... on christmas cards, or possibly new year's cards.

Hold on, dear christmas card friends! They're coming! This year they're going to be late. Market preparation and all this Moving Things About has delayed my annual card make-a-thon. I know I said this last year, and possibly the years before, too, but I really love making christmas cards. I don't really care if people don't send me one in return, although it's always lovely to see an envelope without a window in the letterbox... it's just that it's such a great excuse to get out the paint and glitter and sit for a few hours being frivolously creative.

No paint and glitter this year, though. This year the theme is scissors and a gluestick, and boo-sucks to all those window envelopes!

Happy new year, dear christmas card friends!

... on another incredible bloom.

About six weeks ago, a cactus that had hitherto been sitting doing absolutely nothing on the little metal table on our deck started to do... something. I wasn't sure what it was up to, so I took a photo.

Slowly slowly slowly, something emerged from one of the little pink spiky things. It took a very very very long time. A bud!

One morning the bud showed signs of imminent action. Over the course of the day it creaked itself open, and by late afternoon a lovely bunch of yellow stamen-y things were revealed.

Night fell. Very early the next morning I went outside to take a look. Far out!

What a beautiful monster! It was as big as my hands, cupped, and had the most lovely and subtle sweet scent. That little cactus worked on this beauty for six weeks!

... and it lasted for only one day.

Nonetheless, that cactus has leaped upwards in my estimation! Thankyou little cactus!

... on a room less empty.

I can't say I've officially moved in yet, because all I've done is pick up everything from inside the house, walk across the deck, and deposit it somewhere in the new room. But, as I've got a market on Friday night to prepare for, all those things that I've put on the floor will just have to wait until the weekend.

However. My CD player (which had been unused since we moved in here at Easter) is now throatily blasting out some tunes that I hadn't heard for ages. I don't think I'll ever get around to digitising all my old music, so I feel like I'm going to be reunited with some very old friends in the next few days. Speaking of old friends, I've also been reunited with my big work table, and there's just enough space on it at one end to get some work done. The morning light pouring in the big window is just so lovely - it really feels like home already.

So, to market! I'm busily be-speckling a batch of my new small bird's eggs for some kind of christmas tree to bedeck my half-table on the night. Fairy lights may be involved. I do hope so!

Red. All red! These eggs are tiny tiny versions of my original cast plaster bird's eggs - just over half the size. They are wee and small and sweet and I am enjoying speckling them up very much.

I still haven't painted the bathroom door, though. Wicked girl!

... on an empty room.

I've been awaiting this day for what seems like ages. This day is momentous. This day means that situations like this will soon be a thing of the past. 

That's our dining table somewhere under there. One morning recently I had taken over the entire kitchen bench as well, and poor C stood there with his bowl of cereal in hand, forlornly looking about for somewhere to eat it, and had no joy.

No more, because today is The Day. Moving in day! or, depending on your perspective, moving 'out' day! From C's perspective I will be moving all my dust-creating clutter 'out' of our house. Now, I know it was waaaaay more than two weeks ago that I was predicting I'd be moved in here in two weeks. That was because I forgot to apply my Builder's Maxim. "Double the time you think it'll take and you'll be half way there." I hadn't reckoned on just how long it would take me to mask everything, fill every nail hole, sand them off and give all the architraves and skirting boards enough coats of semi-gloss enamel.

Okay, so I haven't yet painted the bathroom door, and the fan light fitting is yet to materialise, but pfft! Mere trifles!

Because I'm the sort of girl who needs Places To Put Things, C has indulged me and put a lovely old floorboard in the bottom sill of the big window. A Place To Put Things!

How wonderful is an empty cupboard to someone with a lot of stuff to organise? This one came out of my grandmother's garage, and I'd started to sand it back with a view to painting it some nice grey colour. Only, after I'd removed the pegboard from those top two cupboard doors to reveal the dusky pink interior, the Mission Brownness had grown on me to the point where I just stopped. Perhaps one day I'll continue with it but I'm liking it just like this for now.

I can't hold back any longer... I just have to put things in those drawers! Bye!

... on a day like this?

It's a stinker today, and I believe it's going to be much worse tomorrow: 41 degrees centigrade is predicted for where we live. It's a good day to stay inside in an air-conditioned sanctuary, which is how I'm feeling about our house at the moment. With all the blinds down to keep the sun out I can hardly tell that outside it's blowing a horrible hot wind that's travelled all the way across the baking heart of Australia to shrivel us here in Brisbane. I am so thankful we have air conditioning. This is the first summer I've ever had it, and for the first time I'm feeling like summer isn't only about survival. Previously, summer has been a sloth-time for me. I'm one of those people who just wilts in the heat, and when you add humidity to the mix I become a non-functioning Miss Irritable who lethargically counts down the days until the end of March. The end of March is the end of summer for me, as I reckon something that my grandmother Mard once said is pretty spot-on: "March can go out with a bang!"

Today, March seems quite some ways off, but that's okay! In here it's cool and peaceful and I'm feeling creatively energised and in the mood to get on with preparations for my next BrisStyle Indie Twilight Market, which is on Friday 14th December. I've got a batch of special red christmas-edition speckled egg brooches on the go.

I'm using 'Napthol Red' as the basecoat - isn't that the most poisonous-sounding pigment? (a quick Google... it IS poisonous!) A strange optical illusion came about as soon as I applied the white speckles. The basecoat alone is a warm red which might almost be described as a very very VERY dark orange in a certain light. Post-speckles it appears to be a dark musk pink. When I apply the polyurethane it'll change again. Exciting times!

... on 'when things don't work.'

Chicken casualties abound around here. Despite three visits to the specialist avian vet, my two favourite Pekin bantam hens have had to be euthanised, for reasons unknown (without me parting with an even more astronomical amount of money for a probably-equally unfavourable outcome), and I'm left with a nitwit and a pecker. The flock has halved.

It's always the most likeable, beautiful and personable ones that die, isn't it?

So. The nitwit (on the right) is Marilla. In the mornings (starting at first light, about 4.00am) she'll make the loudest, most insistent noise she can. I think she wants food. There's plenty there! It goes 'raaaaaaaaaak Raaak Raaak Raaak Raaak. RAAAAAAAAAAK RAAAAK RAAAAK RAAAAK RAAAAK RAAAAK!', and it's on repeat, and thank goodness the neighbours haven't built on their block yet, because she's worse than a rooster.

Bent, on the left, is so-called because when I got her as a pullet I noticed that her whole face was... well, bent. She must have had an accident as a chick which caused her beak to swing off slightly to one side. It's straightened out now but she uses it with great force and accuracy to peck at any limb you may care to wave in her proximity. The Pecker.

Here's something else. You know that corn I was raving about a few weeks ago? How green and lush it looked in the vegie garden! How promisingly full the cobs! How succulent the kernels! How, one evening, carefully steamed and much anticipated (despite the large caterpillar I found munching away as I peeled it) BLOODY AWFUL it tasted!?

C was well involved with his cob beside me as I took the first bite. It should have been grand - it was cooked to perfection, glistening with butter, sprinkled with freshly-ground pepper and an appropriate scattering of Maldon sea salt flakes... and I got a mouthful of something that tasted and felt ever-so-much (and unsurprisingly, when I reflected upon it later!) like a spoonful of cornflour. Absolutely revolting, with no flavour whatsoever, and it stuck to my teeth in the most appalling fashion, too. I tried again... no. Glue. This stuff was unpalatable! I now know why some bright spark hybridised corn! That'll teach me to try growing a heritage breed, goddamnit!

I uttered an oath of disgust, and C looked at me, mid bite. "This is bloody awful!" I cried. "Why are you eating it!?" and C said  in a small voice "Because you gave it to me." Oh hell. Gardening AND cooking guilt wrapped into one!

At least someone will eat it. Good on you, Bent!

... on an incredible flower.

Have a look at what is bursting out of two very-neglected plastic pots here.

You know these type of pots - you've been meaning to redo them for two years, so they're only half-full of too-well-rotted soil, and they'd been missing under a pile of fallen leaves in a forgotten part of the garden for some time. I rescued them, completely leafless, a few weeks ago, stuck them out in the sun and started watering them. I KNEW what was in them, but I certainly didn't expect so many.

What grand timing! They're blood lilies, or scadoxus multiflorus, and I was given one bulb by our dear family friend Jan some years ago. Over time the bulb has multiplied, and I had divided them into two pots-ful a while back. Looks like they've come to maturity since then! So far I've cut at least four for vase-flowers and there's still at least eight in the pots.
Oh for the right spot in the garden to let them naturalise...

Edited to add: The size of one of these blooms is almost 20cm (or 8in) across!