Thankful for the hum of traffic

Kate is many things but not untruthful in her blogging: I was unwell, I was busy, I was unable to spread myself as thoroughly as I wanted to.  The end of year in my job is always ghastly; this year it was combined with a series of tedious health issues that were fuelled by a lot of thin blood , my first published story (in a newspaper! With my name and no typos!)  a very full Christmas calendar and a much longed-for overseas trip from December 27. 

Thank you all so much for tuning in again. Blogging is a strange thing - you spend so much time and energy building up your little diary and establishing a rapport with clever people, only to have to disappear (seemingly) mysteriously when life and possibly your bones make demands of you.  My apologies for the gap and my deepest gratitude to you for reading again. 

Thank you for coming back - I will endeavour to make that worthwhile for you. The first thing I'll do is keep my holiday pictures to a stringently edited minimum.  

We went to a country where there are lots of good cafes....

...lots of traffic and lots of distinctive landmarks.....

....lots of intelligent use of public space and lots of reason to be rugged up.

In this instance it is 3 degrees Celsius so the ruggee is staring with real love towards a vendor who sells hot chocolate. She wears:  

*the old faithful woollen peacoat - thrifted in Sydney for $30 four years ago

*a black merino woollen sweater (from Monoprix, 18 euros)

*A vintage varuna wool Liberty skirt (Ebay UK, 20 quid)

*Extremely thick tights (Wolford)

*Boots (vintage, Ebay USA, $40) and 

*Scarf, wool and cotton from BHV ( a rather lovely Parisian department store).  

That little milk chocolate bag is Prada (Ebay years ago) and the the big grey bag bears testament to the fact that I really, really love shopping at COS. 

Get used to the peacoat and the bag for you'll see a lot of them over the coming days. The boots, not so much. 

And just in case you've ever wondered what my feet look like, here is an excellent illustration of them: 

Well, the right one at any rate. I think I have a rather striking big toe.

Guest post from Kate

I have to do everything around here: shed on the towels, eat unattended butter, keep the insect community in check and stare needlessly at blank spaces at the wall until the roundears are half mad with distraction.

Yesterday she said to the big roundears, the tom, " I really want to blog again but I don't know how to start after a long absence." And he said, "Well, get Kate to do it. She's blogged before."

Hmmmph.

She really was sick. It was like a crime scene here for a while. I wasn't allowed to use my claws, not even in a nice way.

Mostly I didn't pay much attention because, well, she's not a mouse and frankly I am a cat. My attention span is limited.

But she's not sick anymore and she has more scarves which means I have even better warmth and insulation when I sleep in the good room.

She went away for a while and I got beaten up by a tomcat with one ear and no respect. I'm better now and she's come home. She bought me a present which I completely ignored.

"It's the year of the Dragon," she said, "maybe Kate could blog about that."

Oh, as if. AS IF. It is only ever the Year of the Cat as far as I'm concerned because 1) I can lick a dragon any day and 2) dragons are mythical and I'm not.

Nothing if not a fabulous reason

Forgive my tardiness but I can explain.

Work went back to normal but unfortunately I didn't. These ugly little orange fellows have all had a bite of me over the last week. One in the morning , one in the afternoon. 

I've got to get through another box. My belly looks like a monochrome Monet painting. 


When I've gone back to being the my standard blank canvas self, I'll tell you about more about more of my staples, explain why this spring is a denim skirt season and invite your critiques of & suggestions for my packing for my next trip. 


On the up side, it's spring and the local florist is selling the elusive and adored flannel flowers. 

It is only the mind that is a trifle shaken

Forgive the sparse posting. At this point in history I am occupied with many dreary office things and cannot carve out enough time for quality blogging. I hope this tyranny will have passed within the next week; meanwhile, please snack on of one of my most highly regarded staples. 

So many staples, so little time

There's not much to be said for Mondays. Very few of us like them. 


This morning, as I stumbled from room to room wondering where I had left my coffee, I got to thinking about the little habits and rituals we all adapt to make our days bearable. The thinking didn't stop. All through the day I made mental notes of all the small procedures and staples that I use, week in and week out, to keep my life ticking over. 


There's so many. Here's a few. 

I reach for this every weekday morning. It's an old sweeties tin ....

...and it holds whatever makeup items I'm currently favouring, I'm especially fond of creamy things that I can dab on with my fingers. 

Magazines. I'm always thinking about buying magazines, stockpiling magazines for a magazine fest or working out when I can sit down and re-read a pile of magazines. A lot of magazines come out on Mondays and thank God for that, I say. 

Clean handkerchiefs. I never leave home without them. The last thing I do before I leave the house is tuck a hankie into my pocket and another into my bag. I have dozens, most of which came from op-shops. You generally find them on the counter at op-shops in a little basket. I always rifle through the hankie basket and when I get them home I'll wash them in wool wash and press them into nice triangles with an unforgiving iron. Bonus: sometimes you find embroidered ones. Other bonus: they cost pennies and are far more elegant than tissues. Specific bonus: how cute is that bird? 


That's the tip of my staples ice berg. Coming soon: the desk breakfast, Platform 1 and quinoa soup.  

Hands as bleak as begging bowls

It was a wonderful weekend.  Granted, we failed to get a house but we did fall in love with one - a bigger, clumsier one that had once been a bakery. 


Sydney shook the last scraps of winter out for us too. I rugged up and carried a big bag filled with emergency supplies. 

This is the late-winter-when-it-should-be-Spring ensemble. It includes a silk jigsaw dress, a woollen Jigsaw coat and a scarf I bought eight years ago and love more every winter and it obscures a smaller vintage silk scarf. You cant see the 4000 denier tights but you can see the tall black menacing boots I bought on eBay. And you can't miss the Balenciaga bag, which is one  of my favourite sacks. It could, were I a violent type, be useful for walloping persons who step out of line.  I hope it never comes to that. 


It's an excellent bag for hauling stuff, viz.

Exhibit A - a Coach change purse which holds a bill folder for credit cards and dozens of used train tickets, five different lip unguents, an excellent comb, my scrappy work phone, my Mensa-level personal phone, pellets of Ibufuren in case of a migraine, water, a bandanna should I be required to herd cattle and some bands to tie up my hair. Oh, and water. 


I love those articles in magazines where women spill the contents of their bags and explain the purpose of each item, especially when they have odd things, like spanners or a fish food, amongst the ubiquitous lipsticks and tissues. 

Alas, my possessions aren't so interesting:  Sunglasses. The ipod, for mystery and eliminating the chatter on trains on every morning.  Nonetheless my bag and its content did attract a small audience of interested onlookers. 

The line of life creeps upwards

Before I start crowing I think I should disclose that my cat Kate watches television. 

That is the face of someone who has never seen Sex and the City before. I believe it was Charlotte who caught her attention. 

Kate has an on-going interest in clothes, particularly mine they are freshly washed and in a basket that she can access easily. However, she finds the whole blogging thing a little tedious and just wishes I would make up my mind about the style of my photographs. 

 With the self timer in my kitchen, in an Anne Fontaine Dress, negotiating Kate who is out of shot 

 With my phone in my room as Kate makes final submissions for some extra breakfast. Note: the dry cleaner found the belt to my original tench! 

In my office (courtesy of my learned friend) in a Seed dress and possibly in need of a good trim. 

I still have no idea what works best. I do know that it is getting warmer and the fabric of my clothes is being adjusted accordingly. I've moved down the textile scale from wool to cotton and silk.    

And it's warm enough for short sleeves, which in turn deserves a bracelet.