This ugly and very busy day is winding itself up with a migraine, so unfortunately I have no evidence of my new coat for you. I wore it with a very plain black dress, and very stern pinstriped jacket, and some austere black pumps. I felt quite formidable, aching head and all.
I have got pictures of gold things though. I concentrate on bright primary colours when I get migraines to try and make my myself a little warmer. I read somewhere that this helps migraines.
It's never worked for me but it's fun to think of yellow things. Like these chips.
And this profoundly uninterested cat I met last week when we were house hunting. He had no enthusiasm at all for the prospect of living near me.
This chair could be called golden if you view it in a low light and you're not wearing your glasses. I love it but sadly it is not what I'd call affordable. I'd would, however, describe it as extremely expensive. And golden.
Cheddar coloured gerberas. Cheese and flowers. A perfect storm.
I actually use this to help with the nausea from migraines. Few things calm my stomach like Vegemite on toast.
Oddly enough I feel a little better. If you know anything about migraines, or actually suffer from them, I'd be mighty interested to hear about it.
Either this winter has been mild or my internal thermostat has adjusted itself again and rendered me almost insensible to Sydney's brand of cold.
To wit: I have slept under cotton quilts with cotton flannel sheets all season, and worn a wool coat only once.
I've spent the rest of the winter in a the Banana Republic trench coat I bought in New York eighteen months ago. I'd never owned a trench coat and was a little sceptical of their recurring khaki inclusion on every ten-garments-you-must-own list.
There was no recognisable gap in my life for a trench coat, or so I thought. I bought it on a New York whim, seduced by the way it had been styled on the store mannequin - with some slouchy blue trousers and a carelessly light pink cotton jumper - and end up wearing just about every day last winter and every day this winter.
So it was a disaster of middle class proportions when the dry cleaner lost the belt. It doesn't work without the belt. I tried every thing - leather belts, velvet belts, no belts, unbuttoned - but nothing looked right.
So I've been wearing other coats but I don't look right. I feel odd in my clothes, odd on the train, odd walking through the park to work.
I could bear it no longer and at lunch time today I cracked and bought another trench.
It looks entirely unremarkable, almost identical to my American trench.
Except it has a belt.
The quilts are more interesting, at least at first glance.
The house hunt continues. I'm starting to think I just like looking in all the different houses rather than actually choosing one. My least favourite are the styled places, all coiffed and cleaned to the realtor's instructions. They are predictable and false. The details set my skin crawling - salad forks in preposterous over-sized bowls empty on a sparkling clean counter, guest towels folded in little fan shapes on the chrome-like finish of the bathroom sink.
I like the houses where the residents are obviously still living. They may have smoothed the sheets but their shoes are visible in the wardrobe. There's a smooth lozenge of used soap in the shower recess. There's a couple of well cuddled coloured teddies in the smaller bedroom.
I have no idea where we'll end up but I can tell you this is one of the things you will see in my new home:
Isn't it's beautiful? It's fabric!
These are from a store called Edit in Sydney's Darlinghurst, a former working class, now wholly gentrified suburb on the city rim. I'm not usually one for posting websites but will make an exception for any place that treats fabrics with the reverence I saw here. If you choose to be further delighted, click here: www.edit-group.com.au.
I've not yet found a house for my leaf curtains. This crumbling corner is my current favourite. It is too small, too cramped and possibly haunted, but jasmine is running riot on the rotting wooden fence outside and there's a wood cooker in the kitchen.
Also, it matches a lot of my clothes. May I just offer a slightly better indication of my seemingly bottomless bag:
And here's the jasmine, which has just started scenting Sydney this last week or so.
If this dank little house were mine, I'd plant hydrangeas in the front and install the matching Edit chair in the stunted triangular little sitting room.
It's likely no one enjoys going to work but every morning, when the train pulls in to the station before my stop, I feel pretty damned fortunate. Even today, when Winter gave Sydney a resoundingly wet goodbye kiss.
I took that photo on my new phone. The phone is smarter than any person or machine I have ever met. Everyday its achievements and capabilities make me feel a little embarrassed.
Tomorrow, rain or not, we're going to look for a new house. We've looked at a lot recently but nothing has seemed right, except this one:
Trouble is, it's not for sale and quite obviously occupied.
Look at that smug face. He's not going anywhere.
It's only been a couple of months but it seems much longer. I would like to thank you very, very much for checking the blog and keeping it alive. When I took a deep breath and logged in last night I expected to find something like a dusty torn shoebox that had been abandoned under an old bed; it is hard to explain how thrilled I was to see that that everything was clean and crisp because people had been dropping in and reading. It meant a lot to me and had a very powerful, positive effect on my outlook.
Thank you!
I don't often have many plans for Spring - it has always got along quite well without any intervention from me - but I do plan to reinvent the blog a little as I reinvent myself a little. Hopefully, by the time the jasmine is in full bloom the blog and the pictures will look a little different.
Hopefully too there will more pelicans because frankly I love them.
But before I rabbit on about pyjamas I just want to have a minor tirade about lipsticks that are more than six months old.
Magazines are telling me that I have to turf all my make up that is older than six months.
I have been using this lip crayon on and off for ten years and have yet to be struck by lightning, turned into a bat or burst into flames. It is older than all my nephews and less inclined to have me read it stories.
Now, where was I?
