winterblooms

Not much happening around here lately. I had to go for a brain scan which was a novelty and now i've got one of those amazing sets of images of cross-section shots of my brain which is at least proof i've got one. Nothing else was revealed though so the mysterious visual effects (like an amoeba crawling across my field of view) followed by a two-day headache go unexplained. Most likely a migraine i think but i've never had one before in all my 44 years and hardly ever even get regular headaches. Still i'll happily suffer a migraine if it means i'm not having a stroke.

It's well and truly winter here now and this is when my garden starts flowering. I've had aeoniums for years because they're indestructable and the first time i saw one in flower in someone else's garden i was really
surprised. Who'da thought it? Well after growing them for over ten years one of mine has finally produced its huge yellow conical flowerhead and it's a marvel. They must need to be a respectable age to flower - mine all grew from cuttings but i've noticed they're back in vogue because even the garden centres are stocking (and charging crazy prices for) them. Fashion is a drag but at least it'll mean people will be keen to buy them at the fete.

seastuff

last weekend i flew an hour and a half north of this winter afflicted town and entered a parallel universe. Same state, different flora, different fauna, different colours. There was turquoise, aqua and a gazillion shades of white. Snorkelling, we saw angel fish, parrot fish, butterfly fish, rays, seasnakes, big coral bombies, sponges, urchins, anemonies, a huge octopus and so much more!

We were out for about an hour in the darkish patches at the back of this photo then we came in for something to eat and a beachcomb. About 5 minutes after this photo was taken this guy below cruised past in about 2 feet of water. And he wasn't a reef shark, he was big! About 2 metres long! And Fast!

After that i was happy to just sit on the beach.

There are more blue and white photos here.

filums

I was pleasantly surprised by three wild cards from the video store last weekend. First up we watched Tarnation - Jonathan Caouette's doco of spliced together super-8 film, video, short art school movies and other bits of memorabilia stored up from throughout his life. All these remnants come together to paint a bleak picture of dysfunctional family life. This movie's been criticised for being self-indulgent but seriously - what movie isn't, and at least it was made on a budget of a couple of hundred dollars rather than several million. One critic's complaint was that 'the filmmaker makes little attempt to comment or find meaning' and to that i say 'thanks filmmaker - i prefer to find my own meaning (if there is any ultimate meaning to life's labyrinth)'.

I prefer these types of small personal stories anyway. Head On was a German movie about two Turkish immigrants who meet in a mental institution. It's about Turkish culture in German society and the different forms it takes. At first i thought this movie was straying dangerously close to romantic comedy but Fatih Akin the director is likened to R. W. Fassbinder on the jacket and the film accordingly packs a realistic, painful punch.

The third movie we watched was 21 grams and while i didn't like it as much as Amores Perros, the director Iñarritu's earlier film (and one of my favourites), i didn't think it was at all bad. The chopped up timeline is becoming a pretty popular device but i guess this film is 4 years old. Mr M opined that the mangled timeline was used because the story wasn't much chop on its own but i don't think a riveting storyline is necessary to make a good film (Mike Leigh's Naked is another of my all-time favourites and not much happens at all). I don't think movies are about telling stories but about how you tell the story so while this particular story was very uncomfortable viewing for me (a woman loses her husband and two daughters in a car accident) i thought the telling was worth watching.

I'm flying up to Exmouth tomorrow for a weekend of sun, surf and snorkelling (gulp) with Mr M, who's already there. It will be the first time i've ever spent more than one night away from the girls. See you when i get back.

the sleep files

when you have your first baby you think they're a clean slate but you soon realise they come hard-wired with all sorts of likes and dislikes and preferences that have nothing to do with you. My first daughter wouldn't sleep unless she was on me until she was 6 months old. By then she was rolling over and the first time i managed to get her to sleep in her cot she'd flipped onto her belly and i patted her to sleep like that, full of anxiety because of all the sids warnings about putting babies to sleep on their back. She didn't sleep through the night until she was one and even then she woke at 5 o'clock every morning to start her day. She had two twenty minute naps a day, on her belly, until she was 2 and then gave them up all together. I was a wreck and figured it was all my fault somehow.
She's eight now and reads in bed until nine every night and gets up at six. And she still sleeps face down.

My second daughter saved my sanity and self-respect by sleeping like a dream, but at about 6 months she took to hugging a cot sheet when she slept. When she was about one she discovered all the extra pieces of the sheet i'd torn into hugging sizes in case she lost one and started sleeping with all of them. For the last five years she's gone to bed with an enormous bundle of ever disintegrating rags she calls her huggies. This is what excessive hugging can do to a piece of flannelette.

And this one sleeps when and wherever she likes.

another day

Mr M got all excited last weekend and went out and bought a 2m wide retractable movie screen so that we could watch the FA cup final with a data projector borrowed from work. The game was terrifically boring and became known as the Sweet FA cup. The screen was a great success though, especially with the chillun.

Unfortunately the second time we used it we made a movie choice mistake and ended up sitting through a pile of poo billed on the cover as "the best rock and roll movie ever". Well i guess it could be, if you're 12 and the only other 'rock and roll' movie you've seen is 'Hilary Duff - All Access Pass'. Then again, i hated Amelie so don't take my word for it.

The six year old got her hands on the camera and decided she needed to catalogue every one of her Littlest Pets. Where do they get these ideas from? (She didn't photoshop them into a mosaic though, ehem, i did that)

musings

well that's sorted - it was just a matter of disconnecting the keyboard from the computer and plugging it back in again. Very technical, and now i'm back where i started with no caps lock.

Running around the lake this morning, relieved to see it finally full of water and birds again instead of doing it's impression of a desert, i randomly chose an album to listen to on the ipod. It was Mermaid Avenue - Billy Bragg and Wilco singing songs written by Woody Guthrie probably in the nineteen forties or fifties. These are the songs that Woody, when he was dying in hospital in the late sixties, offered to Bob Dylan telling him to go and find them in the basement of his house in Coney Island. BD made the trip out there but because he didn't find Woody's wife there only a babysitter he left without searching the basement and forty years later the songs fell into the hands of Billy Bragg. Woody had a way with words and i can't even imagine what beautiful songs Bob would have made of them but still, i like this album and Billy Bragg singing (sans cockney accent) Walt Whitman's Niece and Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key are a couple of my favourites.

When i got home there was a package and it was a prize for my bone picture
for whiplash. Thanks Kath lots of fun stuff to make in there.

OH GREAT!

MANY MONTHS AGO I SPILT A SPLOSH OF COFFEE ONTO MY KEYBOARD AND KILLED SOME KEYS. SINCE THEN I'VE HAD NO SHIFT OR CONTROL ON THE LEFT HAND SIDE WHICH MADE TYPING FIDDLEY BUT MANAGEABLE BECAUSE THE SAME KEYS EXIST ON THE RIGHT SIDE. I ALSO HAD NO CAPS LOCK WHICH ISN'T ALSO ON THE LEFT BUT WASN'T A BIG DEAL.

BUT... I JUST PRESSED CAPS LOCK FOR SOMETHING - FORGETTING THAT IT DOESN'T WORK AND... IT WORKED! AND NOW I CAN'T GET THE STINKIN' THING TO GO OFF.

LOOKS LIKE I'M GOING TO BE PERMANENTLY SHOUTING OR I'M UP FOR A NEW KEYBOARD.

plodding on

I've been pretty busy lately with many and varied pursuits. I've been chasing around after a builder or company who'll add a kind of glass/alfresco/conservatory type room to the front of our house extending out into the garden. Didn't realise it was so hard to get people to do stuff but i think i've finally pinned someone down who understands what i'm on about.

I've also decided that i need to learn website design so that i can set up a site to show the graphic/conceptual drawing type work i do. I've been producing lots of scientific/enviromental diagrams for Mark's environmental consultancy and he reckons if other companies and agencies knew i did them, i'd be inundated with work. Not sure if that's right (he's a pretty optimistic guy) but i reckon it's worth finding out and if i don't get that kind of work i can always design websites with my new skills. I'm not sure how i'm going to go about it yet - sign up for a crash course or teach myself - but i've started trying to find my way around Dreamweaver and getting a handle on html. Mark seems to think that the all the technobabble is going to completely bamboozle me (it's not my strong point) so i've got something to prove and it's about time i learnt something new again.

Another of my pastimes at the mo is potting up plants. I've offered to run the garden stall at our school fete this year and although it's still 6 months away! i know if i don't start now the stall will be an embarrassing failure. Last fete the plant stall, which i did a lot of work for but didn't run, made over two grand so i've got a big job to do. I'm pillaging my garden and anyone else's who'll let me.


Today i potted a couple of banana pups which i dug up but i've got no idea if they'll take or not because they came away without any roots at all. I love these kind of experiments though.

browntown

butternuts!

Whenever there isn't a lot going on around here like now (well there's a bit going on - home renos and i'm doing some work and getting paid for it woohoo!) i tend to talk about the garden. I'll never get sick of it even though the same events happen year after year. We've finally had some rain here in Perth so everything's looking great in this window between deathly heat and being completely covered in a solid blanket of fallen leaves. This is the one pumpkin i managed to grow this year with seeds saved from a much bigger harvest a few years ago.

Back then i had a lot more space to sew pumps but now i've planted most of the garden out so this plant is winding its way between the trees and shrubs. I can watch the progress of the pumpkin through my kitchen window but i know when the time comes i'll hardly be able to bring myself to eat such a beautiful thing. As you can see they're a gigantic variety of butternut and even taste great too.

we are returned

actually Dunsborough isn't glorious at all. In fact it's a dump - the town planning is all over the shop and overdevelopment's rampant. And if you're silly or desperate enough to wander into town all you'll find is Coles and carparks as this sleepy surf hamlet grows to accommodate city millionaires who use their holiday mansions a few weeks a year. Even the endless luxury resort apartments seemed mostly to be empty and it's not really surprising - there's absolutely nowhere to eat out in town. What self - respecting millionaire wants to cook on holiday?

The old part of the town still has its charm though - this is the cottage we stay in and the view from the front room - we saw dolphins from the lounge room a couple of times. The bay is shallow and perfect for kids and the natural beauty is beautiful (naturally).


but this is very close and getting closer every year.
This is one of the beaches you pass on a walk along the headland. I walked a 10 kilometre round trip most days through blackboy scrub and banksia groves and i'll never get over how nature can produce such spectacular masterpieces that aren't even for our benefit.




The highlight or our week though, apart from dinners with friends were the caves. This one below was fully lit and boardwalked and like walking into a natural shrine or temple. I couldn't stop thinking about the guy who discovered it a hundred years ago and first entered with ropes and candles. The main chamber (they called the amphitheatre) 35 metres below ground was enough to make you believe in a god.


The other cave was a completely different experience. It was a self-guided, unlit, un boardwalked adventure. We went in alone carrying our own torches (and the kids got to wear headlamps) and descended 83 metres into the ground down rocky steps and over rocks steadying ourselves with ropes and chains. At times we had to climb ladders into tiny chambers then use other ladders to climb out of them into new spaces. At one point in an enormous cavity they call the ballroom we all switched off our torches. The light faded for a millisecond before Romany quickly turned hers back on. I don't blame her. The cave covered 800 metres underground and we were all sweating when we finally scrambled up the last boulders to the surface. It was a blast.

We came back Saturday and got ourselves organised for Rom's 6th birthday party on Sunday which we all survived. Today it was back to school and because it's my birthday i'm neglecting all my usual monday chores - food shopping, washing, putting away and just taking it easy. Back to the millstone tomorrow.

chesty bonds

i drew these little figures for toy shapes and when i came back to them later i found my daughter had added some extra features. Those cute little faces have just got to find their way onto something.

i've been jazzing up some of my old t shirts lately by stitching silhouettes on them of things i fancy - bullsheads and cactuses mainly - and now i think each one of those critters is going to end up on my chest too.





we're off down south tomorrow to glorious Dunsborough for a week in a beach shack (a very comfortable, cozy beach shack). I'm worried about the cat and the garden and the guinea pigs and the fish and the drive but i'm sure i'll manage to enjoy myself somehow.

happy feaster

I've been spending a lot of time awake lately in the small hours stressing and fretting about my shortcomings. I know i'm not the most useless person to walk the planet, i have some minor talents and a few learned skills but i can't help feeling there's so much more i should be doing. I'm struggling a bit under a weight of guilt and underachievement.

I know i should organise lot more physical activities with my girls, bike riding, rollerskating, swimming, scootering, and then there's educational games - board games, cards, maths websites instead of barbie websites - should i be a lot more active in that too?

There are things i would like to be doing for myself too - mastering guitar, drawing more, learning to surf, playing chess, using my languages, finding more work - and although i've never subscribed to the 'you can be whatever you want to be' school of thought (the human psyche is complex and less under our control than we realise) - i would at least like to do the things i like to do.

Yesterday, i found an old horoscope i'd torn out of the West Australian a few months ago because it obviously resonated with me. It still does and it's strangely cheering:

"There is a chasm between what you desire and whether you can achieve it. In principle you have some good ideas but in practice they might be rather wishy-washy. Be creative but not overly ambitious."

I find it rather comforting to be told to accept lack of achievement - it's almost buddhist, i think this might become my mantra.
Happy Choc Fest all!

blooming bromeliads!

This beautiful plant is a species of aechmea - i don't know its full name but it's also known as the Torch Bromeliad. I bought my first one about a decade ago at a Swap Meet and i think it was my first bromeliad, i didn't even know what i'd bought at the time i just liked the foliage for a couple of dollars. Then it sat neglected for a few years not doing much until one day it decided to stun us with its spectacular flowers.


Each plant only flowers once then slowly dies, but while it's going it produces new plants called pups so that eventually the whole pot becomes full and you can start to pot them up into new pots. It's a never-ending supply. The pups take a few years to flower but because i've got so many now there are plants flowering every year. A few months ago i potted up 3 fully grown pups - you just cut them off the parent plant without roots or anything and stick them in a new pot. One flowered a month later and i brought it into the house to enjoy the flower. The flowers don't last long - a couple of weeks - but when it had finished the next one went into flower so i brought that inside. Then after that one, the last one obligingly flowered so i've had the flowers in the house for a month and a half. I have various clumps around the garden too which are also flowering - all from that one original plant. That's why i love bromeliads.

Cactus Salvage Inc.

Things have been pretty interesting around here for the last couple of weeks because the Great Six Monthly Council Verge Collection has just wound up. Fondly referred to by locals as 'bring out yer dead', it's a great time of year to meet your neighbours and rummage through their junk. It's also a good time to get rid of stuff you've been too lazy to give to charity because you can be sure anything you leave out that's not complete rubbish will be picked up by somebody who can use it. I think it's a great tradition.

I found old cases and bags, vintage fabric, antique scales and pressed wildflowers and i'm still trying to find places to put everything. As much as i get a thrill out of this treasure hunting sometimes i wonder what's going to happen to all this crap i collect when i'm gorn. I suppose it'll all end up in one massive pile on the verge and hopefully give someone else a thrill.

time out

on saturday night Mr M and I were invited to a couple of parties so we arranged for the girls to have a sleepover at the grandies. A perfect opportunity to drink too much, stay out 'til all hours and sleep in as long as we wanted, i thought. Mr M had a different idea though, he thought it was the perfect opportunity to get up early on Sunday, drive north for two hours to Lancelin - the land of the long white dune - and spend several hours in the surf trying to stand up on a plank (or in his case, effortlessly standing up on a plank).

and these pictures tell the story really. What a great morning, perfect surf rolling in in three tiers - beginners waves up the front for the likes of me, another line behind and big waves right out the back for the real surfers. Sand dunes like snow fields, kangaroos and a crazy half hour drive on a pure white corrugated twisted sand track to reach the beach - not something you do every day.

This time i stood up at least a dozen times and once i even managed to stay on my feet for a whole 2 seconds! whoohoo get me back there.

on the beach

on sunday we headed down to the beach to check out the sculpture exhibition. In some ways i think art on the beach is a redundant concept, especially in Perth where the beaches are dazzling and enough stimulation for body and soul on their own, but on the other hand you couldn't have a more stunning backdrop for some of these things. And sometimes the work becomes art because it's placed on the beach. A few years ago there was a huge stack of old suitcases that wouldn't have looked out of place in a warehouse or airport but looked spectacular half buried in the sand at the beach (but then, i am an old suitcase nut).

My only beef about the exhibition was with the over application of do not touch signs. I'm sorry but if you're going to take over such a public space then you can't expect people not to touch - surely that's the nature of sculpture. And the beach is not the place for anything too precious or fragile for kids to explore so lay off with the grumpy signage.

After the beach we made banana muffins and banana fritters and hardly made a dent in the banana bunch.