Bliss

South East

And North East from our balcony.

I was up for about 10 minutes before the kids woke up this morning. This was the view. Just stunning. I totally, totally love living up high on the hill. Just gotta remember to stop and look at the view! It's an antedote to all the lurgies around here this week.

Sometimes it feels like a retreat up here, you can hardly even see the city with all the trees in front and you can't hear it.

One of my favourite things is when it's sunny but the air still has a tiny bit of a chill and the bell from the Carmelite monastery nearby is tolling. It feels like the Dordogne in France did. It does make me desperate to go there again though!

Mmmm, sausages!

Is there anything better than sausages cooked on the fire followed by a gentle walk in the bush? I love it. Three toasted marshmallow hyped girls enjoying a walk to Liffey Falls.

Rainy Days

Evening photos of the Basin at Cataract Gorge. Somewhere under here are beautiful lawns and a swimming pool. We've had a LOT of rain down here in Tassie.

Niche

Just a quick post - I know I've been a slacker with the blogging!

Today was the first day of "Niche - All wrapped up" the market in support of St Giles at the University of Tasmania Art School in Launceston. Above are a couple of photos of my stall taken by Jen (with a much lovelier camera and a much better eye for photos than me). Thank you!

I was nervous and hadn't managed to fit in a practice stall set up so just had to do it cold this morning. I was really happy with how it turned out. It needs a little tidy up in the photos but that's a good thing. It means people were looking. I had a great day and may be sold on this market thing. So exciting to chat with customers and other makers.

There are so many amazing stalls at Niche. If you're in or near Launceston do pop in tomorrow. You'll love it! I'm hoping to manage a little shopping tomorrow too!

Don't get sand in your eggs

Happy belated Easter everyone. Hope yours was as lovely as ours.

The weather was stunning. It was warm, still and sunny. Too warm for a fire at night and I had to forego my ritual marshmallow charring.

We had 4 days at Binalong Bay, 2 of them with Gemma, Duncan and Edie. We had a great time and it seems they did too! So glad! I had the best sleeps I've had in months, the best of which I'm putting down to Dunc's amazing roast beef with a huge range of veggies and even cauliflower cheese, yum, yum. I felt they were trying to build up my iron and vitamin stores - so lovely.

Chloe and Edie enjoyed each others company and froliced in the water together. Sam swam every day but one and Chloe had her first dip in the ocean. She's always been worried about waves before. We went to Beer Barrel Beach and she even ran in and out of the water by herself. My was she proud!

Lots of sandcastles were built, chocolate eggs consumed and Gemma and I even got to scour the local collectables shops. Will show a couple of pictures of my finds soon.



This is Chloe's current fashion statement. Any attempt to discuss removing the band aid required a very, very brave mother. Those Wiggles have a lot to answer for.

By the way, Gemma has a competition on now and much as I'd like to limit the entries so I have more chance of winning, you should go enter.

My laptop may have to go to hospital tomorrow. Eeek. All my photos and documents have gone off somewhere - hopefully retrievable not into the ether or, basically, I'm going to be in disaster mode.

The Good Life

If you want to be made envious of those of us lucky enough to live or holiday in the Apple Isle please go and read this. (Found via Georgia)

Living here, it's easy to get caught up in work and everyday chores and forget to take time to enjoy the place. Sam, Chloe and I recently went on a trip up to the north west coast to visit my Gran. The weather was clear, warm and sunny and I found myself incredibly frustrated that we had such a limited time. We've realised that we've stopped going away on the weekends. Part of the reason is that we have such lovely friends here in Launceston and more of a social life here than we used to. I have to admit, thought, that it's also a touch of laziness, tiredness and just that we've let the busy life take over. We have a lot going on at the moment (hopefully some news soon!)

I can't see having a newborn making this any easier but we will try to get a few trips in before the babe comes along. Starting this weekend with a trip to the shack as I mentioned in a previous post.

6x6

OK, I've been dragging the chain a bit on this. I was tagged for 6 x 6 by Jo from Rousabout and Kali from Poppy Lane. This means I have to show and tell the 6th photo from my 6th folder. Hmm, problem. My 6th folder only has two photos so how about the 2nd photo from the 6th folder.

This is a silk wall hanging I bought from an antique shop in New Norfolk. All I know about it is that it came from the collection of a woman who travelled a lot and brought home lots of goodies. I love the colours in it - which aren't great in this photo. In fact this proves that my camera skills have at least improved a bit. I bought it while I was pregnant with Chloe and the pathetic thing I have to admit is that I still haven't hung it up.

I'm not going to tag anyone because I'm so far behind with this I'm sure almost everyone has done it. If you feel like joining in though, please do, and let me know so I can check out your photos.

Warmth and Water

We're having some warm weather at last. Chloe has really been enjoying paddling. We are lucky to have a great, free, outdoor pool in our town. It's at Cataract Gorge and is next to a river surrounded by parkland and bushland. A lovely place to spend some time with the little one.

That is me pre-haircut. Thankfully it's much better now.

This is what we do on car free days. The pool is just a bit too far to walk to so we get the paddling pool out on the deck. And don't worry, we reuse all the water for our plants in the evening.

This is a belt I made for a friend. I'm really happy with how it turned out and luckily she likes it too. The fabric is from the American Jane Wee Play range and is one of my favourites.

I've been beavering away at the sewing machine with a bunch of orders today. It was very satisfying to get a big chunk of work done as I've been feeling pretty lethargic lately.

Anniversary

Wednesday was our 3rd wedding anniversary (it did take us quite a while to get around to getting married) and Sam surprised me with deep red roses and dinner out. I didn't find out until my parents turned up to babysit. We went to the Gorge Restaurant in Launceston. It's been an age since we last went out, just the two of us. Lovely!

Edited to add: You may recognise the beach from all the news coverage in the last two days. Scarey!

Bring on some more holidays! Please!

Christmas morning was bright and sunny and we had a lovely breakfast and opened our pressies at home - you can see the joy of discovering presents on Chloe's face - before heading to my mother-in-law's shack at Binalong Bay on the east coast of Tasmania on Christmas Day.

The weather wasn't so good on the East coast but we had a great time with Nana, Poppy, Uncle Robba and various cousins of Sam's and their family. Aunties Gen and Pip and Chloe's only cousin (so far) came for a few days later. There wasn't much beach weather but Chloe had a wonderful time playing with her friend Maya and cousin Hamish and getting to know all her relatives better. Unfortunately we don't get to see them as much as I'd like.

I'm ashamed to admit we only made it to about 10pm on New Years Eve. Pretty lame but we did have a good night with friend Bec, Ross and Maya. The girls played chasings and giggled hysterically until poor Maya clocked her head on the wooden sofa you can see above. Not good!

We had brekkie at Angasi (scene of our wedding reception) on New Year's Day and then I spent the day working on a big order only to find out on Friday that the post office was closed!

Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year too.

This is...what I'm surprised I like.

Launceston Dusk,
originally uploaded by Senrab4.

Living in Launceston.

I went to high school in a town in north west Tasmania and thought Launceston was a 'hole' (sorry Launnie readers!) I avoided any uni courses that might have me end up here.

So what happened? After uni and work for a year in Hobart I went to Western Australia for 3-4 years with my own personal geologist. We missed the Tassie bushwalking and the bush, left WA and went overseas for a year before returning to Tassie.

Getting work to suit your degree isn't that easy here and we were prepared to wait for a while and move back to the mainland if necessary. I worked in a deli for a while and Sam landed a job in baggae handling at the airport (really a great little job!). Then things worked out careerwise for both of us at almost the same time and both in or near Launceston. I still feel lucky because our careers had kept us in different towns in WA.

So, it took a little while, but I'm now completely over my previous predjudice and love living here. It's big enough but not too big, close to so many great places and we have some really wonderful friends here. There are a few top class restaurants (not that I get to eat out anymore) and a few great shops (not that I have any money post-holiday). There are beautiful parks that feed my need to see the greeness of European trees every now and then, there's a great new handmade chocolate shop and a wonderful patisserie. What more could you ask for? It's a great place to live!

Thanks three buttons for hosting and Earl and Cookie for the theme. It took me a while to decide what to write about!

I got to sleep in!

Don't forget to enter the hair tie giveaway below!




Sam and I spent our first night away from Chloe on Saturday. I must admit I felt very strange to be without her. We didn't go far. Just to a historic farmstead called Brickendon about half an hour (or less) away. We had a tiny one bedroom cottage with an open fire, we made ourselves a picnic for dinner and drank merlot in front of the fire then slept in until 9.30. Ah, remember the days when a 9.30 rise was fairly normal for the weekend!

Chloe had a great time with her grandparents but was very unhappy after we returned. She cried and cried and didn't want anybody near her but me. I felt terrible about how vulnerable she must have been feeling.

We went to see Playschool live this morning and Chloe was so, so excited it was amazing. I've never seen her like it before. She still wanted to be on me the whole time and I'm exhausted. I was pummelled, trodden on, shoved and bashed for the entire hour. Crazy. Nice to see her so happy though. She said "happy, happy, happy."

Spotted...

...in Hobart this weekend. Some kind soul has knitted some legwarmers for the Antarctic explorer. He may be Mawson - I'm afraid I've forgotten. It was very cold, I'm sure he needed them.

The sculptor is a good friend of mines father, Stephen Walker.

Off to the coast

We made a spur of the moment decision to go to the north coast for the weekend. We went for long walks on the beach, swam in the pool (indoor and heated of course!) and ate lots of nice food. It was nice to get away - that's the only way I can manage to stay off Etsy (it's addictive you know) - and just spend some time relaxing and playing together.


The only bit of work I did was a very, very quick photoshoot with Chloe. These are some of the results. Makes it hard to see the clothes!


What a cutie! And she's working the camera - true model material! She's been wearing that necklace non-stop for about 72 hours now. As soon as I take it off for bed she whips it back on again.

Winter in the park

I'm not exaggerating when I say that of all the photos taken of me since Chloe's birth there have been about 3 that I haven't been horrified by. This one is OK so I thought I'd post it - 3 decent photos in 18 months doesn't make for many chances!

This is Chloe and I at one of the local parks. I'm desperately trying to make a reluctant Chloe hold my hand so she doesn't end up in with the goldfish.

Chloe was actually jumping off the step which was another little milestone.

In shop news, I've put some teeny, tiny, little birdie hair ties up. Perfect for little girls pony or pig tails. I'm excited you see - I managed to get Chloe's hair into a little pony tail for the first time. She looked so sweet and was very proud.

Of trees and lurgies

I've been busy, with a burst of orders and a bunch of clothes going off to Evie Lala, sewing machine problems and a poor, sickly daughter. She is on the mend but has had her first illness other than colds. She had an ear infection and a bit of bronchitis and had to have her first antibiotics. Luckily she loves taking medicine and says me me me me and then more more more.

I have a terrible cold now too and, in a strange way, I've really valued the time Chloe and I have spent cuddled up and feeling nasty. It has made me stop worrying about trying to get things done and just be happy to snuggle up with her. I think 'I must do this more when we are well' but then remember that Chloe won't keep still for more than a couple of seconds for cuddles!

One of the things I most like about where we live is the parks. They have a lot of European trees and I can't help but be moved by them. They remind me of my childhood and the time before my eye took on the ability to see beauty in the grey green of Tasmania's native forests. There is something about the lush green and the deep, cool shade underneath on a hot summer's day that I wouldn't like to be without. I know these trees are so inappropriate for our climate, especially in drought years like this, but I do love them.

It occurred to me that they're is one benefit to having them here than the ones in Scottish places of my childhood. That is the fact that the fallen leaves are dry and great for kicking, running in and playing. I love the crackling noise of shuffling through the leaves and I remember being disappointed in Scotland when it had rained and the leaves were a sodden, heavy pile.

The photos were taken a couple of weekends ago before the colds set in.

Relaxing

We've had a nice day with friends, chatting, playing, eating. Very gentle and relaxed. Sam made a beautiful tarte tatin. I'm eternally happy to have a hubbie who cooks, and, not just that, isn't afraid to try new recipes. Today was his first attempt at pastry and it was a great success.

No photos - so instead - two gratuitous shots of the beautiful island we live in. These photos are both taken at Freycinet Peninsula on Tasmania's east coast on a peaceful weekend we spent pre Chloe. We must return soon.

Where we live.

BLOGWARMING is still on 15 % off your order on Etsy or Madeit if you mention this blog!

Just thought I'd put up a photo or two of the beautiful state we live in. For those of you who may not know, it's Tasmania, the island at the south of Australia. We are very lucky to have a lot of wilderness areas still and my little family loves to get out in the bush whenever we can.

We managed to do our first overnight walk with Chloe back at Easter. It's a while ago I know but it gives me an excuse to put up some photos of Tassie. I carried Chloe (who is getting a bit too heavy!) and Sam carried most of the camping gear. It wasn't easy but we made it! The weather was perfect and the scenery stunning.