Away for work

I am travelling this week in Australia's western-most places (extra points if you guess right) with limited connectivity so not blogging. But I am being useful and also managing to get some swims in :)

Minor heatwave

After three years of cool damp summers we had a blast from the past over the weekend - most of our part of the country over 35 degrees, fire danger, the whole bit. Honestly I had forgotten what it was like ... so we went to the beach. With the cat. It was beautiful - the water temp is up to 24 degrees, which is delightful. And a stomping storm on Saturday afternoon to keep things interesting.

How pretty is this creek. Lots of happy toddlers. We got the new blinds installed too, I forgot to take any photos but we are very pleased. The old roman blinds were getting a bit shabby, and the struts were broken, and the cords weren't working super well. The new ones are honeycomb blinds and sit in the frame so a much more streamlined look. 

Hard to struggle back to the office this week....

Another blue and white dress

Nostalgia post today - inspired by the blue and white cotton frock - here I am in another blue and white cotton frock that I made for myself, 36 years ago, in 1987. That's me in the middle in the back, rocking a spiral perm. This is a family photo that was taken for reasons unknown - it was the summer before I went away to uni, and my sister had already left home, so perhaps it was a rare occasion we were all together? And somebody had come to visit us and could take the photo. We didn't have a tripod, so there was absolutely another human involved in this shot.

I could be completely wrong in this, but my memory is that there was some effort involved in setting up a bit of a photo shoot. We had to put nice clothes on, and one of the lounge chairs was put out on the lawn to arrange ourselves artistically around. Repositioning occurred. Multiple photos were taken, back in the days of film. 

And my other memory is when the photos came back, and my mother realised my father had made it into a dress shirt, pants and shoes but hadn't thought about SOCKS and all she could see in every photo was his BARE ANKLES. Given my brother wasn't wearing shoes at all you'd think it would be OK but I don't think these ones ever made it into a frame.

Summer knockabout dress

Another weekend of 30+ degree days has seen me back at the beach and back in the surf ... doing absolutely nothing and it's great. We are in the throes of lawyers and banks and councils - the building file for the house we are buying has nothing on it prior to 1998 so we have excellent approved plans for the garage. But just the garage. 

I wouldn't expect to see much for the original house but there have been various extensions over the years so surely something had building approval? Surely? After discussions and inspections we are going to go ahead anyway - it's all been standing for at least forty years and the council is notoriously bad at recordkeeping - but it is time-consuming and stressful. Which is why I was at the ocean again.

And this is the ramshackle cotton dress I've been wearing on the weekends - I wash it, leave it over the drying rack with two pairs of togs, two rashies, a beach towel and some undies - then come down next weekend and wear it all over again. I made this dress a couple of years ago because I liked the fabric but thought it was a bit much to actually wear. Until now, when I no longer give a shit about what I look like, and would rather be comfortable.

It has awesome great big pockets to carry around keys, phone, bobbins, snacks and other things I pick up at one point and forget to put down. I feel like the great-aunties. They would bustle in "where do you keep your pinnies Betty" (on a hook on the back of the door to the hot water cupboard) then put one on, do all the dishes, and put all sorts of random things in the enormous apron pockets in case they needed it during the day. Hanky? Pen? Clothespeg? Bottle of Silvo? Aspirin? Teatowel? All in the pockets.

Odd little paintings

The first parliamentary sitting week of the year is done, with the usual shock to the system of long days and having to focus. Dreaming of retirement and how to plant up our five acres is NOT helping. I have done some random pictures.

This looked much more stylish in the original, from the random tiktoker I copied it off. Not sure if the gold pen adds anything, perhaps I should just have left the watercolouryness of the foliage.

This is a copy of a picture by Brandon Campbell who does very cool illustrations and things with pen and markers and bits of watercolour. 

This is just some more droopy foliage. I put this as my Facebook photo because it was the right size (long and skinny) and I was sick of the one that was there and got lots of compliments! Which is lovely, but I think it's a bit blotchy and ordinary ... most people in real life don't know that I paint so I think they were surprised more than anything.

Proper summer weekend

It was sunny and hot and I swam in the ocean for hours! A proper summer weekend, although a bit late in arriving. It looks like we are buying the dream retirement house so it has been a stressful week of lawyers and banks and endless paperwork ... which is why the very lazy and unproductive weekend at the beach.

It was gorgeous, and hardly anyone there. The water was crystal clear with just an occasional big wave coming through  - lots of optimistic surfers but when they did catch one it was a good one. I trialled my new wetsuit jacket that I bought from Amazon - I would really love to not have a top shipped from the US via an evil megacorporation but does anyone in Australia sell plus size wetsuits? No, they do not. Even if their website says they do, they don't actually ever have any stock, and they think 'plus size' is a size 16. It is not, my skinny friends, it is not.

It was too hot to zip it up until just before you jump into the ocean. And it does zip up, despite appearances. Stopped the windchill beautifully, and makes me easy to spot in case I need rescuing :)

Back into it

School started again this week - we don't have kids at school any more but suddenly there are more cars on the road, more people in at work and a certain sense that the fun is over and it's time to get back to work. Bah. Number two has finished his year in university halls (they do a twelve-month lease) so my husband did a mercy dash down there to help him move his stuff out and give the room a good scrubbing. It's a bit stressful because he's moving into a share house but the person who is meant to be moving out of his room hasn't quite done so yet ... it looks like number two has done everything he's meant to do but other people haven't. Or that's the story we're getting. So he is couch surfing but hopefully not for long... I don't like it much but we can't swoop in and fix this one, just offer removal services and take him out for dinner. 

On the weekend we went and saw the possible retirement house again - on a very scorching summer's day which gives us a good idea of what it would be like to live on the desiccated tundra. Lots of flies. Then on Sunday we met up with friends and took their dog for a walk around the horse paddocks. Lots more flies ... and it was very hot and rainy and humid. Unpleasant walking but lovely to catch up with them.