MANNERS AND OTHER MATTERS

A Baby Shower Brunch in my Courtyard Yesterday I hosted a Baby Shower for my daughter who is due to have her  son, and my first grandchild, soon.  It was a fabulous day, filled with love and laughter and joyful thoughts for the future. Her friends included girls with whom she had been in school, both primary and high school, at university and from her work environments;  they were drawn from her lives both here in Perth and Sydney.  My friends included those who have know me since before her birth, 31 years ago, and who have been in her life for all those years, in one way or another.   Organising the Baby Bingo .. . Baby Showers are relatively new here in Australia.  When I was pregnant with my daughter they hadn't entered the realm of the  "celebrations" of Valentine's Day and Halloween;  we had a   kitchen tea for the bride before the wedding to help her stock her kitchen utensils...but baby showers?  No. The commercial popular culture of th

It's the season for long, languid lunches in my courtyard Having had an afternoon cooking and simultaneously watching a cable cooking channel I have been annoyed by the number of presenters who use the " we" when speaking to their television audience: "Now we take our eggs, break them into our bowl..." etc. We, the audience, are not there with the presenter; they are joined by a camera operator, lighting operator and others to assist in their presentation, none of whom are helping with the actual cooking process. Prawns and oysters to start... By the time "We are now plating our meal" was announced, I was so removed from the whole experience that irrespective of how delightful the menu appeared, I was distracted and uninterested in its outcome. Language is continuely evolving, but irrespective of whatever language we are speaking, or learning, we should try to grasp the correct use of it's grammar. The taste of summer... Telev