Once Upon a Time...

... I lived in EAST Melbourne.  And then I moved to SOUTH Melbourne.  But (since yesterday) now I live in NORTH Melbourne.  My new (non red riding) hood is North Fitzroy and it's very hip 'n' happening.  Lots of promising-looking cafés to try out and blog about, interesting shops and pretty, leafy streets.  Fun times ahead!  THE END

Monday Blahs

Feeling a little blue after the weekend?  I confess to being faintly azure myself.  It's a very grey and rainy day here in Melbourne, almost (though I don't want to admit it) Autumny; I had a serious wardrobe malfunction on my way to work (strategic button came off my dress) and got splashed with mud.  My meeting got cancelled, but I didn't get the message until I was already at the venue.

But that's okay: tonight we're having chicken curry tv dinner in front of the Oscars, and I just finished watching this video, which cannot but make you smile.

Home Thoughts, From Abroad

[With deepest apologies to Robert Browning.]

Oh to be Ireland,
Now that general election's there,
And whoever wakes in Ireland,
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest of lowly incompetents and the general inertia and gloom,
Have led us to an uncertain future/impending doom*,
While the journalists sing 'we told you so!'
In England - now!


And after them, the other Europeans follow,
And Vanity Fair builds, sympathy sounding hollow!
Hark, where yet another cliché-spouting reporter
Leans towards us and scatters Schadenfreude
Images of tombstones and planes - sobbing mammies in their wake -
That's the 24 Hour News guy; he repeats each statistic twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first gabillion times he mentioned the fact that in the boom Ireland had the most helicopters per capita!
And though the election candidates seem tarred with the same brush,
All will be gay when the government gets the push
And the ECB takes over the little children's dower**
Far brighter than trusting our own shower*** ....


*Depending on which political party you listen to
** What's left of it after buying all the banks' bad debts
***I love the fact that TripAdvisor includes 'Áras an Uachtaráin/Home of the President' as slang.

Thinking of Christchurch

Travelling makes the world bigger and smaller, in different ways.  Bigger because of the wealth of experiences, the colour and interest of the differences between people and places.  Smaller because instead of thinking of places 'over there' (ober dere as The Adorable Nephew would say) through other people's stories and images, I have my own memories to draw on.

When I heard about the earthquake that hit Christchurch yesterday, it got me right in the solar plexus.  A year ago this would have been somewhere 'over there', now it's somewhere I've experienced first-hand.  When I blogged about visiting the city in December, I was struck by its pleasant greenness, its tranquility, its niceness; the quiet strength of a city getting on with rebuilding after a huge earthquake.

Seeing photos of the cathedral in ruins yesterday made me cry.  It's almost impossible to reconcile my memories of it at evensong, serene and beautiful, with the images of the collapsed spire, the rubble on the ground and the stories of people trapped inside.  It was a source of peace and comfort to me on a day when I really needed that - and I can't believe it's gone.

And if I feel like this - what must it be like for people there?

Capsule Wardrobe

Over Christmas, I solicited opinions about my blog and how to improve it.

'More cakes,' said Cormac and Gillian.  'More clothes,' said LTLS and LTBS.  

I was thinking about the clothes thing and while I'm a little bit shy of posting photos of my outfits, I decided that if I could combine my love of clothes with some scientific research into packing, I would really be doing the world a service.  Alors, a new feature: the capsule wardrobe.  This is my holy grail, my quest.  I hate packing - probably because I've never mastered the art and no matter what I do, I still arrive at my destination with a suitcase full of clothes that looked like the cat slept on them.

For my five days in Auckland last week, I decided to try the following equation:

1 dress + 1 skirt + 1 trousers + 2 blouses + 2 cardigans + 1 jersey top + 3 pairs of shoes = wardrobe heaven?

I like Mighty Girl's idea that you should have sleepwear that can double as daywear at a pinch and so I took the very brave step of investing in a pair of leggings (I have leggings issues, but I wanted to try something new.)  

The first day I wore the dress, my yellow sandals and a blue cardigan - no photos because I could barely focus my eyes when I got up, let alone take pictures.

That evening I tried this out:

Day 2 was beige/gold Reiss skirt and printed blouse.  

I like the skirt/blouse combination (and check out my hair - my little sister gave me hairdo instruction over Christmas), but can't decide if the wrinkled look is good or just wrinkled.  (The skirt fabric is a cotton/linen weave so prone to creasing.)

Day 3 was my tribute to Ava Gardner in Mogambo (LTLS and I watched over Christmas, so cool).  I like this one:

Day 4 was an experiment in lines and folds - overall I think it worked although still some wrinkle anxiety - and probably my favourite hair of the week:

 

Day 5 was trousers, printed blouse, blue cardigan and brogues ... on the fence about this one.  I had to catch a four hour flight and I am paranoid about being cold on planes, hence shoes (and stockings even) but I think there was a touch of leprechaun about my lower half, not really a good look for a grown woman.  More optimistically, a touch of Land Girl.  I'd let you decide, but again, no photos.  You'll just have to use your imagination.

So did the experiment work?  It was definitely a step in the right direction.  Having the skirt and trousers in a similar shade helped the mix-and-match and I compensated for the beige with some bright reds and yellows.  I probably had one pair of shoes to many (and also a trenchcoat I never wore) but the forecast was for rain, so better to be safe than sorry.  The hero item was probably the yellow sandals; they are FABULOUS, they make every outfit look better.

Next time: fewer things that need ironing, more jewellery.  And I'm still not sure about the leggings.

Guest Blog: Sejour in Sweden

Yay for Guest Blogging!  I thought you might like a change from descriptions of the SUNNY SUMMER in the SUNNY Southern Hemisphere where it's WARM and, y'know, SUNNY.  Róisín, my favourite big sister, kindly supplied the story and photos of her recent trip en famille to Sweden.  Featuring: snow, cake, hilarious knitting/museum crossover, The Adorable Nephew.

***

It’s too warm in Provence, let’s go somewhere cold – like Sweden. No it didn’t really happen that way but rather that we were invited to visit our kind friends the Berggrens in Linkoping. For me it was the first time in Sweden (and for Gregory), my only experience coming from an embarrassing combination of the Swedish chef and the Millenium trilogy… (at least I didn’t say ABBA!)

The first night we arrived late but woke up early to a beautiful view of the lake near Linköping. Apparently there was skating planned on the lake but the 15 cm of snow that fell during the night changed the plans and further snow fall during the day decided us to visit an airplane museum in Linköping –not necessarily my choice but you can imagine how happy Gregory was.

Our visit to the museum had been preceded a week earlier by the Linköping Knitting club, who decided to decorate the fuselages with their knitted inventions. I am not a museum expert (unlike LT) but it was certainly an original effect! This combined with the flight simulator and the fighter jet cockpit with helmet for small (and bigger) boys to enjoy made life almost too good to bear for some.

 

Our visit to Sweden also happily coincided with a three week period during which a special kind of cake (another oft visited LT theme) called Semla is eaten. Semla is like a type of brioche split in two with cream and almond paste in the middle. Our verdict: very good especially instead of lunch. We ate our Semla in the old centre of Linköping, one of those recreated 19^th century villages with artisans and people walking around in costume. The houses are all really pretty, mostly painted a bright red colour, a remnant from days of copper mining.

 

A visit to Sweden in winter wouldn’t be complete without some snow-associated activities so we all headed down to the lake to roll around in the snow. Gregory thought it was much like playing in sand and made ‘snow castles’. He also enjoyed sledding.

Given this is also a place for hints to lady travellers, may I just recommend cross country skiing for pregnant ladies. Provided there are no hills of course. Followed by a hot dog grilled on the beach by our accomplished host and his son….

***

Thank you and a big MAH to Róisín for her survey of all the best Sweden has to offer.  

Tales of the South Pacific

I made an exciting discovery this week.  I have always wanted to visit the South Pacific - inspired by the movie of the musical in all its glorious technicolour (no sniggering back there: aside from having the BEST tunes, South Pacific is a Pulitzer Prize-winning survey of racial and social conflict among people thrown together by war).


Anyway, whaddya know, it turns out New Zealand is in the South Pacific.  It is part of Polynesia, the south-west corner of the Polynesian triangle (the other corners are Hawaii and Easter Island).

With this discovery came a lesson in pronunciation.  It's not Ton-gah, it's Tong-ah (the 'g' is barely there); Sam-oah is actually Saam-OOa.  Niue is said New-ee.  (Okay, no, I'd never heard of it before now either.)

And I loved learning that the Maori have a complicated system of genealogy that relates, in part, to your ancestral waka (canoe) - or, as I understand it, the ship you came in on.  A bit like people in the US priding themselves on having ancestors who were on the Mayflower.

So picture me, in the South Pacific, skipping around singing Bali Ha'i and you pretty much have my week.

ps when I googled 'South Pacific' for pictures, this turned up.  I thought it would be mean to deprive my audience of this picture of that guy from Glee as Lieutellan Cable, sans shirt:


(image via broadway.tv)