It flew by. New orange sandles. Walks on the beach. Yarraville Farmer's Market (fresh beetroot). Got lost in the wonderful Hugo. Read Various Positions by Martha Schabas in the shade. Drank mocktails with friends. Had a water-fight. Rode our bikes to breakfast. Watched (part) of the most amazing games of Tennis I've ever seen and fell asleep to the whirr of the over-head fan. Hope you had a good one too.

Year of the Dragon

Crazy bustle. Sweet pork buns. Mini buses zooming. Skyscrappers looming. Endless noise of the best kind. I got some sleep. Hong Kong didn't.
Happy New Year.

It had been so long since I ventured into the craft room to make something that I had to literally dust off of the sewing machine and brush cobwebs away from the windows. Lack of time and frankly, inclination meant any thoughts of actually making something fizzled. Then I came across hop skip jump's new book. The second I saw this monkey, I started picking fabric - in my head. I think I botched up the arms a little but that's just fine. Somewhere between stuffing his head and turning his legs, I realised how much I missed making stuff. The rest of the patterns are great too so I'm looking forward to making more.

Seal Sunday: the movie

Big Wide World

Five weeks, a handful of countries and a thousand memories. Apart from the obvious attraction (not working) there's lots of reasons why I love visiting different places. It shakes you up. Reminds you that you're part of something bigger than catching the next train or forgetting to buy tissues.

Lots of great things happened on this trip, stuff that was unplanned like getting to see a book that belonged to Vita Sackville West at Sissinghurst, eating Bakewell Pudding in Bakewell, furtively watching a 'star' eat breakfast in London (Ron Howard), catching a local farmers market in misty Sennen in Cornwall, being followed by an incredibly friendly cat while we searched for Sylvia Plath's grave in Heptonstall, eating fish n chips and watching a sunset at the end of Brighton Pier, finding the Phantom's box at The Paris Opera, reading Hemingway at Shakespeare and Co, falling asleep on the soft grass near the canals at Versailles, watching squirrels chase each other in Regent's Park.

I've come back full of ideas. Nothing grand just creative thoughts that only seem to bubble to the surface when I'm busy looking at the world as if I've never seen it before.

It's good to be home but is it good to be back?

If you're going somewhere - Bon Voyage.

If you've just come home - Welcome back.

Her Father's Daughter by Alice Pung (Black Inc)

I started Alice Pung's new book Her Father's Daughter on Sunday and have been taking every chance I get (between work & other distractions) to open up the covers and get back into the story. It's a quasi autobiography about Alice that basically picks up where her first book Unpolished Gem left off.
Alice is now in her early 20s and gently trying move away, emotionally and out of her parents house so she can experience life for herself. Her father is especially overprotective - a former refugee from Cambodia - he's witnessed and experienced some horrendous violence at the hand of the Black Bandits, part of Pol Pot's killing fields. He only wants what's best for his family but it's hard for him to watch his children grow up and make their own way in the world.
I'm up to a chapter that started off set in contemporary Melbourne but now looks as if it might be headed in a much darker direction. At this point I'm totally enthralled by Pung's restrained and elegant prose. She takes me along with her with every page. It's such a good feeling when you get swept up in a book. Lead on...

Stay and defend

Father-

His daughter is coming home. Well, not exactly home, but back to Australia. It panics him whenever any of his children are far away. She has been gone nearly three months - the first time she has lived outside the country.

rain, hail or shine

This honey-coloured photo of a corner of my loungeroom kind of sums up my feelings right now. I think I'm in a mid-winter slump and although I'm enjoying doing all those cool weather things: reading swaddled under blankets, the warmth of a dog on my lap, hot chocolates, making lots of wintry stuff like soup (roasted pumpkin, cauliflour) and Sophie Dahl's wonderful lentil shepherds pie and Stephanie Alexander's apple crumble, I'm yearning for some sunlight. The outdoor setting in the back yard looks depressing in the rain and the garden is looking scrapy.
This weekend I'm going to resist the urge to hunker down and hibernate and go for a 'jog', (my version - slow and ungainly), drink tea instead of coffee, make something and just get on with the 'doing'.