Magnificent, Marvellous, Mighty Monday and Sharks, Yellow Roses and Sophie Dahl

Hello,
I spent the weekend working on a crime short story for the annual Sisters In Crime competition. The sunshine was as glorious and light-filled in Sydney as my story was dark.
Here are some lovely things inspiring me as I start my week.
Vintage-style yellow Rose Wallpaper. This lovely paper was recently in the latest Australian Notebook magazine. I do love yellow roses. I've sent for samples of this one (Eglantine) as I'm planning on papering our laundry area and our outside writing shed (Sparrow Chateau). Regular readers will know we've built an outdoor writing shed in our small terrace backyard. Because I've been working on Poets Cottage, I haven't had a lot of time to decorate it. However, we are going to take down our old Hills Hoist line in the next couple of weeks and install an old-fashioned Granny line to open up the space before Sparrow Chateau, so watch this space. I've also ordered the pink and red floral Eglantine for our bedroom. I do love vintage style floral wallpaper. And this one is so beautiful: olde-worlde but with a modern twist and snap.
The Scribe never fails to inspire me. He recently returned from diving with the Great Whites for a story for his magazine. Here is about to enter the shark cage. He went down with the sharks not once but five times and in very choppy conditions as well. He was safe from the sharks (some who he said were bigger than cars). However, a tuna did take a bite out of his finger.
If you care to see a short footage of one of the sharks, it's on his Blog here.
And I can't wait for Sophie Dahl's Cooking show which is coming to Foxtel on September 20th. I think she is the prettiest woman alive, she has the greatest cheekbones. The show sounds wonderful with its literary references and nostalgic blend. I loved her book, Playing With The Grown-Ups.
I hope your week is filled with old worlde glamour, creative and thrilling adventures.
Thank you for visiting me. xx

wallpaper eglantine image source:

sophie dahl image source

Chit-chat Wednesday and Spike

It's raining today and the world looks bleak from my window. We had a lovely weekend where not a lot happened but it was perfect in its simplicity. I went to the op-shop and found a Shirley Barber board game for five dollars which we played all weekend. I found some time to read magazines and the weekend papers in the garden. Spike, our cactus, who had grown to a precarious height (18 feet) and was swaying dangerously for months threatening low-flying planes, finally got a haircut.
Hard to believe that a few years ago, I carried Spike home along King Street, a tiny baby cactus in a pot as a gift for the Scribe.
When Daisy was born Spike celebrated the occasion by sprouting his first flower (he has only ever had two).
Today I am working on a crime short story, based on a real-life incident that happened to me. Outside I can see cars covered in rain, a grey sky. Cars are swishing past boxes on our verandah filled with spiky body parts

Chit-chat Wednesday and the Renovation Blues

Hello, hope your week is zipping along nicely. Here is a recent shot of our new floorboards. Aren't they lovely? Daisy has been running up to all and sundry proudly proclaiming, "We have new clean floors like everyone else!" I'm sure people must think we have been living in total squalor.
Tragically, as a result of the floors our new house (freshly painted and spanking clean) is now covered in fine black dirt from the floor job. The pristine white corridor is now a sad shade of grey and the pink bedrooms are covered in not-so-pretty grey dirt.
When I first saw it, I admit, I did sit in a corner and weep and wail and curse a few people and rant my usual, "I hate this house, inner-city, Sydney” rant but I think of the lovely slogan, KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON and slowly started to think about all the people out there with REAL problems and put my laptop and novel away and got the cleaning cloth out.
And so this very hot week in Sydney hasn't been spent editing my mystery novel as much as I would have liked but cleaning the walls of the house we have just painted.
I'm sitting on a stepladder writing this at the moment and from either side of me I can hear the neighbours renovating their terraces over the noise of the traffic outside. I’ve been listening to renovation noises for about a decade now. Life in the inner-city seems to be about attempting to transform our small houses. Some people glorify in the process, but not me!
I long for it all to be over so that I can focus fully on my writing.
I did buy some lovely vintage children's books in King Street today. I hope to find some time to post them later in the week.
Enjoy your week and I hope you are keeping calm, carrying on and being creative no matter what is is in your path.

stress image source:

Fabbo Friday and A chick leaves the nest

We have now reached a truly exciting stage of the renovation in our Little Brick Cottage: Daisy's bedroom. Until now Daisy has been sleeping with us and we've used the front bedroom as an office. I've loved having her with us for this extended time as I am a Mother Hen who enjoys her family all together under my wing, but Daisy is now ready for her own room.

While the interior is painted and the floorboards finished we’re houseminding by the sea. Over the last few years we’ve been fortunate to be able to do this whilst Ma and Pa enjoy their trips to England.

Here is a photo of Daisy in her bedroom-to-be. I bought some vintage fairy print curtains from my EBay which, along with a little French china poodle, the chandelier and vintage children fairy tale books, are forming the inspiration for how I want the room to look. The shabby blue paint job was by the previous tenants and I can't wait to get rid of it. We are fortunate in the small cottage to have good bones in that the ceilings are very high and every room has original features such as fireplaces or leadlight windows. We took the other doors back to the original wood with the exception of the bedrooms. As we are most likely going to be reselling in the future we don't know if it's worth the expense as lovely as the old doors look with the original woodwork.

Because of the massive moving and all the to-and-fro between two houses there hasn't been a lot of writing happening this week. I miss it terribly and cannot wait until life settles down a little so I can do more. I hope you have a lovely weekend and get to relax and do wonderful creative and fun things with people you love. xx

Fabbo Friday and THE BIRTH OF OUR SHED

To build our shed we had to sacrifice one of the large palm trees in our courtyard, a decision we didn't take lightly. I'm a person who finds it difficult to pick flowers; the thought of taking out a tree which we had planted from a teeny pot was anathema to me. I agonized over this for a couple of years and it was one of the reasons we had put off building the shed despite badly needing the space.
We even had an arborist assess the situation. He thought we were mad to worry and bluntly told us to 'pull the bloody thing out, they grow like wildfire here and it's ruining your tea-tree at the top.' We also have the loveliest native tea-tree in our little courtyard, which attracts a lot of bird life. Finally after much weeping, gnashing of teeth and - I'll whisper this bit, 'talking and apologizing to the tree' - we cut it down.
After years of the emotional build-up it was amazing how it was far easier than we had expected. We did manage to save a part of the tree to replant and hopefully he'll live on behind our shed to grow just as big and strong. The tea-tree looks happier already now he's not in a duel with the palm and all is well at Little Brick garden. Here is a photo of Daisy posing on the stumps of the palm.
And - the beginnings of the shed! Yes, it still has to be painted and prettified, but we have electricity and a structure happening. There is a shed.
It's odd how some things in your life assume a massive importance and you worry and fret over them for years and then it turns into nothing. In my experience, it's the things you don't worry about that tend to reach out and grab you by the throat when you least expect it.
We have had a massive few days moving half our house to our beach residence whilst the Scribe's parents are on holidays. We will stay here by the seaside whilst the painting and floorboards are done in Little Brick.
Enjoy your weekend and I hope that it is a creative and restful time for you. xx

Chit-chat Wednesday - In love with BIG BRICK!

Following on from my previous post about life in Little Brick Cottage, it must be said that on the weekend I fell in love with little Brick's big sister – Big Brick! I had resisted looking at her for a few weeks, despite the Scribe's urging, as I knew she would be out of our price range.

However, on a sunny Saturday I had some shopping to do and so I went to inspect the house the Scribe was so enthusiastic about. I've often developed crushes on houses (my current book is based around a certain real house in Tasmania) but never have I experienced falling desperately in love with a pile of bricks and mortar from the moment I walked in the door.

It felt as if the house breathed me into her very bricks, as if she was as excited to see me as I was to view her. She was truly magnificent. The Scribe had already described in loving detail all her glories and so I was prepared -but not quite ready for how perfect she really was.

She wasn't grand, there was still work to do on the old lady; she had a shabby side. She was a three-bedroom, very pretty Victorian house. She had my favourite feature (exposed brick) and a perfect wooden staircase.

The staircase made my heart sing. It was like a staircase from a children's book leading to a magical land above. And indeed the rooms above were magical for space and storage! I'm sure Narnia would fit in the lovely massive built-in wardrobe. I'm sure our Little Brick Cottage would fit in that wardrobe! Add a truly perfect series of stained glass windows and the brick kitchen even had the original servant's bells.

I wandered through her as if in a dream. I could hear the laughter and whispers of the many children who had lived and played within her walls. This was a house of friendly ghosts.

The Scribe had been so smitten when he had viewed her that he hadn't wanted to leave. He had heard many viewers complaining about 'our house' – even having the audacity to mention open-planning and modernizing her!

When I could finally tear myself away I was almost in tears. For a short time I could see my family living, loving and restoring Big Brick to what she deserved.

The real-estate agent asked me if I liked the house and, all reason long departed, I enthusiastically said I did. How much do you think she will go for?" was his next sneaky question. Still shaking like a lunatic in love, I whispered the sorrowful truth. "Over a million." He looked shocked at the honest reply. I could see he was frantically trying to work out whether this was some new mind game I was playing with him.

"Nah," he said. "I'd say mid-800s to early 900s".Previously they had told the Scribe the auction would start at the early 900s.

"We'll see," I said, resisting the temptation to push him out the door and barricade myself within. I retired to the nearby churchyard to listen to a magpie sing a doleful song about foolish girls who look at houses priced above their budget and fall in love with Big Bricks.

Fingers crossed the new moon brings some good fortune our way! As I told the Scribe – if we miss this one, there'll be something even better ahead for us! We'll attend the auction on Saturday and pray it will be passed in until we are in a position to buy her!

Have you ever had an experience like that, where you feel irrationally in love with something that wasn't a human being? A pile of bricks? Shoes? Some other item? Post and tell me if you did and share your wild irrational longing with me!

My Little Brick Cottage

The very eloquent and fascinating Belette from la Belette Rouge recently invited me to guest post (my first time!) on her Blog on the topic of What Home Means To Me. This was quite an intimidating challenge as so many others had written such strong pieces (not to mention I'm in the middle of several deadlines). August is a killer month for me! It's also a very difficult topic to define as it really does continue to elude me, this whole concept of 'HOME’. However, this is my piece, together with a few photos of my cottage.