"Tell me Frank...was she rarrrelly beautiful?"

In New Zealand we celebrated my birthday by spending a night at Lanarch Castle in Dunedin. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier is one of my favorite books/films and this castle reminded me of the grand house, Mandalay. Built in 1871 by a cranky, rich Scotsman, William Lanarch - Lanarch has a pretty sad history. After his first wife died, William married his dead
wife's sister (that never works) and spent most of his time in town. She was miserable rattling around the castle. The staff hated her. She started drinking and was often spotted staggering around the estate. One night William took his pistol and shot himself. It's a beautiful castle but not a happy one. It's reportedly haunted...I didn't see anything but some of the upstairs bathrooms gave me shiver. After breakfast,
Em and I walked around the grounds just as the sea mist moved in...

The Birds

Okay. I must admit, I'm not much of a twitcher (isn't that what they call birdwatchers?) but the birds in NZ were impossible to ignore. Frankly, they were very pushy. Every time we did a walk or stopped at a look-out, a bird would show up, demanding to be photographed. Admittedly, the water fowl showed more restraint. Here are my birdy photos. I'm afraid I can't identify them all...but there's a baby (chick) albatross, shag and a pukeko.

Planet Melbourne

Here's a pic of Melbourne from the plane on our way home from NZ.

Flying into Melbourne early on Saturday morning was like approaching a sci-fi metropolis from outerspace - the city appeared to be built on clouds.

New Zealand holiday was amazing. I bought a new camera before we left. I took over 300 photos but I promise not to post them all at once. Whatever happened to the slide night? Anyway, NZ was incredible. People were so friendly, food was incredible, scenery, mind blowing. Went to Milford and Doubtful Sound, Christchurch, Queenstown, Dunedin and so many small towns in between. Craft scene is pretty big, especially in Dunedin - saw lots of crochet and fantastic jewellery using rocks/silver/greenstone. Fronting up to work was hard today...so forgive me if I keep banging on about What I Did On My Holidays...pics coming tomorrow. You've been warned. Thanks for your all your good holiday wishes, too.x

Holidays

...two weeks here. Fly out tomorrow. I'm so excited - seven-year-old-girl-night-before-her-birthday-excited. Hope to find some NZ crafty goodness. xx

Five - My Lucky Number.

I've been tagged by Louise at Elsewhere.

FIVE

Five minutes to yourself: how would you spend them, ideally?
Ideally?
A quick coffee in Mexico.

Five bucks to spend right now; how would you spend it?
Pretty paper.
Ball of wool.
Flowers.
Mouse.

Five items in your house you could part with, right now, that you hadn’t thought of already?
1. Old pair of shoes I seem to move every morning as I look for the shoes I want.
2. Chutney in the fridge...been a few weeks.
3. Lint.
4. Those things you use to tie up garbage bags...seem to have 1000s of them.
5. Wonky coat-hangers.

Five items you absolutely, positively could never part with in your house?
1. Toby
2. Photos
3. Blythe
4. Rebecca dvd.
5. My grandmother's chair.

Five words you love?
1. Icicle
2. Adorable
3. Recalcitrant
4. Sparkle
5. Eclipse

Five folk I'm tagging in return:
red felt flower
Dots and Loops
Jam Fancy
craftapalooza
crafty badger

Thanks Louise!

Easter Chocolate Bliss Out

It's all a surgery blur but E and I had such a fun Easter. Went up to my sister's farm with the rest of my family - 26 of us in all. Hight moments include helping my brother in-law round up sheep, watching my Dad's face as my sister walked out with a cake to celebrate his 76th birthday, making 35 cupcakes with pale green frosting and fluffy chickens on top, eating chocolate from koko black and playing spotlight tiggy with my 11 nieces and nephews. Hope everyone had a good one.

Changing The World: One Dog At A Time...

Look who snuck up onto the bed for a bit of quiet time...he knows I don't have the heart to chuck him off when he looks like this!
Here are some more lovely dogs; Molly Chicken's cute little pup and Camilla's Morran. What a sweet hound.

Window.

I do not have a desk with a view. To my left is bank of open plan offices. The top of a coat rack sticks up like the very top of a mast. We have quite a few indoor plants - but they look fake. I suppose they're meant to make us feel better about being inside but all they do is remind me of what I'm missing.

The ceiling in my office is quite low (anyone seen Being John Malkovich?). Okay, so not that bad. If I push my roller chair away from my desk and scoot to the right, I can see a high window in the distance. At this time of the afternoon, and when it's sunny, like now - the red brick buildings across the way turn this liquid honey colour - seriously, it's such a beautiful, thick, buttery red - you can't believe that sun and brick can make such a thing.

Easter Cards

This weekend was the first of cooler days. Sun was around here and there but mostly is was rain and dark clouds. All the elements were saying "snuggle down". We had a good friend up for the weekend, so it wasn't hard to do. Good bottle(s)of wine, glow of the heater, hot-cross buns with real butter, rain splashed windows and watching the remarkable The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Japser Morello, a short film by Anthony Lucas and the latest Pride and Prejudice.

Toby (wonder dog) got a great run when Em and I went for a short bike ride, but he was happier leaping from lap to lap. Ever tried knitting with a Jack Russell on your knees?

Anyway. Easter cards. I made some. Pictures from a great book called Happy Kitty Bunny Pony.

Days are getting sweeter.

Hip Hop

Here are my first two attempts at making Hilary's Wee Bunnies. It's a great pattern and I'm looking forward to making a few more.

Falling In Love Again

...with the city. Over the last five days I had the chance to get re acquainted with town. With so many events colliding (Next Wave, Comm.Games) the city was humming with colour and things to see. The lane-ways, already crammed with tiny shops, cafes and bars - continue to expand at an amazing rate. I didn't get lost, exactly - but Melbourne has a lovely, dreamy way of spinning you around that leaves you bumping into unexpected places.

Accidentally came across Hedge-Mony at the forecourt of the Melbourne Museum. I love them - women in black dresses walking around with a perfect green sphere covering their heads.

The Beach is a new installation near the Art Centre featuring real sand, water, beach boxes, life-savers and women dressed as ships. So mesmerising to watch - the walked (but seemed to float) over the sand, gently dipping their "masts" towards the breeze.

Next Wave Festival

Going to the opening of The Anti Mascot Project very soon. I love the city on a Friday night.

It's All Your Fault

How am I supposed to get any work done with such amazingingly cute stuff around like this and this? I just want to pack up desk and leave the following message on my work answering machine.

"Hello. You've called Fran. I can't take your call right now because I've just left work to go home and make bunnies and elephants. It's my calling. Thank you for yours. Goodbye."

Fashionista.

This week we're looking after a friends house near town. What a novelty. At work in 15 minutes instead of over an hour. I almost feel like I'm on holidays. I had great plans about using my spare time to catch up on some sewing. Everything was on track until I discovered The TV. I knew my friends had cable but never thought about it much...until I mastered the remote.

Initially I just watched Project Runway which was so much fun.Then it was re-runs of Flipper and Bewitched, then a heap of UK DYI shows about renovations and finally Fashion TV or as I like to call it, the Eating Disorder Channel.

But seriously. This is a TV Station with a 24 hour broadcast of nothing but models and the latest fashion from around the globe. The music is endless euro beat that loops forever.
Scornfully, I kept skimming over FTV and then suddenly I'd been watching it for 30 minutes without really knowing why. The models were wearing all these Nordic inspired clothes the colour of snow, ice and milk. Their hair was all white and blonde and long, their make-up was clearly frost inspired. I know it was bad for me because I started to have an internal dialogue that went like this:

"All my clothes must be cream. Do I have frosted eye-shadow somewhere? I must get myself a dog sleigh, why can't I have cheek-bones like that?, where did I put my vodka and huskie?." This world started to look better and better.

After watching for another hour I almost mastered model speak - that peculiar Eastern Block tone that makes them sound worldly and fascinating when all they are saying is "this shoes are really fabulous".

Sights of the City. Photos by Emma.

Words

I've been neglecting wishthimble lately. Every time I think about posting, I can't think of any words to write and I think I know why.
Words are my job and now that I'm studying part time...more words are needed for assignments and "discussions".
Words, words, words - I think I might be running out of them. I save my good words for work and what's left over goes towards study and the poor old blog gets all the tired, dusty, bruised words.
Last night I dreamt I blogged the most amazing post: funny, timely, memorable and then like an anchor being pulled from the surface, all the words slowly disappeared and suddenly I was wide awake.
I'm going out today to find more words. The city is buzzing with people and arts and athletes (Commonwealth Games) and the river is full of giant fish and at night lights glow from every high point. Think I'll take a walk.

House of Blythe

I'll be honest. I did feel slightly silly sewing tiny clothes for Blythe...until I found out how much it costs to buy them. In the end I quite enjoyed the detailed work. The patterns are from here: a wonderful website dedicated to Blythe. Not mad on hems, but another clever person suggested using No Fray - HELLO! Loving that stuff. Might try the Party Dress next.

Also got some reading done. Enjoying is not the right word...but I'm totally drawn in by Relative Stranger:A Sister's Story by Mary Loudon.

They Drink Horses, Don't They?

Thought I'd take a picture of lovely old Sherrie so popped my glass of wine on the post...obviously she's a horse with impeccable taste...she almost beat me to it, but I managed to grab the glass back just in time. Can you see how determined she looks! Nothing worse than a drunk horse.

Hola!

Tonight Em and I are having dinner with our mate Tony. About six years ago, Em and I were attempting to walk 750kms from St Jean Pied du Port in France to Santiago in Spain - The Camino. It was (my) crazy idea...and I'm still not sure why I wanted to try and do it, given I was a very unfit (still am) smoker (I quit) who had never camped for than two days and had no experience with long distance trekking. However, there is a part of me that likes to have a go at things and see what happens.

In the end, we walked 250ks in three weeks, but ran out of time. It was an amazing trip, even though there were moments of awful frustration. Em could have easily done the whole thing on foot and was incredibly understanding when I transformed into Patsy from Ab Fab, insisting that just one more cigarette and short black will definitely help me climb the next &*$)@_ mountain. What the? Oh. Did I mention that when things got bad I caught a taxi? I've never lived it down...

Accommodation consisted of basic cabins (refugios) specifically to accommodate pilgrims (walkers). Em and I had trudged into a very small town; tired and footsore. We were sitting outside the refugio having a "why didn't we just go to Disney Land?" moment when this guy wandered up for a chat. We all clicked. He was from Brisbane and within in minutes we'd found a pub and started sharing stories over cold, Spanish beer. Over the following days he slowed his pace considerably to walk with us...which led to drinking too much red wine in Pamplona and having a blast.

We've kept in touch with Tony ever since, though he's been travelling around for ages. Tonight we're having dinner at one of the best Spanish places in town (I think)...Movida. Bring on the Sangria!