Savoring Sarah's Story

Sarah had her book released this week. It's called Salt Story, and you can find out more about it here, on her very excellent blog called The Wine Dark Sea. I had it on pre-order, picked it up and am allowing myself to read it in smallish bites, because the urge to just devour it is strong.  If I do I'll regret it because Sarah's stories, her use of language are to be savored and not just consumed. Someone said 'you know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.' This is one of those books.

I have a great affection for certain ex-fishermen, but I've always been drawn to stories of the ocean, ships, boats. Water, along with Celtic music, is part of my basic genetic makeup, it took a long time to understand why, but some things can't be denied, a little like fisheries officers in uniform.

I met Sarah a long time ago, we lived across the road from each other. Her children and mine were of similar ages and over the years they played and went to school and made up parts of the neighborhood mob.  I remember her in the relentless pissing down pouring rain, digging a huge hole to bury her dog, the size of a small pony, one of the most poignant things I've ever seen. I can still see her practicing her fire twirling on a sultry Saturday evening, and it still makes me smile to remember it. 

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.
 

Spring bulbs, vintage fishing and antique cameras

The first of the spring bulbs have optimistically burst forth in the garden.  Just love the scent of jonquils.  Hopefully there will be lots in the next few weeks, having planted a humungous bag of bulbs bought at a garage sale for $1.

The weekend's garage sales, op shops, and tip shops were on the whole disappointing.  I guess the winter-cold-wet-dreariness of the time of year is impacting.  

I've been collecting vintage fishing gear for an upcoming exhibition and some very cool vintage lures arrived in the mail this week.  Getting back from the grand tour to a stack of parcels was just like Xmas, and almost made up for getting back from the grand tour.  I long ago gave up dragging stuff with me and post home - way cheaper than paying excess for baggage and way lighter for the bags.  The vintage cameras did manage to set off every airport xray security system between Tassie and Perth though.

I'm due back at the pit of despair this week, and I've got heaps of ideas for projects I want to finish before the (shortened) working week commences.  I've had a lovely day of paint and tools and mess, but now my little friend is having some serious snuggles.

Quilts, tiedyed sheets, and fish

Only 4 working days lay between me and 2 weeks on leave.  It almost makes a Monday look good. Almost, but not quite.    

These beautiful roses are out at the moment, I think they are quite old and they seem to grow almost wild here, around old houses (or sometimes where old houses used to be.)  The scent is wonderful. 

Last week was weird, weatherwise, with a huge dump of rain mid week which left tide lines in the street and water washing in through shop doors.  Days start out brightly sunny and warm, and seem to end rainy and dark, but not cold.  One of the opshops was flooded, disrupting our Friday trawl, but amongst things at the non-flooded shops we found this quilt, some white quilt covers and sheets which my daughter is insistent on wanting to tiedye in rainbow colours,  and great chunks of her summer wardrobe.

 

'Work' has moved from the top end of town, surrounded by opshops, to the other end where there are lots of lovely and expensive clothing shops - this is not good news.  Its not very far, but the oppies are just too far to get to quickly, and to get anywhere one has to go past at least one desirable boutique in any direction.  So far I've acquired a new dress and assorted other wardrobe additions.  Its waaay safer to stay in Narnia and skip lunch altogether.  (We've christened our bit of the workplace 'Narnia' because we live in the dark behind a bank of cupboards.  No windows.  No natural light.  But nothing can take our overdeveloped sense of irony.)

I've been making more things for Summer Street Fair, which is coming up on the 24th November.  Some brooches from children's game pieces and wooden jigsaw pieces. I also traditionally finish off bits and pieces, or discover things I forgot I had.  I've been meaning to photograph this piece for ages, its made on a mirror so its hard to get a really good shot.   The images are of local fishermen and include some other very old photos of fishermen and whaling.  The mirror came from a commercial fishing boat.

Some old TV classics arrived in the mail a week or so ago, and I've been spending some quality time with David Niven -"The Rogues" and "The David Niven Show".  To prove that my tastes are nothing if not -broad - I also watched Thor.  I picked up Sibella Court's book Etc on sale, it's truly beautiful.  My head is full of ideas, and two weeks won't be nearly long enough.

the early verge gets the worm

The annual socialist redistribution of shite, better known as the verge collection of hard rubbish,  starts in about a week, but the first piles are slowly starting to appear.  We spotted the first one yesterday and gathered a solid vintage crate and some parts of a dismembered lawn mower.  In answer to the unasked question, I don't know yet.

We thought we should make a preliminary reccy today, but the sun and lack of wind obviously had people doing other things than cleaning up their sheds.  As long as we were out that way we checked out the fishing at the King River bridge.    This chap was fishing for Mulloway.  Bream  was being caught on the other side of the road.

In preparation for both the distraction of the forthcoming verge collection and the Xmas Summer Street market - held in November - I've been making jewellery and framing drawings and generally ignoring the housework.  I did get time to plant some english spinach, and basil and have been generally getting organised for the warmer weather.

The weather obviously affected the garage sales, as the only things of interest I picked up were a 1920's PG Wodehouse book in MINT condition for $1 (yippee, I love Wodehouse) and a very sad little table for free.  The St Vincent de Paul depot sale - usually a mecca for treasure was sadly and unusually bereft and I only grabbed a couple of paperbacks. Likewise, the Opshops weren't ringing any special bells on Friday.  The table is sturdy underneath and the top will be easily replaced from stock on hand.

The lawnmower man is missing in action, I was worried I had somehow offended him but I note that his other customers in the street are also going with the kikuyu jungle look (rain and warmer weather = knee deep grass) so I'm guessing holiday. I hope he gets back while the dog can still navigate without a map.

Here are some sort of moody shots of some of the pieces I made this week. There were a lot more than this but loading photos is so slow tonight, I'll save them for a time when things are moving more quickly.

something fishy

A small gallery of works on paper, for no particular reason.