Category Archives: Australia

There are days when I miss the darkroom

There are still days when I miss working in the darkroom. I loved the process of manipulating images with a bit of push and pull, dodging and burning — then going tray to tray with those precious pieces of white paper and watching as an image suddenly bloomed into life.

As I said in an earlier post — I’m uploading new images to stock agencies and every once in awhile there is one that is much better in black and white. At least when I do this in the digital darkroom, I’m not breathing toxic and carcinogenic fumes!

Enjoy…

Haven’t Disappeared Altogether — REALLY!

It has been ever so long since I updated the site and there are a lot of reasons for that. Short explanation…

1. Some health issues (now completely resolved!)
2. Buying a house
3. Moving and unpacking (and that is still an in-process situation)
4. Renovating

Additional delaying factors…
1. Trying to decide whether to stay in Australia or go straight back to Europe
2. Busy with the stock photography (surprisingly, on the upswing!) and uploading
3. Writing not one but TWO books.
4. Being a total nut-case and signing up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and trying to produce 50,000 words of a rough draft novel in 1 month. Did it — in 15 days with not enough sleep. But the novel isn’t done and will probably end up being about 70,000 words. So yes, I still have the rest of November to slog away.

Got oddly Mother Earth-ish (small doses!) and decided to try doing a smidge of gardening after over decade away from that and have been remarkably successful thus far.

Freshly planted garden bed.

Seriously? It has been so long since I did one of these posts that I had to go back and refresh my memory on the html coding!

Plan to TRY and do better with keeping up on this site once again. Lots of things are percolating now that our lives have settled down and there are some big plans afoot.

Also — am rebuilding my portfolio with a new agency. Plan to upload weekly (fingers crossed!) or more often examples so you can see what’s up for sale as stock. As soon as I get several more dozen images up, I will post a link. In the meantime, here’s an example of what I will have on there for one time rights.

Sydney Harbour Bridge on a stormy day.

More soon!

Marvelous Metis and Lovely Linen From France

We must have lived in a golden bubble during our time in France. I found the most amazing bargains on items that are soon to find a home in our ‘new’ 1950 house in Australia.

I had learned about metis by doing a bit of research after seeing vintage bed linens on sale for stunningly low prices in some rural communities in France. And when you use the phrase bed linen, that refers to the time when sheets and pillow cases were actually made of long wearing linen. In many cases the linen sheets in a household were passed down from one generation to another because the fabric was so dense and sturdy that it practically never wore out. It might have had a mend or two after 30-50 years, but it was still intact. And nowadays, interior designers just love to re-purpose metis and vintage linen into drapes or upholstery because the pieces are always huge size-wise compared to today’s bedding.

Linen is warm in the winter and cool in the summer because it’s a natural fibre and it breathes just as pure cotton does. Metis is a 35% cotton and 65% linen blend and is equally valued by people who appreciate fine bed linens. Just try checking the prices nowadays on Ebay for vintage metis or linen sheets from France!

On several occasions, I found packages of linen or metis sheets that were listed in estate sales and they were — wait for it — pre-World War II pieces that still had the original ribbons around them. The pieces of fabric were simply huge and all they needed was a long (long!) soak in several consecutive containers of gently soapy water to remove the yellowing of age and bring them back to a pale cream hue.

Vintage French bed linens from the 1940s soaking

The seller of one batch, the owner of an estate sale company, said she had opened up a massive linen press in a large country house and found stacks and stacks of never used bed linens that had been purchased and stockpiled before the war began. What a treasure horde that was!

Just before we departed from our lovely hometown of St. Girons, we visited a depot vente (a vast second hand goods dealer in a former mill) and trolled through table after table of bedding sheets that were crisp white 100% linen. Mark and I filled our arms with the best of them and I purchased them for a fragment of what they sell for in boutiques or online.

Vintage French bed linens packed to return home to Australia

More than 2 large boxes of these vintage linens came back with us from France to grace our new home and remind us of a place that seared its beauty into our hearts. I’ll make sure to take pictures once they are unpacked and in place on one of the beds.

And So It Begins

And so it begins — the gathering up process prior to construction.

We’re serial renovators since every single house that we have ever owned has been a project. So that probably explains why Mark was not keen for us to buy a brand new house. And truthfully, I don’t mind the idea of taking a run-down property and completely transforming it. We’ve worked together for years running a restoration business both in Australia and on the road in Europe, so none of this is a drama.

We paid a visit to a tile warehouse the other day to pick up the tiles that I had purchased online for the kitchen backsplash. Here’s the vast space below and a sheet of the lovely glass mosaics we’ll be using. I particularly like the way the light will bounce off of them since every little rectangle has been imprinted with the texture of a hessian sack fabric in all sorts of different angles.

Tile warehouse

Sheet of glass mosaic tiles

Once we got them back to our current (for a few more months only!) residence, Mark placed them on a vintage table that we have sitting beneath a window. I put the paint charts next to them (yes — that’s our ‘old friend’ the Dulux dog on that chart) and right behind it sits the new vintage themed Bush radio that I got for my birthday. That radio is going to be sitting on the kitchen counter and it certainly does go nicely with the colour scheme we’ve chosen.

The new kitchen colour scheme.

The new retro Bush radio will fit right into our kitchen colour scheme!

Bye for now!

Settling In, Settling Down, But Not Settling For

It was bound to happen after several years of travelling from country to country over a 3 year period. We were going to want to settle down, buy a house again, and settle in. That doesn’t mean that travel and travel writing or photography is off the radar, but it does mean that we’ll have a stable base to work from. And neither of us feels like we are settling for less than something wonderful!

We thought we had found home in the South of France, but as you have read in past posts, we were unwilling to commit ourselves to a country that wanted 60 percent (and climbing!) of our income in taxes and which would never provide a pension when we retired no matter how many years we had paid into the tax system in France.

Ah well — back to Australia we came after several years away and we landed in Melbourne 7 and 1/2 months ago. But no matter how much we love this city, it really isn’t quite what we are looking for long term. It’s bigger, busier, and noisier than what suits us — so we’ve been looking further afield. And we found it!

In exactly 7 weeks, we”ll be taking possession of our new house in the completely charming regional city of Ballarat — a little over an hour northwest of Melbourne. May I just say that working through the stacks of paperwork for a new mortgage were not my happiest moments, but I had a light-hearted attitude throughout the process because I was working towards our long-term goal. We got the pre-approval and then went looking for a house and what we found is a 1950 ranch house with 3 bedrooms and a huge lot that needs a LOT OF WORK in the months and years ahead. But what fun we are going to have as we transform it.

Front of our 1950 ranch house.

I’m putting this in print so that we can ALL remind Mark that he said this. I showed him a pristine and brand new house that he wouldn’t have needed to do a thing to other than fit out the garage with his racks of tools. But did he want that? No! He said that was too boring and he would prefer a fixer-upper that we could put our own stamp on. There you go — it has been documented!

There will be lots of posts in the coming months of various stages of renovation. And amidst all of those, I will sprinkle more travel posts and photo essays from Melbourne and regional Victoria and even some from Europe. If you plan to come to Australia, you mustn’t just stop at Sydney and forget about Melbourne or Victoria. It’s simply stunning over here.

Now you know why I’ve been posting rather sparsely lately. I’ve been slammed with paperwork and planning and house hunting. But we’re completely thrilled even with the prospect of years of work ahead to make it our ‘forever house.’

Bye for now!

Lovely By The Seaside at St. Kilda In Spring

The throngs are yet to arrive — it’s only Spring y’know — but several dozen people were sprinkled up and down the beach and boardwalk at St. Kilda Beach this week. We’re lucky to live in such a pretty place, but I’ve lived in seaside towns in the USA and the UK and there certainly was a familiar feel to our stroll along the boardwalk. In spite of the whipping wind, the smallest bit of sun appears and off come the shirts, out comes the lily-white skin, and up go the refreshed signs from the local council telling folks what they are and are not allowed to do on the beach.

The sparsely populated St. Kilda beach and boardwalk on a sunny Spring day in Melbourne, Australia

Spring sunbathers at St. Kilda beach in Melbourne, Australia

Sand sculpture of a shark at St. Kilda beach in Melbourne, Australia

Woman on a bike at St. Kilda beach in Melbourne, Australia with her Jack Russell dog sitting in the front basket

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No dogs allowed on the beach at St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia, during the 5 months of high tourist season

Australian Election Presents 40 inch/101.6 cm Long Ballot with a 34 Party Choice!

Australian elections have been called and we will either have a new Prime Minister and some new Senators and Representatives on Saturday night, or our current (returned!) Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, will still be hanging in there. It’s been a contentious few years for the Labor Party with the whole Kevin Rudd then Julia Gillard then back to Kevin Rudd saga and it has soured quite a few people on the reliability and just-plain-sanity of the party.

Election time in Australia

At least we are mercifully spared from of the American style campaigns that go on for months and months. Over here there is a small window of a mere few weeks to be bombarded with campaign ads from both of the major parties.

But I had to laugh when my ballot arrived in the post this week and I had my charming postman sign it as my witness. I opened the envelope and took out the ballot which kept unfolding and unfolding and unfolding. It is 40 inches long — 101.6 cm over here. And there are THIRTY FOUR party choices!!!

34 party choices on the Australian Federal Election ballot for 2013

A 40 inch/101.6 cm long paper ballot gives 34 party choices on the Australian Federal Election ballot for 2013

Some of them are rather ‘interesting’ — so I thought I would share those group names.

We have the Help End Marijuana Prohibition (Hemp) Party rather amusingly placed on the ballot right next to the Family First Party, the Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party snuggles right alongside the Shooters and Fishers Party, the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party stands next to The Wikileaks Party in this paper parade, then of course we have the Sex Party and the Bullet Train for Australia Party, just to name a few. But wait, we mustn’t forget The Pirate Party! Who knew???

Just thought it would be informative for the rest of the world to see what’s on offer here in Australia. Now where did I put that pen?

A Wanderful Life

The Neverending Journey