Happiness is...

Beautiful cold-climate flowers photographed at the Sturt Winter School at Frensham in Mittagong the other week. These are the sort of flowers I grew in the UK but can't grow in sub-tropical Coffs Harbour, so it was lovely to find them in the Frensham grounds. The garden was laid out by Edna Walling, a doyenne of garden design in Australia, and for UK garden design history buffs it was very reminiscent of the Lutyens/Jekyll style.

Sunday Sunday

I collapsed into bed at midnight last night having driven back from Murwillumbah (3 1/2 hours there, 3 1/2 hours back...) and slept for a solid 8 hours, woke briefly and then slept again until my darling husband brought in a cup of tea at 11:15am. Bliss! But it's been one of those funny days that always makes me feel a bit gloomy.


















Things I've done today: emptied and repacked the dishwasher, fed the dog, given the dog its medicine, walked the dog, cleared up dog poo, done two lots of washing and some ironing, tidied up the house, brought in the washing, emptied the airers and put everyone's clothes away, cooked dinner, put away all the debris from yesterday (I took overnight stuff with me just in case I was too tired to drive home), took my darling daughter to the last day of the Coffs Harbour Show, and introduced her to the delights of crosswords ("Mummy, what's another word for 'blemish', 21 across, 4 letters?").

Among the things I have not done today: any of the stuff on my desk (i.e. end of quarter accounts), whisked up a fantastic print, achieved world peace and an end to the military regime in Burma, read the silly lightweight thoroughly unintellectual novel I picked out at the library last week, or cleared off any of the items on my to-do list.

This translates into more household-y type activities than I would wish for and not much time for myself. It also turns me into 'Churlish Housewife', a role I'm perfecting after several years of practice. I have ignored, of course, the fact that my dearest hubby took over everything yesterday so that I could go to my print show, facilitated me having a HUGE lie-in this morning, made me tea AND fresh coffee later on, and also complemented me on my cooking, despite being in the middle of a period of frantic activity with his work and grappling with enormous technical problems with his usual great good humour.

In my defence, I humbly offer that it isn't as bad as it could have been (I didn't yell at anyone!). These days I try to limit my to-do list over the weekend and confine it to half-a-dozen things that really do need to be done, while programming in some entertainment for everyone. So really that I achieved that: I went up to the print show and had a great day out, and I had fun with my daughter at the Coffs Harbour Show today, and the rest of it is the stuff that keeps families going; it just wasn't exactly what I wanted to do.

Since sitting down for dinner with a nice glass of red wine and thinking that actually this time I didn't do a bad job with the food I've managed to cajole myself into a slightly more positive frame of mind. I think maybe I've fallen for some of my old tricks

• As soon as I got a bit down about one thing I came close to spiralling down the 'everything's wrong' slippery-dip which, as I've mentioned before, is very dangerous for me



• I began to feel as if I hadn't achieved anything



• I started piling up a mental to-do list about 5 miles long and then began to beat myself up about not achieving any of that, which as we all know is meaningless and a complete waste of time



• And - this is the big one - the main reason why I even started out on making this mess for myself is that I came back yesterday from this amazing print show feeling unequal to my self-appointed role as an artist: I was intimidated by the talent of those around me and found it hard to place my own work in context with theirs, and plumped for the easy option which is to write myself off as rubbish instead of recognising that my work is good but different

I go round the same silly circles all the time, don't I? But it's getting easier to recognise how I sabotage myself these days, and to see what I could have done this time - and perhaps will manage to do next time - to help myself.

One thing I have found very helpful has been small moments of meditation - perhaps only a couple of minutes - but they help me achieve a more balanced frame of mind. I haven't meditated at all this weekend, which may be one reason why I've been grumpier than I would have liked today. I have learned from that.


















Perhaps today has been a better day than I thought it was: I enjoyed going to the show and walking the dog. I didn't waste any of the available fun to be had with either activity by wishing I was somewhere else, and so I didn't rob my daughter of her fun, which I'm ashamed to say I have done on other occasions, so that's a small triumph too. Happiness is... watching my little girl screaming with laughter as she bounces around in a harness on very long elastic bands.

Happiness Is

Exercise, I'm convinced of it. I spent an hour this morning in the Botanic Gardens again, clenching my abdominal muscles and trying to get my head into the correct position during my Pilates class and the magpies were warbling, the Tibouchina trees are covered in purple flowers and the sky was blue. Bliss! And it was all helped along by the fact that I've discovered DEET, so the mosquitoes didn't carry me away today. I had to come home and have another shower to get the insecticide off my skin but that's a small price to pay for not having hives.

I've also been having fun binding the two pulp-printed hand-made paper books that were the product of the residency I did at Southern Cross University in January. With moving house and illness completion of my part of the project has been held back, for which I feel bad, but it's now getting there. Willis came over today to find out what he has to do to bind his two books and hopefully by the end of next week they'll be finished and ready to send up to Tim in Lismore. Photos etc of the work will appear on Double Elephant, my "art" blog.

Happiness is

Taking your kids out to dinner, especially the one who's moved out and can entertain you with tales of his flatmate's girlfriend trashing the place after a drug binge, his latest candidate for the post of girlfriend and other amusing stories! And my super-duper daughter did amazing swimming today: every term they have a 'safety in the water' lesson and as she's progressed she's done lots of different things from learning how to swim fully clothed to 'saving' each other. Today it was proved to her just how far she can swim: using a mixture of front crawl (freestyle, in Australia) and 'survival backstroke' she swam continuously for 25 minutes, which left her absolutely exhausted but still afloat. She is only 7, after all. I'm so proud of both of them




Even if the wine at the restaurant was nothing to write home about

Happiness is... making cobweb felt

There are flashes of bright colours all through this scarf







This one is a bit more muted, with tones of green and turquoise





On my quest to de-stress over the weekend I decided to get on and do some more felt-making, because I thoroughly enjoy it AND the results are going to be birthday presents for some lovely people I know (whom I sort of hope don't read this blog very often, otherwise they won't be very surprised by their impending parcels!).


Detail of the mohair and silk noile inclusions that give an irridescent quality to the material




Cobweb felt - my name for it? - is very sheer felt made by laying out gossamer-thin layers of wool and fulling the fibres very gently indeed by rolling them up in a bamboo mat and rolling them forwards and backwards hundreds of times until the fibres mat together and form felt. I've not done it before but found instructions, which I adapted to my own needs, in a book. I am really pleased with the results and in addition to that, I spent a pleasant afternoon outside in the garden making everything so I came in yesterday evening feeling as if the sea breeze had blown away the cobwebs in my head at least and that I'd thoroughly enjoyed the meditative aspects of repetitiously fulling the scarves.



This white scarf is one of the first I made and its edges are rougher






... but I love the colours against the white

Happiness is...

Having a pool party to say farewell to our swimming pool! We'll be moving closer to the beach so the plan is to have fun at the seaside instead of around the pool.



Now why didn't I photograph a champagne flute? I drank lots of champagne at the party...

Happiness is...

Happiness is unexpected presents!

I did a very small favour for some friends recently, when we were in Brisbane, and today one of them called round with a lovely handmade gift: three small notebooks covered in a painting on paper and some beautiful card, with an instruction sheet.











Just lovely. I feel very happy and very touched at the thought and effort that went into them. Thank you.

Things that make me happy

E was 7 last week and at the weekend we had a Hawaiian Hula-hula disco pool party for her at home



Fortunately no photos exist of me in the grass skirt...











All the guests were given leis, and we had a lot of fun

Happiness is...

A cocktail with friends on a Friday night at Bar Fiasco, down by the beach.

CAIPIROSKA

1 lime, chopped
3 teaspoons caster sugar
15 ml sugar syrup
ice cubes
60 ml vodka

Muddle the lime and the sugar and sugar syrup in a cocktail shaker. Add ice and vodka, shake vigorously and strain into a chilled glass. If you want a minty lime cocktail you can add mint leaves with the chopped lime and sugars and muddle them together.