high up in the trees

Recently...

{Scenes from yesterday.}

This weekend I attended a one-year-olds birthday party (Happy Birthday, Mathieson), and, seated outdoors, ate cake and gobbled sweets with the best of them. I watched inebriated bees land on the white tablecloth before me, so drunk they could not stand.

This weekend Louise’s parents returned home from China and we each now have wrists encased in colourful and beaded bracelets. This weekend I reacquainted myself with Fred and Ginger when I ought to have been asleep. This weekend was a good one.

How was yours?

++ A Tuesday morning edit that has nothing to do with it being April Fools' Day... a Hans Fischerkoesen animation starring a bee (thanks, Alyssa).

Grab a plate and sit yourself down.

Easter feasts with my sweeties, a string of soggy days, a whole week has slipped through my fingers. I have dreamt of elephants and camels and lions all living in my back garden, in pairs fit for an Ark, and I have seen a rusty boat transformed into a couscous restaurant if only for one night. I am thinking of fish markets and trawlers, and couscous with fish, North African style. I am largely vegetarian. I have some lovely things to share with you, but, for the moment, they will have to wait. Until then, be well, eat well.

La Graine et le Mulet (The Secret of the Grain)

A new addition (minus a cottontail).

{Agatha in her home yet to be furnished with leaves, twigs and seeds.}

One hot afternoon, in a pet shop near to the South Melbourne Market, I met, and, so it followed, fell for (Sparkling) Agatha Cyanide.

Agatha is a classic budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus, a parrot to you) with green and yellow plumage and two beautiful splodges on her feathered cheeks. Older than the juveniles in the cage, she scuttled left and right on the main perch, shielding the others from view. As the younger, leaner budgies, some green, some white and blue, busied themselves with climbing the aviary walls, using their beaks to grip hold of the wire, Agatha, as she would come to be named by us, raised her bird shoulders and aired her armpits. She tilted her head left to right and was the most personable, intelligent bird I’ve ever met. We picked her, or rather, she, as all animal lovers will attest, picked us.

So Agatha Cyanide it is, a new addition to the house.

Agatha is an early Easter present from my parents. Not a foil-wrapped chocolate bunny, but an ever so handsome, puff-chested, real live budgie. She reminds me of Bertie Wooster’s Aunt Agatha Gregson (“Would you kindly stop parroting my every word, Bertie?”… I’ll have her saying this in no time).

The budgerigar is, thanks to its ancestry, obsessed with the eucalypt. I plan to find her some tomorrow, on Good Friday. I plan to wet them and place them in her green cage.

{1, 2, 3... Omar is about to transform into a rabbit.}

To those of you celebrating Easter be it religiously or with a chocolate bilby in hand, and to those who don’t, I wish you well. I’ll be back in this space sometime next week.

++ The photography of Joakim Eskildsen... Nordic Signs and The Roma Journeys - Hungary, India, Greece, Romania, France, Russia, Finland. Link found via the ever-inspiring Anne (Strandgut)... thank you.

Postcard travels (II)

{All were in attendance, postcard collage.}

March 18, 1904

Dear you,

My talents here in California, in Monterey Country, have not gone unnoticed. Here they say the air is different and thus far I’d have to agree.

Given a generous and cordial reception by a pod of seal lions, they gather at dusk to hear me read aloud. Hospitable to a fault, we conclude our evenings feasting upon salted kippers washed down with seaweed-laced vodka drunk from conical shells.

Yours affectionately, with crumpled whiskers and sealed wirh a wet kiss,
X

{The second in an occasional series of imagined postcards to feature here. Using only postcards received from friends, the original postcard, pre collaged elements, was received from someone who loves books and collecting curiosities to put under bell jars. Falling now into Lines & Shapes, my copy has just this moment arrived by post. More soon, I may or may not be called up for jury service in the days prior to Good Friday.}

Sparkle and shine.

{All I needed.}

From Sunday...

A new washing machine and a string of hot days perfect for the drying of recently washed garments, has made the heat bearable. Temperatures near to nudging 40°C (104°F) make ideal days to wash, wash, wash (they also make ideal days to collapse and do little save for grumble about the weather).

I have washed sheets and bedspreads and hung them out to bleach in the sun, large, white squares, glowing brilliantly. I have dried jeans and yoga pants on the clothesline overnight and found them stiff as cardboard the next. Curtains next, and rugs, too, I think. Good drying weather that I must make the most of. And, like all new things, I am keen, for a fortnight or so, to make it my latest obsession.

With a 10 metre long grey water diverter hose running from the washing machine, out the back door and directly onto the garden, I am able to give the struggling trees a drink at the same time. Like a giant, grey, plastic snake it stretches across the bricked courtyard, spurting out water from its mouth and mystifying the cats. At present it is watering the hibiscus as the machine spins and beats the pillows and pyjamas into clean shape.

(This weekend, when not knee-deep in wet and dry linens, was the weekend when Louise and I popped up in two-dimensional form in the A2 of The Age newspaper. Our collaborative piece You know this isn't the way home, don't you? also featured. One rosy-chested fisherman and us, so amusing to see en route to a yoga class. See and read.)

Postcard travels (I)

{Seeking treasure in New Mexico, postcard collage.}

March 14, 1904

Dear you,

Seems they were not, after all, pulling my leg when they said that in New Mexico I’d find a giant sahuaro cactus taller than me. The bright red fruit of this cactus, when ripened, is sweet and over here it is considered a great delicacy.

I remain hopeful that I will catch sight of an Elf owl nesting in an abandoned woodpecker’s hole in the side of one of these awe-inspiring green forms.

Posting this to you from Arizona as I couldn’t seem to find a postal box in New Mexico.

All my love,
X

{The first in an occasional series of imagined postcards to feature here. The original postcard, received in November, was sent to me from a bright spark by the name of Andrea. Using only postcards received from friends, the second instalment may pop up next week. And now I must away for we have just had a brand new washing machine delivered and I am keen to watch the front-loader spin.}

Looking forward.

{A loose collection, falling.}

{Lying down, looking up.}

Monday morning, on paper.
If today could wear a look it would be one of quiet satisfaction. It promises to be hot, it is a public holiday, and I have purposefully made sure I have no plans. I am going to stretch out and read. I am going to use my neglected moleskine diary to jot down favourite sentences as I read them. And I am going to cut out collage pieces until I long to do something else.

{On the back of many little coloured strips of paper (73 in total, some of you twice) Louise and I wrote each and every name of all those who entered our linen bird giveaway. Written on the reverse side of orange, yellow, pink, purple, green, red, blue and black coloured kindergarten squares, in pencil and pen, all the names and accompanying birds, if mentioned.

The two lucky souls, would you like to know who they were? Okay, congratulations Veronica (Petunia) and Lisa (Lisa’s Musings). Your names, written on yellow and black respectively, were pulled from a little tepee of cut paper strips huddled on the floor. A small and colourful paper mountain of hopefuls that later afforded Omar and Olive a little tumbling-about-in joy. Congratulations to you both. And look to your letterboxes shortly. One or two addition folk may find a smaller little something also heading their way soon, should we be organised.

Thank you, dear friends and new faces, for your interest in our handsewn birds, playing along and for listing favourite feathered friends.}

The mechanics of a badger's jaw does not allow for yawning.

{Let me take your picture... a wooden mouse pauses for a moment.}

The first thing I saw this morning was a hot air balloon balanced a little above a thin slither of a faint crescent-shaped moon in the early morning sky. Balanced as if anchored there, perfectly symmetrically, and barely a cloud in sight. Two perfectly framed forms seen as I opened the curtains and looked out at the world. Through the windowpane it appeared as though the arc of the moon was supporting the balloon, enabling it to hover. A moment later they had separated. The balloon headed up and over to the left and the moon gave way to the day.

Two coffees and an hour later, I am sitting by the computer, preparing to make comfortable a host of wooden animals. Louise and I have decided to put several of the smaller wooden animals for sale on our store (and etsy, too, for those of you who prefer it). Our animals long to go to new homes, both near and far. They long to dart around a local corner or cross a wild and hazardous sea. Several may hanker to journey by hot air balloon, I shall ask.

Yes, they wish to fly the nest to meet new folk. Perhaps it is you they desire to meet.

{A squirrel rests for a spell... beneath him, a handsome pile of books (thanks, Brita).}

{A small beaver perched ontop of a familiar book, Lisa S?}

Find a tiny turtle, a small beaver, a house mouse, a badger and a squirrel here.
Find a pair of Egyptian bats, a smiling platypus, an American beaver, two aardvarks, a small leopard, a badger, a field mouse and a long-footed potoroo here.

{Long-eared Eleanor is a keen traveller.}

{All rabbits love Charlie Harper, don't you find?}

To those curious souls, our little bird giveaway is still open and we shall draw and announce the results early next week, should all go to plan. We're chuffed that so many of you wish to call one your very own.

And to those who prefer something soft and cuddly, two new Thelma's rabbits, with decidedly long ears, have recently arrived. You'll find them here, should you seek them. I, for one, don't wish to part with them.

A winged giveaway.

{Birds, randomly grouped.}

{Would you like one?}

Fifty linen-fronted birds have recently been made (as part of an order for Lee Mathews). Fifty linen birds plus two. Two extra loves, the fetching Hester and the beguiling Hennie, made to give away to two kind blog-reading souls.

All you need to do to be in the running is to leave a comment below or over here (or both to effectively double one’s chances). Crossing your fingers also helps, or so I hear. Leave mention of your favourite common bird name and you may find you’ve tripled your luck. The spine-tailed log-runner, the spotted nightjar, the rainbow-bird with its fondness for dragon-flies and robber-flies both, the budgerigar, and the spotless crake… are any of these a favourite of yours? Perhaps you prefer the speckled warbler, a bird who favours a small, hooded nest.

(Should your inner ornithologist prove too hard to summon and you don’t know a snow goose from an azure kingfisher… you’ll find a handsome list of birds here and here.)

Best of luck, friends.

{A scene viewed in the distance.}