A new favourite place for a cuppa

I wandered along the street looking for a new place to sit and think about my stories. I have yet to establish a circle of friends in my new town and have not found a favourite cafe yet.

I went to one cafe in an old converted house filled with spindly furniture the parents of the 70s threw out to the tip. Old formica tops, off cuts of greyed timber and chairs with legs so spindly it was a big concern to sit on them and several tables with legs missing. I suspect they think it is de rigeuer, hip, cool and trendy. The food was okay and the service boppy, buzzy, and young. Over priced as these places tend to be however it did serve freshly squeezed juice and I do like fresh juice and the young people made me smile.

I wanted a pastie. Not a frozen food department pastie. Not an old fashioned Cornish Pastie with too much pastry and too chunky vegetables. An Aussie pastie. Neat little chunks of vegetable that includes turnip or swede, some nice juicy meat and a golden crust of pastry, not too thick, not too thin. Something like this...

So I popped into a cafe that had a nice homely feel and everyone was super friendly including other patrons but the food was bland and tasteless and the waitress suggested, in a whispered aside as she served our table, that we go elsewhere for pasties.  The place was clean and the staff helpful but the waitress was right about their pastie. Yuck.
I did tell the proud cook who made them that they were 'just like my mother used to make' which made him beam with pride and made my sister almost choke on her tea as she tried to keep her face straight and her laughter contained.

I went to the other establishment the waitress suggested and ordered their idea of a pastie. The slop I paid for was very very wet mince drowning in gravy inadequately wrapped in a half circle of puff pastry. It was revolting and leaked and was certainly not a pastie like any I have ever experienced.  More like a meat pie with terrible depression.  The staff were super friendly.

 Does no one in this town know how to make a pastie?

I am missing the Clock Tower pasties - now there is a man who knows his pasties- I might have to stock up when I go for a visit.
 
ClockTower tea rooms. 123 Lava St, Warrnambool VIC 3280,

I found my way to the, anecdotally, most popular cafe in town. It was certainly busy with not a seat to be had inside by the fire. I was put outside in the cold with a tepid chocolate. Not an ideal place to encourage me to embrace it. Fortunately I had on, my thick coat and a scarf but the irritating  doof doof music of choice reminded me of the drunken idiots of the 2am drive through which runs along the bedroom side of the house. Doof doof for breakfast equals curdled egg and I like my hot chocolate HOT!
I don't want doof doof on Sunday morning after limited sleep due to doof doof in the drive through. I lasted four and a half minutes and watched the small birds land on an uncovered plate and begin to eat the food off it while the missing patron's companion ignored the birds in favour of his phone.
Tick that place off my list even though the staff were super friendly.

I did eat in another place which might as well have been a school canteen, it too was packed and noisy and I don't even remember what I ate. At least I was with visitors that day.
I have tried two other places, neither memorable except that in every place the staff are super friendly.
I am running out of local options and may well have to go further afield.

Warrnambool people you are spoiled for choice.

On a much more positive note, I can have Chinese, Malay, Indian, fish and chips, parmigiana, pizza, pasta, schnitzel and kebabs delivered to my door. The supermarket across the road cooks roast vegetables, sweet roast pork and roast chicken in their deli department and the local shopping plaza has a Vietnamese 'street vendor'. All within ten minutes walking distance and of course there is a drive through next door and one across the road - if I want fast, fast food.

I think instead I will have poached eggs from the best restaurant in town - my kitchen. 


                                         


Happy Sunday everyone.

The Eve of June

11.10pm on the 31st of May and the night is chill. My fingers are cold. I should put the heater on and warm the house before bed but I am going to catch up on my neglected blog instead.

It has been a whirlwind month of moving. Leading up to the move I simply could not get my act together to organise the packing and cleaning effectively. It was such a huge task. I put out panic calls on facebook and people answered. Thank fully I have some incredible and supportive friends. People came from miles around to help pack and clean.Some helped physically, some helped by feeding me, some helped with some moving funds and some with calls and hugs and support in whatever way they could.
 I feel so nurtured.
Helen was a life saver finding boxes for me.


Andy came to drive the first truck and was dreadfully ill. Luke and I tried to load by ourselves and it was taking hours. When I called for help Michael and Kate arrived, Kate packed things and Michael found more boxes then helped Luke load the heavy stuff. Then Bryan and a friend came by and helped shift a few things in the limited time they could spare. Poor Andy slept or found a patch of garden to share his breakfast with.
Shirley dragged a friend along and gave me a solid hour of their time and between us we managed to clean out the shed and helped me load the final truck.
Shay and Angie came by to assist as did Janet and Helen. Shay carted the scrap metal away and did a tip run. Janet was half way through the final carpet clean when the power went out so she kept going with the old carpet sweeper.


Without their support I could never have managed to complete the move in time. I thank each and every one of my wonderful caring friends from the bottom of my heart. (NB Just because your name might not appear on this page does not mean your contributions and support are not appreciated but there is a word limit to the average readers attention span.)

I drove from Warrnambool to Bacchus Marsh and back again so often I swear I could do the trip in my sleep.

Warrnambool is wonderful and I shall miss it. Keep in touch my Warrnambool friends. I am only a keyboard away.

Bacchus Marsh.

So here we are in the fourth week in the new house.

 The view from the front step.

and a lovely picture of the sun through the trees from out on the street.




Day one we could smell gas. Little wafts of it each time any of us walked through the kitchen. I sent off emails to the real estate. Made some phone calls. Mentioned it to the man who came to fix the leaking kitchen sink and the blocked bathroom sink. Sent a few more emails and photos of the still leaking sink, mentioning yet again for the fifth or sixth time in as many correspondences that there was still a gas leak three weeks into our tenancy and please could they have it fixed so I could use the stove without blowing up the house.
Late on Friday and young man arrived at my house armed with a machine reminiscent of Ghost Busters and proceeded to look for the cause of the gas leak. Nothing happened and just to prove the machine worked he switched on the gas and entertained us with a noisy series of click-beeps that slowed as the gas dissipated. Over the stove he waved his wand, behind the over, across the bench, under the knobs and not a beep to be heard. He scratched his head and murmured about the infallibility of his super sensitive device. Finally he slid into the under bench cupboard, his torso disappearing with only his sun ripened legs dangling from his truncated blue shorts sticking out of the cupboard. Way in the shadowy depths the machine went wild. The young plumber popped out of the cupboard and screwed his face into a puzzled frown. "It's the pipe. The skinny one. They don't make them pipes any more. I'll have to pinch it off and let them know." Off went the gas.
Week four and still no stove. Fortunately I am adaptable and we are eating well and my electronic cooking gadgets are finally getting a work out.

So over the past six weeks I have been diagnosed with diabetes type 2, moved house, sewed, made a teensy bit of art, lost 5kgs, attended a class in my novel writing subject, built some shelves, visited people, attended a 3 year old's party, had my first ever IKEA experience and begun to explore a new place. Several of my offspring had birthdays and the days have sped past. I purchased myself a sudoku board from an op shop so each morning I take a pot of tea out to the court yard and sit quietly in the early sunlight and meditate over the pattern of the numbers.

This is my court yard and art space.

This was in the first few days when I had yet to sweep out the accumulated debris and had not yet hung up the fairy lights and wind chimes. The chess board sits on the end of the table now.



It is a lovely place to sit. I can look out over the head stones in the church yard next door.









I made a few more clothing items out of socks for my Lammily doll.I purchased two sets of socks, one on special in a department store cost me $3 and one set from an op shop for 50c. The op shop pair became a pair of spotty blue short pyjamas and a beanie and took about five minutes to snip and sew by hand.

 The second set of socks were pretty white ones with lace trimming and two layers of elastic.

 Cut, trim and hem in less than five minutes my doll had a trendy little skirt.

 Here it is before hemming.

The socks before snipping. I still have one blue and one white sock to play with.

Now my most exciting news. 

For the first time in my whole life I have a complete set of matching bookshelves. All the same colour and brand spanking new.
Here is the before photo of my lounge room.

a small mountain of unpacked bags and boxes, clogging the centre of the room. Bit by bit I have chipped away at it and then...














The progress shots -

 The unpackaging
















The tools and parts

 The instructions, tools and parts

The screws going in

 The top, bottom and centre going on














The other side

 The super uber duber screw cap thingys

 The second uh oh moment of discovering a back to front shelf...

 The crack

 Nailing on the back board after careful and precise measurements for the placing of the nails. Thank goodness I have someone to keep me in line with a ruler or I would be doing the artist tradie thing and just guesstimating.

 The oops disaster moment when I stepped over the end and snapped the base board with my clod hopping foot. I managed to glue and plaster a bracer which is hidden from view. OH MY GIDDY CHICKENS!

More nails and then (drum roll please)
The next set of progress shots -

 number one
















Number two - getting those shelves just so is my lovely friend Mica getting it right.

 One, two and three and some decisions about the depth between shelves.

 The first four shelves

 The beginnings of Alphabetical Order

 Still more books and more shelves to fill

 The gargantuan pile of bags grows higher and higher as each one is emptied of its precious contents.

And finally 

Ta Dah! I have my very own personal library. Only five more shelves to build for the non fiction. It is such a marvelous feeling. On that note I shall go read a book and fall asleep between the pages.

Special thanks to Gemma.

Camped out in an empty room

On the final part of this moving adventure and here I sit on my little makeshift bed on the dining room floor. I have my laptop perched on the top step of a wooden step ladder, cup of tea beside me on the floor and the echoing of an almost empty room keeping me company. The clock is still on the wall and ticks overloud in comforting rhythm.
I had a call from the big lad last night. He is at the new house and it took two hours to unload our stuff. We have a lot of stuff he groaned and I laughed. Yes we do own a lot of stuff. Many of the bags I stacked tetris style into the truck yesterday were filled with books. Moving house for me is akin to moving a small library.
 I don't think the kids appreciated just how much culling I had done over the past year. I had given away 80% of my craft gear and I threw out all the paper trail of a lifetime of study, which filled a 3metre skip(dumpster) and I gave away a truckload of things to opportunity shops. I sold a large portion of goods at a garage sale(yard sale) and still I am hiring a second truck tomorrow morning to take the last load to the new abode.
I am taking these last few days before handing back the keys to have some alone time. I really needed some alone time to say goodbye to the old place and reflect on the journey of the past decade. I wont be completely alone of course. I had dinner with friends last night, which is lucky because I forgot to eat all day yesterday during the packing and tonight I am eating with another son and his wife and tomorrow I will share a meal with offspring in the new house after we unload and Sunday I am having lunch for mothers' day with a friend, but the rest of the time I will be here by myself cleaning and thinking.
I could dance in my birthday suit if I wanted to.
I am looking forward to a whole new adventure in a new place but this weekend I am dedicating to looking back and letting go.
with love.

Glorious sunny day

Today is beautiful. I am not going to spend much time at the keyboard because I want to go back outside. I haven't felt that keen to be outside in a long time. I have to be careful and wear a hat since the surgeries, in fact I should always wear a hat and would not have needed surgeries if I had been in the habit. Australia did itself a disservice when hats went out of fashion. Primary schools(elementary) have a sun safe hat policy across the country but the moment most of the children reach their teens, hats become anathema. Maybe some celebrity needs to be pro hat and make it part of their beauty routine for it to catch on again.

I spent the morning wandering through two magnificent gardens. It was an open garden fundraiser for the Warrnambool Coast Guard. http://coastguard.com.au/ I was perfectly content to wander the dappled shade and watch the sunlight dance across the water.

 The flowers were in full bloom. The first house has an orchard and a long lawn with a hedge leading down to the jetty, vibrant garden beds around the house and plenty of shady well established trees. This gentleman has also built palaces for his chooks and aviary. The fronts of both are gable roofed cabins with the wired in fly zone behind the cabins. A lovely timber and galvanised iron fence creates a semi circle separating the bird palaces from the lawn. This is a garden worth seeing just for the work that has been put into making it an interesting place to visit. I suspect the grandchildren love it.

 Both properties have the Merri river running behind them and the owners make good use of this with their own little boat sheds and jetties.

A man made dam in one property had remote control miniature boats on display.

 The boat display showed a high level of skill from the boat builders and enthusiasts.

 This is the view from the verandah behind the first house. The garden rolls gently down to the river directly ahead and is quite extensive with the bird palaces and shetland pony paddocks to the left and large shady trees lining the border between properties to the right.

 The second property had a stand of silver birch. I am not a big fan of having non indegenous species in a garden but I must admit I do love silver birch.

 Both garden owners had provided plenty of shaded seating to relax and listen to the abundance of bird life and watch the river lazily rolling by.

I include pictures of ponies for the 'awww' factor that I am sure my daughter darling will say. 

Behind this jetty and just to the left of where I was sitting under a shady tree is a small boat house that is decked out to be very livable. The owner said that he and his wife have often slept in the boat house on very hot nights to take advantage of the cool breeze across the water.  How delightful. These are the kind of gardens I dream of. Plenty of smooth soft lawn, big shady trees and cool bubbling water flowing nearby.

I am so grateful to have the privilege of wandering through these little bits of paradise and for such a good cause.







Writing and art.

Nanowrimo started off well with 19000 words in the first week. Piboidmo had an idea for every day and skadamo was skidding ink and pencil across paper. Week two I had my little grandson so not one word was written as ti is difficult I discovered to juggle a baby, a bottle, a nappy(diaper) and all the rest of the household and type as well. Week two slid by with all sorts of other things going on the highlight of which was attending the  Regional Design Awards night
http://www.regionaldesignawards.com.au/

I attended the evening with my friend Wendy Coyle, a fellow writer who had entered the design awards with her 'app'. She was not a finalist but she entered and that is the biggest step and she had some awesome competition for the awards. The venue was terrific for such an event although i would have preferred a seat to standing for almost two hours. The crowd was made up of trendy designers and would be designers, sponsors, organisers and me.

It was at: The Artery, 224 Timor Street, Warrnambool
When: 7pm Friday 21 November 2014
I was able to meet the guest speakers  who were

Kane Hibberd (aka Kanye Lens)

With over a decade of experience working within the music industry in various roles, Kane Hibberd is well educated in music. He created "The Art Of Capture" which has quickly gained the attention of the international music community. In 2010 he was recognised as one of the leading rock photographers in the world by British music magazine NME. Hibberd was announced as the second place-getter in the rock bible’s first annual Music Photography Awards.
With his focus set on producing captivating, inventive and emotive images as well as capturing those one-off rock’n’roll moments, Hibberd regularly shoots commissioned work for music publications such as Rolling Stone, Metal Hammer, Blunt, Rocksound, Alternative Press, and The music – his work has often graced the covers of many of these publications. His busy schedule has led Hibberd to work with a diverse array of top international and Australian artists such as, Cut Copy, The Living End, Paramore, Hilltop Hoods, Birds Of Tokyo, The Temper Trap, Gotye, 360 and Them Crooked Vultures. His services are in demand around the country with clients that include EMI/ Universal Music, Warner Music, Eleven, Mushroom Group, UNFD, Sony, Street Press Australia, Next Media and Future Media.
Hibberd is the official tour photographer for Soundwave Festival, Harvest Festival, Stagemothers Aussie BBQ SXSW, Pyramid Rock Festival and the Melbourne leg of Laneway Festival.
2013 saw Kane independently publish his first book under his alter ego, Kanye Lens. A nickname given to him on tour many moons ago. Kanye Lens Vs Soundwave Volume 1 is a 454 page hard cover coffee table style photography book presenting an in depth look at his work with Australia’s Soundwave Music Festival.
2013 also saw Kane speak at the annual AgIdeas conference, Big Sound Music & Design as well as being selected as a finalist in the Moran contemporary photographic price.
To view an online portfolio:
www.theartofcapture.com
www.kanyelens.com

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Mark Haynes

Mark worked at various ad agencies and studios before establishing Haynes Design in 1989. Mark is passionate about community, education and generating social change by sharing his 30 years of skills and knowledge gained through the design process, problem solving, innovation and design thinking.
Mark is the co founder and chair of Cultivator Inc, a community focused non-profit organisation established 2010. Cultivator is a dynamic annual event that brings together inspirational guest speakers from varied backgrounds both nationally and internationally, encouraging design thinking and problem solving to create better communities. www.cultivator.net.au
In 2012 Mark assisted the establishment of the first regional branch of the Australian Graphic Design Association. As the chair he provides leadership and governance to the local design industry.

 Then the awards were presented.  Finger food circulated and glasses clinked quietly. Someone had the good sense to turn down the ambient music so we could actually hear the speakers and I found a nice wide window ledge to lean against. it was too high for me to actually sit on but it did provide a nice ledge for me to sit my glass of juice and rest my back.  I was fascinated by the various designs for the different categories and I recommend you take a look at the website. There are some very clever people in the world and I am always on the lookout for ideas for my own art. Ohh and there was a particular finger food which involved Yorkshire pudding, slivers of roast beef, caramelised onion relish and hollandaise sauce. It was scrumdiddlyumtious and I have purchased some dripping to make the Yorkshire puddings. Louis is you read this we need a cook off.

So art I have done over the past non writing time has mostly been for the 52 week challenge. We had the theme New York and since the only things I know about New York come from movies, TV and magazines I managed to make a montage of images that capture what I don't know.

New York comes across as busy, brash, egocentric, aggressive, loud, crowded and interesting. I would like to visit it at least once in my life. I have had several young friends visit and fall in love with the place so it certainly must have something going for it.

A young friend and her mother decided to make a memory quilt for her son's first birthday. She asked all the guests to create a calico panel with wishes and thoughts for her son to be made up into a quilt.
(here are a few links on how to melt crayons to use in various projects but there are hundreds... http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/17374/wax-crayon-art   http://www.instructables.com/id/Melted-Crayon-Art/   http://crafts.creativebug.com/use-color-crayons-fabric-1536.html  )  and here are the images my family made.

friendship begins in amazing places and this is the square from one small boy to another.

 something cute and circus from 'da  nerdy boyz'

Pop culture references which my daughter darling filled her calico square with.

I love making art for specific people especially birthday cards.

I am also doing sketches every day for SkaDaMo so my folders are filling up with art. I love doing any little tutorial I can fit into my day so I am learning a lot of things from generous artists around the world who youtube their skills and my thanks go out to them but now for words and words and more words.


Next week I intend making my 50k word count which will require huge word counts daily so I managed to get ahead with my art. The theme for next week is Fox. Life is always busy and it pays to get ahead and be organised so I will just go clean the bathroom... kidding.

Happy birthday to my favourite twin girls. Paula and Adele. I enjoyed myself at both of your parties and I am so happy to be part of celebrating your coming of age.

and congratulations Dana and Joel, may your future together be filled with love and joy and plenty of adventures.


A special thought came through one of the many speeches I have heard this week. Celebrate the small successes. Take time to be in the moment and simply enjoy each one before moving on. I need to do that.


May you have a wonder filled time until next we meet. <3 Love and hugs.