Category Archives: Helvi Oosterman

Socks no more

23 Sunday Dec 2012

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By Helvi OOsterman

When I was a kid, we used to get hand-knitted woollen socks for Christmas. Mum was very busy and sometimes she had only enough time to finish one sock, and we had to patiently wait for a whole year for its partner. By the time I was ten, I had received roughly four and half pairs of socks…

Mum was lucky that she did not have to go shopping for the wool; it grew on the backs of our black and white Finn sheep, which was very handy. All she had to do was to send it to the local wool co-op to be processed into a knitting yarn. Some busy people called it  LWCO for short, but we had enough time to get the words out, and we used the longer version.

Our Mum was a gentle person, not one of those tough black and white people. She liked nuances and shades better and therefore she also asked the wool to be blended into soft grey. Of course in those days we had never heard of the Aussie Rules that tell you that girls ought to wear pink and that blue is for boys. We were blissfully ignorant of such rulings and were happy just to have warm feet.

Life was good; we did not even know that paedophiles existed in our charmed world. Our parents let us walk to school, so obviously no one had told them either about these bad people. In return we did not tell them of our adventures of swimming in fast flowing rivers and the games we played on breaking up ice floes in springtime…we knew of people who had drowned, but not THAT many…

Now the mums have to buy big black cars and become taxi drivers for their offspring, and by the time the kids turn ten they have sleepless nights before Christmas because they can’t think of anything new they still have to have. They have their laptops, WII’s, IPods, IPads and scooters and trail bikes, and socks and shoes to die for with labels etched into them. Even the pencil cases have to be bought only at some special Smiggle shop; pens and rubbers from K-Mart just don’t cut it…

On Christmas Eve Dad and Big Brother used to go to our own forest and came back with a proper Christmas tree, a spruce with sturdy branches, branches so strong you could hang  edible red apples on them, and of course home-made gingerbread biscuits and real candles firmly sitting in their holders…no, we never managed to start a fire…We made sure all the edibles were eaten before the 6th of January, the Finnish Independence Day, and also the customary date for taking the Christmas tree down and out.

Little Max saw a black plastic Christmas tree the other day at some shopping mall and thankfully thought it was horrid, so would have my Mum, if we would have talked about it too loudly on her well-kept grave.

They don’t make Childhoods or Christmases like they used to. I just hope that it is still politically correct to wish you all a very good Christmas…!

No Grey Food for E M Forster

23 Sunday Jan 2011

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Helvi Oosterman

Forster was returning to England from somewhere exotic, maybe India, on the boat train, sitting in the dining car, he’s waiting for the breakfast to be served. He wrote about this episode later in Food and Wine magazine; it was 1939.

“At last the engine gave jerk, the knives and forks slid sideways and sang against one another sadly, the cups said ‘cheap, cheap’, to the sauces, as well they might, the door swang open and the attendants came out crying  ‘Porridge or Prunes, Sir? Porridge or Prunes, Sir?’ Breakfast had begun.

   That cry still rings in my memory. It is an epitome—not, indeed, of English food, but of the forces which drag it in the dirt. It voices the true spirit of gastronomic joylessness. Porridge fills the Englishman up, prunes clear him out, so their functions are opposed. But their spirit is the same: they eschew pleasure and consider delicacy immoral. That morning they looked as like one another as they could. Everything was grey. The porridge was in pallid grey lumps, the prunes swam in grey juice like the wrinkled skulls of old men, grey mist pressed against the grey windows. ‘Tea or Coffee, Sir? Rang out next, and then I had a haddock.   It was covered with a sort of hard yellow oilskin, as if it had been out in a lifeboat, and its insides gushed salt water when pricked. Sausages and bacon followed this disgusting fish. They, too had been out all night. Toast like steel, marmalade a scented jelly. And the bill, which I paid dumbly, wondering again why such things have to be.”

Some breakfast that was. We all have been faced with inedible food at times, and Foster’s brekkie has made me think of what has been my most horrid food experience.

If I had been forced to swallow the doughy dumplings mum sometimes added to her otherwise excellent pea soup, I would now have to say that it was that soup. Luckily  my darling sister loved the dumplings and allowed me to slip them on her plate when no one was looking.

Having to eat raw oysters for the first time and at a rather formal lunch was scary and somewhat tricky, but a good white makes many unwanted things slide down easily. Then there was that dreadful cook in my primary school, and her even more dreadful food… I think that was IT, and only some warm school milk to assist you to  get it  down.

What about you, was it tripe, brains..or a crocodile steak?

Milo moves out

17 Monday Jan 2011

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Helvi Oosterman

Milo moves out…

Milo is a dog who knows what he wants. When he turned into a grown-up dog, when he stopped being a puppy, he decided that he was ready to sleep outside. It was more exciting to be out there with the wombats, kangaroos and the occasional blue tongue lizard, and all the weird Australian birds.

The cold did not bother him; frosty nights of Southern Tablelands did not drive him inside. He popped in on Tuesday nights to watch The Inspector Rex, but only if the little boys happened to be visiting the farm. The old sofa on the big verandah was his bedroom. Surrounded by many cushions, which he nightly arranged into a cosy bed, he was off to doggy dreamland only to scratch the door in the morning to be let in to share breakfast with us.

When we moved into a new home and surroundings, we thought it best that for time being he’ll sleep inside. The huge floor cushion made of an old Persian or Afghan carpet, bought in Byron Bay, became the base of Milo’s new bed. He made clear it was too rough even for a rough-coated Jack Russell, and I had to add one of those large European style pillows for softness. He now had a proper double decker, and he was happy.

There is a right time for everything, and when we discovered that the Bowral’s more humid warmer weather had  brought the fleas, which we never had in Brayton, Milo had to move out, or at least sleep outside. We bought a little Doggy House with a blue roof and over-hanging eaves to keep the rains out. Hubby and other family member were doubtful about this house moving. I knew that it would be successful. The time was indeed right and Milo was ready to sleep away from us again.

Yesterday our old neighbours visited us with their three year old daughter. It was a warm day and we had the doors to the street and to the garden open for a breeze. As we were all talking excitedly, happy to see each other and to share news, we did not notice that Hannah was not around anymore. We rushed upstairs, checked the bedrooms, the front and the back garden…no Hannah.

And then, there she was, crawling red-faced out of Milo’s little house…

Socks No More

09 Thursday Dec 2010

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Helvi Oosterman

When I was a kid, we used to get hand-knitted woollen socks for Christmas. Mum was very busy and sometimes she had only enough time to finish one sock, and we had to patiently wait for a whole year for its partner. By the time I was ten, I had received roughly four and half pairs of socks…

Mum was lucky that she did not have to go shopping for the wool; it grew on the backs of our black and white Finn sheep, which was very handy. All she had to do was to send it to the local wool co-op to be processed into a knitting yarn. Some busy people called it  LWCO for short, but we had enough time to get the words out, and we used the longer version.

Our Mum was a gentle person, not one of those tough black and white people. She liked nuances and shades better and therefore she also asked the wool to be blended into soft grey. Of course in those days we had never heard of the Aussie Rules that tell you that girls ought to wear pink and that blue is for boys. We were blissfully ignorant of such rulings and were happy just to have warm feet.

Life was good; we did not even know that paedophiles existed in our charmed world. Our parents let us walk to school, so obviously no one had told them either about these bad people. In return we did not tell them of our adventures of swimming in fast flowing rivers and the games we played on breaking up ice floes in springtime…we knew of people who had drowned, but not THAT many…

Now the mums have to buy big black cars and become taxi drivers for their offspring, and by the time the kids turn ten they have sleepless nights before Christmas because they can’t think of anything new they still have to have. They have their laptops, WII’s, IPods, IPads and scooters and trail bikes, and socks and shoes to die for with labels etched into them. Even the pencil cases have to be bought only at some special Smiggle shop; pens and rubbers from K-Mart just don’t cut it…

On Christmas Eve Dad and Big Brother used to go to our own forest and came back with a proper Christmas tree, a spruce with sturdy branches, branches so strong you could hang  edible red apples on them, and of course home-made gingerbread biscuits and real candles firmly sitting in their holders…no, we never managed to start a fire…We made sure all the edibles were eaten before the 6th of January, the Finnish Independence Day, and also the customary date for taking the Christmas tree down and out.

Little Max saw a black plastic Christmas tree the other day at some shopping mall and thankfully thought it was horrid, so would have my Mum, if we would have talked about it too loudly on her well-kept grave.

They don’t make Childhoods or Christmases like they used to. I just hope that it is still politically correct to wish you all a very good Christmas…!

Polanski’s Ghost Writer

27 Monday Sep 2010

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Helvi Oosterman

We saw a movie today, over which some critics totally disagree. According to our own Movie Show hosts, Stratton and Pomeranz, it was worth four and half stars, out of five I assume. Yet there are some, mainly American reviewers, who claimed it was the worst movie of the year.

You might have guessed that I’m talking about The Ghost Writer, the latest work of Roman Polanski. It looks almost as if the Americans are not able to separate Polanski’s private life from his work. This French born Polish director of such master pieces as China Town and Rosemary’s Baby is to me a bit like Woody Allen, whose worst movies are often better than some other director’s best.

Some years ago I saw Polanski’s Frantic, which was one of his lesser films, but still miles ahead of most movies of the same genre. Anyone who has made multi award winning movies such as The Pianist, and the Oscar nominated Tess, surely is not even capable of making a total flop.

The Ghost Writer received The International Federation of Film Critic’s prize 2009, but even so I was a little apprehensive about who’s right about this film. There was no need for it; as soon as it started I knew I was going to like it. For obvious reasons it could not have been filmed in America at the Martha’s Vineyard where the Blair-esque former UK Prime Minister lives and where the ghost writer of his memoir is going to write the book.  Instead it’s all done in Europe, in a bleak and grey seaside place in Northern Germany, where PM resides in a square, bunker style house.

The sea is menacing, the film has almost a black and white quality, which adds to its atmosphere. The casting is good, the only one not quite right was Pierce Brosnan as the ex-PM; the accent did not ring true. The others, the English actress Olivia Williams almost stole the show, and the handsome Ewan McGregor might have been a teeny bit too laid-back, but I’m not complaining, the well-known Brit playing the part of Prof Emmett did a stellar job just to mention a few.

A political thriller might not be my first choice of movie viewing, but in Polanski’s masterly hands this one got my attention and kept it for the one and half hours it lasted, not one minute too long for me. It was smart and stylish, somewhat Hitchcockian, and it has a sprinkling of humour, and some spirited swearing thrown in. The film follows the book The Ghost by Robert Harris pretty closely, but the amazing last scene where Polanski strays from it, is the most memorable, and it shows that Roman hasn’t lost his creative touch; quite amazing from a seventy six year old!

Of Piglets and Archibald

27 Friday Aug 2010

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Helvi Oosterman

Stathopoulos, Nick - The bequest

Popping into my old branch of the ANZ bank to notify our change of address, I noticed a curious little ad at the teller: The Archibald Prize exhibit at the Goulburn Art Gallery. Better late than never we thought and rushed in.

We were hardly in, and hubby was advising me that this must be the store-room boys’ selection. He has not yet spotted the mini-sized winning portrait by Sam Leach, was my guess. So it was; putting my glasses on I could spot this miniature oddity amongst all the usual largish triptychs.

There were some good, and some not so impressive portraits of our celebrities and of lesser folk. I even found a painting, and a rather good one, by our previous neighbour Cherry Hood. I could not quite understand what the goat with its curly horns had to do with this portrayal of her fellow Brisbane artist…

Now Cherry was not the only one adding something unexpected to her work. There was Cate Blanchett’s husband in a little rowing boat; maybe the viewer is to conclude: Mr Blanchett (Andrew Urban) likes fishing! In one self-portrait the artist had a dead fish sharing the canvas with himself! Well, I get the impression here that the arts must not be taken too seriously in Australia, I like this playfulness as I tend to think that a bit of humour lightens almost any endeavour.

A thought crossed my mind about starting a Pig’s Arms portrait collection. As I have only met Mr Jones , I have to base my brush-strokes not on seeing you in front of me but on reading your writings here and on UL.  I’ll start with Mike, and as we all know he is a motorbike enthusiast, he no doubt would like his Dukati to be that bit of extra in the portrait. I’ll oblige and add the leather biking gear.

 I’ll sketch Hung One On only if he promises to keep his smile on, and no doubt he’ll insist in having a cricket bat in one hand and a glass of Shiraz in another. Not really complimentary to each other, but better than Howard’s cup of tea any time. I hope he’s not going to hit me with this cricket bat after reading this!

 At the gallery the weirdest painting was a naked back view of the well-known Australian schoolteacher, who has most of his body tattooed, very exotic and colourful but hardly a portrait. This gave me an idea to paint our elusive Warrigal from the behind as well; no need to panic, fully clothed.  As he is a bit of guru to us all here, he can stand in front of blackboard showing us how to spell ‘discombobulate’…

 Gerard has rejected his parents Catholicism, but as he is a natural preacher, I have to draw him shouting something evangelical from the churchy heights: You shall love your neighbour and not erect a zinc-alum fence between him and yourself.

Hood, Cherry - Michael Zavros

Mrs M is correct in saying that grey hair looks distinguished on males, so Mr Big M will keep his natural hair colour for the portrait. A white coat and surgical gloves will compliment his beaming smile when he’s painted holding a newborn, still crinkly, baby. The floral Mambo shirts can stay in the wardrobe.

 I’ll give Astyages a double shot; in the first he’ll be playing a guitar and the number two sitting at a desk surrounded with tomes on Ancient Greek history and philosophy. OK, I’ll put at least one adoring Karen in the picture, but no motorbikes…they have done enough damage.

Julian’s curls will be professionally tidied and you’ll find him looking very happy; he’s just purchased an old scratchy record by a minor English band from the sixties on E-bay. He has also found out that he’ll see his grandson sooner rather than later.

Algernon has to be seen passing on how-to vote pamphlets; I’ll put a big sign LABOR behind him, after all he has been our best and most optimistic campaigner during these horrid five weeks.

Vivienne, our food and wine expert, knows all about slaughtering goats I have learnt lately.  So maybe accompanying her with a live not a killed goat might be in order.  I don’t think Cherry Hood will come to Pig’s Arms and sue me for stealing her idea!

Voice can proud of her achievements in the garden; the Gerberas are in full bloom and even the severely pruned Bottlebrushes are starting to look good. The spring garden is a perfect place to seat her for the portrait, the cat in her lap and maybe a gin and tonic on the table!

McKenzie, Alexander - Andrew Upton

Gez has promised to do mine; I might have to pay him though to do some embellishments…

Out of the Mouths of Babes

23 Monday Aug 2010

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Helvi Oosterman

We took the two grandsons out for a shopping trip and lunch on Sunday. This was meant to take our minds off the election misery and poor Milo’s hospital stay. Being rightly stressed by these two happenings on the same weekend and seeing seven abandoned shopping trolleys at one intersection on our return home in this most gentile and green suburb added to my irritability.

Of course these ‘stolen’ trolleys have already previously driven one family member into an almost heart attack causing rage, so the boys responded to my complaining about ‘I don’t understand this kind of low-life behaviour’ in their own instinctive ways; Thomas by burying his head in his newly purchased book wanting to give a miss to this typical family lament, and leaving the seven year old Max to air the third-generation views.

‘They are red-neck hillbillies, lazy Bogans, stupid bullies’…and to please us, after all he is our smart people person who knows the right thing to say in any situation: ‘They are Abbott Lovers!’

If Hung is our chief political writer, little Max can be our own social commentator, our Hugh MacKay !

The Toy Story: To buy or not to buy

03 Tuesday Aug 2010

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Helvi Oosterman

August 3, 2010 by gerard oosterman

Little boys love rummaging in those two-dollar shops that are mushrooming in the poorer parts of our cities and country towns. They are never happier than when you empty your purse or handbag on the table and divide the collection of coins in equal lots. ‘Oh, so much money,’ says the youngest who has not yet developed his monetary skills, and who still thinks that having $ 4, 76 equals being rich.

They find weird things like slime, and ‘stuff’ that you throw at windows or smooth painted doors, and that sticks there if you are lucky, and not if you aren’t. The rubber skeletons made in Taiwan are huge favourites. On the way home the skull usually comes loose and this will cause some grieve.

A quick promise of another one on the next trip, usually dries the tears and allows the welcome sleep to come and sooth the pain. Then there are the little hard balls that bounce and which you usually lose on the street on the way to the car, but thank god your brother or cousin has a six-pack of soft balls, that don’t bounce but allow themselves to be squeezed into any shape by sweaty little hands.

The little boys also always find a game that consists of a tiny plastic box and an even tinier ball that you have to shake through a maze, and finally out of the box. After a few tries, and no success in releasing the box-prisoner out, the game becomes boring and it’s carelessly dropped on the floor at the back of the car.

Gold coloured swords, and hatchets so blunt they that can’t cut butter, let alone hurt a friend, are high on the boys’ shopping lists. The first duel is not even finished when one fighter’s sword breaks in half, and this in turn breaks the dueller’s heart. Luckily you still have your inflatable plastic animals, dragons and dinosaurs to blow up. This kind of hard work is best left to kindly granddads. It takes a while to get them fully shaped, almost painfully slow for the little boy who wants to take his zoo into the swimming pool. It’s not a long walk to get there, long enough to deflate the dragons though, too many prickly things on the way…

When the three year old turns into five year old, the amount divvied up for a shopping trip has to be doubled. A couple years later it has to be enough to buy a Nintendo and so it goes. Finally they are not cute toddlers anymore but have turned into nice ten year olds who come to stay with their musical instruments and laptops under their arms.

They don’t cry so easily anymore over minor breakages; they know more about computers than their grandma, who in her turn still knows a little bit more about spelling and comes in handy when all are  sitting at same desk.

Those endless excursions to dime stores have paid off handsomely; the boys understand maths, and can do adding and subtracting without calculators. They have also learnt about the value of money and are all saving up for their BIG purchases, and they thank Opa for teaching them about frugality, that most wonderful of Dutch virtues!

Of Bob and Blanche and Botoxed Beauty

24 Saturday Jul 2010

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Helvi Oosterman

Never fancied Bob Hawke, the man, I’m not talking about Bob the Prime Minister here. All those polyester pants and white shoes, and the hair, talk about staying stuck in the time warp…

The imitation put-on, Aussie accent and the rolling of the eyes…give me a break, anyone sharing my birthday should not have a mouth permanently parked at twenty past eight, and that whining voice, please!

Then enters Blanche, a good-looker of a girl, blond, blue-eyed, enviable cheekbones and mouthful of nice teeth; she not just a beauty, but she can write as well, and rather well, they say. I haven’t checked if it is so. Blanche and Bob fall in love, it is not just an affair; they do get married later on, so true love it must be.

Now Bob is Octogenarian and Blanche has reached her retirement age, 66. For some reason she is not happy to age naturally, or as they say, gracefully. To me it seems like she has been blessed with ‘she’ll- keep-her-looks’ gene. Blanche begs to differ though, she doesn’t believe it. She gets busy with Botox and takes even more drastic measures in her quest to stay ‘young’.  This is not possible, she does not have to either; she is not an entertainer like our Kylie, who now looks younger than when she was still only one of our NEIGHBOURS.

Blanche is not someone who is battling to keep her job as a newsreader on Channel Ten, where the youth is the only currency. She’s also married to the much older Hawkie, and him being soo much in love, she’ll be his babe forever without having to look like a baby. Not being in the public eye anymore, (but sitting at home writing stories, some fact, some fiction, if we take Keating’s word for it), it might be time to pull on the old trackies, look dishevelled and get on with the real story, ageing.  

The smooth ironed-out pics in last week’s SMH almost fooled me into believing that Blanche has been successful in her quest of eternal youth; the harsh lights in Kerry O’Brian’s studio told a different story. The permanent wide-eyed-look-of- wonder, the overly luscious lips, made me think it was Hawke who now looked younger, HIS face still expressive, eyes still rolling…Strangely the old boy Bob now appears as the more attractive one of those two.

 Many of us feel sorry for Hazel. The gods have not been kind to her, first ‘Bob and Blanche’, and then her books, Alzheimer’s must have come to Hazel almost as a backhanded blessing…

Of Alex Miller & Christopher Hitchens

20 Tuesday Jul 2010

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Helvi Oosterman

I’m missing my books, they are physically here, in milk crates and sturdy boxes, stacked high in the garage of my temporary dwelling, but I can’t get to them without disturbing the equilibrium of our possessions waiting to be transported to our permanent abode in three months time.

It’s not only the books I’m missing but also the simple white built-in book cases, we had on the farm. One wall in the family room was ‘sacrificed’ to our old and most faithful friends, books. The bedroom shelves were a home for books in process, not to be written but to be read.

This small townhouse is easy to heat, we have nice neighbours, the living room is cosy and sunny, enough rooms to house the grandsons during school holidays, a garden for Milo, and not too far from shops, coffee lounges and libraries. This will do for us but I find myself complaining about the lack of shelving. The second bathroom eats up too much of the space; a space that I could use to put up a bookcase, however temporary. I’m totally unfair, and find the handy floor-to ceiling shelving in the laundry irritating. I’m even angry about the dishwasher: What’s wrong about using the kitchen sink!

What an unreasonable woman, I hear Daughter muttering to her dad behind my back, fancy complaining about a dishwasher when there are so people who are homeless. Thank god the little boys are outside on their bikes; otherwise they would join in with their homilies: Don’t you know Oma that the poor African children don’t even have books.

I’m fair enough to realise that family is right and that I’m being totally selfish, or did I hear the word ‘childish’. Looks like I have some explaining to do. See, I promised not to buy any more books, life’s too short and it’s time to downsize, libraries are pleasant places, I’ll swap my existing books with family members and friends, and I’ll have enough reading material till the end of my days.

All those promises were made when I was in the middle of the moving, when I was tired and fed-up just looking at yet another box waiting to be filled. Now it’s different, I’m close to shops selling new, second hand, and even antique books; I’m an hour away from my favourite flea markets, those Meccas for book addicts like myself.

I give up, I have a low chest of drawers next my bed, it has a good reading light, ear-rings, bottles of perfumes (some never used= wrong choice of Mother’s day present),last week-end papers, a writing pad and other such things sitting on it. I clear it all away sniffling a bit, no, I’m not crying, I have the flu, I leave only the lamp. I now have room for at least five or six stacks of books, I’m cheering up.

I have finished the Updike memoirs, so I place Hitchens’ Hitch-22, a memoir, carefully on top of it. Some other lovely finds in between and on top, the one I have to read in more or less in one session: Alex Miller’s Lovesong. It’s beautifully written by an older Australian author, it’s hard cover, and what a cover!

The jacket is so eloquent that seeing it you almost believe that you CAN judge the book by its covers; in Alex Miller’s case, you can. Now I have to get the rest of his books…