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Melbourne was one loud, long and happy exhale for me. I met lovely people, ate kick-arse food, mooched about in shops, all in full battle regalia, (read: frock, make-up and heels not sloppy joe, baggy jeans and last nights unders).
Just to prove I don't always look like an extra from Apocalypse Now, here are two blurred self-portraits from my suite (!!), in the Windsor Hotel, Melbourne. More on the Mikes book launch, lovely bloggers and photos tomorrow.
x
I am not a hot cross bun purist, give me chocolate chips sans dried fruits anytime and all the time.
It's been a really lovely week, first the Mikes book, then a fab parcel of haberdashery in my favourite ramped-up oranges from a lovely reader, (thanks so very much Lara!x), an article in which I was interviewed for Australian Parenting has been published and finally I'm off to Melbourne on Monday for an overnight jaunt and schmooze at the Mikes book launch. Lordy, I feel like a rock star.
If you have any recommendations for accommodation, eating and shopping in Mebourne, I'd love to hear about it.
Here's to a cozy, slow-cooked, well-heeled, laid-back weekend for all.
xxx
I have long been meaning to post about this. These dinky little miniatures are a part of a collection belonging to the largest small. They come by way of 'La Petite Souris', (the little mouse being the French equivalent of the tooth fairy), every time a tooth falls out.
Instead of money, the little mouse brings a present on her tiny back in exchange for the tooth. You can imagine the complexities. What item is small enough to be carried on a mouse's back? Barbie would have La Petite Souris heading in for a hernia op. What to do? Enter Re-ment, a Japanese company selling tiny but exacting replicas of the minutiae of our daily lives. And I mean exacting, teensy scissors that open and close, detachable toothpicks, threadable needles, the attention to detail is extraordinary.
I bought Re-ment in bulk when I was in Tokyo last year but you can also find it on ebay. I like to buy a whole series at a time, the French stationery set and the fairy-tale teaset series were particular stand-outs for us. I'm attaching some links, but first a word of caution, re-ment is seriously addictive and not just for the kids. My sister and I can play for hours setting it all up. Look here, here and here for starters, don't tell me I didn't warn you!
x
PS Thanks Pip for another inspired Words and Pictures.
This is a helluvabook. And I'm not just saying that because I'm in it.
It's. Bloody. Good.
I'm finishing here because I need to nip off and whip up a project or seven....
PS Who knew there were so many of us out there waiting for the op-shop gods to drop a delightful piece of furniture in our laps? I'm off to a clearing sale this weekend so I'll keep you posted if I find anything you're looking for!
xx
Bar the world's most inquisitive canine in the corner of the photo, nothing in this image cost more than $25 Australian.
We have never in our married lives spent any real money on furnishings, what we have, has been op-shopped, handed down, scavenged from the side of the road or bartered. This started out as an economic imperative but has become a complete way of life for us.
For our tenth wedding anniversary we are going to buy ourselves a set of antique drawers to shelve each year of our lives together so far which will be far and away the most expensive purchase we have ever made. Hopefully future anniversaries will fund other pieces of furniture - the huon pine sideboard for my ever expanding collection of mismatched Meakin china. A long dining table for guests to sit comfortably, a butchers block set at a rakish tilt where the knife blade was wielded in a past life, a blanket box with lavendar sachets for quilts. I like the idea of these things coming our way when the time is right.
What are your longed-for pieces of furniture?
What a crazy week, I have hardly been here in this space. Have you missed me? Don't answer that. I have certainly missed you. Many things have happened but I am tired and lacking the functionality for basic typing so I'll make this brief.
Lovely visit from darling parents.
Work projects on the go - various kettles on the fire.
Traditional 'fille Bretonne' outfit sewn for Harmony Day using up an inordinate amount of my lace stash.
Dogswalked,childrenfedandwatered
homeworklost,librarybooksconsumedbydog
weddinganniversariesnearlyforgotten-10yearswheredidthetimego?
Inordinatelyshortamountsofsleepbalancedoutbyinordinatelyexcellentgaragesales
FIN
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This cute-as-a-button book will be in the bookstores on the 28th of March. Pip was kind enough to ask me to contribute to the book so there's a little something in there from me as well as many other crafters from all round Australia. What I like particularly about this book is its uniquely Australian take on the thriving craft movement. Whilst there are many wonderful books published internationally on craft, until now there hasn't been anything that spoke with an Australian voice. It has arrived!
Well done Pip, Hardie Grant and all those crafters I admire so much who have contributed.
x
I could have sworn that yesterday was Friday which is why this is the second, 'have a good weekend post', for the week. I hope it's full of excellent cooking smells, board-game playing and lolling about on lounges.
x
"It was early in Grade Three that I developed my infallible Look at the Lunch method for telling which part of Manning my classmates came from... Children from Como always had totally different lunches to children from Manning. They had pieces of salad chopped up and sealed in plastic containers. Their cake was wrapped neatly in grease-proof paper and they had real cordial in a proper flask..By contrast kids from Manning drank from the water fountain and carried sticky jam sandwiches in paper bags."
Sally Morgan, My Place, 1987
Class is a dirty word these days. But whether we like it or not it is alive and well in our children's lunchboxes. The battleground may have shifted from salads and sticky jam sandwiches to biodynamic nori rolls and, (godforbid), white bread sandwiches, but the game plan is still the same. Lunch says a lot about who we are and where we're from.
Before moving to Canberra our daughter attended a private school in Sydney. The school followed the glorious French tradition of 'La Cantine'. As we entered the school of a morning, the menu of the day was posted up for parents' scrutiny and salivation. Four glorious courses were eaten at a communal table with crisp checked cloth napkins. I used to imagine the gentle hum of conversation and the refined crook of the children's little fingers as they lifted their glasses.
Fast forward a year and we are happily returned to the public school system, albeit with a French slant. I am, have been and always will be a passionate supporter of public school education, but the return to the lunchbox in the dust of the playground has been a bitter pill to swallow. All those class subtleties re-emerge in the lunchbox, I listen to the small person's tones of middle-class horror as she recounts the contents of the 'naughty kids'' lunches.
"It's all just lollies. No fruit at all."
I shift uncomfortably in my seat and listen to my pompous explanation that all kids have naughty moments and it's not ok to label people as 'good' and 'bad'. I wonder what, if anything, has changed from the last time I was sitting in the playground dustbowl.
The school tuckshop provides the classic Australian public school meals, oily pizzas, 2 minute noodles and the token fruit salads sitting dustily in the corner. When I was at school our canteen was run by the P&C and staffed by some devoted Mums who truly did justice to the term, 'tuckshop arms'. The food was ordinary at best but you knew that Lachlan Hanar's Mum was the one to go to for a generous splat of tomato sauce on your meat pie. Today it is a rarity for P&C's to run the school canteen, there are simply not enough parents to staff them. My daughter's school is no different, the canteen has been outsourced to a 'provider', I was horrified to learn is Sydney based. Much of what is consumed in the canteen has been purchased and in some cases prepared there before being shipped to Canberra. Talk about food miles!!
I know there are movements afoot for change. Some schools are reforming co-ops of parents to produce simple, healthy yummy food, a la Jamie Oliver. For me this is not quite enough, good simple food eaten in the dirt is still not an edifying food experience. The French model where children are seated in a warm, pleasant environment with cutlery and napkins is one of the cornerstones of their education system. Food is central to French culture as is civilised conversation, etiquette and good manners. This is the message the French give to their children when they are seated together eating good food at school. What message do we give our children here in Australia? That we should eat like animals in the dirt, shovelling food into our mouths for two minutes before dumping the remains in the bin?
I think our children are worth more than that.
Thanks to Pip for the assignment. I didn't mean for it to become so heavy - for some more enjoyable reads check over here. And you have to look at this hilarious discussion of school lunches by the inimitable Heather Ross.
x
Have a wonderful weekend!
xx
