paper & wood bits and bobs

Have been wanting for a while now to post some photos of recent domestic~crafty activity ... including my wonderful new kitchen shelves (a Christmas gift from K) which go a long way to solving the problems of an impossibly small pantry, and the ex science-lab drawers that QUT (fortuitously for our craft room) piffed out. Late last year I saw some floor-to-ceiling driftwood hanging things in Biome which inspired a small driftwood, paua-shell and stone mobile which now adorns our front door. And then there's the world's most ridiculously-labour-intensive paper crane mobile, which I made as a xmas gift (but ended up giving to myself, given the time frittered away making it) ...

new years day, forest's edge, binginwarri

spring time, sydney town

First weekend of spring.

Time stops in a musk-scented garden.

And begins again on dusk.

Farm Cove. Mrs Macquarie's Chair. Sounds like a big colonial doll's house.

And like dolls we sit on the grass and watch

as the moonrise trumps the bridge in a silent argument about the bigger spectacle.

We ride old-school ferries to Manly and rewrite the great Aussie pie.

Pumpkin and fetta? Pies at the beach?

And we walk. And sit by seaside pools of molten gold.

Cabbage Tree Bay. Bare fingers of frangipani point to blue skies.

Late afternoon chill and bruschetta in Bronte. The woman in the cafe gives us blankets.
A yellow balloon rides the breeze above the Waverley Cemetery.

Celluloid unreality.

Saltblown. Somehow closer.

Then a bus, a train and a mad dash to scrub up.

Ben Folds. Second row seats at the Opera House.

Request bowl, piano stool, melancholy.

Warm hands.

In a wink everything unclenches.

Except hope, held tight.

party days

A rather gargantuan party-ish weekend has caught up with me and I am slicing into my rather massive haystack of sick leave. Last week was busy to the hilt preparing for S’s 50th, amongst all the usual stuff. Since I felt responsible for convincing her of the absolute necessity of celebrating such a hefty milestone – how could the person who, in her fabulous youth, started the Eumundi markets and sailed to India with an international fugitive, let her 50th pass without a bit of a knees-up? – I offered to help out with the food. Thus ensued wads of shopping, cooking, dishwashing and organising by both K and I. Buckets of sand were brought from Tallebudgera to bed tealight candles in brown paper bags. Chairs were carted and fairy lights strung. I made a mega pesto pasta salad from scratch. Plus my first ever quiche and samosas. (Thanks to my long-standing recipe recalcitrance – and the freezer gods – visitors to the 'Hill will be plied with samosa filling for months to come...)

The day before the party, R and J (who I hadn’t properly caught up with for AGES) came over for dinner on the deck. Mainly so they could finally meet K… and both parties be satisfied that my besties/squeeze were not just a psychological dependency I dreamed up. The girls drank a yummy red and talked about the boys. The boys drank German beer. And talked about beer. There was chicken, salad, cous cous. And sticky date pudding. Mmm. Oh. And the day before that was S's actual birthday, so we went to Sakura, the local Japanese, for amazing sushi, tempura and sake. Parteeee!

Since she had friends coming from both ends of the east coast and every hippy haven in between, I thought it would be lovely if S had photos from the evening as a keepsake. Here are some of the more experimental results… and a rather cute look at what happens when two alco-mo-hol-happy dreamers play with a camera :)

hand-washing

unpacked

From the deck you can see the city hiding over the hill.


Old school kitchen with frog-garden lampshade


First loaves and crafty storage


bedroom window and the gabba through the louvres
(the lights are a bit lost in the clouds)

weekend in the big smoke

dawn smudge and a bleary-eyed bus ride.

small glitch at my accomms: no one home to let me in!

gawd how I miss this place. real coffee and real food on every corner.


light and shade. rain. sun. rain. sun. ah, must be melbourne.


tree baubles

upside down palm tree shadow in lake


laneway commissions... bah!

cheek and jowl

sport enough for me

maybe i could live here again?

lucie's drawers

I’ve never quite managed the whole online social networking thing very well. Born in the wrong generation or something. People must think I’m immune to their free beers, baked cakes and thrown sheep. I try, but I’ve always felt time spent Facebooking etc is time not spent doing real stuff. But this morning, something turned. I spent a good half an unplanned hour ambling through a friend’s Flickr photostream. While I should have been doing other things. It was like peeking through Lucie’s drawers. My, she has style to burn. I was so inspired (and ashamed of my own disorderly drawers) that I spent the rest of the morning organising and updating my photostream. Well, it’s a start. Since that dispensed with the morning, and I'd remembered Donald's last name, I did some more trawling and tracked him down to either being a traffic consultant in Perth or a minor league baseball player!