Why are Thursdays so long but Sundays so short?  

It's been raining, perhaps in some sort of attempt to make Sunday seem longer.  We even had thunder and lightning yesterday - one of those weekends with all sorts of weather, but none of it for very long.

I've been making some jewellery this week, some bigger statement pieces, as well as simpler pendants using images from my vintage French postcards.  

I've also been drawing some new fish, which are coming along rather well. If you've just joined us, these are fish drawn on vintage navigation charts.

 










And there are some interesting other projects which must stay hush hush for now...but all shall become clear very soon.

One of the wonders of the recently rearranged back veranda, apart from the marvellously spacious feeling, is that I actually have some space to work, so I spent a very short time on minor repairs to the recently acquired sun lounger, but a very, very, long time extracting a glass dome from an old light fitting.  The lounger took about 15 minutes and a drill, the dome a screwdriver, a can of CRC, a hammer, a wrench, a set of pliers, an hour and a lot of muttered bad language.  (I would have said it out loud but there was only the dog to hear.)  

And then I forgot to take a photo.  I still have to remove a lot of rubbery gunk from around the base of the dome, but they really made those light fittings to hang together (pun intended).  By the time it was done I'd forgotten what I wanted to use it for. Perhaps by the time I've removed the gunk and taken a photo I will have remembered.

I've also cleaned up the second of the veggie beds, and planted some never fail parsnips - or so says the friend who gave me the seeds.  So for nothing much is happening, but I only planted them a couple of days ago.  The strawberries are strawberrying, the spinach is spinaching, and you can guess what the rhubarb is doing. Bit of warmer weather and rain and the grass is knee high before you know it.

Oh- and I pruned the pooch and brushed him to within a inch of his life. He looks as though he's been used in interesting static electricity experiments, but at least I can make eye contact now.

 

 

Caution: low flying pig.....

Another frantic week with the necessity of earning a living cutting into the actually enjoyable stuff.  I was having a chat with my neighbour on the front veranda this morning and we both agreed it's almost time to come out of hibernation and blink in the evening light  of Spring.  Not as much evening light as those lucky ducks with daylight saving, but we mustn't forget that this is the land where cows fade and the curtains don't give milk if the clock is altered.  

But the evenings are getting longer and I'll have to squeeze as much in as possible.  To that end, I cleared everything off the back veranda, added some canvas shade for the anticipation of sunny days, installed new (free, via the verge collection) carpets, spring cleaned and generally made ready for lazing about on warm days. It's still a bit of a work in progress, but it will all come together and hopefully allow for even candlelit evenings.  Note to self: buy mozzie repellent - a lot of it.

Just to be sure, to be sure, yesterday we re-strung the clothesline - long overdue - as well.  Between the cleaning up and the installation of the shade maker and the baby-sitting of the baby girl's little dog it's been all go. I have a bruise on one arm from donating blood, and one on the other arm where I tripped over the blonde puppy and landed on the hammer.

On Thursday a visiting friend mentioned that the last suburb had still not had their verge outgoings cleaned up, so we paid one last visit for the year.  Surprisingly, there were even more treasures to be found and we managed to fill the car that one last time.  I was again very restrained and the only big item for me was a wooden sun lounger with brass fittings - refer lazing about on the back veranda, as mentioned above.  I knew there was a reason I picked up the down cushions last weekend...

I dusted off the Hymn board and brought it inside, where it has had envious looks and gasps of delight from all who see it.  One friend even said she would lose sleep, craving it tonight.  High praise indeed, I know exactly what she means.  The photo is pretty average but it's been a busy weekend.

I've been working on a few other things, here's a preview of my flying pig in a cage - I think the pig will end up another colour yet, so mark it down as a work in progress. There will be a heap of jewellery and some new fish in the next week or so, if I manage to make use of the longer evenings.

I just hope that staying outside later in the evenings doesn't cause me to fade.....

The puppy, the witch and the industrial chic shelving

My baby girl has turned 18, in a veritable festival of dinners, party, beach and more dinners. It seems like only yesterday, etc, etc. I got to puppy-sit. 

While the puppy was here, she helped to put up the tent I found last week.  There were two reasons to put it up, one: to dry out any residual dampness, and two: to see whether all the bits were there.  I always enjoy a challenge and putting up a tent when you don't know what it should look like certainly counts.  OK, so the puppy actually just chewed a tennis ball and generally got underfoot, but the tent is a veritable townhouse.  I'm thinking that I may sleep there over the summer.

It's been the last few days of the verge collection.  It's also known as 'bring out your dead' for a reason and some of the piles of stuff were certainly past it.  In a veritable burst of energy we did the whole three days and found some great stuff; tied some brilliant knots; ate a lot of icecreams; packed a lot of stuff into and out of the car; went to places I didn't know even existed; met a bunch of people who drive too fast, really badly and right on the back bumper; lifted, carried, hauled, dragged and carted; and narrowly missed a snake under a rural pile.  Luckily, the person before us would appear to have dealt with that problem and what confronted us was a very recently ex-snake beside the pile.  There's a reason I make sure I wear heavy boots, socks, and jeans for the rural sites, even on the hottest of days.

The biggest disappointment was missing out on a huge and hugely kitsch flying bird made of steel, fibreglass and some sort of plaster. I left it behind last night due to the lack of room left in the vehicle, and just as we got there this morning a chap threw (and I do mean threw) it into the back of his ute.  I'm thinking that he wasn't going to carefully restore and repurpose it as an artwork, by the way he threw it (and the way it landed).  Probably just as well, the thing was enormous, but o, the possibilities! 

                        
A slightly lesser disappointment was the range of couches, chairs and daybeds which were left behind due to lack of storage space.  One day I'll have the time and space to be able to re-upholster some of those beauties but I take solace in the fact that someone else has taken them to do just that. And if I ever find the moron who graffitti'd the two perfect club armchairs, I'll patiently explain the error of their ways while demonstrating to them an internal storage application for their markers and spraycans. 


It was a pity to leave behind the early portable record player, where the lid came apart with two speakers.  Very 60's. There were radiograms and some big units which would have made excellent industrial chic shelving.





The best and most unexpected score was probably the hymn board from a church, found literally buried in a pile of stuff.

 


  

There was that stop breathing moment of excitement, when you realise it's not just an interestingly carved wooden nob...but there's something fabulous attached to it.   I'm also excited about the long (about 1.7m) wooden ammunition box, which will be repurposed into some tall, thin shelves. There's an oak mirror, and some 50's/60's wire shop mannequins too.

And so many suitcases.  But I can't resist a suitcase.

How to repair a market umbrella, and other useful information

Preparations for the girlbaby's 18th birthday proceed apace, and her list of requirements for the celebratory festival is getting longer... so far I've managed to find, amongst other things,  4 dining chairs (interior), 5 easy chairs (exterior), 2 sunlounges, 2 sunlounge cushion sets, (matching) chair pads for the outside chairs, a table, and 2 umbrellas, including one huuuge mint condition white canvas market umbrella, in full working order.

And some of this was done in the rain.

I also learned, incidentally, how to fix the problems causing most market umbrellas to be discarded.  If you take something to bits and see how it works, often the problem can be fixed with only minor attention.  In the case of umbrella #1, a 20cm piece of common or garden fencing wire.  This approach is not to be recommended with electrical goods.

The suitcase supply is still growing, my friend Obie takes a dark view of these things, and is watching like a hawk in case I disappear on holidays without him. I think the count for this year is 5 so far - or is it 6?  I'm particularly keen on the nice one with the initials, and the fabulous stickers for the airlines and shipping companies and destinations.

Found inside that one was what is known colloquially I believe as a 'ging' - imported from the UK, according to the label.  There was also an old cap gun which I rather like. 

I found some West German pottery, apparently in demand - who knew that the common description for the glaze is 'fat lava'? Apparently a mistranslation of the German 'thick glaze'.  ( Now you do.)  I have  2 large serving platters, one white, one clear glass, with a fine scene etched into the bottom of the glass, and  2 oversized glass brandy balloon candle holder thingys.  And continuing the kitchen theme, 2 Le Creuset French enamelled iron casseroles, large and medium. Yep, the gen-u-wine articles.

If this keeps going I'll end up cooking, which only leads to cleaning and thus is to be avoided.

Don't even ask about the virtually brand new lawnmower - we know what that leads to.

Quite a lot of the photos will count as the 'befores' in the before and after shots to come - if I ever get a minute to actually get some things done. 

This quilt rack was in pieces - do people not know about good glue?

I'm thinking of erecting the fabulous Black Wolf tent, found yesterday, to house the other projects while I get things sorted and put up the brilliant indoor/outdoor rollup sunshade on the back veranda.

Or maybe I'll just sleep in the tent - less housework...It would be like a holiday, without the suitcases.

As I have often said, there is nothing so sweet as the Sunday of a long weekend.  And when the Sunday dawns clear and cloudless and most importantly, windless, it is to be appreciated even more.

I'd no sooner crawled from the nest and had some breakfast, when the girlchild arrived, bright of eye and requesting scrambled eggs.  After she had demolished her breakfast, we re-upholstered the seats of two dining chairs, and I repaired two sun lounges.

For, it has been announced, she entertains a lot and needs to upgrade the furniture component of her soirees.  Luckily, as in most things, I try to be prepared.

Last year I got two wooden sunlounges from the boutique d'verge - they were each missing one bolt, but otherwise just fine.  One had been given one (bad)coat of white paint,but I anticipate that a couple of spraycans and the judicious use of some sandpaper will have them looking very smart indeed.  There's a red deckchair kicking around from the same collection, and some red and white cushions will tie the whole lot together.

I also have a 60's white metal lounger which I scavenged in Perth about 10 years ago, but I don't know that I want to let go of that permanently, yet. It's California-funky and a sentimental favourite, being that I was on foot at the time and nearly killed myself carrying it across a very busy road. 

Yesterday, the first real day of verge trawling for this year, turned up 2 dining chairs in need of TLC which met with the girlchild's particular specifications.  Get me the staple gun!  It literally took about half an hour to cover the seats and screw them back on.  Total cost was $zero - I used some fabric from the stash, my staple gun, and some long screws from a jar of screws, assorted, from the tipshop last week.

The annual verge collection of rubbish, furniture, etc has started, despite the late or non-delivery of flyers.  As a result, things have been a bit slow, but I expect it will pick up gradually.  There have been a number of finds so far, but I haven't had time to sort them or photograph them, due to getting home after dark. 

Those of you who have read past posts will know that this is my favourite time of year.  The sun is shining (mostly), the streets are full  of discarded items... what more could a girl want? It's like Christmas, without the cooking and the angst.

We filled the back of the 4WD yesterday (although the packing was a bit random) so today we unloaded halfway through, but managed to fill it up again.  The big item today was a stack of jarrah boards, perfect condition, assembled into -well, I'm not sure, lets call them panels - but my verging friend needed same for her daughter's back yard and there they were, already assembled and pre-painted. 

Some more of the enticing finds included a retro desk fan, mint condition; vintage binoculars; tools, various; a container for growing potatoes; a wooden rocking horse; a garden bench; brass drawer handles, 5 matching; glass louvres; fishing accoutrements; a quilt rack, wooden; wooden tables, various; a starburst clock, mint condition; and a small friction driven ride-on motorcycle, which has been claimed by a very excited small boy(his daddy asked us to pick him up a Harley).

Thumbs up to those who mark items as 'still works well' or 'please take this', but thumbs definitely down to those few individuals who deliberately smash everything into little pieces.  Apart from wantonly increasing their contribution to landfill, the broken glass and metal is dangerous for local pedestrians and kids and pets, and will lurk in the grass forever.
 

A woman, a sideboard and a bookshelf

One of the activities we squeezed in last weekend was a quick trip to Ikea.  I love Ikea, it's one of my happy places.  I know that it's generally not liked by the chaps, and certainly we passed our share of undergruntled gentlemen in the carpark, no doubt waiting for their partners to return to them loaded with the best of the Snurgg range.  There were guys actually in the shop, following their partners with that slump-shouldered look of surrender which shows they lost the fight before they even got to the carpark.

I did overhear one male moan to his wife/partner/girlfriend/significant other that she didn't need whatever it was she was looking at.  I shivered. There was a sharp intake of breath from the women around her, and for a moment there you could have heard a pin drop. I gently leaned over and said 'Of course you do'.  She fixed him with one of those special looks and replied 'I know.'  I wonder how his evening went? Perhaps some sort of man-minding room would be a good idea, they do it for the kids.

Among the things we women dragged to the bollards (you can't take the trolleys further) and thence to the vehicle was that old fave, the Billy bookcase.

*You have to respect your next door neighbor when she can tell the contents of an Ikea box in a trailer from afar by name - but then she is from Sweden originally.

So, having had 30 kilos of woman-handled Billy taking up floorspace all week, I decided to sort out the loungeroom on Saturday.  

I had been very pleased with the way the Danish mid-century modern sideboard had polished up.  There were some major and minor marks on the finish, as one might expect from something from the tip shop.  Earlier in the week I invested wisely in some of my favourite restorative products.  Here's an example of what this stuff can do.  And it's made in Western Australia, too.

before

after

My tried and true technique for furniture moving had the sideboard in place in a snip.

Feeling rather smug, I moved on to assemble the Billy.  Given the size and weight of it,  I put it together in the lounge.  Easy peasy, I really don't know what husbands make such a fuss of.  Read the instructions, follow the instructions. Wrestling with it by myself in a confined space added a piquant pinch of degree of difficulty but it was pretty straightforward.  Then, I got to play bookshelf shuffle as those displaced were moved about, finally expelling the smallest and most expendable onto the back veranda.

The pickings in the opshops here were pretty good on Friday. Amongst my entire summer wardrobe of light cotton and/or linen pants, books, an old tin and quite a lot of broken jewellery, I picked up a 9kt solid gold bracelet and a hollow bangle, also 9kt.  Somedays, the force is truly with you.

Saturday's round of  garage sales were much more limited, although  I got a lovely homegrown pumpkin for $2 at the Baptist fundraiser, and a nice hoard of stuff from an estate sale, including a watch fob - soon to be a bracelet, another sieve cum shadow box, some plastic dogs exactly like the ones I had as a child, and a big bag of matchbox covers.  The bag also included an unused label from the local (now defunct) fish cannery, some WA Railways parcel stamps, a sign from a drycleaners, and some gorgeous old  WA matchbox covers.  It was a bag of history, right there in my hand.

The thing I like about these funny old things is that now I'll go and do some research on them and poke about and find out a whole heap of stuff about this place I never knew.  The monetary value isn't important, but I like to think that the nice gentleman who collected them would appreciate my enjoyment of them.  I may put some of them in frames because I think they would make a rather nice display of local history.

 

If I find out anything really exciting, I promise to share it with you.