... on Sydney.

I've just come back from an early birthday present to myself: a long long weekend in Sydney. I'm always amazed that it takes just over an hour to fly from Brisbane to Sydney. I used to commute for longer than that.

My window-seat was outstanding, as was all things Sydney, apart from one incident involving some bird poo and a park bench!

'Etsy Success Sydney' was both inspiring and intimidating. Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson's address was about courage and the finding thereof. (inspiring.) Georgie and Milenka from TMOD spoke about how their brand has grown from being a handmade start-up into a business with products stocked in stores around the world. (intimidating! but they gave a great talk!) Bel and Robyn from Brisstyle presented to a packed room about Etsy team management, and it was so lovely to meet them (and Mel from Kimono Reincarnate) in the break. The 'Tips from top sellers' session was full of laughs and great advice, and we heard from Sam (Matou en Peluche), Jess (Epheriell) and Lloyd (Tummy Mountain). Lara Hutton (stylist) and Heidi Adnum (photographer) presented good info about getting better results from your camera, and they demonstrated with pics they'd set up and shot in a hotel room that morning! I left before the final session as I was wrecked, and wet from a drenching at lunchtime - I think I steamed lightly all afternoon.
The venue (new function rooms at the top of the Museum of Contemporary Art) was beautiful, the view amazing, the catering good and the conversations with like-minded crafty people excellent. Three cheers for Etsy Success!

Was that the highlight of my weekend? Hard to say. I loved re-visiting the Brett Whiteley studio in Surry Hills, and then finding the huge version of his matchstick artwork out the back of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

I also spent a long time drowning in the lovely blue of one of my favourite paintings of his.

The Balcony 2 1975. 

I was particularly taken with the succulents in the Botanic Gardens...

... and I loved the wintry-ness of the falling leaves everywhere I went.

So... home to a crazily-windy day and a cranky-looking cage of moulting chooks. To zucchini plants that have taken over the whole garden. To a modem that wouldn't work and a leaking gas cylinder. Home to full water-tanks as it'd been raining all weekend! Home to a tin still full of meringues as C had forgotten about them! (crunch, crunch crunch...)
It's lovely to get away, isn't it?

... on Fraser Island loveliness.

Here's some of my favourite things about our recent trip to Fraser Island and Cooloola. Holidays are nice, aren't they?

These big old scribbly gums really caught my eye.

I wanted to come home and fill a garden with scribbly gums and banksias like these.

We drove home via Rainbow Beach, where the colours of the sand cliffs were incredible. They were making their own little coloured dribbly castles in the rain!

At a freshwater creek flowing out into the ocean, the dark sand had settled out in the current.

Crabs impress me a lot.

Especially soldier crabs. Who can't be impressed by a soldier crab?

There was lots of rain. Didn't matter!

Other unphotographable joys were to be had in the form of swimming in the rain at beautiful Lake McKenzie, which has clear fresh water and an aqua 'beach'; the number of fish in the Champagne rockpools, even though they were almost full of sand; having an experimental dig for pipis (eugaries - a type of shellfish) on a car-free beach and finding a collection of jacaranda-purple and apricot tinged beauties; and driving about on the inland tracks and not seeing another soul.

Go there. Not in holiday-time if you can help it. It's a lovely place. But don't forget to take a few extra plastic bags!

... on being good for the soul.

Good morning. Today I'm off on a little holiday to counteract the effects of months of constant house-doing... C and I are headed to Fraser Island for ten days. Lando (the Land Cruiser) is packed with tarps and gas stoves and wine and bags of potatoes and five blocks of Green & Black's organic chocolate, so we're set!
Holidays are good for the soul, don't you think? Here's something else that's good for the soul - mine, at least. Check out Boyd's eyebrows!

Cheerio!

...on being at home.

Aaah, how lovely is it to return to a beloved home after a long while away! The first opening of the door... the familiar smell of my house... the remembering of all the little possessions that make my home 'mine'. Seedpods on a bookshelf, a postcard tucked into the edge of a frame, a pebble found on a previous holiday sitting on top of the piano.

What I like most, though, is how I've just stepped from a darkening blustery European autumn into a fragrant pre-summer Brisbane blissfulness! The breeze feels like the sea, and it makes Christmas seems to be just around the corner. The jacarandas in my street are going all kinds of crazy and the jasmine just outside my doors is outdoing itself. The nights (through which I am finally sleeping after picking up a dreadful airport cold!) are scented and only-just-cool, and in the mornings I'm amazed by how many birds start singing so early. My feet are getting used to being bare. It's so good to be home!

What's more, the garden is absolutely full of self-seeded cherry tomatoes, perfect for roasting up with some garlic and onion to have on hand for spaghetti.

Yum yum yum! HOORAY ALL ROUND!

... on holidays.

Hi there. I've been overseas on holiday for a while now, and as it's going-home-time soon, I'm starting to think 'What happens next?' We've been holed up in this place in France for two months now, long enough to really settle in and give our brains a good rest after a start to the year that was unusually frantic. I think that's one of my favourite things about going away. You think about home and remember how nice it is, and then think of all the things you want to do when you get back there. I'm not homesick, not at all - just enjoying the perspective!

So far, the 'What now?' list is headed up by completing my tax return (ugh) but then moving on to more interesting things like reopening my Etsy store. Living out of a suitcase for this long has reinforced my suspicion that I have too much 'stuff' hanging about in boxes at home, and some of it needs to go to eBay or the opshops. I'd like to make a start on a Summer vegie garden (sweet potatoes and pumpkins first up) and have resolved to not bother trying to grow things that I know are wrong for a humid climate. I'd like to drink less wine, and am keen on starting my no-sugar regime again.

I'm also looking forward to new creative things. I've been looking about, and surprising myself by what I'm interested in - one thing I've really noticed a lot has been rocks.
We'd drive through a cutting on a road and I'd think 'Oooh, I bet there are fossils in that shaley stuff', and so we'd stop and poke about, finding that others had been there before us and left mounds of stone, picked over. On a beach I'd find my interest caught in the variety of pebbles - the textures and colours of the different types of stone - and easily spend hours wandering slowly about, finding wonderful things like this:
It's a crystal-filled geode, slightly ocean-worn, and completely delightful! Having never been into rocks in any way before, I'm starting to feel like I could be. I wish I was a jeweller so I could make stone beads to thread on battered silver bracelets. Carving plaster, carving stone - it's a natural progression, isn't it?

As an aside, I've rediscovered one of my first forays into plaster typography, a project that I did on a previous visit here. A wall had been torn down, and there was a large piece of thick plaster, almost a brick of it, in the debris. One blunt chisel and several wet grey afternoons resulted in this; a carved address to leave by the door.
Hooray to plaster carving! It's been good for my soul for a long time!
See you soon.

... on a trip!

It's 6.30am and I'm leaving for a long holiday today. There's an empty suitcase over there in the corner, and little piles of things lying all over my house. I'm experiencing a vague sense of panic but I think all the little piles will end up in my suitcase, and I'll be able to leave by 9.00am. What am I talking about? That's plenty of time! I've got enough for a leisurely shower, another cup of tea, and more sitting admiring my dear friend Sarah's 'departure' flowers from her garden!

So! I've resigned from my job, and will be away until the end of October. C and I are headed to America first, where we'll hire a car and camp, hike around my favourite mountain, attend an enormous music festival, and hopefully not find too many things we want to buy here. From New York we'll be shipping it across to Europe, to spend a good long time in France. Hooray!

I think I might even have time to go and give Boyd a good squeeze. He won't mind!

What am I talking about now? GO AND PACK, you nitwit!