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I can't stop rearranging furniture. Right now, my apartment is divided up into zones. Pretty and neat? Yep, that's the living room and kitchen. Okay? That's the bedroom. Disaster? That's J's office.

Did an Ikea trip and finally found all of those things that I never knew I needed. Special white jars with wooden lids for teabags and everything? Definitely. Approximately sixty dollars on cacti alone? Certainly. Blissful new sheepskin that is ostensibly for decoration but really a replacement for the one that I refused to part with and that remained with me from cot to first apartment? Sure. Whatever, the house is looking excellent.

This new quilt cover changed the entire bedroom. The previous black and grey geometric cover was very dark and really drew the eye. New black and white quilt cover is wonderful. The crystals and that cacti moved out into the living room before long. 

Hello, friends. 

Oh, what? That? That solid maple midcentury extendable table, you mean? Right. That one that I found on the side of the road? Just checking. It weighs a ton, it's in almost perfect original condition (save a few superficial scratches on one edge and a terrible attempt by a previous owner to add a black ombré detail to the edge. Why did you do that?). I was driving past on my way to an op shop when I spotted my new table friend upended on the footpath. My neighbourhood has been doing the footpath collections lately. After screeching to a halt and determining that yes, it is solid wood and yes, it is in almost perfect original condition I waited around for almost twenty minutes to see if anyone was coming back to claim it. Nope. Nothing. It was mine. Thanks to the toolbox in my car, the legs came off and fit in the car. The top didn't. Heartbroken wasn't even the word.

Then the guy in the ute pulled up. After making polite conversation (he was doing a talk at the church building next door) he offered to drive the table top to my house. And he did, as soon as he was done with his talk. Stranger danger? What? I wanted that table. I got that table.  And we all lived happily ever after and only complained about American thrifters always finding incredible things very quietly every few days.

Bliss.

Spring beauty

Spring snuck up on me this year. Every day is slightly warmer. The city is hazy and beautiful and there are unfurling feathers of new growth and ripening flowers everywhere. It feels as thought the entire city has been fleetingly carpeted with soft purple. I can't walk under a jacaranda tree without craning my neck upwards in the hope that I'll catch even one tiny, down-soft flower. The fallen flowers bruise quickly, and I always feel like the tree is trying to hide the brown petals with another layer of purple as soon as it can. They're my favourites. It may be warming up, but this sub-tropical city is a nature baby's dream in spring. 

They're worth the wait, honestly. 

I even bought my own bougainvillea plant. He sits by the front door and is beautiful and cheerful whenever I get home. 

As a florist, living here and travelling out to the farm promises a seemingly never ending supply of incredible colours, textures and scents. One has cacti and almost tropical forests and the other, temperate classics. I went completely mental over a wisteria vine. I've never smelt anything so good. 

Except, maybe, for the Toowoomba Flower Festival. Toowoomba is a very, very pretty town. This visit was almost like walking through paintings. Part of the joy of flowers comes from a love of pure naturalness, I think. There's no hatred within a flower. They're an embrace for the eye and a balm for the heart.

Beautiful curiosities.

This is the perfect time of year. For anything. Especially fresh starts. Does your city wake up in Spring?

Holidays

Lots of things happened in two months.

Like beach holidays. Mid-winter beach holidays. Mid-winter beach and thrifting-at-lovely-country-villages holidays. Wait, what? That's right. I live in Queensland. There is no such thing as winter at the beach in Queensland.

Currumbin aka case in point.

Mooball, the greatest town name on earth.

No big deal, really. Just visited shops stocked completely by my dreams... And giant seventies pottery lamps in electric cobalt. 

I changed the sideboard around again. And again and again and again and hey, look! More cacti in the bedroom!

And there was a frost in Brisbane. Actual frost. On my car. We figured out what it was eventually, after sitting in the car for five minutes, wondering why the window wipers weren't doing anything and also why the glass looked "really weird." It was ice! Outside a freezer!

I also bought a bunch of radishes because I really wanted to cut heart shapes in them.

We're not allowed pets in the apartment but we've 'adopted' a blue-tongue lizard that lives under our porch. He sunbakes all the time. He's Lizard Friend. He lets me sit on the stairs next to him sometimes. 

I painted a few things. And dreamt about studying fine arts. 

I sat in the sun and looked at the sky a lot. I also drank a lot of tea.

I also remembered that the kitchen wasn't just a place to store leftover takeaway. 

Best of all, I was asked to be godmother to a cherished friend's youngest little lady. I adore this tiny, roly poly girl and can't wait to watch her grow. As a person raised by a Buddhist mother and an atheist father, it's uncharted territory for me, but all very exciting. And such an honour. And, y'know, babies!

Breakfast, fast.

I had planned to go to the markets today with a beautiful friend and her perfect little blonde nugget of a baby girl. I planned it.

Well, I also forgot my wallet and then I had to go home to get it and then I was really late and then I am the worst, really, so J and I ended up turning around and going to breakfast. We went across town for breakfast. (I'm not used to the southside. Living over there, even if it was only for a few months, made me feel like I had moved cities). Despite my complete, utter glee at moving back 'home' to the inner north-west, I really miss Lady Marmalade. I really miss it a lot. I would revisit the southside solely for their coffee.

He's all "nyah-nyah, you still drive to the southside just for me". 

I love going there with J. I love the coffee and I love the food and I love the staff. I also really love the animal table numbers, especially Mr Licky Giraffe. It was the best breakfast today. Baked eggs and date with boyfriend? Excellent. What? Did I take a photo of the eggs? I didn't have time to, honestly. I was halfway through the dish before I remembered to take a breath.

Licky licky licky. 

The giraffe was fantastic, okay? And just so licky.

I also put up some of my op shop finds from the holiday. Strange String Thing is just right for the space next to Thoughtful Man's head. That space has housed several not-quite-right pieces since we moved in, and don't you just know that now I'll find six million billion other great things to put there? Don't worry, though, Strange String Thing. You're pretty great.

Nuggety.

I also made another nugget necklace. Oh, sure. The colours look a little bit muted in this photo. Sure they do. My dreams of having necklaces full of pastel nuggets were ruined by the fact that the white (pictured here living a lie of whiteness) is actually not white. It is actually glow-in-the-dark. As I opened the oven door and saw it glowing neon I thought my oven was going all small-scale Chernobyl on me. When I realised the other once-pastel beads were their almost blindingly bright original shades, I realised what must have happened. And it obviously has nothing to do with me not checking price tags. What are you even talking about that is not possible obviously. 

They see me strollin'

I went to the Botanic Gardens yesterday. I remember my father taking my younger sister and I there almost every weekend. It was about three streets from our house. And it was free. And my mother the nurse usually worked night duty on Friday and Saturday nights and needed to sleep.

I remember my father taking us through all of the different areas; the lake with the ducks (and terrifying eels), the arid area full of cacti, the place where camellia grew in soft areas of dappled light, the tropical dome. I loved it. I only remember my mother being there once; we walked through the tropical dome. It was also a butterfly house then. I remember turning around to see that my mother had paused, and butterflies were slowly starting to land on her, and the pram with my sister. I froze, and they eventually floated onto me, too.

Now trees are taller and I ended up growing up into a florist. That's pretty perfect.

I can still see all of the old, seventies structures behind the plants. So much of my childhood had heavy, brutal cement walls as a backdrop (I'm also looking at you, Queensland Museum) I can't look at them with anything other than loving, loyal fondness. 

Inspired. 

Holidays

Visited the farm last weekend. It was so cold*.  Five days of cold. Five days of falling leaves. Five days of Dad jokes**. Five days of having the dog follow me around like a shadow. Brilliant, really.

(*Which was great, obviously) (** Also kind of great).

I drove through Toowoomba, this time, instead of zooming down through Warwick. I took my sweet time. I even went op shopping in Toowoomba. I say that like I hadn't already mapped out their exact locations and worked out the most efficient way to use the traffic flows to optimise my foraging time. Give me efficiency or give me death several backup plans. 

Lifeline

The Lifeline I went to first was pretty great. I picked up so many things. I even bought some geometricy,  Aztecy mustard and cream place mats that I was really excited about that now I can't find in my suitcase. Disaster. I found myself putting most things back, though, rather than buying everything I could reach.

Well, everything apart from old, handmade pottery. I didn't have a huge amount of luck until I went to Vinnies and then it was all MAGIC INCREDIBLE POTTERY HEAVEN. I picked up everything. For five whole dollars. It was great. I also got some interesting petrified wood and some books but haha, I just called petrified wood 'interesting'.

Hello, misshapen scratchy darlings.

The farm was very relaxing and filled with birds. And trees. And wood smoke. And frost. And sweet little dogs. And Patsy Cline and Marianne Faithfull and discussions about the importance of Electric Light Orchestra as a sociocultural marker*. (*obviously very important)

And did I mention the sweet little dog?

Frosty.

The trees were spectacular. The poplars were mostly bald but the plums, the liquidambars and the pistachios were all garbed in the most amazing warm shades of golden yellow to deep plum brown. I love being able to see clear seasons throughout the Southern Downs. Watching rich veins of shimmering oranges and reds move against with sky with the wind was hypnotic, almost. The sky was the most perfect crown of rich blue with puffs of white clouds skating past. I don't see that on the coast. It's green or it's grey or it's bleached pale here.

It was great. I'm now wondering about how I am going to incorporate my cacti obsession into a cold climate, deciduous garden. And my largely MCM collection of furniture into a Federation style red brick bungalow in Tenterfield. It'll be fine, right?

Totally. 

Cabin fever.

Even Smudge the cat is hiding from the weather. Sleeping? What? Shut up.

It has been the most despicably rainy weekend. Autumn and winter are by far my favourite seasons. Normally, this is a time of fantastic crispness borne of from winds that (finally) chase away the awful humidity and heavy clouds that haunt the city for, oh, most of the year. Raininess feels oppressive and heavy and nothing like the fast moving clearness that is the best part of these seasons. Ugh, summer. You have far outstayed your welcome. You witch.

I've been stuck inside, hiding from the dementors the rain and general cantankerousness of the clouds, and it pretty much means that I have been doing some strange sort of nesting. I've been buying plants. 

... Lots of plants. 

Just going to stretch a perfect little leg out of this here bowl, 'kay?

Look at you, you bowl of architectural spiky perfection. I've gone a little bit mental for cacti recently. It's probably because they are just so welcoming and friendly looking am I right you guys. After years of being a florist and a rose specialist, I'm really excited to be surrounded by an entirely different kind of spiky fabulousness. My recent, somewhat brutal, phase of everything must be pared back and minimal and bold and graphic and in all probability either black, mustard, white, grey or brown is showing no sign of letting up and I love it. I feel a lot calmer when I have less visible stuff.

Honestly, that bowl of cacti and the credenza are my two favourite things right now and the bowl (so simple! such lovely clean lines!) is sitting on the credenza and I just love it so much because it's so perfect and they could almost be best friends or something.

I even have a little baby cactus in a glass next to my bed. I've got so many in the house now I'm worried that they'll mutiny. It'll be something like waking up every morning and having baby cactus an inch closer to my face and then BAM. 

Also, that lump of citrine makes me so happy. Apparently, or so the rock shop lady told me, citrine is superheated amethyst. My younger sister loved amethyst when she was a little girl, and I love it solely for that reason. Not being a cool-toned colour fan, I love that there is something that is the same but different and also my favourite colour. 

It's not just plants, though. Nothing is safe from my weather-enforced nesting. I bought these ridiculous moccasin-type shoes and the black thread that held of the shoe together broke. On the first wear. I mean, I'm pretty used to this stuff. Ladies with size twelve feet, do you hear me? You totally do. Even so, this irked me. I patched them back together with some bold orange ribbon because I felt like putting my feet in the naughty corner. The naughty neon corner. That'll sure teach 'em. Ridiculous.