Lonely gold shoe // Christmas already? // A tale of two cities: New York and Melbourne // First face paint // Mummy Pig // Celebration in stock // Typewriters in the city // Ralph is crawling now. Can you tell? // Boys’ night // “Hey Mummy I writing your name” // Afternoon light I’m taking…
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8 things I loved at the Grand Designs Live Home Show
I am super grateful to the folks behind the Grand Designs Live Home Show in Melbourne for sending me tickets to this event on the weekend. Here are eight things I spotted at the show that I really wanted to spend my (sadly non existent) money on. Clockwise from top left: This sweet set of…
Read MoreStuff and simplicity
At any given moment, if you were to pop around to our house unannounced, there would probably be piles of washing waiting to be folded and put away, overflowing the green chairs in our hallway. As you stepped over the plastic toys and pushed passed the jolly-jumper hanging from the door frame and waded through…
Read MoreLittle things – the cowboy
Little things in my home… This pensive cowboy sits outside his restaurant and on my kitchen bench. I found his photograph in a bric-a-brac shop in Aspen, Colorado, when I was staying up there for a fiction writer’s course (called Aspen Summer Words – if you ever get the opportunity take it – it was…
Read MoreIt feels like home when…
Ours was a chilly and sometimes wet weekend, tailor-made for staying home. For jaffles and baking and craft and family dance-parties. Madeleine hosted her very first slumber party, with one of her cousins, and you have never seen a two-year-old more excited. She quite literally jumped for joy at the prospect of it, and the…
Read MoreWinter mornings
It is dark when I wake up, and Harry and I spend our winter mornings together on the rug of the lounge room floor in the gentle quiet of the predawn. I draw the curtains to let the day in but outside, the stars are still bright. Harry wiggles and squeals. “Dad dad dad dad…
Read MoreLittle things – snow globe
Little things in my home… Inside this snow globe is a sculpture of my old house. If you look closely, you can see the No. 10 number-plate gleaming proudly beside the door. This was the first home that I ever owned and lived in, and it was glorious. Old carved-oak staircases winding up and dividing…
Read MoreSubdued, happy
Subdued but happy describes the mood around here today. We are all in post-party fallout mode, after Madeleine had not one but two big birthday parties in a row on the weekend, followed by another mini-party this morning since it was her actual birthday and her Nanna and Pa were leaving to go back to…
Read MoreWhat does your workspace look like?
What does your workspace look like? Do you like it clean and organised, or do you thrive on creative chaos? I love those pictures of great writers sitting at their antique desks, all slumped and drowning under mountains of paper, with pictures in scraps pinned all over the walls, and old coffee cups, stacks of…
Read MoreLittle things – marbles
Little things in my home… A couple of months ago, our lovely friend Pascale gave Madeleine this simple wooden toy, that her own almost 15-year-old daughter (who happens to share the same birthday as Madeleine) had played with when she was little. Already, that made it a special and rather lovely gift. I wasn’t sure…
Read MoreRenovation update – a blank canvas
It sure has been a long time coming, but here is my first post about renovating our home a couple of months ago. Thank you to everyone who has shown enough interest to ask, and thank you for your patience! (Here was my original post announcing this renovation. Oh, the optimism!) A blank canvas This…
Read MoreLittle things – old compass
Little things in my home… In the lead-up to our first Valentine’s Day as a couple, Mr B and I were living on opposite sides of the world. I wanted to do something for him, but when you are separated by thousands of kilometres, your most romantic dinners together happen over Skype. Which is to…
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