Naomi Bulger: messages in bottles

When Mr B started his new job in Melbourne, I made cupcakes for him to take into the office for Friday afternoon tea. Apparently they were a big hit, and he came home asking, "Can we have chocolate cake next time? Something impressive, with layers?"

I put together this chocolate layer cake with butterscotch cream and topped with caramel hazelnuts, using a recipe from delicious: simply the best (a cookbook given to me, ironically, by gorgeous ladies from his former team. I never got a chance to make them anything out of it. Sorry, Kay and Mel!).

Do you remember your best friend in high school? I am going to share a little story about mine, and it's a lot more personal than I usually get on this space, so I hope you bear with me.

Australian high school lasts six years, from Years 7 to 12 (you're aged roughly around 12 to 18). Late in Year 7, we moved house so I moved high school. All the friendships and groups and cliques had already been formed, and I was more-or-less 'placed' in a social group by the Year Adviser who introduced me to my classes that day.

The kids were nice, and welcoming enough (although I did get called Sandra D because I was little, blonde and very innocent), and I made friends. Not close friends, but I was not alone.

Then on the bus I met a girl named Del. She lived on the same long, country road as me, so we would see each other on the bus to and from school every day. We became friends, and used to ride our horses together in the afternoons after school, and on weekends.

Del was intense, passionate and highly intelligent. We spent our nights reading all three Brontes, mixed up with a good dose of Anne of Green Gables and a teen-typical dollop of Tolkien. Del could draw beautifully, so we would sketch together, Del teaching me how to cross-hatch to create dimensions in the horse or faerie I was attempting (always badly) to bring to life in pencil. We would ride our horses for hour upon hour in the Australian bush, singing at the tops of our lungs, splashing and dancing in bushland creeks, creating ever-higher makeshift 'jumps' from logs and 44-gallon drums over which to leap our horses.

People at school teased Del like they never teased me. I had other friends, I was "mainstream." Del was alone a lot of the time. The teasing hurt her, but she never gave up who she was or what she believed. I chose to conform. Del chose her own path, and in the country high school where we grew up, that hurt her. I tried to stick up for my friend, yelling at the people who teased her, but I only made matters worse. I blustered. I blundered. I missed the bigger point. Several of them, in fact. I was 14.

When I was in Year 9 or 10, I discovered a new group of friends. They were kind, funny, intelligent, and they accepted me for me. I didn't need to conform. High school became at last an exercise in "finding myself" rather than "hiding myself." (Those friends, incidentally, are still my friends. Some of us went to Paris together last year.) Around the same time, our family moved again. I didn't have to change schools, but I no longer caught the bus with Del.

So happy was I in finding this acceptance with my new friends that I missed how I was isolating Del even further. My friends accepted her, too, but she was in a different year to us, and had different classes, so there could never be the same level of connection. I will never forget the day she approached me to tell me she was moving to a Steiner school in a month or so, and that she would spend her lunches with people from her own year until then. That was that. That night, at a sleepover at one of my new friends' place, I cried the entire night while the other girls slept.

I barely saw Del again. I went to university and studied literature. I heard she went to university studied fine art. I had news of a tragedy that had befallen her family so I went to visit, but it was painfully awkward. I bumbled again, and embarrassed myself. My social skills were inadequate to offer anything worth giving.

Fast forward several years. I'm in an art gallery in Sydney, and there's an exhibition on. It is my old friend, and her work is beautiful. Challenging, confronting, but still so authentically and passionately Del.

I give my card to the gallery owner and ask if he would give it to Del. If she wanted to contact me, she could.

She never did. More time passed. Another friend, also a successful artist, told me that gallery owner would never have bothered to give her my card, but he could put me in contact through the owner of her new gallery. While I pondered whether I wanted to try, confidence waning, Del hit the news.

In 2008, Del won the Archibald Prize, the most important portraiture prize in Australia, for a self-portrait with her two children. I was beyond happy for her, and the painting, which of course I went to see, was glorious.

I felt I couldn't try to contact Del now, it would be like I was trying to hitch my wagon to her star. I did, however, sneak in at the back of a lecture she gave at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, creeping out again at the end before I was seen. As if I would have been recognised.

I've never tried to contact Del since. But I am so proud of my childhood friend as I follow her career.

Then this morning I opened my Google Reader and found this wonderful video of Del made by Dumbo Feather. It brought back all the memories I have shared, and I guess now is as good a time as any to make them public. I must tell you I had a tiny twinge of nerves as I sat down to write this, thinking "What if Del saw it, how embarrassing." But I can be fairly sure Del is not reading this blog.

So now you've seen inside me, a little. I hope you enjoy seeing the inner-workings of this wonderful artist, too.

Presenting: five things so sweet they'll give you toothache.

Once I lived in a very old lady's house. She had to go into care, but wasn't sure if it would be permanent. So I lived there rent-free, among all her things (overstuffed couches, plastic pillboxes, Charles & Di commemorative plates, unused jaffle-makers) to make sure they were safe. I remember bringing home a new boyfriend for the first time. He picked up one of the pillboxes (marked for each day of the week and each meal of the day) and said "Woah!" Now, at last, I have found something cool about pillboxes. I first saw this on Happiness Is as a Valentine's Day idea. I think I'm going to steal it for the lead-up to Mr B's and my first anniversary.

You have got to be kidding me. A soft, wool, hand-felted little bed for the cat. Could pet supplies get any cuter?

I adore this idea. Specially selected old books. A custom-made stamp and hand-printed wrap on the front. The full invitation details on a bookplate inside. I can't wait to throw a party so I can make this happen. 

This looks so easy, so festive, so special. Beware, friends with birthdays coming up. You are likely to receive confetti paper-wrapped presents!

Pip Lincoln makes things, sews things, writes books, writes for Frankie magazine, maintains a blog, and until recently ran a shop. She's also a mum and a wife and a person with a life. Phew! Recently Pip launched the Year of Good Things campaign. The premise is simple: "Do a Good Thing. Every day. For someone you know. Or someone you don't know at all! Document one Good Thing a day, if you can! If you can't document daily that's okay too. Just do your best." It's kind of like those "I'm grateful" posts that so many people are blogging these days. Except, "This is not a gratitude project," Pip says, "it's about making MORE good things happen."

I was woken in the middle of the night last night by Ruby our little rescue cat, who climbed up onto the bed and snuggled down in the crook under my arm, face to face with me, purring madly.

This was very uncharacteristic Ruby behaviour. She does like to visit us on the bed in the night from time to time, but always prefers to sleep at our feet. Her purring woke me up, so I gave her a pat which sent sent her into a frenzied tractor-engine purr-overload.

After a little while, she made a couple of turns then lay down with her head resting on my belly, still purring fit to wake the dead. But the dead stayed resting, as far as I can tell. Instead, she woke the baby.

I guess the sounds and vibrations of her purrs were amplified inside me because I started to feel little movements in my belly. While I was still wondering "Am I imagining this?" I felt the most definite WHAM of a little foot, a hand or an elbow. Not imagined at all.

This was a moment I'd been waiting for for weeks. It was so special: the dark centre of night, lying in bed next to my husband, cat pillowing her head on my belly and purring, and Baby B wanting a piece of the action.

Then I said "Feel this!" to Mr B who reached across to touch my belly, disturbing Ruby who left the room in a huff, and of course Baby B declined to perform a second time on-demand.

The spell was broken, so we all three Bs sank back into sleep, while Ruby chased shadows in the kitchen.

Hooray for creative people: writers, journalists, designers, photographers; who take the initiative to showcase their creative work on their own terms.

Journalist Brittney Kleyn, for example, garnered her creative friends and produced a zine from her holidays in Europe. Called Around the World in 80 Pages, it's a celebration of travel, discovery, journey and destination.

It's not a travel guide, but it does document the weird, wacky and wonderful discoveries made by Brittney and her friends. Think designers in London, librarians in Berlin, and baristas in Spain. Right up my alley!

I can't wait to read this zine but, more than that, I applaud what Brittney has to say about taking her burgeoning career into her own hands.

Somewhere on Route 66

It was more than 100 degrees outside the car. As I rolled the window down to place our order at Burger King, I swear my eyelashes singed. The sun-faded speaker box asked what I would like for lunch today.

Me: One fish burger, and...

Speaker box: Chicken nuggets, yes. Y’all want somethin’ else?

Me: No, a fish burger.

Speaker box: Ah beg pardon, two chicken nuggets. Got it.

Me: No chicken nuggets! None at all!

Speaker box: Take a deep breath, honey. We’ll get there. Speak slowly.

Me: F-I-S-H burger. Fish, like, um, fish swimming in the water.

Speaker box: Got it. One water. Anything else?

I've got mail, actually. Two lovely surprise packages arrived for me in the post this week. It's amazing how much getting mail can make you smile.

On Monday, mail arrived from blogger Katherine of Through My Looking Glass. Such a nice surprise to find a pretty green envelope in my postbox, it had been forwarded on to Melbourne from my old address in Adelaide. 

Katherine sent me a little packet of paper mementos from the Finders Keepers markets in Sydney, and guitar lessons. Yes, guitar lessons, for disadvantaged kids in Vanuatu, from the Oxfam Unwrapped project. I was so incredibly touched by her thoughtfulness.

_Then today when I walked the dog to pick up the mail I discovered a little parcel from a sweet girl in Germany, Astrid. Astrid found me through my blog last year and invited me to be her pen pal. So I ordered dumplings for lunch and opened her latest envelope to explore its contents at leisure.

I'm a lucky lass. What arrived for you in the mail lately? Anything good?

I am in a work frenzy. Deadlines everywhere, but that's a good thing. I'm trying to fit in as much writing as I can before Baby Bulger arrives. If that's not enough to keep me indoors, I am also a prisoner to the weather. It has been hot, hot, hot, and I don't have a car. Walking in 36 degree heat while five months pregnant is not exactly appealing, so I've been staying put. A lot. All of this is a long lead-up to say that this Friday, I'm bringing you five lovely things that are all about... home.

I saw these adorable drawers on Happiness Is this week and was instantly smitten. They remind me of the dancing furniture in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Remember when they sang and danced "Be our guest?" These dainty drawers are the creation of Dutch furniture designer Valentin Loellmann and I do so wish they would pirouette into my home. Today.

I have bookmarked this page on b for bel so that I can learn how to hide little messages for our girls in eggs all around the house and courtyard at Easter. Won't it be just lovely? Originally from She Exists, a site I may well need to peruse more often.

I have a thing for snowglobes. I love the idea of tiny, frozen worlds inside a glass dome. So often, though, the snowglobes inside my head are much more magical than the tacky reality on tourist-shop shelves. But these scenes created by Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz are more creative and surreal than anything I could imagine. While I live out my days inside our little house, I think about these tiny snowglobe worlds, too.

As my entire body morphs and expands to make room for Baby Bulger, fashion has taken rather a back seat. To the point that my most frequently-worn clothes are Em's drawstring pyjama pants, and a pair of "jeggings" with an elastic waist. (Note: the only thing more bogan than jeggings is jeggings with a big black elastic band to cover your belly. Yes, I have sunk this low). Then two of my gorgeous friends in Sydney sent me a little gift to buy some maternity clothes and, voila! I felt human again!

The Super Cool calls itself "A mobile emporium that goes to the people with an eclectic mix of everyday objects from around the world." Which is a rather fancy way to say it's a rad treasure-hunt-esque shop. It's also a pop-up shop, appearing all over the place (that's the "goes to the people" bit, I guess). The Super Cool is at the South Melbourne Market right now, so I'm thinking I'll venture just a little outside the house for a peek.