Snow Dome - Wein und Tannenbaum

Snow dome - Petra

So today marks yet another thing that I'll start on this blog and probably not finish. Yes...do you remember me talking about my sketchbooks? In fairness I did do more than one, I just forgot to label the other(s). Other unfinished business would be the journal series where I believe I got to #6 - out of 20 pieces.

So in the spirit of this inability to finish anything, please look at the first snowdome I am featuring. It is the first cab off the rank because it is new - today new!

Admire its fancy gold glitter. And look - it changes colour!

I have hundreds more to show you, and most are hidden in a box in the shed. Actually in two big boxes. How many do you think I'll get through before I lose interest, or forget that I'm actually doing this?

3 people and 6 hours = this

Bungendore

So to celebrate the long weekend, I took my Asian friend to Bungendore. Actually she took me there in her new car.

I stress her background as Asian, because she is really only semi Asian, and I'm trying to encourage her to embrace her Asian-ness as much as possible. Like at least 87% She certainly was attracted to the Chinese antiques in the ye - olde antique stores, and her new car is a toyota, so I feel our trip was quite the success.

The antique store at Bungendore has the most amazing wrought iron fences and furniture. It is all so beautiful, and weathered, and there a so many interesting pieces.

By way of contrast you could also buy this massive marble deer, or whatever that is above the deer...or this pretty lady below.

And after a busy day of antiquing, what better to do than play a game of Shadow. I popped it on the first go (using the first ball), but the ball kept on getting stuck and it is the most boring pinball machine in the world, so walked away from the chance of being the Shadow champion of Bungendore.

Old people

Someone should tell them that the drugs don't work. They just make you worse.

Anzac Day

Farmers Markets

It was a perfect day for the farmers market. Rain humming on the roof of the tin shed, and half of Canberra buying fresh carrots just picked in the morning, with earth dusting the tips. There were pale yellow ears of corn, buckets of beans, and so many red rosy apples. I spied folk walking around with dahlias and bought too bunches (well my mum bought them for me), one a lovely shade of pink and the other a deeper fushia. Beautiful ♥

One of the most ridiculous things my mother has ever said

That I should be careful when I travel alone, as there is the risk I will be kidnapped and end up as some sort of slave where I'm forced to marry a man with multiple wives.

I laughed

She didn't, and glared at me knowingly

Then I said I was just going to KL

Same glare

Then I said ...you know KL, M A L A Y S I A

Apparently this sort of thing happens all the time there.

She asked if I was worried

I said I was worried, just not about travelling

Frankisms

Do you know - I can't believe it was over a week since Franks visit! The month of April is a blur to me. A big messy blur.

Frank is adamant that he is going to come down here and help in the garden. I will not encourage this, as Frank and I have a track record of disasters. Example - once he tried to instal a muffler on my car and insisted it would work even though it was for a completely different model - he did this on a hill with the car chocked up on two bits of wood. It was awful.

And in the garden we argue because he pretty much cuts everything back until there is nothing left. Here is a picture of him doing that just before I tell him to step away from the secateurs.

He also always leaves the gate open so the dog gets out, insists on calling me Heidi - often speaking to me in German while doing so, and every now and then does something like this...

Do you know how startling it is to find a short, old, Austrian dude, half naked in your kitchen? Maybe nearly as startling as having one appear in your computer. Nearly.

Rothko from the sky

Being followed

During the last few weeks this scary fucker has followed me from Dickson, to just around the corner from Gorman House Markets. A few days later he also appeared in Braddon, following me on my way to dinner. And the other day, when I had to fly to Melbourne - there he was, just around the corner from the airport!

I'm scared to open my linen cupboard just in case he has followed me home....please make it stop.

Nature as a pillow

Lenny!

I don't quite know why I checked my mailbox at 2.30am on Sunday morning, but there it was. The most beautiful card in the world! Okay, I exaggerate. Not the most beautiful, but I was pretty excited to receive it, and you can't attribute that excitement to all the gin. You can attribute the immediate balancing of said card on current dogs head to the gin.

So the card. It is a picture of future dog Lenny Briscoe. Current dog does not know about Lenny so let's keep that to ourselves okay?

It wasn't until the next day that I saw this photo was still stuck in the envelope.

It is a bit hard to see, and quite frankly I'm too lazy tonight to scan it, so you got a photo of a photo. If it makes you feel better the real photo is all blurry and out of focus, but that's why I like it. It is an action shot taken at the sculpture garden in Canberra, and it reminds me that it is sometimes fun to do the things that you are not supposed to do.

Poachers Pantry

Saturday lunch - beautiful autumn day, good company, and a relaxing afternoon at Poachers Pantry.

So what if the food is overpriced, and the waitstaff don't know what a skim long black is...it was worth the money after one of the most ridiculous weeks possible, to get out of town and sit in the country for a few hours drinking sparkling shiraz.

I will say though, after visiting twice since Easter, I won't be back for a while. They need to calm the F down out in poachers town. There are a lot of staff working out there and they are all pretty keen to let you know what you can't do - really, really LOUDLY. Plus with their 'sweet things' menu featuring dishes at $17 a pop, you have to wonder where they are coming from. Fine dining it aint, and the pricing exceeds many of Canberra's top fine dining restaurants. I just think it is cheeky to charge those prices if you want people to return who aren't out of towners, and you are serving very casual food in a relaxed, casual environment.

Anyway. It was fun regardless.

My Place & Yours -Walk through your front door

I haven't been able to play for a while but just scraped in for this weeks theme, which is through the front door. Clearly this isn't just as I've arrived due to the location of the dog of the yellow house...but is still the view from the front door none the same. I asked the dog to pose like a dog. He chose to pose like a robo dog with laser eyes. Sorry about that.

Have a look at other views over here.

Swaperama

So it went something like this. Lots of organised people do these cool swap things on blogs. I'm not one of them.

I looked at this blog one day and she was swapping something with someone. I posted a comment saying that I want to swap stuff too! Something subtle like ' swap something with me! something, anything...me me me me!'

So we did, and my swaperama arrived the day after that awful day (you know, the one with the stupid questions) and it could not have been more perfect.

My house now smells of cardamon and spices from the tea, and the anodised teapot is so pretty, perfect and I love it! My parcel also contained a pack of forget me nots - which I love love LOVE, but never think to plant...oh the irony! And a super cool tea towel came too.

I don't think I'll ever quite be able to express how wonderful it was to receive this parcel of internet love. It was just what I needed, and just so very perfect and thoughtful.

Even the dog of the yellow house in the U had been included, and let me tell you he is OBSESSED with these treats. 24 hours after they arrived he was sitting underneath the pack tapping his little paw on the washing machine to ask for more. 10 minutes after I got home all I could hear was tap, tap, tappidy tap.

He wanted to say thanks via this video message:

They got here in a ghost car

So Frank is my Dad and Heidi is his lady friend. They came so that Heidi could go to the Austrian Embassy down here, because at the one in Sydney - you have to take a lift.

Exactly.

There are a number of stories I could recount about the dinner we had. I will leave you with this one. It was in response to a simple question I had asked about where they had stopped from lunch on the way to Canberra.

H: We stopped at McDonalds, near Goulburn, you know... because it is clean.

F: Yeah, and I missed the turnoff and all of a sudden we were on the road to Sydney.

H: And you nearly killed us going up that one way street. You were like a ghost car.

F: No, it was alright, there were no cars coming. I didn't want to take the Sydney exit so I went down a one way street to get to McDonalds.

H: No, it wasn't alright, you were driving the wrong way on a one way street. When that happens in Austria they report it on the radio and tell people to watch out for the ghost car. They don't do that in Australia you know. You were the ghost car.

F: Even if there was a car coming it was daylight, they would have just moved over. It wasn't like the cars would have been going at 100 or anything on the exit ramp.

H: Ghost car!

5 questions you just shouldn't ask

So today I did something super smart.

Internet folk you would be so proud at this logical thought process: So, how do you not get nervous at a dental appointment where you know you need a new filling? You plan to spend the rest of the afternoon sorting through your CD and vinyl collection and splitting that with someone who used to mean the world to you.

Let me tell you, the dentist was a cinch. It only became apparent to me later that the above methodology was flawed. See, I forgot to plan something super awful to do after the division of music. I should have planned to read the Time Travellers Wife again, or watch an episode of Animal Rescue, or at the very least made a trip to Tuggeranong Hyperdome. As it was I had nothing to distract me from the last 4 hours except my own ridiculous need to ask the following series of questions whilst watching most of my adult life get packed up in a box and taken to a poxy apartment on the city.

Don't you miss the dog?

Long pause followed by a list of things he didn't miss about the dog...like him jumping up on the bed, his barking at stuff, the responsibility of it all. He does still keep a photo of him in his wallet, so he could have just said 'yes'.

Don't you miss me?

Longer pause followed by a list of things he didn't miss...like me saying he never did anything around the house, and that he always spent all the money. This was followed by a further monologue of things that he didn't like, at which point, in defeat, I said I got the point.

Don't you argue with your new girlfriend?

Smug no pause. No. We don't really argue about anything.

Oh, do you have a cleaner now?

Look of confusion, followed by no.

So you going on holidays or anything soon?

Yeah, in about 5 weeks going to Lebanon and Syria, and then maybe to Montenegro.

Amélie

If I was asked to pick a movie to be my life, I think if I would pick Amélie.

Spotted somewhere near Boston

Awesomeness

7 Things - Kreative Blog Award

I'm not sure if I've got the right idea about this...I think I have. The lovely brownhairblueribbon

tagged me, so now I need to tell you 7 things about myself, and then pass the award on to seven others. This is harder than you think...

1. I have really little ears, yet I have super sonic hearing.

2. I sometimes (often) mispronounce things on purpose...but I do it so often that I then can't remember which way is the right way and which way the wrong.

3. I play the clarinet.

4. If I was to do one thing when I grow up, it would be to open up a shop/ cafe/ gallery, where I'd sell beautiful handmade things, hold interesting exhibitions and enjoy hanging out with creative souls.

5. Is it over promise and under deliver, or under promise and over deliver? I never know.

6. I sometimes (often) let my dog sleep on the bed.

7. My family live in a beautiful village in Austria called Kaprun. Sometimes I miss those mountains so much, and that beautiful fresh air - the green pastures, the sweet smell of the barns and the bright blue sky.

I don't really know seven blog people. If Caroline ,Alli , Jessica or Jo come across this post, I'd be interested to know 7 things about them!

In case they don't, and to keep the banner moving I've asked the dog of the yellow house to share 7 things about him. Clearly, I'll do the typing.

1. I eat from the big bag of sheep manure when she at work.

2. My dots go right down to my skin.

3. I have a belly button and it sticks out.

4. Starball

5. I hate red dragon (karin edit: this is the vacuum)

6. I sometimes (often) let my human sleep on the bed.

7. Possums are the devil incarnated

Glutton for punishment

So here is the thing. I keep EVERYTHING! Pretty much. And tonight I've started to go through over 13 years worth of stuff to sort it out and find it its right home.

So tonight I've braved the boxes. Well one small box.

What are the boxes? The boxes contain letters, postcards, notes to me from friends and from him. There are also notes to him. I didn't realise quite how many fucking bits of writing there were, and let me tell you - it is pretty heart smooshing to read about how much love there was apparently not very long ago. Anniversary cards, birthday cards and the random notes (those ones are the kicker). And then there are the cards from friends who I just don't hear from any more. I don't know why I don't, or what I've done - but they have just sort of vanished from my life. And because I'm talking about close friends, that makes me sad too. Hello spiral of sadness.

So you'll need to indulge me over the next few days, because quite frankly there are a lot more boxes to sort through. And then there are the photos...

Leona Edmiston

So why would you even buy Leona Edmiston in real life? You wouldn't, because if you buy online it get sent to you for free! And it is wrapped in this pretty paper...

and it arrives in a box!

Day 12 - 12+12+12

To do list

Can you guess which part represents done and undone?

Fly back to Canberra
Pick up dog
Go to picnic
Celebrate Easter
Gallery visit
Go back to work
Lunch with work friends
Watch half a season of the new amazing race
Go to dinner with friends
Go to movies
Finish 12 + 12 thing
Mow lawn
Catch up on blog posts
Do tax ( 2 years worth )
Clean house

Not a giraffe

Someone made me this and I love it!

Day 11 - 12+12+12

Day 10 - 12+12+12

Day 9 - 12+12+12

Longrain

Dear Longrain

It had been too long since I'd last seen you and I had missed you...

I missed your betal leaves with prawn, and your caramilised pork. Oh my god - that pork! How do you make that pork so succulent, like it's deep fried but without a drop of oil, and the sauce all smokey, yet sweet. The kingfish curry was red and smooth and the chicken minced and fried with fresh herbs - all ginger and tang.

Okay so the fit out may be too cool for school, as are most of the patrons, but the food...the food is always amazing.

Thank you for not changing.