high up in the trees

Little weekend views peppered with yellow.

{A new friend for Agatha Cyanide. She and Claude Blue-belly prattle and preen.}

{A bag purchased from Paula. It will come as no surprise to you to know that I use it often. (otchipotchi)}

{Misha-non-penguin lands in Hawaii.}

This weekend through Cédric Klapisch’s film, Romain Duris and Juliette Binoche took me to Paris with them. “Two tickets to Paris for $28,” joked the guy at the box office to every second patron, "they’re the cheapest tickets to Paris this weekend”.

This weekend I ate chocolate crackles and toasted a friend’s birthday with a mug of hot tea (Happy Birthday, CS). I watched footage of Margot Fonteyn in both The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker and I thought how beautiful it was and it almost made me cry. I repaired, with Louise, a broken window pane, and replaced it with a piece of ruby-red glass.

This weekend proved the perfect time to wear a paper Contour Line brooch (thank you, Brydie), and to marvel at the ingenuity and brilliance of some everyday implements fashioned from forks, tape, wire and rubber bands (Vladimir Arkhipov’s Home-Made Contemporary Russian Folk Artifacts). A boot hanger can be made from copper wire and aluminium wire, a winter fish feeder (that goes through a hole carved in the ice) can be achieved with a little brass, lead and a spring at your finding. In this collection, a lamp can and is assembled from aeroplane parts and a lamp socket, all you need supply is the light bulb. Such functional objects they look beautiful to me.

This weekend I drew up plans for an additional blog to run alongside this one, and later this week, I hope to share it with you. I may even be calling upon you to participate, if you like.

Happy Monday, you.

Postcard travels (IV & V)

As is so often the case, two postcards arrive together.

{Looking for a way in, postcard collage.}

April 8th, 1904.

Dear you,

Trying to fit in in Imatra, Finland. I suspect this would be a little easier were I smaller in stature. Spending my days on the outside peering in, or so it feels.

Here I am looking in on a pair dining on Pickled Herring with potatoes at the Valtion Hotel. I am wishing they would roll one of their cabbage rolls (kaalikääryle) in my general direction for it’s cold by the River Vuoksi with only bird watchers for company.

Love and cabbage rolls,
X

{Mind how you go in the capital, postcard collage.}

April 10th, 1904

Dear you,

The Cathedrals of Riga are every bit as grand as I was lead to believe; the domed tops especially reminiscent of a pair of earrings I once owned.

When not looking upward, I can be found with a crescent-shaped pîrâgi in hand.

Sending Latvian kisses,
X

{The fourth and fifth in an occasional series of imagined postcards to feature here. Thank you, lj (elsewhere), for finding these original postcards; I hope you enjoy your postcards from an Asian elephant and a rare and endangered Spectacled Hare-wallaby both far from home.}

For Fliss, for Frances, for you.

Sometime ago I was tagged by both Fliss (udder) and Frances (wishthimble) to show my workspace and reveal six things of a random nature about myself.

Here at last, for you and everyone else who reads this, are both.

My workspace – ready to begin.
Here is where I often sit to work. I also work a great deal on the floor and in my lounge room whilst a dvd or cd quietly plays. Mostly I work here, especially when gluing pieces. This is what it looks like before I begin. It does not look anything like this at the end of the night.

I have yet to put on my glasses and touch my coffee, and you can see various artworks from friends. I will be sitting here just as soon as I post this.

Six pretty random things.

1. One of the first things I see upon waking is a handsome polar bear with a bouquet of green-blue blooms in hand.

2. I dream in colour… full, saturated technicolour. And sometimes my dreams feature credits like those you catch at the end of a film. I can’t make out the text, but I know that is what it is meant to be.

3. I have amassed a collection of birds that will not fly away, though they may break. I am still looking to add to my collection.

4. I enjoy forming small, silly, secret and fun crushes on people I don’t know.

5. This is what I looked like in 1996. I am with Nutters, my big red tom, and I have cut my hair from long to short.

6. There aren’t too many people I have actually met who read my blog (so far as I know).

Many of you have already participated in these two tags, for those who have not and would like to play along, please do. I’d love to see your workspace or to read six random titbits. I am ever curious and I hope you'll play along. Let me know if you do.

Here’s to a sparkling and brilliant week, one and all.

Postcard travels (III)

{Looking for delicacies in Lebanon, postcard collage.}

April 2nd, 1904

Dear you,

Change of pace, change of hotel address, here I am reporting in from Rue Foch, Beyrouth. Beirut proving a busy place and I am forever hitting my head on the overhead power lines.

Tonight I hope to head to the Grotte de pigeons (the Pigeons' cave) by way of the lighthouse. I hear they fashion beads from shells (or is that Taforalt, in Eastern Morocco?) and I am curious to find out more.

Wish me luck,
X

{The third in an occasional series of imagined postcards to feature here. Thank you, Shona (lala dex press), for kindly supplying me with the original postcard. I hope you like these Spotted bowerbirds, Shona; they are known for their mimicry.}

+ Album Général.
+ Passenger Pigeon.
+ Pigeon view.
+ Taiwanese vacation homes, abandoned.

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.