Winter churns on...

It's official, I'm in winter hibernation mode.  What is there to do, when the wind is howling, and the rain is sideways, but make a cup of tea, take a good book and go back to bed, where it's warm and cosy. With internet access, almost all my needs were met.

I surfaced for a quick but unimpressive opshop round on Wednesday, but by Thursday I was running out of milk for my tea.

So on Friday, I staggered out to the shops. As well as milk, I stocked up on paper for art prints, ink, and discovered some picture frames on sale.  I have some new fish, including some on charts of King George Sound and Princess Royal Harbour, as well as Kalbarri and the West Coast of Western Australia.

Damage from the storm was limited, and largely fixable with gaffer tape.  By the end of the week I was able to do some work outside, including on the old butter churn (which would look very nice with plants in it). It's ready to go to a new home.

I'm slowly reducing the piles of stuff on the back veranda.  You can see the chairs now.  

I've started on a new group of steampunk sculptures, so the kitchen table is hidden again.  I've been gathering the parts for a while and I'm using some of the bits I brought home from the last roadtrip.  There will be several balloons, some boats, a ship, and there's a land vehicle which is looking like it has potential. I don't often do cars/trains/trucks but this one is incorporating some old brass motorcycle fuel pump bits.

I think I need an angle grinder.  Or perhaps a nice man with an angle grinder and an interest in art, that might be a good thing.

I can't fit THAT in my vintage suitcase

This week was the first of the big winter gales and boy, has it been cold.  I've cried 'uncle' and ordered firewood delivered tomorrow morning, so I guess that means I get to spend tomorrow afternoon stacking it neatly. I was starting to eye off various bits of furniture for their warmth sustaining properties, so I gave in.

The roadtrip up the west coast is but a dim memory now, but did I  mention that we took in 21 opshops and 2 tipshops, as well as an above average antique/vintage shop and some garage sales?
  

There are things waiting for me on a veranda in Perth.  I managed to fit a number of picture frames in my suitcase, as well as some other trinkets, but the bigger stuff will have to wait for a trailer, or a substantially empty vehicle travelling south.

I'm very excited about the old church cupboard with the metal cross, the wooden bits of crayfish pots, and the large frame with the bevelled glass. But as we know, I'm easily excitable.















The Geraldton tipshop gets full marks for both useful and for quirky. The prices are reasonable, the stock plentiful and interesting, and the indications were that it was doing a roaring business. 





















I'm not even going to tell you where the antique and vintage shop is, just yet, because there are too many things there that I want to buy. I have a friend who lives nearby and she can be trusted to go forth and acquire desirable items for me. Sometimes, I'm selfish.

Among their eclectic stock were opera glasses (unfortunately no monocles), wooden cupboards, frames, toys, books...you name it, I was prepared to desire it.  In an unusual burst of rationality, I settled for a few smaller things which we shoe-horned into the car.

                                 

Unfortunately, there weren't any exciting old chairs, settees, love seats or other seating apparatus, but perhaps when I return there will be new things to explore.  In my 'if only I had a shed' dreams, these things loom large. Amongst other things.

Ghosts, ships, airplanes and islands

We decided that we needed to get away from the relentless daily blahs.  We went somewhere I hadn't been before, up the west coast.

Just a little drive in the country, really. 

We did ponder the wisdom of naming a satellite city after a ship with the history of bad luck and a legend of ghosts, general spookiness and bad karma.  Perhaps it will be a tourist attraction, like a WA Amityville Horror.

We headed to Geraldton via Lancelin, which seemed to retain it's lovely fishing village atmosphere. Quirky houses, laid back feeling. Boats.

We called into the Pinnacles. I looked for Billy Connolly, dancing about, but couldn't see him, unfortunately.  Two strange (but fully clothed) blokes had taken possession of a high spot and took endless, endless amounts of snaps of each other in various poses. Others looked on with disapproving glares.  I'm not sure if it was because of the signs saying "do not climb on the pinnacles", or because everyone else wanted to get up there and take endless snaps of each other in various repetitive poses. We certainly did. 

The Interpretive Centre paid tribute to the two great explorers who had passed by, completely oblivious to the Pinnacles. We saluted their inclusion in a site interpreting something they missed. There were frighteningly realistic taxidermied reptiles and marsupials and very small pinnacles in a glass case, which made me wonder whether it was actually some sort of incubator for baby Pinnacles.

We called into Jurien Bay only briefly, the beachside village look has been overtaken somewhat by the suburbia crawling to meet the highway. Leeman, however, looked as though it had largely missed the urban sprawl and retained more of it's original fishing village character.

Geraldton wasn't as windy as reported, and the weather held long enough for us to have a look around and head to the HMAS Sydney Memorial for sunset.  This structure has to be one of the best pieces of public art in Australia.  The light causes it to change colour, from grey to gold to silver, and the views are spectacular. 

By the time we headed North, the rain had closed in, but it conveniently confined itself largely to night time, leaving the days mostly clear, if not warm.  

                         Kalbarri was in it's off-season (just).  Apparently the population swells from 1200 to 15,000 in peak times, especially the school holidays.  We liked the quieter, less populated feel, and although we didn't get to go fishing, we did spend some time watching others fish.  They didn't seem to be catching much.

We took a flight over the gorges, the coastal cliffs and the Abrolhos Islands with Kalbarri Scenic Flights, which was just amazingly spectacular. The Islands have been added to the must see list for the future. Having recently re-read Hugh Edwards' Island of Angry Ghosts, seeing the Islands was an absolute highlight.

We called in at the settlements of Lucky Bay, and Knobby Head on the way home. We overheard a person at the Tourist Bureau telling someone that it was next to nigh impossible to get into Lucky Bay, due to the road, but we managed it, as did the person who used the road during our visit and managed to scatter garbage over the whole length.  I hope they went back and picked up their mess. We had a tour of the settlement and the beach, from a long term resident, but it was a bit rough to go too far.  I am so jealous of the lucky leaseholders, I could happily live there. I guess I am a child of the 70's and a bit of a beachside hippy at heart.

Knobby Head has a more accessible beach, and the local watchdog turned out to be a big goofy puppy who wanted to fetch sticks and play.  Lucky, really, because he was the size of a small pony. He probably knew we had only come in to admire the views and vaguely resent anyone lucky enough to be able to live there.

Dinosaurs, silk and ostrich feathers

Hands up who DIDN'T make a dinosaur suit for their daughter's dog today?  So many hands....

I had the sewing machine out, for routine wardrobe maintenance and alterations, possibly too much time on my hands, and I came across some scraps I had put aside for the oft-requested outfit.  I considered for a moment something in silk and ostrich feathers, but the dinosaur won.  She looks quite cute, in a bewildered sort of way. But my daughter is happy, and as she often says, that's the important thing. 

I've been having a bit of a de-clutter, but when it comes to the stash, one can only go so far.  I saw a post on Facebook for a garage sale, where someone commented that they had never seen so much junk.  I was stunned, the garage in the post looked positively minimalist.  My latent fear of featuring on one of those shows about hoarders surfaced, briefly.

I don't so much have junk, as a stash.  A BIG stash.  Of lots of things.  All of which can be re-used for something, although not necessarily their original purpose.  I don't mind sharing things, when someone needs something, but I have to draw the line at tossing things away in a willy-nilly manner.  

Over the past few weeks I've had some visitors who appreciated my stash.  It's nice, and reassuring, not to be viewed as the upcycling equivalent of a mad old cat woman, and I enjoyed sharing some gems with them. In return, I saw my stuff through their eyes, which gave me some new ideas.  We agreed that  you can't be creative without a stash.

Although it's technically winter, the weather's been sunny and still.  I spent a morning sitting on the front steps with a cup of tea, watching a whale slothing about in the harbour.  You could tell it was cold this morning, when I awoke to one paw visible against the white sheet.  My little friend emerged later, so that he could have a tummy rub while I worked my way through another Dresden File. It's a busy job, being a security dog. You don't want to peak too early.

Corsets, Shards and Seam

I haven't had much to say for a while.  After my trip, I thought I'd spend some quality time sulking at having to be at home.  My sulk continues but I'm slowly getting back into the routine, with only mild residual resentment that I can't see the Eiffel Tower or the Shard from my bedroom window.

I can see the beautiful Princess Royal Harbour, which is pretty amazing.  So I mustn't grumble.  Much.

Last weekend I went to White Rabbit Vintage and Handmade, at the local Torbay Hall.  It was a long weekend here - which meant the Albany Classic car race, right in the main street. We escaped the relentless 'zoom zoom' and public address system, for the green serenity of the cutest little hall, amongst the trees.  Lots of people obviously had the same idea.  Its a great venue, the kids can scamper about (outside), people ate their lunch under the trees. I met some really nice people, caught up with some old friends, and had a great day out.

It did remind me that I haven't really been working on any fish for - oh - six months.  So I  managed to focus a little bit and so here's some work I prepared earlier.  Just a little bit earlier. Last week. Yesterday.

I've also been playing with my photographs from Paris and London, but I'm not ready to share those just yet.













I did find a couple of interesting things on the interweb this week.  Actually I found quite a lot of interesting things, but that's another story.  While I was stalking Spitalfields Market in London,  I saw a popup shop by two designers making really clever garments and bags, and I noticed that they have opened a shop, Seam.  Here's a link  where they describe their work, including corsets made from upside down pinstripe suit jackets, skirts draped from tuxedo trousers, and dresses cut from jacket lapels, cuffs, and colour-contrast prints.  There are also high quality and locally made leather and sheepskin goods, specialising in bags, jackets and coats. Highly original and highly desirable.

I also found a blog, via a Facebook page, called Charity Shop Chic - where opshop clothes are upcycled into fashion garments.  In this case (unlike many others) it's real tailoring and design, the blogger is a seamstress of considerable talent. She gives clear step by step instructions, with pictures.  Highly recommended.

Out and about in Paris and London - Part 2

My sadness, the tear in my eye and my trembling lower lip on leaving Paris was somewhat assuaged by first class passage on the Eurostar to London.  More leg room, a table for the free lunch.  Not as exciting as having the compartment on the train from Amboise to Paris - something I wanted to do since reading things like Sherlock Holmes as a child, and watched all of those old films, not to mention Harry Potter in both book and film - but exciting enough to appeal to my shallow side. 

The driver of the black cab to the hotel barely survived the effort of lifting our bags into the cab while pretending they weren't heavy, but cheerfully announced that he expected them to be heavy, since we were women.  Not only strong, but smart, those black cab drivers. I can but hope he wasn't hospitalised after lifting them out again. 

Spring was just starting to come to London, the weather was warmer, the blossoms and the bulbs were starting to appear and there was so much to do and see. So many old things in markets and museums, red buses, black cabs, the stuff of English crime fiction and literature, and the mix of the very old architecture with the very new gave the place a sense of living and breathing and evolving and moving. Paris is romantic history, but London is living it.

I loved the river - as I love all water, the oceans,rivers,interestingly shaped puddles.  I wanted to get to Greenwich, but time got away.  We went on a pub crawl in Wapping, where the pubs were older than Australia. We walked around on the streets which used to be on Monopoly boards when I was a child.  We saw the Prime Minister's car whiz past several times, preceded by motorbike policemen who slid sideways to stop oncoming traffic.  

Everyone had a brother who lives, or had recently lived, in Australia.  Everyone knew that  Australians live surrounded by death - redback spiders, crocodiles, funnelwebs, a host of venomous snakes.  They seemed surprised that we had survived long enough to get out of the country.  Some people thought we were from New Zealand, where life is reputedly slightly less dangerous. 

Although there were less optometrists and hairdressers than in Paris, I was glad to see that the UK has warmly embraced vintage, and there was no shortage of charity shops. They ranged from the traditional to the recycled designer specialists, priced accordingly.  I saw one right behind the Big Palace, from a bus, but couldn't get back there on foot. A vintage tuxedo shirt in a vintage shop on Portobello Road - exactly 4 times the price of  almost the exactly same shirt in the charity shop around the corner.

 

even the dentists have fashion sense

Vintage markets abound and we know how I like those.  So much taxidermy, so many darned import restrictions. It's probably just as well, or I would be surrounded as I type by stuffed pheasants, hedgehogs and a budgie in a cage - I kid you not.  Not to mention hares, rabbits, deer.... Haggling seems to be expected, but it helps if you know the difference between actual vintage and faux old. 

I found lots of little treasures and trinkets at various markets, but left so many behind. Some of the prices were, in the parlance of The Castle, dreamin'.   The UK postal people really haven't kept up with the whole sending mail overseas thing, pricewise.  Compared to other countries, an English postman could fly out and drop off my parcel for the price.  Perhaps they do.  Why does it take less time for a postcard from France to get to Australia than one from England?  Slower planes?  

Before I go again, I will be checking freight options.