Hooray!

I found the camera cord. Such joy!

This is the cane setting I am currently finding the covers for. Any ideas are welcome. The problem is you could do just about anything - and when I say 'problem' I'm using the term loosely. I realise this is not a life or death situation.

After all the rain the garden is growing like a weed.

Our retro topiaries, doing very nicely thank you.

We planted star jasmine to grow over the arbour. The man at the nursery called it a weed and in fact it grows like one.

This is the star jasmine we left Honey the puppy in charge of. Not doing so well.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. I get fed the same line every year; 'No I didn't get you flowers, every day is Valentine's Day for us'. I got my husband a card, and the girls gave us each a paper Valentine. I wrote them each a note and popped it in their lunch boxes, in part to make up for me channeling Joan Crawford this morning before they went to school.

I don't usually read autobiographies, but I've been reading this lately for some reason (I have no idea why it is insisting on sitting sideways). I wish I hadn't started, it's giving me the heebie jeebies. Autobiographies tend to build their subjects into supernatural characters, which is annoying. And if she really was as perfect as she's portrayed in the book, well, that's even more annoying.

My bedside table doth overflow with books to read. The Love Machine is actually by the same author as Valley of the Dolls in case you're thinking it might be something else. I love a good mid-century melodrama.

Dad recently gave me this lamp. It's made of pottery, but is a dead ringer for brass.

I've been continuing my decorating research for ideas for downstairs, which we expect to start later this year.
While I'm a bit unsure about what I want, I am very certain about what I don't want. This, for example, would drive me crazy.

This is more my speed, it's a shame my budget can't keep up.

No, it's not too much.

I have a feeling this is Ralph Lauren's house, but of course, I haven't kept a record of my source.

Love a good chevron tiled floor.

This is Lee Radziwill's house. Lee is Jackie O's younger sister.

She's a 'good sort', especially considering she's now nearly 80, pictured below.

This is her house. Look, she has a peacock too although I think that's where the similarities finish.

Cheerio!

Pretty pictures

I have just purchased a gigantic white cane lounge setting to go in our living room. We won't land it there though until I have revamped the seat covers.
This is the room it is going in.

The room was a later addition to the house around the Great Depression. It is an original indoor/outdoor room, and essentially a built in verandah. The concertina doors on the left hand side go out to the pool and the verandah has yellow and white awnings, which are very visible from inside this room.
Yellow is not a very forgiving colour. I really only like it with white, black or grey. I detest blue and yellow together, I'm working more toward a yellow/turquoise combo?
I'm thinking of grey linen covers with bit of turquoise here and there, namely in Perrier the stuffed peacock who will go in this room also?
I haven't done any research on line for a long time. I found some very pretty pictures, most of which are unrelated to this room, but I thought you may be interested to see?
These photos below are from our mate Stuart Membery. They're very beautiful, but not really my thing - too much blue, too close to the yellow.

I also found these lovely ideas.

This is The Ivy in Sydney. That's a gorgeous acid yellow.

Love this blue.

I think this kitchen is beautiful.

That's all.

Little Moreton House

Thank god I don't have Foxtel. I am distracted enough with the home and cooking shows on free to air. I was watching Restoration House last week when Little Moreton Hall was shown as an example of a black and white half timbered Tudor manor house.
Can you believe this place? It doesn't look real. I thought you may be interested in seeing it too. Has anyone visited it? You can read more about it here, it dates from 1504 and is sometimes called Old Moreton Hall.

On another matter, I was talking to a friend this morning and she was telling me about a seminar she is going to soon. It's all about how to get a job these days using social media and how to get recruiters to notice you in a sea of 500 applications. I thought it sounded pretty nifty. Remember when you read the job ads in the paper. You typed up your letter and posted it off with a copy of your resume? It seems things have changed somewhat from that. As a public service I've put a link to the details here for anyone who is interested. I know there are a lot of people out of work at the moment and many others expecting to be any day now.
It's not really surprising. Where have all the people gone? I parked in the city during Christmas. I parked for 46 minutes and lined up to pay a machine $44. Surely at that rate the carpark owners could provide a human to take my money?
Remember when there was a person at the petrol pump to put the petrol in your car? Now it costs $80 to fill the tank and you have to do it yourself. There used to a rubbish man to drive the truck and two others hanging off the back to empty the bins. Now there is just the one in an automated truck.
Where are all these people? What are they doing now? Let's just say it's a worrying trend and it doesn't make sense.
Now let's look move on to something cheerier. Here's a picture of Don to cheer us up. I've seen season 5 finally. I know I don't generally come across as an optimist, but I just know that Don and Betty will get back together again soon. I'm serious.

Old men, giant flamingos and retrenched Christmas fairies

Happy new year (albeit belated)! I absolutely did not mean for so much time to slip by between posts, not that I imagine many people were on the edge of their seats waiting for me to utter my next word. The universe was against me in everyway; unexpected disasters, Blogger issues, photo uploading problems, a misplaced camera cord, unreliable internet connections, and so on.
We had a busy end of year, as everyone does, and then my (soon to be) 82 year old father became incapacitated, then hospitalised. Hands up anyone who has experienced the joy of transitioning an elderly parent from their own home to a nursing home (although we're constantly battling to use other names for it).
For the past week he has been trialling a lovely 'ah hm' at Clayfield. It's beautiful, heritage listed, all meals are made from scratch on the premises, it has beautiful gardens, air conditioning, it's close to everything, it has lots of common areas and easy accessability of course.

But guess what! He hates it, it's full of old people! This ageing parent business isn't easy on anyone, least of all the baby of the family. Poor me. So now he's back off to his own house to battle along a bit longer, then I imagine we'll start the whole process again.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I finally managed to get my hands on some giant flamingos. My Era buddy has a pair which I've coveted and I now I have my very own. With the stuffed peacock and now the flamingos the living area has taken on a rather 'camp' tone, which I don't mind a bit.

I also got these two brass goblet-ty things at the Salvos, tarted them up with some white paint and popped in some succulents. Yes I know a monkey could have done it, but I was still chuffed with the result.

Here is some more of my handy work. I acquired these two cane chairs, also from the Salvos. Then I whipped out the Janome and made some new covers for them. It made for a highly productive Friday night, and as it turns out, they are the most comfortable chairs ever put on the face of the earth.

This is a bonsai Fig I found in my father's garden. He said it's about 30 or 40 years old. We love it. It also had a mate, but after Peaches jazzed it up with a swing and a slippery dip it strangely passed on to the big garden in the sky. Considering it had sat happily unattended in Dad's garden for a few years it was a rather insulting gesture to turn its toes up only weeks after coming to living with us. Good riddance I say.

The girls have taken to calling regular trees 'big bonsais', which I suppose technically they are.

While we're on the subject of show and tell, this was one of my Christmas presents. I squeezed myself into it and wore it on Christmas Day. It gave the effect of a giant Christmas fairy, who had somewhat let herself go.

The stonework out in the garden is now pretty much complete and is just waiting for its plants.

She's coming along the old girl, slowly but surely.

The magic of mid-century furniture

May I just kick off with a quick plug for Era Home & Vintage? Have a look at this absolutely fabulous mid-century, spun fibreglass setting. Just imagine that in your pool house or on the verandah. Those cushions and covers are special uv fabric too you know, so they won't fade or go mouldy like normal fabric. This setting is destined for our store at the Woollongabba Antique Centre, as soon as space permits.

This beauty is in the shop right now this very moment - pop over to Woolloongabba Antiques and check it out in real life. We've chosen cheery yellow, being the colour of the century and all. That turquoise smudge on the floor, in case you're wondering, happens to be a Moroccan handmade, camel skin pouf.

Whilst fossicking for things for the shop I came upon the perfect setting for our verandah.

Isn't she gorgeous. I just couldn't let it go...and from another angle....

...bit closer up....

Look at the surprise on the table top. I've put coloured fabric under the glass, which I can change daily should I wish to (I don't of course). The shell doiley is very old and used to belong to my grandmother, Ellen. The geranium is called Big Red and it was a gift from my mother, thus far there are no issues with keeping it alive.

You know what I'm doing, you're probably doing it too even if you aren't aware? I'm cocooning. This term was coined by the New York based 'futurist' Faith Popcorn years ago. Faith isn't a wacky psychic, she predicts social trends before they happen, based on her observations. You can read her trends here.
Cocooning has become big business. It's basically fitting out your home so you don't need to venture into the big bad world.
It manifests itself in the form of coffee machines in domestic kitchens, 'resort style' pools, industrial sized washing machines/dishwashers/fridges, wine cellars and cold rooms, games rooms, 'parents retreats', media rooms. Do any of those sound familiar?
Large companies employ Faith as part of their product and service development. I believe she was the person who advised McDonalds on the upcoming trend of eating breakfast out of the home, hence they introduced their breakfast menu.
Anyway, if you find social trends interesting, you may get a kick out of reading Faith's website.
I have been cocooning like crazy because the compound was infiltrated last Tuesday night. That's right. Demons entered our private property and broke into our cars, as they apparently did six other properties around Red Hill and Paddington. I spent Wednesday morning driving around collecting my husband's work papers, which had obviously been flung out a car window at intervals as someone rummaged through his briefcase.
Well we will not be foiled again! Enter Savage Guard Dog.

She is meant to be a pure bred red cattle dog, she's not. She is supposedly toilet trained, I assure you she is neither that.
Although, she is pretty, smart and affectionate, and has fitted in perfectly. She goes by the name Honey, because she is both honey coloured and a honey bunny.

Speaking of happy things, our little friend the kookaburra came back to visit, this time with spouse in tow - see on the branch in the background.

I assume he came back to be hand fed worms again, just like Cleopatra eating her peeled grapes.

Is the kookaburra the most adorable animal on earth?

If you're looking for inspiration for the garden, visit the Roma Street Parklands, which is looking a treat.

 I love a good hedge...

...and a pond.

 May you never grow so old that you stop eating your Cheezels like this!