
Home Made Christmas Crackers
In the Garden
.Two Hour Garden Makeover for Christmas
.How to Mow the Lawn
Barbecue Alternatives

(ie when you can't face another dry charred sausage all oozing fat and crave some veg)

Intro
                       We have just had a visit from royalty! Three queens arrived last Sunday. We felt like blowing trombones and laying our red carpet, except we don't have any trombones or red carpet apart from the mat in the living room, and anyway the queens probably wouldn't have noticed, as they were bees. Have a feeling queen bees would rather have a bowl of royal jelly, which we didn't have either.
                       The bees were for the hives in the paddock near the asparagus. There are only three hives left now. There were six, but the neighbour's cattle pushed over three of them. We keep the paddock gate shut, but sometimes it's left open by cattle searchers. The next major project is a cattle grid at the front gate, so if our front gate is left open the cattle wandering up the road can't get in!
                       The remaining hives badly needed new queens- the old ones weren't laying many eggs, and anyway these are super gorgeous queens that should have super stunning offspring who'll collect super amounts of honey. We hope.
                       Local honey is good stuff. Honey tastes of what the bees have been feeding on. Spring honey here tastes of orange blossom and grevilleas, but later the various eucalypts bloom, or the angophora floribunda - angophora honey is my favourite, a pale gold honey but with a subtle taste.
                       Other news? Wars in the loquat tree. The fruit bats are fighting over the last of the loquats. (I picked a few branches full for loquat jam- lovely stuff.) Fruit bats have cat size bodies and big leathery wings like the vampires from hell. Two of them were tearing and biting at each other the night before last, wings flapping so furiously they crashed into the living room window, 20cm from where we were watching a video, which was a bit of a shock, peering out at these two furious furry faces and even more furious wings. If we'd believed in vampires we'd have wet ourselves.
                       Anyway they lurched off again, crashed into the bird table, then flew back into the trees still tearing at each other, till I took the torch out and shone it at them and yelled at them, and they finally flapped away, in opposite directions, and haven't been back since; or if they have they've been quiet about it.
                       There's plenty of fruit and blossom for the fruit bats this year. It's been a wonderful season so far- almost normal rainfall ie about 75 mm a month. We haven't quite got that but everything is lush and flowers everywhere and so much fruit it'll be a problem giving it away. Or maybe not. It's amazing how cases of lemons disappear.
                       Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone, and wishes for a green and happy, peaceful 2004. (Well, we can dream, can't we?). We're having Christmas at home with friends, as we always do- Christmas is at the height of bushfire season here and a bad time to be away, though some years it's been cold enough to light the fire and the fog has been misting the trees. The last two Christmases it's been smoke, not fog, and the creek's been dry and the garden baking.
                       This year we might even go swimming, now the swimming hole is full again. It is magic swimming there in summer- once you get used to the shock of freezing water on your skin. You float through the reflections of sky and casuarina, or sit on the submerged rock in the middle of the pool, possibly with a white peach or two, and feel the water flow over you.
                       Sometimes tiny fish nibble your knees, or black snakes slide down to swim as well, then change their minds. Well, there have always been snakes in paradise....

Mothball Wombat

                       Mothball is busy eating. And eating. And scratching, mostly at 2.00 am under our bedroom. But just about all we see of her is her droppings on the biggest of the zucchini plants. She's fond of that zucchini for some reason. Don't suppose it does the plant any harm. Good fertiliser. This is a wonderful season for wombats- the softest, most succulent grass to eat.

Book News

                       'A War for Gentlemen' has just been launched. It's based on a true story of an Australian who went to fight for freedom in the American Civil war- on the side of the south. He eventually married one of his cousin's slaves- though her skin was as white as his. It's my first historical novel for adults- and I am desperately anxious for it. The more I researched the Charles and Caroline in the book, the more I longed to do their story justice.
                     The first book for next year will be 'Flesh and Blood'- the final in the Outlands trilogy. It's coming out in February, I think, followed by 'Thomas Appleby, Convict boy' and then a book about the story of Honeysuckle Creek and the first human landing on the moon. And no, the first images of Neil Armstrong as he stepped onto the moon weren't down loaded from Parkes- the movie lied! This book puts the record straight- and the true story is even more thrilling.
                       And after that the next two Whacky families! (I thought Stephen Michael King's illustrations were wonderful in the first two books, but what he's done with these books is hilariously stunning!)

Awards

                       Another award for Wombat this month- I think that makes five for Diary of a Wombat this year, or is it six? This one is the Cool Award, for best picture book, voted by the kids of the ACT. And thank you thank you thank you!!!!!! to everyone who voted for Wombat, in each of the awards! (Mothball would thank you too ..actually, no she wouldn't. Wombats don't do grateful.)
                       Diary of a wombat has also just been listed as number two on the 'Best 20 picture books for 2003' in the USA, plus Magpies magazine has just listed Too many Pears and Valley of Gold among their 'best reads' for 2003 too.
                       With luck I may be able to put one of the first completed pics from Pete the Sheep in the newsletter next month. Pete is the next book Bruce Whately and I are doing together. It's even funnier and more lovable than Wombat- or maybe I just forget how much I laughed at Wombat when I first saw what he'd done for it!

Schedule for 2004

January 15
11.30- 12.30 at Erindale library ACT . Free workshop for anyone from 8-180 on How to Grow Your Own Spaceship and other Adventures with Plants! Contact Erindale library for more details.

February 6/7
National Museum. Conference on outlaws as part of their Outlaw! exhibition. Contact the National Museum in Canberra for more details

March 17-21
Somerset Literary Festival, Gold Coast, QLD

April 28
Tumut NSW Festival of the Falling Leaves

May 28, 29, 30
Charter's Towers QLD Literary Festival

May 31
Gladstone Eco Fest

July 3-4
Shoalhaven (NSW) book festival, mainly in Ulladulla,
with perhaps some activities in Milton or Mollymook/Narrawallee.

August 17.18. 19
Book Week talks in Sydney (contact lateral learning (bookings@laterallearning.com) for more details)

August 24, 25, 26
Book Week talks in Melbourne (Contact Booked Out (bookings@bookedout.com.au) for more details

September 14. 15. 16. 17
Ipswich QLD, West Moreton' School's literary festival

A Wombat Joke!
              
This is from Claire!
Q. What do you call a wombat in the snowfields?
A. Lost
(PS Some wombats toboggan in the snow- they tuck their legs underneath them and sliiiiidddeee! I have seen one wombat do that on a muddy slope too- zoom down it then trot back up for another go).

Some Recipes
Rhubarb ( or apple, apricot, cherry or peach ) Streusel cake

This is possibly the best cake in the world- wonderfully moist and gorgeous texture.
180 gm butter
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
2 cups SR flour
half cup plain flour
half cup cream, sour cream, or milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup cooked rhubarb, or apple, apricots, cherries or peaches

Turn oven on to 200C. Cream butter and sugar; mix in eggs one by one then other ingredients except rhubarb. . Pour into a greased and floured cake tin. Spread over rhubarb, or swirl it into the cake mixture. Fruit on top means soggy topping, which I love. Fruit swirled into the cake means crunchy topping.
Sprinkle on the topping.
Bake cake at 200C for 40 minutes or till sides shrink away from the cake tin. Cool in tin for five minutes before turning out, to let the topping crisp up a bit. Keep in a sealed container.

Topping
three quarters of a cup plain flour
3 tsp ground cinnamon
60 gm butter
third of a cup brown sugar.
           Mix together till crumbly.

Weed Salad Dressing

           THIS IS NOT TO EAT!!!!!!!
It kills weeds!
2 cups artificial fertiliser granules
1 cup water, or least amount possible to dissolve the granules
1 tb eucalyptus oil- optional
           Pour into sprayer. Shake till mixed. Strain if it still looks lumpy. Spray A LITTLE on leaves you wish to kill- they must be dry. Don't water for at least 48 hours.
           The fertiliser will kill the leaves- and the weeds-of soft spring weeds, no use on big rooted clumps of blackberries. When it rains the 'herbicide' will feed the other plants. Good on grass around established trees, but be careful it doesn't burn off young plants.

Rhubarb and Rose Petal Jam

50 grams rhubarb
the juice of three lemons
500 grms sugar
3 handfuls deep red rose petals
small knob butter
Place the chopped rhubarb in a pottery bowl with the sugar, water and lemon juice. Leave overnight. Next add the chopped petals, simmer very gently till the sugar has dissolved, then boil till a little sets in cold water. Take off the heat and stir in the butter, bottle and seal. This is a wonderfully coloured deep ruby if red rhubarb is used.

Last Minute Christmas Presents

Bowl of Perfumed Rocks

Step 1. Find a good looking bowl
Step 2. Find your rocks. Most garden centres sell great looking rocks, from white quartz pebbles to smooth grey river stones, as well as bowls to put them in.
           You can of course hunt your own 'wild' rocks, but the average garden stone, even when washed and polished with a little floor polish or oil and beeswax- which really does bring up rocks a treat- may still not look like your average pedigree rock from the garden centre. But, hey, your wild rocks may be better looking than ours.
Step 3. Sprinkle essential oil or scented oil- or a combination of oils- on the rocks. Don't use an alcohol based perfume- it will evaporate too fast. I like a mix of rose geranium oil and orange or mint oil, but choose whatever smells good to you.
Step 4. (optional) Polish the rocks with floor or wood polish, as long as it is scentless, or with a mix of 1tb beeswax, melted, combined with 1 tb bland scentless oil like safflower. This makes the rocks shiny; it also seals the perfume in to some extent, so you get a gentle whiff for months or even a year or two instead of a great blast of perfume for a few weeks.

Variations
Glass Jar of Rocks

           Fill a great looking jar with good looking rocks. Sprinkle with either essential oil or scented oil. Either put the lid on the jar or a cork in it. Whenever you want the house to smell subtly wonderful, take the lid off about an hour before so the scent can waft around.

Lemon Gunge

           This is a great hand cleaner to give to gardeners or any bloke who services their own car or other grotty jobs
Ingredients
6 cups lemon peel, with as little white as possible
(but you can also use orange, grapefruit or mandarin peel- save the old orange peels out of the kid's lunch box. It doesn't matter if the peel's a bit dry- just as long as it hasn't gone off)
3 cups water
1 cup sugar (doesn't matter what sort- even honey will do)
a small squirt of detergent
a small squirt of sorbolene cream
           Simmer the peel with the water in a saucepan for half an hour WITH THE LID ON. (If the lid isn't on a lot of the lovely lemon oil will evaporate. )
           Add more water only if it looks like you'll burn the pan.
           Take the pan off the heat. Cool. Fish out the peel and add the sugar to the liquid. Put the lid on again and simmer for ten minutes. Take off the heat. Cool till tepid.
           Now pour the stuff in the saucepan into a jar, and add a squirt of detergent and a tiny bit of sorbolene cream. Put the lid on the jar and shake like mad - and you've got your Lemon Gunge.
           Keep it by the wash basin. Every time you wash your hands tip a little bit into your palm and rub in WELL, then wash or even wipe off.

Sizzling bath bazookas

           These fizz wonderfully
Ingredients
1 cup tartaric acid
1 cup bicarbonate of soda
half a cup powdered starch
2 teaspoons fragrant oil
extra sesame, apricot kernel or almond oil
           Mix into small balls- use only as much oil as is needed to bind them together; leave to set; drop two or three into a hot bath.

An Empty Pot

           Never give an avid gardener a plant for Christmas....unless you know for absolutely sure they want it! Most people with totally gorgeous gardens have very firm ideas what they want to put in . . . and your pretty gift may not fit in at all!
           You can't go wrong with a nice pot...it's a bit like a lucky dip in reverse...you get to dream of what you're going to put in it. ANY gardener will love an empty pot, so they can have an excuse to wander down to the nursery and pick out a new plant.

What to Give blokes

I have finally learnt never to give Bryan anything mechanical...he'd much rather mooch round and buy it himself!
           If your bloke is longing for a chainsaw, new mower, whipper snipper or one of those doodads that take paint off old furniture, cut out a picture of one from a magazine or catalogue, paste it on a card...and tell him it's a gift certificate.
                       You'll do the paying . . . and he can have a lovely time bonding with the blokes in the shop.

Home Made Christmas Crackers
              
I've always thought that Christmas crackers are one of the great disappointments of Christmas.                                         
           Every year you think somehow it's going to be different...there'll be a really great giftie inside, or at least a joke you haven't heard before. But there never is.
           I've tried every sort of Christmas cracker, from the cheapest of the cheap to ludicrously expensive ones. And none of them do what a Christmas cracker is supposed to do- start the dinner with a bang and a giggle.
           So try home made ones.

You need:
Paper hats (see below)
The cardboard innards of rolls of alfoil, baking paper or plastic wrap, cut into lengths about 30cm long. (Christmas gift wrapping has extra long cardboard rolls inside it too. Each roll should make three or four crackers. If you leave your cracker making till after you've wrapped up your Christmas presents, you should have plenty)
scissors
crepe paper or pretty wrapping paper- I like to use gold or silver, or traditional red or green
ribbon (I like to use two or three colours of narrow ribbon together- it looks especially good)
a few pretty stars or other stick ons (you can get them at any newsagents)
sticky tape (easiest) or glue
a few funny jokes...just write your own on bits of paper - and this time you can really suit the jokes to the company!
'bangers'- the things that go pop when you pull them.(Optional)
           You can buy these at craft stores, but I find that most people don't really care if their crackers go pop when you pull them or not- it's what's inside that counts
trinkets to stuff in the crackers, which is the best part of it, a sort of Christmas lucky dip.
           The trinkets can be as silly as you like, or useful ones like tweezers...no one ever has enough tweezers.
           This year I've decided that the money I'm saving on commercial crackers is going to go into really good gifties to put inside my homemade ones...a couple of nice lipsticks (yes, I will make sure my stepson in law doesn't get to pull the cracker with them inside), a pair of underpants with redback spiders on them, an irresistible sheep finger puppet, five glow in the dark plastic spiders, a pair of shark earrings, pliers...you get the general idea.
           If you don't want to go to too much expense, a few chocolate wombats, musk sticks or liqueur chocolates are always acceptable. You can even make an 'adults only' version, if you're that way inclined- or bung in a few diamond rings and the keys to a new Porche if you're feeling flush. Just make sure when you buy the gifties that they will fit into the cardboard roll.

To assemble
Step 1. Stuff a folded hat, joke and prezzie into each cardboard segment.
Step 2. Cut pieces of paper about three times as long as each piece of cardboard, and wide enough to roll them completely in the paper with a bit left over. It's easiest just to use the pieces of cardboard to do the measuring, as they'll vary in width.
Step 3. Place the cardboard with the thingummies inside in the centre of the paper. There should be a good length of paper on either side.
Step 4. If you are using bangers, sticky tape them on to the outside of the cardboard now.
           The middle of the banger should be in the middle of the cardboard, so a bit pokes out each end to grasp.
Step 5. Roll the whole lot up carefully.
Step 6. Tape down the edge.
Step 7. Now even more carefully tie ribbon on either side of the tube of wrapped cardboard. You have to do this very gently, as if you tie too tightly the paper might tear.
Step 8. Paste on a few stars or other stick ons, or even sprinkle on glitter or paste on pressed flowers- decoration is up to you.

Christmas hats

You need:
crepe paper
scissors
glue or sticky tape
a few stars or other decorations from the newsagent
          
Step 1. Cut pieces of crepe paper about 60cmx15 cm.
Step 2. Stick the ends together.
Step 3. Cut the top into a zig zag (remember how you used to roll up paper and cut out paper dolls or other shapes in kindergarten?).
Step 4. Stick on a few stars or other stick ons, or get the kids to draw on original never to be repeated Christmas specials
           ......and you have a hat.

In the Garden

Two Hour Garden Makeover for Christmas

(or how to stop green thumbed Aunt Maude making helpful suggestions about how your garden could be really nice if only you'd....)
1. Mow the lawn. Water it. (Damp freshly mown grass smells heavenly)
2. Buy two bales of hay or compressed mulch. Scatter over weeds or bare spots.
3. Buy two pots or hanging baskets of bloomers for either side of the front door.
4. Put a home made lemon cordial in her hand as soon as she arrives and ask her to help mix the dip, and hope after that she's too relaxed to bother looking closely out the window

How to Mow the Lawn

Only a third of the green tips of your grass should be mown at any one mowing. If you mow your grass too far down the stem it'll be less healthy, less vigorous and more weed and pest prone.
           Even if your grass is so long it threatened to choke the house, set the mower on the highest setting for the first mow, then mow again a little lower a week later.
Mow in straight lines or a circle if you can- it'll look neater. But don't mow in exactly the same pattern every time, or you may leave permanent tyre marks in your grass.
           Don't push your mower too hard if you run into a thick patch. You'll tear the grass rather than mow it, and it'll look shaggy. Go slowly and steadily.

Barbecue Alternatives

(ie when you can't face another dry charred sausage all oozing fat and crave something INTERESTING!)

Bread and Cheese Kebabs

Ingredients: very good bread and excellent cheese. You can also add marinated mushrooms, hunks of red capsicum or chunks of good red tomatoes.
           Cut cheese in chunks. Tear bread likewise, thread on skewers. Add other stuff if you like. Toast above the coals until the edges of the bread are toasted, and the cheese runnyish, but not dripping into the fire.
           If you choose to have great whacking hunks of bread and cheese they'll still be cool inside (this can actually be quite good). Smaller bits of bread will turn quite crunchy and different breads take longer to toast and different cheeses take longer to melt. You'll need to experiment.
           I like a good soapy young mozzarella cheese (bocconcini); but a small hunk of youngish parmesan isn't bad and even rat trap tastes better roasted over a fire. A possible variation is to skewer the odd anchovy in between the chunks of bread and cheese.

Lemon and Garlic Butter Corn Cobs

           Melt half a cup of butter with four crushed cloves of garlic. Take off the heat. Add a good grating of black pepper and the juice of a lemon. Soak eight cobs of corn, papery wrapping and all, in water for twenty minutes. Then unwrap them carefully - don't tear the wrapping. Pour a little of the slightly cooled and thickened melted butter mix onto each cob. Rub in well with your fingers or a pastry brush.
           Grill until cooked through - at least twenty minutes or half an hour, turning several times.
           You can also try this with alfoil instead of the natural corn packaging; but it's not nearly as good.
NB Don't buy corn wrapped in plastic. It tastes like plastic.

Veg Kebabs

Ingredients: 1 large sliced eggplant (salt and drain for half an hour to remove bitterness but see below) , 2 red onions, 25 button mushrooms, a red capsicum, half a cup of olive oil, 3 cloves garlic, a dash of tabasco sauce (optional), artichoke hearts (optional), hunks of red tomato (optional) hunks of boiled but firm potato (optional)thyme, juice of 1 lemon.
           Cut the eggplant, red capsicum and the onions (peeled) into chunks about the size of the button mushrooms. Mix the other ingredients. Marinate for at least an hour or overnight.
           Thread all the veg onto skewers. Grill till softish and slightly charred,.

Grilled Mushrooms

           Choose great big flattish ones, as dark and fragrant as possible.
           Mix lots of garlic and black pepper and chopped parsley into melted butter or margarine (or even olive oil). Pour a generous amount into the cap of each mushroom. Grill the mushrooms top downwards until the stems look cooked or until the mushrooms look like they might soon collapse or burn. Eat hot.

Char grilling

           You need a hot plate for this, though builder's mesh also works as long as the veg are sufficiently basted in oil.
           Good foods to char include thin slices of eggplant (supposed to be salted for an hour first to let the acrid juices escape, but I don't bother - modern cultivars aren't as bitter as old-fashioned ones), capsicum (strip the blackened skin off before you serve it), shelled green prawns, fresh very ripe and fragrant pineapple, strips of zucchini brushed with olive oil and dusted with oregano and black pepper, small, sweet onions sliced in half, par-boiled potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkin, baby octopus marinated for a couple of hours beforehand.

Stuffed potatoes or tomatoes or capsicum roasted in the fire

           Hollow out the veg. In the case of tomatoes and capsicum this is easy; use a sharp teaspoon for the spuds.
Spud Filling
Any mixture of: sour cream, light sour cream, chives, grated cheese, chopped mushrooms, chopped parsley, very finely chopped capsicum, plus the grated potato residue.
Tomato stuffing: ricotta cheese with chopped chives, crushed garlic and pine nuts
Capsicum stuffing: cooked rice mixed with curry spices and onion browned and softened in olive oil.
           Wrap veg in alfoil; bake in the coals for at least 40 minutes. Unwrap carefully so you can wrap again if they're not cooked.

Barbecued garlic bread, grilled over the coals

           Do not wrap the stuff in alfoil! You lose all the flavour of roasting, toasting bread.
           Cut some decent bread into thick slices. Brush each one with olive oil on both sides with a little (or a lot) of crushed garlic added to the oil (you can also tear in a few thyme or rosemary leaves).
           Thread each slice on a skewer and grill over the coals till the outside is crisp and brown and garlicky and the inside soft.
This is by far the best garlic bread I have ever eaten.

Fruit Kebabs

           Thread fresh pineapple, firm yellow peaches, banana, apples, nectarines, apricots on skewers. Grill them as they are (fast before they turn brown, sprinkle with lemon juice if they are to be left more than twenty minutes) or brush with a mixture of half a cup of brown sugar melted with a quarter of a cup of butter; add a tablespoon of rum at the end if you feel like it.