right up my alley

Last weekend we went to a couple of barbeques despite the chill. The park on saturday was in autumn leaf glory so we drank enough to keep warm and farewelled a mate who's off east.


On sunday we went to a friend's place in Freo that has the best back laneway i've seen in town. There are artsy types in the houses that back onto that alley so there are all sorts of wondrous things to see including a whole row of skateboard masks hung on a fence and many other curiosities. Oh Freo - i love you.

(i don't know what happened to that picture when i uploaded it - the colours have inversed, you can click on the image to see what they really look like).

a bit prickly

I've just been reading a post by Christi Nielsen at I'm Just About to Get Skinny (wow i made a link) and i, like her am agog at what has become the latest exercise craze. Pole dancing has become mainstream - our local free rag carries ads and runs articles about it, 'studios' are opening up all over town and i for one am embarrassed for women. I can't see how striving to be a sex object or a male fantasy is liberating. How is it 'empowering' or let's face it, even dignified, to pretend to have sex with a pole?
And don't get me started on g-strings, holy christ!
Sheesh, back to the garden. It's Autum!

the garden's drowning in leaves
- and the cactuses are flowering.

arty farty party

I've just been posting over at my other blog about some of the thrillingly cheap pictures we have on our walls and it reminded me of a party we went to a few years ago where everybody had to turn up with a piece of 'art' that they'd made, which was duly hung and exhibited for the night. It was a great idea and there was some really funny stuff - no one was what you'd call an artist, mainly scientists and engineers. My 'piece' was inspired by my nut and shell souvenirs that i like so much and was made out of boab nuts, carob and eucalypt pods, sea sponges and pipecleaners and mounted on a mat that i'd woven from a flax which had died in the garden. A flurry of pompoms and voila. And....it lit up!
Mr M produced a very elegant work consisting of little numbers that he'd pulled off lamp posts at a redundant lamp post depot. Who'd have known there was such a thing.
I think my favourite of the night though, was Ice Stallion which consisted of a small picture of a rearing horse carved out of ice standing next to a bowl of melting ice blocks.

new stuff

Here is the latest addition to the stuffs family. This one was for my older nephew who after seeing his brother's asked if i could make him one based on one of his drawings. I think they like the idea of designing their own toys and have big plans for a huge collection of them. Ehem, not sure what i've started here.

more green goodness

It's a gorgeous sunny autum sunday but the girls don't want to get out of their pyjamas so we won't be going anywhere. I'm just spending a lazy day wandering around the garden.