A Cup of Comfort

 

Cold and Flu Preventative/Cure

Put a teaspoon of honey into a mug.

Squeeze in a quarter of a lemon (wedge) worth of juice.

Top up, stirring, with boiling water from the jug.

Be careful it is HOT.

Sip and stir, drinking as hot as you are able.

Tummy Ache Easer

Slice  a piece of ginger root about as big as your thumb roughly.

Place in a mug and pour boiling water over it from the jug.

Stir it constantly.

Be careful it is HOT.

Sip and stir, drinking it as hot as possible.

Cough-ease

Boiling water in a mug from the jug.

Be careful it is HOT.

Sip and drink as hot as possible.

*Please note this only works during and for a short time after you are actually drinking but if you are prone to coughing attacks it soothes the tickle for you.

Chai ( a spicy tea made with goat’s milk in its pure form – not here in my Aussie version) For One

Bash four green cardamom pods (with mortar and pestle or bottom of wine bottle, etc)

Pop them in a saucepan with a cup of milk (source is your choice but I can tell you this tastes truly FOUL made with soy milk)

Grate in 1 teaspoon’s worth of fresh ginger root

Put in 1 and a half teaspoons of tea leaves (black, standard…although Assam is the best)

Put in half a cinnamon stick, three whole cloves, three peppercorns and stir a little.

Bring to the boil and turn down to simmer for five minutes.

Add another half a cup of milk and three teaspoons of sugar.

Stir a little and let simmer for another two and half minutes.

Pour into your mug through a seive to catch all the bits.

Enjoy immediately as it does not taste good cold.

* Alter the amount of ingredients to your own tastes. I did as this recipe is a total rearrangement of the basic ingredients from a recipe in the book Hindi Bindi Club by Monica Pradhan (good book with lots of yum recipes).

A Goat Ate My Homework

I had to ring the swimming centre on saturday and put in our excuses as we would not be attending.

“A rat ate my car.”

Not surprisingly the girl on the phone was…bemused…amused…not really believing me.

I mean, why didn’t I just say I couldn’t be bothered?

But really – here this is not a bizarre thing.

So here is what happened.

We all got into the car to take Two Foot Guru to Auskick (Australian Rules Football for little tackers (translation=small children)).

She pulled her seat belt down to do it up.

It coiled neatly across her lap, one end a soft fan of silky fray.

She burst into tears, thinking her super strength (at the moment we are a super hero you understand) had wrecked my car.

I quickly assured her it was no such thing.

In Australia we have rules about kids staying in booster seats or baby seats for a very long time (I am all for this, btw, I’ve seen the difference in pediatric casualties after an accident when they were safely ensconced in a seat) so we couldn’t just pop her in another seat.

We moved her seat to the middle back seat (we have a standard sedan car) and the husband reported that belt looked like it had been worked on a bit too by the mysterious offender.

I kept explaining that it was rats, I’d noticed they’d eaten the bung out of the wheel well and gained access into the boot as I’d cleaned up their mess in there.

He didn’t believe me.

Anyhow, so we went to footy and came home, having arranged with our local dealer (car dealer who services our car) to order in seatbelts.

That night I went out to the garage to get some bread from the deep freeze and could hear chewing going on in the boot of the car.

Having had just about enough of being laughed at for suggesting it was rats eating my car, I went in and got the “beepadeebeep” (see Black Books) and the husband.

Popped the boot, the light in there comes on automatically when you do this and there, perfectly illuminated, was a rat about the size of a kitten, chewing through the other seat belt.

Well, needless to say hubby was a little less rude about  my theory (I am one of those annoying people who considers everyone’s career interesting and had relentlessly grilled the pest control guy we had come into one of the houses we were living in for a termite check – he was very enthusiastic about educating me in the habits of vermin…hence me knowing that during autumn and summer they find somewhere warm and dry to nest and generally that is when they come in looking for food too).

The rat stopped and looked at us with a little interest and then almost sighed before climbing off its perch in the rear speaker casing and hopping down inside the body of the car.

Smug bastard (sorry, language warning).

Anyhow, hubby sprung into action and set our one and only rat trap.

He made plans to go into town the next day and buy out the local hardware store.

The next morning I went out to see whether the trap was working and discovered all three of the rear seatbelts were now chewed through.

This renders the vehicle useless as I can’t take one or both of the children anywhere.

I reported this to the husband and he cussed and set more traps.

Kill count to date is 5 rats (all very large) and 5 mice (normal mouse size).

Unfortunately, living in the middle of  crop lands, paddocks, the swamp and extensive shedding means we are rather a target for anything looking for a home.

We found where they were making their nest.

On top of the engine.

I kid you not – bits of seat belt, runners of grass from the lawn, a ripped up bit of beer carton from the boy’s shed…all created into a snuggly nest.

I have no idea what the wind velocity rating is on a rat’s nest, or the ignition point.

But I think the car manufacturer can take a bow that the engine runs so cool and breeze free that they considered ideal as a home.

Now I’d like to say that rats are like nits and prefer clean people (to save some sense of dignity) but rats don’t care if you are clean or messy…just if you have warm, dry places and lots of fibrous material.

We’ve just discovered today that there are only two seat belts that fit our vehicle left in Australia (both of which we’ve had to find and have shipped ourselves as our local dealer has turned out to be a little less proactive and would rather sell us a whole new car).

Little note here – you may want to keep spare parts for your car as my car is a fairly young (8 years old this year) and one of the most popular family cars in this country…and yet they no longer have parts for it.

Although I give you that it probably wouldn’t be a huge demand item, due mainly to the fact that (unless you keep goats or don’t feed your children regularly enough) you won’t have to order new ones after they have been consumed, on a very regular basis.

You want to know the most ironic part?

Before I cleaned the car out there was so much food in there from the kids that the rats didn’t touch the actual car…as soon as I cleaned it up they had nothing else to eat so they started on the car itself!

So, with the laughter of the boys and that poor receptionist ringing in my ears, I am now going to tackle the problem of being home-bound with shopping day tomorrow.

Living out here is fairly challenging without a vehicle.

Well, if you don’t like shooting your own food.

And I do have some emergency supplies but not sure if I’ve got vehicle consumption covered.

Now I have to go and check the rest of the car, incase they’ve developed a taste for engine lines and hoses. (Officer, a rat chewed my brake line!)

Honestly…you believe me right?

A rat ate my car.

And stop laughing…

Out with the old and in with the new

Saturday nights here are Family Night.

I have a list of ideas for what we might do (mainly to stop us having to watch Cars for the umpteenth time over) and we all agree on an activity to do together.

It was a little bit different this week as we decided to do our cleansing ceremony.

We created some magic cleansing salt (see glitter and rock salt) and carried it in a little bowl out to the gate.

Here I read a verse and we all took turns to throw salt in all directions.

Cleanse this place

With this salt and verse

Let the goodness chase

Away this old curse

Now old and bad are gone away

All blessings are welcome here

Balance has come to stay

And there is no more fear

Blessed be.

Then we went back inside and walked through every room with a lighted candle and I read the following:

Gather round all that is dark

This strong and cleansing light

All pain, all past, within this spark

Making wrong into right

Clean away, clean away

Burn up and be gone

Invite all joy and let it stay

Forever and strong

Goodbye trouble, goodbye strife

Hello love, Hello light

Now begins a new chapter of life

No more past wrong and lots of right

Blessed Be.

When we were outside, just as we finished throwing our salt – a double rainbow appeared in the sky.

I kid you not.

When we got inside I grabbed the camera but it was gone.

Just like that.

It touched Two Foot Guru so deeply she spent the next hour writing out verses in her notebook about candles, glitter, salt and cleaning out the house.

I don’t expect all the troubles to go away.

Life is about them too.

But I do expect a balance – good and bad.

And not all the past troubles to be dragging along behind.

Yes.

Blessed Be.

 

Drums

Sometimes you stumble across another blogger who you just click with. They are different from you but they often say things that finds you nodding emphatically at your screen and trying to come up with a new way of saying “I get this!” in the comments.

Mrs A is one of those bloggers and today her post was about how she manages to organise her day/life in a way that is flexible, yet productive.

At one point in time or another I think we all feel like we are just treading water.

I know as a parent I feel a little sad at the end of the day if I only get cleaning done and not quality time with the kids.

I also know that when I didn’t have kids and I worked 40 hours a week I often didn’t get things done, despite knowing I’d feel great when they were done, due to doing other things.

I have to pop a little disclaimer in here.

I battle with a sort of Yin Yan thing – half of me is basically OCD and super, SUPER organised and the other half just wants to lie around in my Mr Men PJS, eat toast and read novels.

To the same degree half of me is a responsible parent who just wants to provide a clean home and every opportunity for my kids (including teaching them by example to take responsibilities seriously and learn how to take care of themselves) and half of me wants to sit in their play cafe and sip mud cuppas or crawl around on the floor chasing cars (or any number of the other cool stuff we do).

The fine balance we all walk (kids or no) is the razor’s edge of doing what we should (which is satisfying to those of us who prioritise those things) and doing what we want.

I often do this creative writing/talking exercise with the husband and kids where we write down perhaps our favourite menu, our ideal day or similar…just to get the “what we want” out there. Then I look at what we should be doing and I try to design a balance.

Which, belive it or not, brings me to my point.

I have been picked on for being so organised as to have a vague schedule, seasonal chores, a checklist in my diary…but the reason I do is so that neither of these two extremes wins out.

I carefully engineer a day/week/month/year that hopefully finds balance between should and want for all of us (no easy task with four people and two of them small children).

A psychologist once told me that a large portion of common unhappiness and frustration was caused by people not living their true priorities.

This means putting what you should before what you want.

And I think even the Simpsons covered the other extreme where you only do what you want.

So in the middle we’ve got a sketched out schedule into which specifics (and even anomalies) can be inserted.

It doesn’t really have to be flexible, but you do.

This is especially true if it encompasses other people.

So if you get to the end of the day and you feel like you haven’t really achieved anything (despite working really hard or because you just procrastinated) it might be time to sit down and get scribbling.

Write down your ideal day, cover the things that have to get done but also those things you want to do (usually you find you bring in completion of tasks as part of a satisfying day anyhow).

Sketch out a general schedule and arrange things – less like specific times and more like arranging flowers – work with what you’ve got (as Mrs A said in her post….you can’t use time you haven’t got so don’t set yourself up for disappointment by trying).

Always try and strike that balance between should and want.

Also realise that it must be ever-changing. You will not have (thank goodness) the same days over and over again….things change, people’s needs change, kids grow up.

I keep a spreadsheet of my week, day by day, with prompts to remind me of tasks I must complete (cleaning, laundry, animal care etc) and I put fairly nonspecific spaces in for stuff I want to do (we call it “happy hour” in this house).

I’m fairly close to striking that balance but will have to be careful to keep it.

I’ve got seasonal chores (quarterly) and annual ones.

I used to be a lot more house proud but had to tone down the cleaning schedule as I wasn’t seeing the kids much so now it is minimised or has become part of our family activities (eg we all cook dinner together and work as a team to do a quick tidy at the end of the day).

I also have a diary sitting on my desk where I scribble down little extras or the extraordinary things that pop up (appointments, events etc).

Kids thrive on a rhythm, we all do really, we keep a heartbeat and the whole universe is moving in a rhythmic way, life is.

It is only natural to set a rhythm in your home.

I love that about the Steiner approach.

It plugs into the rhythms that exist in the organic world and works with them create a peaceful path.

Anyhow, I may, in future, share a little bit of my daily/weekly sketch but for now I just wanted to talk about it as Mrs A made me feel so much more….normal?

Not sure that is the right word but the husband mocks my organisation efforts so it was just so nice to read about someone who uses them and is proud of it

To finish…something a dramatic arts teacher once said:

“Sure, pick the music but never try and tell people how to dance to it…everyone has their own steps.”

Being true with your food

Today I found an (almost) certified organic beef farm that sells by carcass or half carcass – how cool is that?

If you aren’t impressed then you are probably vegetarian (I am often that way inclined myself but live with a bunch of dedicated carnivore types) or you might be dedicatedly an urban dweller who does not wish to know WHAT your food came from.

Well, it is sometimes a bit confronting.

My butcher told me his partner (business partner/fellow butcher) is a vegetarian…and reckons everyone would be if they had to kill/butcher their own meat.

Like  most of these tricky situations I often get jammed in, I just find a balance point.

Sure we can have meat but it has to be certified organic and free range (certified).

Sure we can have processed foods (stuff not made from scratch by me – usually cereal or spreads) but it has to be certified organic.

I have a goal (in case you hadn’t guessed) of buying 100% certified organic.

I will stop at nothing to achieve it.

I wrote to the big chain of supermarket I am forced to shop at (we live in the country – city dwellers actually have brilliant access to this stuff, they can have it delivered to the door in a recycled timber crate!) and gave them praise for stocking more and more certified organic goods – then gave them my wish list of what I would like them to do in the future.

Here was me thinking they didn’t care, but I got an email back (not auto-reply) thanking me for complimenting their purchasing team (feedback forwarded to them) and then I got another email to get more details about what I wanted.

It is like I keep telling those awful, slimy sales people Greenpeace has taken upon itself to place in front of you when  you are juggling kids and shopping – begging for money.

Consumers run the economy – consumers make or break businesses.

I can’t stop them mining coal seam gas etc but I can stop using gas or coal and purchase my power through a green power company.

You may feel small and unable to make a difference when faced with a rapidly deteriorating planet but standing in the isle of a supermarket YOU decide what to buy….who to give your money to…what message you send back to the companies that bombard you with marketing of their own.

Naturally this does not go down well with the backpacker harass-er from GP who (I assume) works on commission…he has already written my name in a direct debit form and is waiting for me to hand over my bank details.

Even charitable organisations who really do want to make a difference can get a bit out of control in the quest to be the one in charge of saving the world.

Anyhow, I digress – mainly because those creepy hawkers pee me off.

There is something you need to do – and it doesn’t involve chaining yourself to a tree, burning crops or breaking into labs (or giving your bank details to backpackers).

Buy with a conscience – do your homework – let your money talk to them.

Look up the True Food network and check their list for companies that are/are not users of GMOs.

Look for Certification – the word organic means nothing without it.

Look for less packaging.

Look for local – and when doing this accept that seasons exist and if you are buying bananas in Tasmania you are really not being thoughtful about how to cut down on your carbon kms.

But again, find that middle ground….one banana as a treat (ooooh exotic fruit) every now and then, rather than using them as a staple fruit all year round wherever you are is much better and doesn’t deny you all of bananas (or the farmers of revenue).

Grow what you can (time, space, climate).

Use non synthetic cleaners and toiletries.

Set yourself achievable goals.

Don’t pass judgement on other’s efforts.

Everyone has their own square so thinking outside of it may not appear to be the same as your outside of it.

I know people who don’t believe in recycling.

But they insist on buying fresh, local food.

I know people who are junk foodies but who religiously rinse and sort their rubbish to aim for zero waste.

I honestly believe that change does not happen with politicians (they did not tear down the Berlin wall) or with professional protestors (they did not bring medical care to remote areas) or even with money (it has not created food swap programs in streets around the world)….nope…change happens because of normal, every day people like us.

Averages, statistics, consumers….whatever you want to call us.

Us.

If you buy it they will sell it.

Your every day actions are what changes everything….everything.

A little love from a winter garden

I’ve been quite inspired by all the gardening going on around the world (in my favourite blogs) so decided to go out and explore my garden…stumbling across something truly amazing.

Firstly, a little explanation.

I never water it down for people.

Living here has been tough.

The swamp, infested with mosquitoes or dried black during summer.

The wind that comes to visit straight from the Antarctic and the stays too long to be welcome any more.

And you’ve heard about our resident curse (soon to be cleansed).

This garden was so exciting for me when we moved here as it was a little piece of my own space.

I had not been told by landlords before to “do whatever you want” so suddenly all those garden designs and ideas I’d scribbled in my journal were a possibility.

It seemed to fall under the curse though.

We live on limestone ridge with about five inches of top soil at the deepest, then solid rock.

It used to be a works depot so I kept unearthing horrid things like truck batteries (back in the ’50′s they still thought it was okay to bury rubbish in the back yard).

The place is run entirely dependent on any number of chemicals – the main one being glyphosate.

I wanted organic so I banned any sprays within ten metres of the house.

The boys were fine with that but often forgot, resulting in a number of dead vegetable plots due to glyphosate poisoning.

The weather is so wild that it howls a gale here pretty much all the time so everything was getting wind damaged, frost damaged, sun damaged…nothing is gentle or balanced, only extremes.

Everything I planted came up (thanks to the very reliable seed saving company I buy through) but in miniature.

Tiny trombocini, tiny water melons, tiny tomatoes, mini swede, itty bitty lettuces….it went on like this.

I harvested what I could and then finally was overcome by the obstacles and ignored the garden all together for a while.

But this hasn’t lasted long.

I’m a gardening soul.

So when I ventured out to see what I could see – I did a dance of joy to see that the (wonderfully non-hybrid, non-GMO, non-sterile/patented) plants from previously mentioned awesome seed saving company had, in fact, gone to seed, self seeded, regrown.

Lettuces have popped up everywhere….

Even all the way through the lawn! It is odd to mow lettuces.

Mustard mizuna joins the lettuces in blatantly ignoring the garden bed/lawn principle.

Kale and broccoli that I had thought never made it suddenly started going nuts with a little winter rain.

Spring onions defy their name, along with silverbeet planted so long ago I’d forgotten the seeds existed.

Sorrel – the only one to take and survive from the start is still there in big, green hedges. Hardy Perennial really doesn’t do this plant justice!

My blackberry struggled so hard but has grown another arm to reach down to the soil.

The Kaffir lime – so often molested when cooking Thai – is popping out new growth in happy abandon. This thing has survived an ant/aphid attack, the treatment of oil/soap spray that got rid of them, frost and a wind that packs a punch like a cricket bat.

Swedes have popped up in neat rows – sown over a year ago and sleeping for that long.

The Aloe was always a rebel – out of its comfort zone (see heat/cold zone) but thriving amongst frost to pop pups like a mad thing.

And the Thyme isn’t on time…having a tiny blossom party in the middle of it all.

So I hereby want to offer an open apology to this tough little garden I gave up on but which never gave up on me.

To celebrate…

A big pot of vegetable soup (including a humble harvest from the garden’s offerings).

I’ve mowed the lettuces and planted out punnets.

I’m truly humbled by how amazing mother nature can be.

The moral to this story is; don’t buy seeds from anywhere but a seed saver network that deals in heirlooms and nonGM plants – nature will do the rest

Bloopers

You recall my showing you all my clean-ness-es yesterday?

Well here’s my desk, also clean….but whilst I was trying to take photos of cleaned up house (as artistically as you can take photos of an old house full of kids and animals and messes)….there were some bloopers.

I love the gag roll on DVDs.

Almost more than the movie sometimes.

So in the spirit of that – anyone who’s tried to take sophisticated magazine shot angles in a house of chaos will understand.

Here are a few blooper shots….

Never work with kids or animals, they say…I can see why.

Clean and winter green

 

Clean veranda

More clean veranda

Clean pantry

More clean pantry

Clean corners

Clean nooks

Two year old version of clean – if it is on the mini-tramp it is invisible right?

My version of clean

Clean family room

More clean family room

Clean kitchen and I even scrubbed the kettle shiny!

Clean bathroom (hideous ’50s bathroom but clean all the same)

Clean study

I finally put up the weather station so the kids can start their weather journal

And the green….all so green…a juicy winter green….not like the green of spring. I’ll share more of it later.

So lots of cleaning, a bit of garden work left to do before our little goodbye darkness, hello light thang. We’ve sorted out salt, essential oils and lots of happy things being said.. I hope it works.

Well I feel like death warmed over (after three weeks at the back of the fridge).

The cold/flu thing that the kids have been struggling with the last few weeks has finally knee capped me.

I feel like I’ve got a razor encrusted boa constrictor wrapped around my neck and chest.

And yes, I am feeling a little sorry for myself.

But I’ve pushed myself to keep going.

Out here there isn’t a back up plan.

Hubby has the same thing but the Man Version.

Yeah – you know what I mean right?

He’s staggering around hacking up a lung and claiming to be half way to his grave.

He has tried to keep going too though.

But has had moments of struggle.

He came home from collecting fire wood without any fire wood.

Chainsaw wouldn’t work and he just felt that overwhelming inability to continue.

I know that feeling.

I didn’t sass him about it because I have a feeling as this thing gets a grip on me I’ll reach that point too.

But not today – today I finally got the back veranda cleaned off.

Tonight I celebrated by sitting a while on the old plank bench.

It is a heavy old thing with flaking, white paint.

Gumboots crossed.

Listening to the rain hammer on the roof and hush into the tanks.

Look left….clear concrete and neatly stacked firewood.

Look right….containers full of cleared up toys and the home-built toy kitchen all clean…so clean you could eat in it!

Look left….a frog is throwing itself in reckless, slippery flops through the grass.

Look right….trikes and bikes, ready to go should the ever reluctant peddler (OFG) want to or TFG pedal for him.

Look straight ahead and take a deep breath of the damp, wintery, smoke infused air.

I know, it isn’t ground breaking news but it meant so much to get that veranda clear.

It has been like a rubbish tip for so long, I was so ashamed by it that I hated people dropping by and having to climb through it.

Tomorrow….who knows….maybe the garage.

Or just laying in bed in my jammies, listening to that glorious rain and trying not to get a hot honey and lemon drink spilled on me by wiggling kids.

That’d be nice too.

Pasts – a bit of catch up from my journal (excuse repeats as I’m getting old and repeating myself more often now)

Pasts:

Climbing trees to the very tipeetop and swaying in the wind as I looked down upon the world. The best one was being up there during a summer storm.

Clacky shoes. Shoes that clacked with a tap dancing type of clack as we walked on hard floors. It felt so grown up and Ginger Rogers to clack about, particularly if paired with a twirling skirt or dress.

Rollerskates. Before roller derby. Outside of the urban skate rinks. On the drive, taking your life in your  hands as you crash repeatedly into the garage door, leaving a permanent dent in it.

Being so lost in an imaginary world that the real world ceased to exist as I played one of our complex games.

Riding my bike. We weren’t allowed out of the garden but even riding in circles for hours, pretending you were on a long and adventurous journey, horse optional.

The smell of woodsmoke in the cold, winter air…especially paired with the buzzing of the powerlines in the morning mist and drizzle.

Staying  up late to finish a book I’d gotten completely absorbed in. I can never remember being told off about reading in bed – but I was home educated so there was no school bus to catch in the morning.

Not knowing about cholesterol and not worrying about obesity because we grew up rurally and had very active lives with little to no TV or video/computer games. The ignorance of not worrying about which GM/animal torturing/rainforest destruction/unfair trade was being brought into play when you had your favourite food. Being able to have two types of sugar and lots of butter on your porridge or eat your way through half a loaf of bread….whilst reading a book next to the toaster and a large collection of spreads and butters.

Putting the corner of a fitted sheet on your head like a hat and dragging each other about the garden or house as fast as we could.

Knowing how to sleep for as long as I needed to (little or much) and getting up when I was hungry, rather than because I had to.

Writing novels in tattered exercise books and not being old enough to be critical of myself so I enjoyed reading the story over again.

Believing in magic, truth, love, friendship and generosity. This sounds bitter but I don’t think anyone does in the same way after having seen the world as an adult with responsibilities.

Building large and complex Lego towns. Our Lego was in a massive table/box and did not come in prepacked little bags with instructions….we built anything and everything. There is, of course, a time and place for following instructions…but my personal feeling is that Lego is not it.

Making amazing towns and creations with Plasticine. We usually only had orange but we would build very complex things…tiny towns on blackboards (see the lap sized blackboards that used to be used in schools – slates). The people that lived in these towns were small balls.

Being allowed to dig up parts of the lawn or garden beds to install roads for our Dinky Cars (see toy cars). We kept our cars in old, large, hinged biscuit tins. We would play “towns” where cars would go home and have the garbage collected and go to work….and then bring them in and have them in the bath to clean them (and usually dirty us).

For reasons I cannot recall I spent a good deal of time sleeping not with a doona (see duvet) and pillow, sheets…..nope I had a sort of camouflage coloured sleeping bag. It was cotton, not this slippery stuff they are now made of, and heavy. I used to sleep happily zipped in so cosy.

Playing in our teepees that mum sewed us and got us to paint. We’d play seasons as Native Americans (what little we knew about them) and we’d plant crops (I’m not at all sure they did this as I think they might be partly or completely nomadic) and tend animals and then store stuff away for winter. Winter, when it came, required us to stay for long periods inside the teepees and make loud wind noises, tidy things and pretend to make stews.

Being home educated meant my parents accessed a lot of materials generally only available to schools (yes, there is still a lot of prejudice against home education out there – only schools can get tickets to certain concerts, only schools get educational deals and access to things) via declaring our “set up”as a sort of tutoring business tax wise (very complicated way to do it but they were determined we not miss out). As a result we were able to access the Ashton Scholastic book boxes. These still exist in schools today and you get sent one of the brochures of age-specific books to purchase through the school. My parents just ordered one of everything, reading ages be dammed (we had a library of over 3000 books and I can clearly remember tackling Isaac Asimov at the age of eight). Every now and then we would pick up this massive box of books from the post office and delight in ripping it open to read them all….preschool to high school. Sometimes I still see these books in op-shops (see thrift store) and usually buy them as they all have such great memories attached.