Friends and Flower

Recent friends who have come to lunch, have come bearing flowers.

Above are the native flowers from Madelin's garden -

kangaroo paw (the tallest); grevillia (the yellow); and callistemon.

These beautiful pink roses are from Elaine and Kevin's garden in Clow Avenue.

Khaki is a cacky colour!

Jenny over at Chalk + Talk gave directions for the Spacefem Color Quiz and I went over and did it. There were lots of boxes to tick in quiz and I seemed to fill about three-quarters of them. I have no argument with the text that came out the other end. Pretty accurate! But the colour! Khaki!?! For a pacifist like moi?!

And apparently red and green have something to do with it. Oooohhh!

Red has never been included in my colours. When I was growing up the wisdom was that redheads didn't wear red. That has never bothered the redheaded Herself. If it is a red she likes, she wears it. As for green. Well my mother, Phyllis, always said she liked any colour so long as it was green. So there was always lots of green in my wardrobe when I was growing up: Phyllis's preference and it supposedly looked great on redheads! So, guess what? I'm over green - well and truly over green although it still intrudes! So red, green and khaki! Why not a lovely lavender or mauve, a pale cream tinged apricot, or a rich antique creamy beige?

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YOU ARE KHAKI#F0E68C

Your dominant hues are red and green, so you're definitely not afraid to get in and stir things up. You have no time for most people's concerns, you'd rather analyze with your head than be held back by some random "gut feeling".Your saturation level is lower than average - You don't stress out over things and don't understand people who do. Finishing projects may sometimes be a challenge, but you schedule time as you see fit and the important things all happen in the end, even if not everyone sees your grand master plan.Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

Watch the birdie!

Will you pop over, dear Reader, to this post at Alice's blog, Growing Delight. Her Dearly Beloved built a bird house for a pair of visiting Crimson Rosellas. Then there were the eggs. Next the baby birds. But in this wonderful post, Alice has a photograph of the first hint of their glorious colour in the baby bird fluff. Charming!

Enslaved by chocolate: addiction or exploitation?

OK, dear Reader, time to experiment with the old adage that the pen is mightier than the sword. Dust off those ethical thoughts. Chocolate and the child slaves who produce it is the issue. For more extensive information, please go here and here.

You might, dear Reader, like to start with the following:

Cadbury

Cadbury Consumer Services, PO Box 200, Ringwood VIC 3134

Feedback link is here.

Are you interested, dear Reader, in doing a factory tour with Miss Eagle during which we can ask the question on the premises about where Cadbury's cocoa comes from and what they are doing about the exploitation of children? Currently, it would appear that their website is concerned only with obesity in children. But there are children involved in the chocolate process who will never grow fat - even though they might never go out to play!

Nestle

Consumer Services Department, GPO Box 4320, Sydney NSW 2001

You can email Nestle from here.

As you would be aware, dear Reader, Nestle has been the focus in the past for the promotion of breast milk substitutes in Africa. You will find them expounding their corporate philosophy of Good Food, Good Life here. A portion of Nestle's website is devoted to a discussion about coffee. You might like, in your correspondence, to ask them about their attitude to Fair Trade coffee. There is no mention of that on their site.

Mars

Mars Australia, Wodonga (Australian Headquarters), Petcare Place, Wodonga Vic 3690

Snackfood/Mars, PO Box 633, Ballarat VIC 3353 - Ballarat Ring Rd 3350

You can email Mars from here.

On the Mars site, there is this section, The 5 Principles. Mmmm....

• Quality: this segment says : "The consumer is the boss". So, dear Reader, use your consumer power to tell Mars who is the boss and that you do not want your love of chocolate to hold other human beings to ransom.
• Responsibility: Mars said it recruits ethical people. Challenge them to put their ethics on show in relation to child labour and child slavery.
• Mutuality: Mars says its "actions should never be at the expense, economic or otherwise, of others with whom we work". Now Miss Eagle understands that the child slaves are not direct employees of Mars but they are stakeholders in the industry nonetheless. Without companies such as Mars there might not be a cocoa industry to be exploitative. So Mars needs to put its actions in the ethical framework of how do we expect all children to live and enjoy life.
• Efficiency: Here Mars talks about its pursuit of "the least possible cost". To the child slaves there is a very high cost - loss of childhood development, loss of education. The least possible financial cost should not require the exploitation of sentient beings or the despoliation of the planet.
• Freedom: Mars claims for itself "We need freedom to shape our future: we need profit to remain free." Well, guess what! So do African children. Enslavement - even if it is the only hope for survival in an environment of despairing poverty - does not provide freedom and does not bring any profit to the people so that they can remain free of exploitative practices. The Christian adage of doing unto others as you would have done unto you needs to be extended by Mars to the poverty stricken people caught up in the cocoa economy to provide luxury goods for those with great economic freedom.

And then there is the industry body to contact, too:

Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia

Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia,PO Box 1307 (Level 2, 689 Burke Rd),Camberwell VIC 3124

Email Confectionery Manufacturers of Australasia (CMA) at cma@candy.net.au

When you have completed this task, dear Reader, you might like to keep Miss Eagle informed.

Ripe and rhododendrons

Miss Eagle's sister, The Director, has been in Melbourne again this week-end.

Yesterday, we lunched at Ripe in Sassafras. It had changed a little since last I was there. Ripe is an old house and it had a verandah/deck at the back. The deck has been extended. Access is by two sets of folding glass doors. There is a marquee with see-through walls. Features of the space are a rhododendron and communal tables. It was a chilly, overcast day so there was one one of those huge outdoor gas heaters.Inside, in the house section, it is still the same wooden tables and chairs for a more intimate ambiance.

Here we were - each of us with gastric lapbands. So we ordered the vegetable and coriander soup and the risotto - with two spoons and two forks so we could share. Beautiful warming, comfort food. The risotto - with fresh asparagus, beans, and feta - was the best ever. As you can see, dear Reader, substantial portions.

Ripe also retails some luscious, high quality goodies.

Great to think about as the Christmas season draws near.

After lunch, we visited the National Rhododendron Gardens at Olinda.
The Gardens are magnificent - sitting on the edge of the beautiful Dandenongs.
The Dandenongs are a temperate rainforest area with huge eucalypts from which masts of sailing ships were made.
There is a huge variety of colour represented in the rhododendrons.
The native Australian bush makes a beautiful backdrop and contrast for the rhododendrons.

For more pictures of this masterpiece among Australian gardens, please visit here.