More settling

We've spent the morning hanging paintings, and I've got rid of the ridiculous piddly little desk I thought I'd be able to manage with, and have (above) installed a pretty glass-topped one I sourced from a local Scandinavian furniture boutique. As they say.

It's a lot bigger, so I can surround myself with all my familiars and have room to write and room for the keyboard. Much better.

Feeling even more settled.

:: That Tracey, from Peppermint Patcher, is a red-hot Scrabble player, I have to tell you. We are competing in back-to-back tournies on facebook. I start off thinking I've got her, and then she kills me. I think it's three games to one in her favour so far.

:: This arvo, our household is torn between watching West Coast play (and, hopefully, being beaten to a pulp by) the mighty St Kilda, and listening to Triple J counting down the Hottest 100 of all time. I've actually just herded Dave (West Coast hater who just winked at me and promised to behave) and my mum (big West Coast fan) off to the front room to watch the game so I can listen to the Hottest 100 through Foxtel out here in the back.

Digital radio through Foxtel is simply amazing. In the US, I was a huge fan of Pandora, which was a sort of personalised radio that I'd play through the computer. I miss it terribly, but here we have recently discovered the ABC's Dig radio, which is just as good. And you can listen online as well as through the telly, find out what's playing as it's playing, with some interactive component as well.

:: Lily just dropped in to borrow the big car for the afternoon and immediately put her fingers in her ears and started humming — turns out Foxtel's Triple J is two hours ahead of normal radio and she doesn't want to wreck the surprise.

They've just played Imagine, followed by Stairway to Heaven, so I'm outa here. Need to concentrate! Oooh ... Foo Fighters ...

At the movies

I went with my best friend Karen last night to see the French film, Mes amis mes amours.

We were glad of a chance to catch up, and, afterwards, even gladder we hadn't had to pay for the tickets.

Directed by Lorraine Levy from the book written by her brother, Mark, it's a very light (as in lacking) French romantic comedy set in an apparent French enclave somewhere in South Kensington.

Is there really a community of French people living in London with their own little shops and restaurants and even tradesmen speaking French? More poignantly: if you were from Paris, which is at least slightly grand with decent food and elegant residents — despite the rudeness, the toilets and all the spitting — why would you choose to live in grotty old London?

The plot is watery: Mathias (on the left, played by Vincent Lindon), a loser bookseller, decides to move from Paris to London to be with his best mate, Antoine (right, Pascal Elbe), the ever-so-anal architect who is (unsurprisingly) divorced and lives with his young son.

Mathias's daughter also lives in London with Mathias's ex-wife, who is cool, coiffed and soignee, and appears to have a high-powered career as a cultural attache to the French consul (the usual partners of loser booksellers, bien sur). She's also bonking the boss, we later learn. The signs are all there: she is not Une Bonne Personne.

Poor old Mathias still has the hots for her, but as soon as he turns up in London, she high-tails it back to Paris.

The rest of the movie involves Mathias and Antoine's moving in together, sharing child-minding and housekeeping — think Felix and Oscar in The Odd Couple, with more than a heavy handful of Notting Hill. And falling in love with attractive French girls also adrift in London.

There's a supporting cast of wacky, colourful and friendly French characters all living and working in the same picturesque street. With very few cars, pedestrians, and little litter or dog poo. Work that out!

Mathias looks like Lou Reed crossed with a basset hound. Antoine is absurdly neurotic. They are both heavy smokers, very silly, and get their girls in the end.

One plus: it's set mainly in winter, so there are some nice woollen scarves to look out for, and some pretty cool boots.

2.5 stars out of 5.

Friday in the hood

These pics are for Shelley.

She told me off today for not doing any more of these picture posts.

Ha!

They weren't taken today (cos we were lunching and yacking).

But still taken on a Friday.

:: I am obsessed with this guy singing this song in his pink shirt. This long version, with the orchestra. Fab. (Will, who has for years patiently taught me about the music he loves, and who has introduced me to so many amazing bands and performers, is unimpressed. "Mum! It's so hideous! This is SO bad!")

Hanging in there

It's been three weeks since my last post.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

But I have good reasons for my absence.

I've been:

:: down to Albany for a week to look after my mum after shoulder surgery.

:: playing host, off and on, to Lily's boyfriend Nick's mum, Christina, and his younger brother, Carson. Christina took her boys and Lily on a two-week North-West adventure that started in Kununurra and ended in Exmouth, with helicopter flights over waterfalls,

camping' on beaches,

small plane trip over the Ningaloo Reef,

and diving with the whalesharks.

Lucky them!

I've also been:

:: thrilled to see Nick, and Lily's friend Jo, help Will to (negotiate the unnecessarily arcane process and) enrol at TAFE for the next semester. Will and Nick are both doing some fabulous art classes as part of a visual art course. Yay! Will's doing sculpture and drawing and digital art, all of which he excelled in at school in the US, so I'm expecting he'll be loving it. Yay! It's not San Francisco, but it is h-o-m-e! Even better!

:: trying (not very hard) to shake off a big addiction to online Scrabble on facebook, in which I have been soundly beaten by a man called Thor in Iceland, and Nick in Melbourne, and Tracey from Peppermint Land in NQ! Brilliant fun! I have won a game or two as well.

Hey — I'm in my mid-50s, it's good to find ways to exercise the little grey cells, isn't it? I also downloaded Bejewelled to my iPod this morning, while reading Jasper Jones, by Craig Silvey (review later). More serious addiction problems soon to befall me.

:: burgled — some low-life walked into the back of our house one evening while David and I were watching telly in the living room at the front, and before the dogs started barking, stole Will's iPod Touch, my purse, David's wallet, and David's mobile phone. Nauseating. And there followed days of cancelling bank, health and insurance cards, ordering replacements and new PINs, and re-scheduling automatic payments and all that tedious stuff.

:: helping Lily and Nick, back from their Kimberley trip, to find a house. Which they have done. Today they move into their cute cottage just a 20-minute walk away. Since they got back from up north, they, and Carson, have been staying with us, along with all their s-t-u-f-f, so the house has been fairly crowded and jam-packed.

I'm planning a weekend of cleaning and spreading out again once it will be back to just David, Will and me.

I've loved having my girl and her fella here with us, though, and will miss all the comings and goings. Today is actually a big day for her and Nick. Bet they'll be glad to be off the sofa-bed and into their own house! Exciting!

I've also been:

:: knitting, and finished Mack's jumper (see the post before this) and a second clapotis which is almost identical to the first one. I had an awful lot of that wool. Still have. the colour is, um, special, but it's a blend of alpaca and silk, which is irresistible.

:: sewing, and made a cuddly, rosy throw-rug for my dear friend Maggie:

It was the perfect job for the weekend we've just had here in Perth, with gale-force winds and torrential rain — wonderful! I missed real weather all those years in San Diego, where it was either grey and overcast with another bloody marine layer (spring there is trapped beneath what locals tellingly call the May Grey and the June Gloom), or sunny. Never too hot, never too cold. Never rainy. And they r-a-v-e about their climate!

Got to get off my rear and help with the moving.

More later ...

My week (in brackets)

Been knitting at nights (jumper for Mack), and working all week (my best friend Judy came home unscathed from two weeks in Bali, only to get the world's worst stomach bug when she got home, so I filled in for her), and tweaking the blogging on the other blog (it's getting there — details later ... ), and went to see Samson and Delilah (shattering) with best friend Karen yesterday (so no pics from the hood this week), after lunch on Oxford Street (OMG how exy is Perth? "Have to remember, Mum," as Lily says, that "while we were away, everybody in Perth became seriously wealthy with the boom.")

Long phone call from Lily yesterday arvo while I was in the car on the way home from Karen's, so I had to stop driving and park so I could talk to my girl. She was soaking in the bath at a very posh new hotel-cum-resort in Broome after driving there for seven days through the remote North-West, all the way from Kununurra. Can't wait to have her and Nick home again (after another week).

Birthday party this arvo for my best friend Laura (yay!), followed by dinner and bridge with my best friend Dace and her sister-in-law, who makes the universe's bestest-ever vanilla slices. That are, in fact, so transcendentally good that they really ought to be called something else. I will take a pic to show you! 

So very, very good to be back among loved ones.

 

Does anyone know ...

... what to do when your phalaenopsis goes from this:

to this?

It was a birthday-cum-housewarming present from my best friend Dace, and has stood beautifully on the kitchen bench in glorious bloom for over 10 weeks. 

But no more. 

Dace and I reckon the easiest thing would be to buy a 'silk' one and tie it on the stem, having stripped all the sad old flowers off. You'd never know. But I know you can do things to coax more lovely moth orchids out of it eventually.

:: Sorry about the lack of recent posts and especially the lack of words. I'm putting together a new blog and it is (a) driving me crazy and (b) taking lots of time. 

I'll let you know all about it very soon. (I can tell you're desperate to know ...)

:: Lily and Nick have gone up north with Nick's mother and younger bnrother. they flw up to Kununurra, where they were met by Hamish, their guide, and whisked off into the outback as soon as they'd got off the plane. They're taking a week to drive to Broome, including a trek along the Gibb River Road. 

From Broome they go south to Exmouth for a spot of diving on the reef with the whale sharks, and I think there's a helicopter ride in there somewhere. Sounds just wonderful!

:: We have Mack to stay this weekend, while Simon and Marnie are in Melbourne. 

We've had an afternoon of Lego and dinosaurs. Yay! I made a batch of the most amazing-looking apple muffins only to be told that he doesn't like apple in muffins, and could we please make choc chip ones next time? Silly Nanna Les!

Friday in the hood