Spending An Evening

I sewed myself this li'l bag on the weekend. It cost me more than $50 in materials and took about three hours.

Really, I could have just gone out and bought one - or two - for that money. But I reassured myself that it's all about the PRACTICE and EXPERIENCE.

I plan to make another one in the next week or so. I was going to start tonight, but, well... I just ended up taking photos of fabric stacks, thread and pin cushions instead.

Photography is probably a cheaper way to spend an evening than sewing, to be honest.

Socially-Retarded Manner

Today, I booked the dog into a 'pet resort' over the Christmas break. We've never put her into a kennel before and I am mildly concerned because, while Maisie is great with people, she's kind of socially inept when it comes to other dogs.

Her usual tactic is to nip quickly at other dogs who come to give her a sniff and a hello. It's a quick, sheep-dog nip clearly designed to try and convince these other animals to fall back in line and respect her herding authority.

It doesn't work. Generally the other dog retaliates, usually with an escalated level of aggression, then Maisie runs and cowers under the nearest bench.

When I booked her into the kennel (sorry, pet resort) they asked me whether she was aggressive. Not wanting to lie, I ummed and ahhed... and then admitted that she could be a bit nippy.

My mind was put at ease. "She's a sheep dog, that's what they do," kennel lady said.

Hopefully, Maisie can get through 10 days without managing to get herself mauled through her socially-retarded manner.

And if not, well, she can just hang out in her kennel, where I'm SURE she'll enjoy the 24-hour a day relaxation music played for the doggies pleasure.

On Headwear

It was pretty cold at home over the weekend, cold enough that I got some beanie time in. I love wearing beanies, mainly because Dan thinks they look ridiculous and I really love doing things that Dan thinks are ridiculous.

Before we went to the UK earlier this year, I bought a fantastic bright red sequin beret. I envisaged myself swanning the streets of Edinburgh with it on, stopping traffic with my fashion-forward stylings.

Dan agreed. "Babe, between your hair and the hat, you look like a traffic light,' he said, bluntly.

He loathed that beret with a passion beyond his usual dislike of beanies and fascinators and headbands.

Seeing his face literally contort with horror every time I put it on, I eventually gave in and put it back in my suitcase and it hasn't been worn since.

Looks like I'm sticking to more neutral pastel-coloured headwear this Winter.

Little Crevices

Ok, I admit it, I'm disappointed.

Once again, that demon entity - that Lucifer to leisure, that slayer of idle dreams - has ruined my weekend.

I refer of course, to work. More specifically, the fact that Dan now has to work tomorrow and yet another weekend at Karragarra Island has been cancelled.

Dan and I work full-time Monday to Friday, but currently our jobs are encroaching into our evenings and weekends and the little crevices of space we try to eke between our growing days.

As we both take on more reponsibility and become more involved in The Things We Do All Day, the time when we're NOT doing these things has become less and less.

For now, we've agreed to roll with it. This too shall pass. We're young, childless and our relationship is solid. We are both making our marks on career paths that, for the most part, fulfil us and will lead... somewhere.

For now, this is where we're at.

That said, I still feel bitterly disappointed when another weekend is cancelled, knowing that once again my Saturday will be spent either cleaning the house or hammering away on my laptop or grocery shopping or some combination of the above and not over at Karra, lying in front of the fire or wandering along the foreshore with my camera.

An old jetty near the Eastern tip of the island.

Coconut-Laden Palm Trees

This sight can only mean we're about to be right in the depths of another phase of renovating:

Dan spent the weekend hard at work on drafting the next part of our work here - building in and onto the front of the house.

This is our house from the street now:

As you can see, it's not very glamorous. That's useful, because we live in a not-so-flashy area, or up-and-coming local real estate agents refer to it, and we've not been burgled yet.

I mean, it's only been five years, so maybe that's not so impressive. How often do people get burgled anyway?

Anyway, Dan is putting in a raised carport, with a raised walkway which will lead to the new entrance on the top floor, instead of downstairs.

Those windows at the bottom front will be filled in, with bigger ones put in at the side of the house.

Then, we'll build a privacy fence along the road - so the house behind will become a sheltered sanctuary from the road we live on.

Some of these palm trees growing down the border of our property will be moved to the front behind the fence, to sort of overhang it and look pretty.

Dan may be good at drafting and building and other stuff, but I am the master of Photoshop illustrating, as you can see from this cleverly-executed illustration.

I may have gone overboard with the coconut-laden palm trees, but they're much easier to draw in Photoshop than the straight lines of a carport and fence.

Maisie and Mum

My Mother came to stay for a week or so recently. She's back in Hobart now, which is very VERY disappointing for her number one fan...

Tasmania

It's possible my current love of the Weekend Island - AKA Karragarra - comes from the fact that I grew up on an island - a much bigger one, but an island nonetheless.

My hometown is Hobart, Tasmania. The island of Tasmania is Australia's smallest state and Australia is the world's biggest island country, incidentally.

Technically, I grew up on an island off an island.

I left home at 17 to live in my mother's homeland of Scotland, then moved back to Tassie for a year when I was 22 - six years ago.

That was when I also bought my first-ever house, in the now-gentrified Hobart suburb of New Town. It cost me $210,000. It had three bedrooms, a bunch of ramshackle outhouses and no heating. It was more than 100 years old and had seen very little improvement in that time.

Basically, it needed a lot of work.

I was earning a pittance in my first job out of university. Needless to say, I lived in the worst of the three bedrooms and rented out the better two.

These are the photos I have of the house. It's definitely cute, but I'm glad I sold it a few years later to buy into the house that Dan and I now share (aka House Number 1).

From the street.

That's me! I look so young and cranky and thin...

That bar heater was the only heat in the house, until I eventually installed a tiny wood heater.

The kitchen, my favourite room.

After a year living in this desperately cold cottage, my flatmate Briohny - who answered an ad in the paper, moved in to that house and remains one of my dearest friends - and I decided we really couldn't call Tasmania home after all. It was too small, too cold, too stifling.

I found tenants for the house, we packed up Briohny's little hatchback with our possessions and then we drove north. We took a ferry to the mainland of Australia, drove for four days up the East Coast and ended up in the hippy-haven of Byron Bay.

Eventually, Briohny headed back to her home-state of South Australia and I wound up heading further north to Queensland, where I live to this day with the man I met just afterwards.

I have never lived in Tasmania since, probably never will again. I seldom even visit it, even though my family still call it home.

These days, I'm happy to be here among the palm trees of Queensland, although Dan and I will be going back to Tassie for a week over Summer. Bizarrely, my Mother bought land on Bruny Island - off Tasmania's coast - about five years ago.

We'll be spending Christmas on an island off an island off an island.