friend weekend

I don't often go anywhere on a long weekend, but this past weekend I went up to the Betbeders' holiday house at Marks Point with Anna and Sammi for a bit of girl time.

Drove up with mum and went to the Olive Tree Market first, meeting up with Jess, Elsie and Lee. It's a lovely market, with great food and some interesting stalls. Mum thinks my bags are better than the ones that were selling there, though I did point out some were leather and hand printed and all of that. That's why they cost more; with handmade you pay more because it's handmade, but if it's also made of expensive materials or involves some unique artistic endeavour, then you pay for that too (which is as it should be).

I really liked the laser cut leather jewellery by Doury, and bought one of the smaller necklaces. I would quite like one of the amazing collar necklaces (like this) to wear with a black dress or something, but generally because of my short neck and large bosom those sorts of necklaces can be a bit too much. But they looked really nice on the woman at the stall.

We went back to the lake house, and mum and Guy headed back to Sydney. We rested and put Anna's new cake stand together just so we could have our own high tea (with nougat and doughnuts from Doughheads I'd bought at the markets).

Sammi made a delicious beef salad for dinner and we painted our nails while watching Suddenly 30. I experimented with the marbled water application effect thing but I think it takes a bit of practice to do without it looking like a weird mess. Anyway, it was fun to play with colours. Then we introduced Sammi to Community.

On Sunday we sat around in our pyjamas, soaking up the brilliant blue of the water view and watching birds. We read the WordLive reading on Philippians 4:10-23, had a good chat about contentment and gratitude and prayed together. I did a little desire map writing.

We went out for a yummy lunch at Cafe Macquarie, bought supplies for dinner and headed back for more laying around, looking at the view and some al fresco massages on the deck. It was actually so nice for me, as the masseur, because I had the view to look at while I worked.

We ambled down the steep stairs to the lake edge and went for a short wander as the sun set. I played with the impressive macro feature on the Camera+ app (the camera on my new phone helps too, I suspect).

I made a tomatoey chicken gluten free pasta thing for dinner, we watched more Community and then Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey which was a lot worse than any of us remembered (we laughed a lot though). 

This morning Anna treated us to a delicious cooked breakfast. We did more bird watching (so many rainbow lorikeets!) and then finished off the girly treatment with some Jurlique face masks Elsie had given us, which of course was the perfect photo opportunity:

I headed home not long after and, of course, fell straight asleep as soon as I got home. Man, all this relaxing is exhausting! 

I am so grateful for these lovely women, so glad to have them to laugh and be silly with, but also to share the hard times in life when they happen. I'm also grateful for holidays and for living in such a beautiful part of the world!

BLG: holiday mode

99. smiling at a little Indian girl on the MRT and her beaming broadly back at me

100. space and quiet and a perfectly appointed hotel room

101. having the energy to get where we needed to go

102. slipping into water that is the perfect temperature compared to the outside air

103. having parents who love me and who, despite being divorced, get along with each other

a break

I've been getting those warning signs - the fraying temper, the easily bursting into tears, the sore back and head - so today I decided to Be Kind To Myself (and everyone else) and had the day off.

I tested out my new Laidback Laptop stand, which arrived this morning and is great (although I'm still trying to find the best angle for typing). Then I wandered down to return a library book and bought a couple of books for $1 each at the library sale. Then on to a challenging but fantastic yoga class at the gym.

I decided to go to Edith and Rose in South Coogee for lunch. I'd been here a couple of weeks ago with a few people from church, and it's a delightful little place, inconspicuous and simple, with delicious cakes and pies and coffee. There were only a couple of people there, so I thought I'd just sit in a corner and write. But as I placed my order I heard a voice call my name, and sitting at the window was M from church! So we sat and chatted for a bit while she finished her tea, then she left for another engagement and I had a little time to write.

I also had a little time to eat the most delicious chocolate ganache tart with a raspberry base:

(The other thing I like about this shop is that the retro chairs remind me of Neenish tarts, my favourite of all tarts.)

Then I went to the plant nursery and bought some violas, petunias and poppies to put in the garden so it will be all colourful and cheerful in spring.

A very good day in the middle of the week! I'm so glad I was able to take it off; I think it's just what I needed.

where I'll be in 1.5 weeks

Jen sent me a pic of the parking lot of where I'll be staying: "for your viewing pleasure have attached a slight view of the remont, where you'll be staying. of course, if i'd wanted to be helpful i would have actually taken a photo of the building. but this was snowier."

Eeeeeeee! I love snow. I wonder if I have enough warm clothes. Must...trust...packing list...and avoid the temptation to shove another 10kg worth of stuff in the bag 'just in case'.

pack and go

Okay it's not all doom and gloom. I had a long bath with a Lush Sakura bath bomb and the latest Rolling Stone, then had delicious pizza for dinner. That improved my mood considerably.

Then I started making lists of what to take with me on my trip. It is springtime in the northern hemisphere, but seeing as it has recently been snowing in Fontainebleu and Oxford (two of my destinations), I think I should be packing my coat.

I don't want to take a huge suitcase and lug around a bunch of stuff I'm not going to use, especially since I'll be catching trains a lot. So I made my lists and then gathered most of the bits and pieces to see if they would fit in my small blue case (not as large as a suitcase but a bit bigger than one of those rolling-cabin-luggage dealies). And guess what? It all fits, even my coat, and it only weighs 10kg! That's less than half my luggage allowance...so...provided the money holds out, means I can buy presents. :D

I'm swinging between nervous and excited and nervously excited. I've travelled on my own before, but not quite as far as this. And in the past I was an unaccompanied minor, so someone was keeping an eye on me. Now I'm responsible for myself and all the decisions that are made - that's both liberating and a bit scary. I'm hoping I won't let myself get too tired. But I'm also looking forward to sitting in lovely places and writing, or just watching things go by and not feeling like I have to cram everything in to an overflowing itinerary. The thing I'm most looking forward to is catching up with the friends I'm going to see.

I'm taking my laptop. It might not seem like a proper holiday to some people if I'm still plugged in, but I figure that since I'll be on my own for a lot of the time (at night anyway), it will make staving off the loneliness a bit easier. And all the places I'm staying have free wifi broadband so it just seems silly not to use it, right?

In less than two weeks I'll be in Paris!

Frenchy

I just have to say, I love Flight of the Conchords. Here is a clip from their HBO show to help me brush up on my French vocab...

stereophonic

I got a new pair of headphones for my trip but also for general noise-blocking-outedness. When I buy things like this, I either do heaps of research and get all turned around by other peoples' opinions, or I just go out and blindly buy whatever 'feels' right. This time I went with the former, but there is just so much stuff out there written by true audiophiles that you can be paralysed by too much choice.

I couldn't decide between earbud-type headphones or the full, closed Princess Leia-type dealies. Depending on who you read, you can come to the conclusion that both earbuds and the big clamshells are the invention of the devil. So really it comes down to personal preference. But then I figured that the big ones make me feel like a doofus, and since I was buying them primarily to travel with, it made more sense to get smaller, portable ones. Then I read this review on ilounge.com and my mind was made up. I went on eBay and found them (new) for $70 less than anywhere else, bought them and patiently waited, hoping that my first eBay purchase wouldn't turn out to be a dud.


My lovely white Etymotic ER-6i Isolator earphones arrived this morning (always exciting to get parcels in the post). I like how they look like tiny, tiny rayguns from the Jetsons or something. They are 'in-canal' earphones, which mean that they sit right inside the ear canal to block out any ambient noise. This is supposed to reduce jetlag on long flights, because you don't have to deal with the constant whine and thrum of the plane engines and the air conditioning (and other people). It also means you don't have to have your music very loud at all, and you can hear every tiny little detail (unlike conventional earbuds, where you have to have the music really loud to drown out everything else, which never works anyway and can leave you with permanent hearing damage). Music sounds clean and beautiful, the bass is just right, and I'm happy in my own little world here, unable to even hear the clicking of the keys as I type.

The in-canal style does take a little getting used to, though, as I discovered when I got to work. True, it blocks out the ambient noise very well. But it amplifies the internal noise! I am having to get used to the sound of my head. It's a bit like when you dive deep in a pool and everything is deliciously quiet and muted, but your breathing becomes your soundtrack, and your teeth coming together sound like drums. The biggest surprise I got was when I started eating trail mix (as is my wont); hazelnuts have never sounded so loud (or so good).

mountains and other great weights

I saw an interview with Ian McEwan on the 7.30 Report tonight, in which he said that as a writer it was important to him to stay in good physical condition because writing a novel requires a lot of stamina. It's like climbing a mountain.

I remarked to mum that even though I well understand what he's talking about, when a successful novelist like McEwan describes the difficulties of the writing process like that, it makes me think "Oh what's he going on about? He's just making a big deal about nothing." After all, he's written many best selling books, right? (I haven't read any of them) He's internationally renowned and his speaking engagements sell out. How hard can it possibly be for someone like him to write a novel? Don't the words just pour out of him?

Such a thought is traitorous, to say the least, to writers everywhere. Because it is hard to write anything well. And it is very hard to write a novel. McEwan likens it to a mountain; my own experience is that it is like being trapped under a soaking wet doona. Or maybe, for an extra-complicated novel, a soaking wet futon.

I'm not sure what it's like for someone who writes novels for a living, who can devote their full-time working week to writing. But for someone who has to squeeze in the writing around a job, and the vagaries of ill-health, that smothered feeling is just inescapable. You have the weight of the book around you, on you, in you. You resent it. You fear it. You flail at it every so often to try and shift the weight but you just get further entangled. You get a flicker of light, the spark of an idea, and just as soon as you try to follow it, the wet mass snuffs it out.

Perhaps the method ought to be to calm down, to take some deep breaths and try to follow some sort of logic, try to find the ending, try to tie up the loose ends and find the way out from underneath. I'm not sure I've worked out how to do that yet.

One of the things I am greatly looking forward to on my trip away is having space. The physical space away from the everyday, and the exploring of new spaces, yes. But also the mental space. The creative space. The space that is billowing and airy and allows itself to be filled with just the lightest touch, bringing the tendrils and tender shoots of inspiration that can lead to new life. Even if things don't go according to plan, even if I don't have time to write much, I know that this holiday will be a time to clear out the clutter in my head, and time for the wellspring to start filling up again.

And I can't wait.

hooray for holidays

Well here's some news. I'm going overseas in April! I'm very excited about this - it's been a few years since I've been overseas and I've just been longing to get on a plane and go somewhere.

It's going to be a leisurely three weeks of catching up with friends and seeing the stuff I feel like seeing on any given day. I'll be heading over to France first to stay with Emma and Stuart who are in Fontainebleu (45 mins out of Paris). Then over to Oxford to hang with the Baddeley Three. Then to Belfast to stay with Bek and John, and hopefully with Jake joining us. And on the last night before I fly back to Sydney via Singapore, we're all going to see Bjork play in Belfast!

I haven't completely decided what things I want to see yet. The top priority is to meet Jonathan Baddeley. But aside from that, the itinerary is open to suggestion. If anyone has favourite Paris/Oxford/Belfast haunts, cafes, restaurants, whatever do let me know!

the beach house

I had the good fortune, once again, to be invited up to the Menyharts' beach house at Norah Head for a couple of days. It's a huge house right on the beach - I mean right on the beach, you walk out the back door onto the sand. They tend to rent the bottom floor out to holidaymakers each year, but the family uses the upper floor and I've visited there a number of times. Jake, Jackie and I headed up there on Wednesday and spent a lovely two nights there.

• I taught them Bohnanza (and won)
• We played Scrabble twice (and I won - even got a bingo, that rarest of rarities)
• We listened to a bunch of music, including my playlist of new stuff, much of it stuff that I've been collecting on Guan and Karen's recommendations (and it was very well received - actually, it's a great playlist, remind me to post it sometime)
  
• We watched Spirited Away and I LOVED it (thanks K)
• I finished reading a book
• I wrote and wrote and wrote
  
• We walked on the beach
• We ate lots of great food, including a delicious pumpkin soup made by Jackie's grandmother with pumpkins from her garden
  
• We braved Tuggerah Westfield, missed out on the movie we were going to see, but ended up buying shoes
• I got up at 5am to take photos of the sunrise, and am glad I did

So seeing as I wasn't planning to Go Away in the holidays, it was really quite a good impromptu break! And it was wonderful to spend time with two people I love very much, even if we were all a little subdued and melancholy at times. It's good to be with good friends at times like that.

Here's some photos of the beach and the sunrise for your enjoyment.

zombieland

I think the lack of sleep has finally caught up with me, although it's taken most of the day, so I guess that's a good thing. I got a sum total of two hours' sleep last night. At about 4.45am I wondered whether it would have been more prudent to just get up and go to work, but then realised that was quite insane.

So after my extensive rest, I managed to go to work, managed to finish my Christmas shopping at Bondi Junction Westfield, managed to get lost in Bondi Junction Westfield, managed to not have a car accident on the way home and managed to lie on my bed. Now I am feeling like having a very big cry.

I'm definitely tired. Think I should put on my pjs and watch Grey's Anatomy.

But hey - I'm on holidays!!!