back

We are back a week now still tanned still caught in the bliss of long beach days and balmy nights, Fremantle Doctor and South West landscape beauty. Can you believe in the west they still use SPRINKLERS! And hand wash their cars as if 'drought ' were the subject of a fairy tale. The mining industry is booming and house prices are outrageous and everyone is beautiful and tanned and hardly any one seems to know about gluten free and the only people found knitting on the beach are those from Melbourne....and the roads are quiet and the city is a country town and the train line follows the glorious coast line and the river is enormous and the sky is big and blue and the air smells like the sea. Blessed by dear friends and sea breezes and Dad's oasis down south and daily swims we survived the heat. Whilst there the idea of staying was tantalising. Now 'home' we feel the bonds to our people here and they are strong ties and we are no clearer as to making The Big Move or not. It helps to be happy wherever one is and to also feel free to do what one wants to do when the time is right so we will enjoy our little Melbourne cottage and our dear community of fellow Time Travellers and wait for the signs to spin the Tardis off into the void again.

I have been feeling inert since arriving home a day late (missed our flight because I apparently cannot register 24 hour time) via the midnight horror flight. I think it's because we had only just moved here and then flew off to the west, had a brilliant relaxed family holiday and now must negotiate the busy avenues of Responsibility and Routine which, once I recover my inner map- making skills, I'm sure will again be the bedrock of this Melbourne Life.

For anyone planning to fly Tiger Airways across this land I say with affection that the landings were superb and the service was comical; on return the same guy who took our luggage at check in was still cleaning the plane when we queued bleary eyed at the gate miles along the tarmac. He ran about with rubbish bags and ropes flustered but smiling and then, we imagined, slipped into the cockpit to fly us home. Had he been the one to come around with the tea trolley an hour later, we would not have been at all surprised. It will have us chuckling for a long time.

Beau had a wonderful time reacquainting himself with the Family Elders down south who bought him icecream and rolled about on the floor endlessly with him, dancing naked with us tipsy adults (clothed) on a hot Freo evening, learning to summersault, submerging his hands in Toby and Ryonens' fish tank, driving proudly about in 'Felicicy's car',being buried in cool sand at the beach, being loved and flung about by the gorgeous Jim and Anna, feeding lamas and watching and listening to Dimity and co. sing opera under the stars in Balingup, hearing the story of our aeroplane journey over and over before bed, and discovering finally that Kookaburras 'are laughing because one of them always farts', hence overcoming his mortal fear of said bird. He was pleased to come home to our new old house (god we have completely confused the child), to his train set and to Flash our faithful hound, and to his friends and to swims at the pool and to a good night's sleep. Out of nappies and almost off the boobie.

Whilst away the sensational Amber taught me to knit (between glasses of Sav Blanc and witty and philosophical conversation). At last I understand the fuss, the addiction, the blissful hours on the couch, the hunt for the perfect ball of wool and the benefit of wooden needles. I am planning a luxury solo mission to the Yarn Barn at earliest opportunity and anywhere else you can recommend to find such goodly gear. I haven't made any thing in particular but have been happily knitting and pearling and seeding and casting on and 'frogging' (!) and casting on again and experimenting and seeing how neat I can be. Honeymoon stage.

I too feel enormously hopeful and emotional after reading the PM's compassionate Sorry speech (I didn't hear it as we were in transit at the time) and any cynicism that may be lurking within has moved aside to make room for the possibility of healing and change. May it be so.

a fine morning's harvest

As a gift to ourselves, having sold the house and been through a challenging year prior to that we felt we deserved a bit of a wardrobe budget. K and Beau and I finally have some lovely clothes thanks mainly to Camberwell Market this morning. I could feel a good harvest in my bones and off K and I went, child-free (the only way to do Camberwell markets properly really). I found two dresses, a pair of groovy pants, a wonderful woolen winter short sleeved cardigan, and three tops. K bought 4 great shirts. Call me shallow and vain but with some new threads and a hair cut due Tuesday I can fly to WA with dignity!

Gentle Landing

We went to the Aquarium today (first time for me). All very cool with sharks and rays swimming overhead but so noisy I couldn't wait to get out of there. Would be amazing to be there with the emulated silence of the under world. I guess we'd have to gag and bind our children so perhaps instead I'll where ear plugs next time. Here is my favourite fish of the day. Nature has a wonderful sense of humour.

Thank the goddess for supportive friends, mild weather, perfect timing and the dear, welcoming friend into whose house we have gently landed at last. We have moved into this fully furnished house - a place that just instantly feels like home, as if the things in it we have always had around us. M's energy and aesthetic resonates with our own so there has been little to do other than fill cupboards and fridge and clear away boxes. I am completely exhausted and I love it here. The boys reflect the same sentiment. Beau has ridden the move smoothly and even prefers to sleep in his new bed. K still one armed but taking care of all our technological needs as only he can. The photos will show how lovely it truly is. I feel like this is a place to spend half a year recovering and creating and visioning, and just enjoying. Good to be back in the old familiar 'hood.


Watched 'I'm Your Man' (Leonard Cohen Documentary) again last night. Yet again I feel the wave of inspiration that hit me during the first viewing. Leonard himself in all his profound wisdom, dignity and poetry as well as the performers who covered his songs at the Opera House. I have played my guitar more since I first watched the DVD a month or so ago, then I have in years and my oh my it feels GOOD. I have to say also that the Irish film 'Once' has had the same affect on me. Music music music.

I have craft books on their way from Winterwood and a lovely spot in which to make manifest their contents.

Oh and it's official. We are now debt free. (deep sigh of relief) All is well.

I Know It's Only Rock 'n' Roll But I Like It......(A very long post about my brother and being Aquarian)

My brother G, is an Aquarian. He is 2 years younger than me. Our relationship has been based on a shared love of music and art and philosophical discussion and a shared sense of humour that has gotten us through puberty, our parents' separation, failed relationships, our mother's death and years spent on opposite sides of the globe. We went to the same Uni when we were in our 20's. We were even in the same Creative Writing tutorial for a year. I didn't finish my degree but G did. And he was as excellent a writer as he is now a wine maker. In those Uni days G wrote and performed some wonderful things and did some crazy things that would have made our parent's toes curl should they ever have caught wind of any of it. His motto was always that if something wasn't 'Rock 'n' Roll' enough it wasn't worth writing about. One particular Rock 'n' Roll event I clearly remember took place in 1987, the year I moved out of home to a kooky little share house in East Perth where my house sisters and I were doing some rock 'n' rolling of our own....One Sunday morning at 6am I hear a soft but rapid knocking at the front door and having the closest room I shuffled to answer. There stood my brother - 18 years old then, long curly dark hair, goatie, black jeans and boots, shirt and waist coat, out of breath and wild eyed and smelling of booze and tobacco. Sis, he whispered, I've just woken up next to _____-____ (daughter of close family friends!). I saw her at the club and we got drunk and now I've jumped the train line and the the billboard. It was so Rock 'n' Roll!!! Do you think she'll tell her folks? Can I come in for a coffee? Aaah I love him for that and many other memorable moments some I'm sure G would prefer me not to describe here so obviously I won't. But I will say that G has always chosen the Rock 'n' Roll way, ever since he was a babe.

ANYWAY! Leading me to this recollection are three things. My friend A in WA who knows my brother well and has never forgotten this story, recently wrote me that her 13 year old Aquarian son has the same preference for the Rock 'n' Roll Way. Our own three year old Aquarian too appears to be heading in that same direction. And then tonight, whilst sorting old papers I found this poem written by G at 18 or 19, in the height of his Rock 'n' Roll Hey Day. A poem which I have always loved because it is just so very much him and so very Rock 'n' Roll.

IN THIS GARDEN

In my garden,
this perfect place of purpality, my lover and I stalk each other.
In post orgasmic states,
quiet, the shudders subsiding.
We sing,
she sings to me in two hues of blues.
Almost in tune,
explaining theories of relativeness.
Of science,
some new voices inside my head.
Only to me,
she asks how far my mind can be stretched.
And kisses,
we make pretty stains on the sheets.
I speak,
celebrating the future of this evolutionary spill.
To tell her,
i tell her that 'all history is smitten with sinners'.
I love her?
how could you not love this.
In the evening,
this festive nightmare.
Of song,
strained through the cacophony of clenched teeth.
And drink,
drink a diminished fifth in no particular key.
And talk,
we speak in half time but in perfect pitch.
And knowledge,
we take sexual lessons from love songs.
Of this game,
love is a game where all secondary impulses are severed.
Of still loving her,
we could only love, we couldn't afford much else.
Her face,
what do you see when you stare past my shoulder?
Meaningless,
like a headless photo; eyes truly hold the meaning.
Our dress,
i like it when we play other people.
In style,
i like it better when we believe it.
For tomorrow,
one day's love is another day's child made sit behind the door.
The next day,
yesterday's love is tomorrow's lust measured by degrees of feeling.
Next week,
stripped to pain and built on pleasure.
This far,
distance noted by creases on the letter and stains on the stamp.
She leaves,
knowing that morbidity will see you through a period of crisis.
She returns,
leaves for a thousand years and returns with a history of ideas and a mystic tattoo.

In this same R n R tone, G makes his wine. VERY good wine.

And as for my dear K, he has returned home with bandaged arm, some pain and an arsenal of antibiotics and pain killers. For now I pack, I blog, I take care of my boys and in between I play my guitar. And I am quite happy.

garden variety

I absolutely HAVE to learn how to do this properly!! (not the gardening, the layout :D) Here are the last precious offerings from our heat battered garden. I love Kale. Steamed, souped, stir fried and even chopped up for pesto!

A Huge Splinter in the Palm is Worth Three when You're in the Middle of Moving House

OUCH. My poor husband is in Emergency as I type, with a God Almighty Splinter protruding both ends through the fleshy part of his thumb. Gulp. Battling Ivy in the garden in stage one of pack- and- prepare- to -vacate- house. They're talking plastic surgery. At least he has 5 weeks holiday from now on. It was an eye opening moment when I realised that we had no car, no available cash for taxi and no ambulance membership and that we are currently, in such situations dependent on the good will of neighbours. Fortunately they are fabulous.

We had such a lovely slow weekend with stillness and music and eating and friends staying the night. The kind of weekend where we were oblivious to the time, where we ate when we were hungry, where the guitars were constantly picked up and plucked, where the kiddies reveled in us all just being together in one place. I truly appreciate friends who aren't in a hurry to leave and with whom one can move with the general energy and flow of the day.

I will miss the light in this house and the view of trees from every window. I will miss the insulation that has it be 10 degrees cooler inside on a hot hot day and I will miss the exquisite violin playing I hear from over the back fence from time to time, and I will miss the friends with whom we spontaneously pop over to visit because we live so close. I will not miss the bathroom nor the ivy.

We are out of here on the weekend and then we fly to WA the following week for a two week holiday with family and friends which will be our first holiday together in three years. I'm thinking beach and not a whole lot else. My father lives 5 minutes from some of the most glorious coast in all the land. Whenever I'm there I find it hard to believe that I left such wholesome geography, which granted does not provide many of the culinary, creative, and cosmopolitan delights that Melbourne can, but of itself can offer a great deal to a family who in actual fact only utilises one of the above (food). For me it obviously has a lot to do with spending my childhood there near the ocean, but also the general laid back pace, the sense of space and the access to nature and family. I love the forest and the shadows cast by trees on the highways in the golden dusk light and the sunset over the ocean and the dependable sea breeze. WA is far away from everything (except divine beaches) and never a cheap option flight wise but it's still home. Whenever I walk out of Perth airport there's a familiar smell and a feeling that settles my cells and my soul. There are people there who have known me all my life. It's romantic yes and would mean leaving some very dear people here. So we will go there together and see how it feels. Maybe it's time to go back. Many of my friends have done so and say that it's the best thing they could have done for their family life. I suppose we will know.

No crafting been done of late but once moved I have a doll to make. I'm hoping that When The House Settles we can squeeze out a new Sewing Machine for moi. For the good of the whole family. For the sake of creative joy and daily sanity. For practical necessity.For the promotion of the beautification of the world in general. Any thoughts on a good model?

Old Shoes New Year

Beau's world. Regularly found prostrate on floor immersed in miniature rail road land. "Beau likes smokey trains mama" (still speaks of himself in third person). Understatement! We gave him the wooden set for Christmas. Winner.

Didn't take photos on Christmas Day. I wasn't well. Wound up with a fever in the night. Still managed to eat an ample amount of gourmet Christmas Fair.

New Year's Eve spent at friends' glorious mudbrick house in the bush. Sat on the front lawn until 4am (I even out-partied K!)singing and playing guitar. We sang up every 80's song we knew including the Violent Femmes entire 1st album. Sober as a judge i was and that's the way uh huh uh huh I like it. Beau has mortal fear of Kookaburras hence he did not leave the safety of the house nor did he appreciate being put at the mercy of a chance kookaburra meeting at the river the next day. Poor love. That kind of fear is big. I remember it well. And I remember it passing too.


Beau's (and my) favourite shoes, too small now. Time for many new things now, shoes, home, lifestyle, work.....
Two and a half weeks until we move. Much sorting and packing to avoid until last minute.
Happy New Year lovely people.