books

I was once a voracious novel reader. Since having kids, with so many other things fighting for priority, it has gone by the wayside. Never mind. Books will always be there when I'm ready. Isn't that one of their charms? Books will always be there when you're ready.

First up, here are a few treasures from my childhood.

Norman Lindsay's best-known work was The Magic Pudding but this was my favourite. He was also a fabulous artist.

Rebecca's World was a story I disappeared into time and again. I recently learned that the author Terry Nation was an early scriptwriter for Dr Who and created the Daleks. Looking at this book now I see it has a strong environmental message, which I imagine was fairly cutting-edge for children's books of the seventies.

This collection of Oscar Wilde's children's fables is a such a tear-jerker. Really. **sob** Tragically beautiful.

I adored the Moomin stories as a girl and have since indoctrinated the whole family. My original book pictured here with a 'hattifattener' teacup collected in recent years.

And the girl grew up...

I guess I've grown out of this a little now since it's a story about the summer after finishing uni, but this is a novel I have read over and over and its impact lingers. I referred to it a while back here.

This is actually the cover of another of his books but I think the quote could equally apply to my favourite of Nicholson Baker's, The Fermata (my copy of which has disappeared on loan somewhere). It's a bit saucy.

And my copy of Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates by Tom Robbins? Also on loan (and I hope being enjoyed) who-knows-where so I'll have to make do with this excerpt written by me in chalk above our kitchen doors. It was an awkward space to decorate and it seemed like a neat temporary idea about, ah, five or six years ago. Jasper's second name is Switters, after the book's hero, but he's not allowed to read it for, ahem, quite a while. Excuse the spiderwebs.

And then there are books we use as tools. I honestly couldn't pick a favourite sewing book so I'm plumping for a work-tool that is simply genius (oracle, guru, mentor, shining light, authority, adviser, expert, teacher, guide). Mr P. M. Roget, I salute you.

And from pure words to pure images: an iPhoto book created by Jasper for Clem when he was a wee toddler.

Jasper planned out the photos and took them all on his camera. On the back cover is a photo of his list of shots.

 And here is a sample spread:

I'm sure I could go on. And on. But a more productive idea would be to go read something, wouldn't it?

- Jane x

Wakool

My next selection from the photo challenge list is 'the outside of your house'.

Anyone who has ever received an email from my personal address might have wondered what the 'wakool' part of the address is. It's the name of our house, just next to the door on our front verandah.

I mean, how freakin' cool is that? It's way cool, that's how cool. I always say it's one of the main reasons we bought the house.

The original part of our house was built around 1925. A lot of old bungalows of a similar age have names. Across the street is 'Peshawar'. Curious. Perhaps the names meant something to the builder at the time.

Wakool is the name of a district in New South Wales, and sounds like it could be of Aboriginal origin. But to us, it means home.

Sandstone is quarried in the hills that frame our city to the east. When we built our extension we incorporated some more local sandstone to echo the front of the house. It was put together by a very grumpy stonemason. Here you can see it around our 'side front door' which is now our main entrance. Our front verandah tends to be a bit of a dumping ground now and is frankly fairly unwelcoming. Friends, you can come down here.

Door from Adelaide and Rural Salvage again. I was rather delighted to visit the house of one of Jasper's friends nearby and discover their front door (original to their villa) is very similar, with a central handle almost identical. Maybe this door came from a house demolished nearby?

The next picture is a wall I am really rather fond of. It's outside our laundry and shall we say... rustic. I took to it quite some years back with a bunch of sample pots of exterior limewash from Porters Paints and no particular plan. I really like the way it has aged. Crappy-pretty.

This pot catches the rainwater runoff from our back room and the overflow goes down a pipe in the centre and into a hole-full-of-rocks to sink into the ground. In our city, built up areas channel rainwater into gutters and out to sea. It originally would have, for the most part, been absorbed by the land. In our dry climate this has badly affected the water table. Local governments has been making some positive changes: wetlands have been popping up in strategic locations to filter water and allow it to soak down. This is our small backyard contribution. Goldfish live in there to keep the mozzies from breeding.

We have solar panels on the roof. This device apparently tells us about what they're doing but I have no idea what it's saying. I'm happy though that it is meant to supply about one third of our household electricity needs.

The ole classic tyre swan on our front verandah. Background is some plants Andy christened 'uppy downy plants' since we have forgotten what they are, but they are native and were originally one small pot. Being incredibly hardy and multiplying wonderfully under extreme neglect, we have dug up and divided them and spread them all around our house and also at our community childcare centre.

Yet another of our old doors. We have a lot of doors. This is the outside view of part of a set of double doors that came from the old Advertiser Newspaper building in our city. The plywood panel covers glass that in the summer lets in too much hot sun. We need more shade sails.

 I heart succulents and corrugated iron.

The end: the pointy back of our house.

- Jane x

inside our house

The second of the photo challenge topics I'm taking on is 'inside your house'.

My first inclination is to show you all the crappy, broken bits since sometimes that's all I can see day to day. But that's not very interesting, is it. I'll get a little of that out of my system and then move on.

We intended to tile behind the laundry sink, you know, years back but there was the issue of smoothing it out where the sink meets the wall. And, uh, who ever goes in the laundry anyway apart from me? 'Temporary' (permanent) water spout fashioned by resourceful plumber out of some pipe. Old rainwater tap far right.

All the movement from our reactive clay soils meets at this point in the hallway. Nice, huh? Perhaps we could put a frame around it. Okay, moving on.

 A pretty feature of the old part of our house.

When we moved in the shed was full of all sorts of things, including several old wardrobes in this style. There's pretty much no built-in storage so we make do with these old wardrobes. They have a kind of charm and also stop us from accumulating too many clothes.

When we had the original floorboards polished, the floor in the study was too damaged by white ants to survive sanding. I took to it with filler and then Andy painted layers: first a flat black, then a couple of coats of a gold powder that had to be mixed in a medium, then a clear finishing coat. The idea was that it would wear gradually and the black would show through in patches. I did this frilly edge where it meets the 'good' floorboards. It has aged just as we hoped. Yay!

Most of the doors in our extension were from the fantastic Adelaide & Rural Salvage. These cut glass doors cast beautiful shadows in our kitchen in the late afternoon.

Our individual coloured towel system works really well to avoid arguments over whose soggy towel is on the floor.

 The piano is a battered old ex-pianola. It's a quarter tone out so unfortunately not conducive to Jasper/Charlie piano/guitar play-alongs.

If we ever built again I would absolutely, totally do polished concrete again. Best floor ever. The dirt just blends right in and when you bother to clean it, you get a glowing expanse. This used 'Brightonlite' cement and quartz aggregate from Angaston.

 Can you see my friend?

 Dust-catcher shelf above the kitchen cupboards. See my hilarious joke?

Witchard cape on Clem's cupboard.

 Blackboard paint was a much cheaper alternative to tiling in the kitchen and has worked a treat for shopping lists.

 Window of Jasper-made treasures, recently de-cluttered and dusted. Small hanging person-art from here.

Lastly, here are a couple of things I sit and look at a number of times each day. Guess which room?

(Kind of mezzanine shelf which is the top of a cupboard built into the room behind.)

I hope you have enjoyed a little peek into our home.

- Jane x

hands

I saw this 25 day photo challenge at Katie Evans Photography and thought it sounded like a bit of fun.
There's no way I'll get to every day of it (I'm already behind on day 1) but it should be some inspiration to document a bit of the 'now' in our lives.

Day 1: hands.

Me. If you want to know someone's age, look at their hands. 41 years, right there. 41 good years with useful hands though.

Charlie's hands creating. There are a few dirty fingernails about this place.

Andy calls his 'carnie hands' because they're not big, but I think they're just right. He moves them around a lot when he talks and does this funny scrunchy thing with them as he walks, to keep the blood circulating, he says. He's a nail chewer.

 Jasper-watching-telly hands.

Clem found this water balloon in his pocket this morning. It had gone through the wash but was okay. His friend from next door gave it to him at Kindy.

And here's what Charlie was making. From this book. I thought it would have appeal to the boys and I was right. I bought a second-hand copy on Amazon from a charity in NY that helps people with HIV/AIDS so I was really doing the world a favour, right?
Charlie made this entirely by himself, even matching the thread colours. I just had to gather a couple of supplies. It's not a lot bigger than my thumbnail. Look at those teeny stitches!

Hooray for hands and all they can do.

- Jane x