Friday on my mind.

Usually I'm pretty chilled about individual days of the week, probably because I work for myself.  I used to have a problem with Mondays but not so much anymore, we've come to co-exist without incident. 

But today, dear Friday has arrived and it's the winter solstice.  And, for some reason, I'm particularly excited about this one.  

It's winter and I dearly love the rain so this season always makes me a bit nutty (in a good way).  But in Melbourne the sun seems to be peeping through the clouds today...golly golly! 

And it's my darling friend Floozie's birthday party this evening.  Who doesn't like a party?  This kid sure loves a party, I wish I could wear mixed stripes and rollerskates to the party.  Actually...

I think I might do some gardening and tend to my worm farm over the next couple of days.  I'm also going to try and sleep in, swim some laps, read the new Kinfolk mag.  I might watch a vintage movie and rearrange my collection of ceramics on the top of my piano.  Winter has also inspired me to dress like a loon so some at-home fashion parades will be just the ticket.  And soup, there shall be soup!

I'm going to have a brilliant weekend.  You try to as well, ok?

A few recent loves...

Leunig muses about happiness on ABC Radio National.
The incomparable Joni Mitchell chatted with CBC Canada

I remembered this beautiful track by cuties The Honey Trees this morning, it's so darn lovely. 

Stormy weather.

Hello lovers.  I've been thinking about you.

I've been thinking of this space.  So often. About how and why I have left it for so long.  It has been strange and I can't tell you how happy I am to be tapping on the keys and watching these words come to life.

How are you?

Oh, where to begin.  With whatever feels right, right?

Well, tonight the skies over Melbourne are purging.  They have literally just opened their arms and gone for it.  It is bucketing down.  I'm sitting at my dining table with very tired eyes but a beautifully happy mind.

I went to the most extraordinary concert tonight - a dear friend from an old life has become this remarkable singing healer. In a nutshell it involved lying on yoga mats for two hours drifting in and out of consciousness while someone I adore sang the most incredible tribal and Indigenous music.  It was extraordinary.  Very primal and very stunning.

When I emerged, far more tiny-yet-more-put-together than when I went in, I discovered it was wet.  Seriously wet. But, one challenging car ride later, I'm home; about to be tucked up in my cosy bed and hopefully dreaming sweet dreams.

I love the rain.  And I love adventures on Melbourne's streets.  Tonight brought both in their finest form.  And so I've come back to you.

I'm a hugely private person and a highly introverted processor of thoughts. And I've been mulling this need for blogging over in my mind for the past few days after a great conversation with dear friends over winter wines and mushroom croquettes.

Our online lives often become little slices of our real personas and so many of us only show our best possible side, untagging unflattering photos and carefully constructing a character who is forever content and breezily nonchalant.  I've been thinking of that a bit since and I've realised that while I retreat when shit is going down but I also find that I come to online spaces when I want to share something quite deep and real, whether it's a link or a thought or a funny picture; there's a meaning to it.

And I specifically come to this space with a quiet yet full mind.  And I've come to enjoy the chance to purge a little, like Melbourne's skies.  Not with any desire for feedback or attention but just as a comfort, as a processing ritual.  I never know whether anyone really reads it - it could be just people searching for hot shots of Lou Doillon (hey, she's smokin').

Even if you really are a human reading these messy words, it's still kind of anonymous.  And, just maybe, one of you is feeling the same thing at the same time.  How lovely.

I like it.  And I've missed it.  I'll be back more often, I promise.

In other news I've been listening to a Sydney muso quite a bit on my sabbatical.  His name is Oscar Lush.  I thought you may like to discover his beauty as well.

Above image by James Thomas.

Beginning, For the Second Time.

University College, Melbourne University

I first moved to Melbourne in February 2001 as a wide-eyed country girl ready to take on the big city. I had just celebrated my 18th birthday the month before.

I lived on campus at Melbourne University (just to the north of the city centre) for two years and then in the four years that followed I mostly lived within a couple of kilometres of that first site. That was until the bright lights of bigger cities called my name.

A couple of weeks ago I moved into my very own pad in Brunswick and I now drive/walk/tram past my old college stomping ground on a daily basis. In oh-so-many ways it feels like yesterday, as if the past ten years hadn't even occurred. But then, of course, at the same time it feels like forever ago. As, indeed, it was.

Although so many of my biggest and most cherished memories of these past (hugely important) years have been set in Sydney and L.A., Melbourne's streets still remember my stories.

It's always funny isn't it when you move house and then you realise you used to party at the bar around the corner, or once parked down the road or shopped at the bakery across the street? At the time you'd never imagined that you could be living just around the bend one day. In my new-old neighbourhood memories are evident on every corner.

I see a muddy, mouthy girl traipsing through the park after a college sporting match; an overexcited teen, bouncing at the gate of a college across the road for her leggy best friend to claim her birthday present; a desperately sad early-twenty-something lugging bags into a friend's sharehouse after a messy breakup (twice); and - in the depths of my memory bank - a very small child peering out the windows of the car that wound its way through the northern streets for special city weekends.

And so, here I go again. I'm back in Melbourne. I'm back at the beginning. Ready to make some new memories.

It's so darn exciting.

These City Streets.

I went wandering tonight. As I left the house I thought I'd walk until a tram came along. But then I just kept walking. Along main streets and side streets and into the maze of the city.

I was wearing 'Red', my new cape that has quickly become my favourite winter friend. Perhaps it was being engulfed in her special world while walking along Melbourne's blustery winter streets that did it but there was something in the air tonight.

And so I walked. And thought. And looked up at the lit windows of office blocks and loft apartments. Wondering who was working late and cooking dinner and fighting with their lover. Who was crying and who was laughing.

After a brief city meeting I somehow found myself in the same situation homeward bound. The tram was going to take a while so I figured I'd just walk a block. But then I just kept walking.

I walked past small restaurants lit low with candles or morning-sunlight yellow lamps where couples sat in the windows. Were they happy? On a first date? Or a last chance?

Do you ever have those moments when you're walking, or wandering, and listening to music on shuffle and a certain song comes on and it is so perfect that it makes you stumble just a tad? It's as if The Shuffle Gods have sent a spider into that hidden part of your heart and picked the perfect song? I know you know what I mean.

As I was walking down a Fitzroy back street and marvelling at the light on the tree above the opening bars of a certain song came creeping in. As if it were a personal movie for just me and that tree, swaying in the breeze.

I often think about the country. About the rolling hills that are my home, those that I've imagined and longed for oh-so-often during long trips away. The hills that provide space, freedom, comfort and an overall sense of the world being ok. I still have a visceral reaction when I drive down the dirt road to the farm gates. And wonder how I could possibly find another space in the world to love the same.

And yet I find these city streets just so damn beautiful. Beautiful in their chaos, their mystery, their melancholy. Oh, the secrets hidden in those cracks. I think, as much as I was coming back to the hills, I was coming back to these streets. Craving light-filled evening adventures where, for a perfect moment in time and rugged up against the winter winds, the heart is free to swoon. And stumble to an odd song or two.

But even at our swiftest speed

We couldn't break from the concrete

In the city where we still reside

And I have learned

That even landlocked lovers yearn

For the sea like navy men

Cause now we say goodnight

From our own separate sides

- Brothers On A Hotel Bed

Death Cab For Cutie

Two Windows.

I woke up here.

And I'm going to bed here.

Two hours from each other. 

Both blissful and special.

Equally as beautiful.

What a brilliant day.

Night, night. xoxo

Liz Stringer.

My winter soundtrack for the past week or so has been the utterly divine 'Warm the Darkness' by incredible Melbourne singer-songwriter, Liz Stringer.

You can listen to my current most-loved track, Stay With Me, here below. Golly I love a good tearjerker.

Jazz Posters.

Just home from a terrific evening of jazz, watching legendary pianist Steve Sedergreen at work, supported by a huge 10-piece band.

How great is this poster?

Melbourne Sundays.

Melbourne is made for Sundays.

I spent today in slow motion. My folks were in town but they hit the country roads just after brekkie. So I spent the morning tinkering about (my favourite thing to do, as you know) before heading to Chellis's to work on some creative stuff including the logo for my soon-to-be-launched Found by Francoise antiques co. It is so darn amazing, loves. Jamie drew me a boat and it is ridiculous. So incredible.

We had some smashed avocado n toast for lunch after which I popped into Sarah's garage sale where I stole a white silk skirt to wear for the rest of the day.

I then met Lucy and Little One in the city to see The Histrionic at the Malthouse and then had some delicious dinner at Cookie (home to the above gorgeous French doors).

And, now, it's bedtime honeychildren. See! Melbourne. Sunday paradise.

Night, night. xoxo

Collingwood.

The light! The liiiiiight! I wandered around my backyard last night, at dusk, when the sky was turning. I've been all about the skies this week, right?

After wandering the streets I popped into the newly re-opened Builders Arms Hotel for a look-see. Damn, it's gorgeous. I'm taking one of my jumpsuits out for a hot date there in the next few days. Now...to pick one.

Chasing Leaves.

Gosh, this past week has been bizarre. As you may have read, I spent Easter up north in the beautiful hinterland around Byron Bay in northern NSW.

Coming home to reality was a little hard. Some holidays can get under your skin a little, especially when you've entered a bubble-like state and you forget reality awaits.

So, this weekend was all about getting back to nature, literally and within my bones. We had an Olinda love-in which involved card games, cognac, feasting and a couple of walks... where I chased some leaves.

Mixed Business.

I love love love love love this gorgeous Melbourne cafe - Mixed Business in Clifton Hill, Melbourne.

This old general store is actually *gasp* probably my favourite Melbourne refuel spot. And it is home to Sarah's favourite cafe table apparently. See how delighted she is sitting at it?! We popped in briefly for some sustenance on the way to passata day.

Wanna meet up there for a chai on Friday? Text me, ok?

p.s. if you're the owner of the blue-shirted arm in the pic next to Sarah then you were really cute (and your friend was too but I thought you were the cuter one, Chellis thought it was even).

p.p.s thanks for asking to sit at our table.

(all pics by me except for the last one, thankyou YOLO)

Olinda Love.

Well, the rain has been pretty much relentless. Apart from the incredible heartache that it's causing countless people around the country, with floods threatening homes and lives, I have actually loved the wet summer.

This past weekend I escaped to the tree-filled paradise known as Olinda where the MMs live - a town in the Dandenong Ranges mountain district about an hour from Melbourne.

Jamie has been diligently drawing new birds for a special top-secret project and Little One kept me entertained with hilarious skits that involved headbands and nasal spray. And I powered through quite a busy to-do list, always a relief!

I'm going back this weekend :)

Almost Full Moon.

I've been feeling 'off' for days. Funky, grouchy, moody, bitchy, whiney, scatty - whatever you want to call it. Off. Then I looked up into the gorgeous night sky tonight and realised that it's a full moon. Well, officially it's tomorrow morning but it's close enough.

So, I'm going to blame my off-ness on the moon and try to get into tomorrow with a bright face.

Sometimes the world is hard. And I'm a wee bit tired of the world this week loves. But no doubt, next week I'll love it and want to kiss it and squeeze it and be tra-la-la-ing all over town.

My evening stroll with the folks post-dinner from Fitzroy to Collingwood helped my weary blood-pumper a tad however. I snapped this little beauty along the way.

Ok, world, let's have another round tomorrow. Sleep tight xo xo.

The Design Files Open House.

Earlier this month Melbourne hosted The Design Files Open House, a collaboration between blog-star Lucy Feagins of The Design Files and Esther Navarro-Orejon of The Project Agency.

For four days, a Fitzroy house was transformed into a design paradise and I was lucky enough to visit a few times. And, excitingly, for all of you non-Melburnians, they opened an online store as well which closes TOMORROW.

So, if you (like me) still have a few Christmas goodies to buy now is the time to get clicking. Here is what I bought yesterday...

Gina & May 'Ms Starlet' umbrella. That's right, people. You can address me as such from now on...

O-Check hot air balloon card in white. I've been meaning to buy one (or ten) for ages! 

Archie Grand notebook for my Mama, sold through Notemaker.

Delfonics cotton roll pen case for the super-talented Jamie Gaunt, one half of the MMs.

And a few of my favourite items...some of which are still available!!! Eep! These are on my wish-list:

Basil Bangs beach umbrella called Calypso...oooooo.

Dane Lovett artwork. This baby had a little red sticker on it almost instantly!

Hot pink super-stool by Greg Hatton.

Balloon print by Ellie Malin (can you tell I'm slightly obsessed with balloon travel?)

growing is forever.

Logo = rad

Growing your own vegies = rad

Writing a book about how to do it = rad

Vintage-style seed packet design = rad

Taking over the world, one tomato at a time = rad

Being able to have these dudes build you a patch in Melbourne = rad

The Little Veggie Patch Co. 

http://littleveggiepatchco.com.au/