Lillian of the Lake

The Pea and I spent our Easter with my sister and her family, at a small seaside town in SA.  Port Macdonnell is directly south of Mt Gambier and is a special little place.  We had a lovely, simple time together (when I say small town, I am serious – nowhere to spend your money on there at all).   I did some fishing, went on some long walks along the coast and even a had a dip in the freezing ocean.

Lots of chocolate and Nigella Lawson’s pancake recipe made the eating very yummy, and a few different bottles of Limestone Coast red wines made the drinking fine.  

It was fun to wake up to my niece and nephew (8 and 10) really enjoying the surprise of  ‘what the bunny had brought’.  She hoards and eats it slowly, he gutses straight into it and has none left after two days.  

Came home relaxed and calm.  I’ve been back at work for a week now and still have the sand in the car.

Last night Zeppie was not acting like Zeppie, she was just a bit, well, strange.  So last night we shut Wombat, the  other (much younger) cat away in the spare room for the night, so that Zeppie could just enjoy some solitude and not worry about having to be engaged in games.  Now tonight, after spending all day acting normal, Zeppie is acting strange again.  We just shut Wombat away again, and Zeppie is speeding around chasing moths. 

Seems she has worked out how to get Wombat off her back.

mmm can’t sleep.

I have boughts of sleeplessness, for no apparent reasons.  Nothing too bad, I usually get at least four hours at worst, so it’s not like insomnia where there is no sleep or very very little.  So I can’t complain.

Unless I am in the midst of a sleepless night, when I can complain.  Loudly.

I am antsy tonight. 

Rang my Spanish friend in England to say happy birthday, talked to her for half an hour, miss her so much. 

Talked about other friends, some we had news to share, others are ‘missing’.  Thinking about the missing ones, wondering…

Watched TV for a while, hoping to ‘reset’ my brain.  Will and Grace didn’t do it for me.

Think I can smell my own feet, how revolting, then realise it’s the bin that needs to go out.  Probably just as revolting but I’m not going ‘out there’ in my nightie.

The later it gets the more I think about taking a sick day tomorrow.  But it’s the day of a surprise dinner for a staff member that I have organised.  And I am not sick, just sleepless. 

Read the online Guardian newspaper.  Then The Age. 

Google an old friend who really isn’t a friend any more after a falling out.  Wonder why I’m doing that, stupid.

Think about reading a book in bed, but that will just buzz my mind more.  Love the book I’m reading ‘Tender is the Night’ by F Scott Fitzgerald.  But it’s not for tonight.

Could do some ironing…

Maybe it’s time to try the sleeping again.

A fishing trip.  Away to a little fishing village on the Limestone Coast in SA.  Woo hoo.

I love fishing.  I don’t have to catch anything, I just like the peace and quiet, and the anticipation that I just might catch my dinner.  I love the seaside, it’s so much part of another world compared to the drought ridden flat land where I live.  Nothing but more of the same for miles all around.  The seaside is so changeable, with the mood of the sea, and the weather. 

And the Pea and I always seem to get on better when we are away.  Less pressure I guess.  She is bringing her bestie too.  Five days of  chillaxing.  As she would say.

So today I spent most of the day pinning and quilting.  And then unpicking.

Why can’t I quilt nicely?  Doesn’t have to be perfect, I’m really not a perfect sort of a person, but it does need to be reasonable regular in stitch length and basically near the drawn line.

I am completely pissed off.

Time to walk away, have a couple of beers with a friend or two, and look at it tomorrow.

So last week I took a train to town (as my granma would have said) to visit the Stitches and Craft Show.  Down and back in one day is a loooong trip, and  I have to admit I am only just about over it now.  It was well worth it though, I got to see the film Handmade Nation and buy the book, and I bought some lovely hand printed fabrics, and a couple of sweet patterns, as well as seeing all kinds of wonderful stuff.  The creativity of the local crafting community always humbles me, but also makes me feel so full of happiness to be part of it. 

The show was at the Showgrounds in Flemington this year.  I got a tram back through Flemington and got off at my old local main street.  Just to have a little wander.  I hadn’t been back since I left when I was pregnant with the Pea, 17 years ago.  It felt eerie to wander around and recognise some shops/pubs, but not others.  Yes, it’s changed, but it’s still the same too.  I saw our house in the distance but could feel the tears prickling so didn’t go too close. 

My life now is amazing, really wonderful, but it feels so odd to stare my old life in the face and know I’ll never go back there.  Not simply in a physical sense, but the head space as well.  Going out with the fabulous one when I was in town for that few days was part of it too,  I think.  He and I still click, we have that sense of no time having passed whenever we catch up, and yet he and I are so part of something that’s in the past. 

Quite a sentimental couple of weeks really…

This was made using vintage curtain fabric, it’s a basic sling bag and I thought it turned out quite ’70s. 

So I’ve had a few days away, a few days at work, another day away and now I’m back.

Holidayed with the marvelous Nick and his neighbour Margie, eating well, drinking too much (love that sangria), seeing sights (including yummy Eric Bana in a really good doco about his passion for his car), drinking too much (red wine in the afternoon, I ask you!), groovy music in small bars (complete with two piano accordians) and then some drinking too much (mmm, the Tullamore Dew).

So what else do you need in a little holiday?  Well, a couple of nurofen for the trip home came in handy.

I took the Pea and a friend each over to Bendigo yesterday to go and see ‘The Golden Age of Couture’, an exhibition of clothes from WWII up to the fifties at the Bendigo Art Gallery. 

It was stunning.  The work in some of the embroidered gowns was just breathtaking.  Anyone interested in design generally and fashion/dressmaking/cloth and needle would love it.

Whilst we were in Bendigo we visited the lovely Attic Crafts.  I came home with a couple of patterns, and some lovely pink, red and white co-ordinated fabric, mostly from Moda’s Candy Kisses range.  I have about three metres of fabric altogether.  There’s something about the combination of pink and red that I love.  It’s the kind of combination that traditionally I would have stayed right away from.  But these fabrics are delicious.  What to make?  I think I’d like to combine them with some embroidered panels, not strictly redwork but something like that. 

They will have to sit in ‘ideas fermenting’ pile for now…

thanks to the lovely Squib for this meme…

I love the letter L and have always been glad it’s my initial.  it’s great fun to draw an extravagant L and I don’t think any other letter has such great potential for swirls and curls.  

Lush which is what some friends call me.  as in ’she’s a lush’.  not ’she is lush’.

Licorice is something I enjoy but it gives me heartburn.

Long hot baths is that stretching the meme?  but I love them.

Leggings which I look terrible in.  too too short in the Leg department

Lottie Tuquiri I don’t know much about rugby but what I see I likey like

Lolcats I really enjoy, secretly, when no-one’s looking

Lemon tree I love my lemon tree and like to make my own cordial syrup from it’s fruit.  I’ve even been known to squeeze all the excess fruit and freeze them in ice cube trays, for lemon emergencies.

Linen I adore fine linen, meterage and bed linen.  I love stitching on linen and I love slipping between the sheets of clean fresh linen.  I make my bed every day just so that I can have that delight at the end of the day.

kd lang, Avril Lavigne, Lemonheads, Lighthouse Family and Lupe Fiasco are all the L music I have in the cabinet…yes, I like to alphabetacise.

Lollies I am an addict

Lost Lamp someone left a solar lamp on our front garden one night, we stuck it into a plant pot and it still glows every night

Leftovers are what I save until they go off in the fridge and then I throw them out

London is amazing and I so hope I’ll go back there soon to visit

Luscious is how I wish I was, in reality I think I’m just lazy a fair amount of the time…