I’m an alien from Venus Bay

We’re back in Melbourne for a rainy Tuesday but it was spectacular down at Venus Bay over the weekend. Cool mornings and rain overnight but warm days with light breezes. Really just perfect.

I like Venus Bay – it’s unpretentious but still manages to have a coffee shop that can dish up a babychino with marshmallows on demand. It’s near enough to Fish Creek and the Flying Cow Cafe which I have always had a soft spot for. It’s close enough to drive to wild Walkerville to play in the rock pools and on a quiet weekend in October there was barely anyone on any of the beaches. We paddled our feet in the freezing water and collected tiny shells while Amelia ran up and down the sand finding the tiny waves both exciting and terrifying. Big-P discovered a new passion for heavily engineered sand castles that defied the incoming tide and we ate ice-creams with sandy, bare feet in the main street.

We’re going back for a week in January and I can’t wait. I am already imagining the feeling of sand underfoot in the shower and the smell of sunscreen permeating everything. Watermelon and cool drinks on the deck, board games in the evenings and an esky on the beach. It’s just the thing to keep me going through the next couple of busy months.

5.30am

Amelia is waking at 5.30am these mornings, even the mornings after she has spent a fair portion of the evening before banging on her door demanding lullabies, drinks, toilet visits, cuddles etc. 5.30am isn’t so bad now that she can get out of her bed, pad across her room, pull open her door and then come and launch herself (and huge armfuls of soft toys) up onto our bed. Most mornings she snuggles down beside us and lets us have another half an hour while she sucks her thumb and stares at the ceiling. I can almost hear the Toy Story thoughts running through her mind. Some mornings she snuggles down deeper and throws a tiny, chubby arm around my neck, which is some kind of bliss. Except when she says; “Mum… you smell. You smell like… old porridge!”

Morphe; 6 -23 December, Adelaide

I am very proud to be taking part in “Morphe – A Soft Toy Exhibition” taking place from the 6 – 23 December in the town of my childhood, Adelaide. The show is being hosted and organised by the talented Carly Schwerdt of Nest Studios. What an amazing bunch of artists are taking part! I was excited to see that also included is Julie Patterson from the amazing textile design company Cloth. I have been a huge fan of her work for the longest time.

I was thinking it might even be fun to somehow get down there for the exhibition opening and meet some Adelaide Craft bloggers. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see.

So between now and then I have a huge amount of work to do, for that and several other exciting projects.

Also, don’t forget to check out Plush Rush! I wasn’t organised enough to submit something and I am kicking myself for that… everything looks so great.

Spring has sprung

We have been having the most beautiful weather here these last few days. On Sunday we met some friends and had breakfast at Ceres (Ceres Community Environmental Park) and afterwards we wandered around and admired the community veggie gardens and then bought a few bits and pieces in their nursery. With Ceres as an inspiration and while the sun shines down, all I want to do is potter around in the garden and start great beds of lush healthy plants. There is a huge amount to be done in our not-so-big back yard. HUGE amounts, but even after just a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon things started to come together. Dad fixed our watering system so that it’s now much more efficient, Big-P knocked down the old brick barbeque to make way for a future shrub or veggie patch and mum threw armfuls of prunings into the big dangerous hole that is still waiting to be filled with soil and miraculously turned into a garden bed. I planted some more herbs and after snails ate two of my basil plants right down to the ground last night, I am going to have to make a pavlova so that I can use the egg shells to sprinkle around the remaining plants to protect them (thanks for the tips in my comments the other day.) Interestingly enough, it’s the herbs from Ceres that have been decimated, and the others have all been left alone. Perhaps it’s true that organic tastes better, even to snails.

Here’s a snap of the bear trap – filled with prunings. In a couple of weekends time we are going to fill it with soil and then plant some trees to add a little shade to our otherwise sun-baked yard.

So long, farewell

Today I finished off my last illustration for the Big Issue magazine. I think it’s been about a year since the lovely Gina Morris and I began collaborating on a fortnightly basis and I am a little sad to see it go.

In truth, when we first began I didn’t want to really hear about her stories of breast feeding, lack of sleep, mother’s groups or any other baby antics. It was all something that was still so tender to the touch for me. I was in total denial and didn’t ever (ever!) want to go back so fortnight after fortnight I tried to be professional and illustrate a scene of early motherhood without actually thinking about it too much. Occasionally this wasn’t possible as I would find myself having to draw something like Gina using a breast pump and had to sit at my computer recalling the way it was held by searching my memory and physically posing it. But time went on and life has (most definitely) become better, and both Amelia and Lillah Rae have grown older and the smell of a new born doesn’t send me running, screaming with some kind of primal terror any more. Instead, I realise that I have been really enjoying these illustrations over the last six months. I am really enjoying being a mum. I am going to miss both Gina and Lillah.

I have uploaded a gallery of images from the past year over on flickr. Here you can see my pictures but if you want to read Gina’s stories that go with them, you will have to find a Big Issue (Australia) vendor and beg them to get you the last 25 issues. Of course, I highly recommend this!