Only two blogs in a week, how miserable! This update will probably be photo heavy and I will go on and on about how lovely Tasmania is.

Here's me with my friend again. This has basically been my uniform while I've been down here. The weather here allows for a lot of layers which I enjoy. Even on 'hot' days here you don't sweat and can wear a jacket and it's still comfortable. Lovely!

Handmade knitted hat C bought in a tiny country town we visited
Vintage green jacket with customised teapot buttons found in opshop five years ago
Hand me down Sportsgirl jeans from my mum, folded over at the bottom because I have very short legs
Red check Betts ankle boots
Dangerfield scarf
Black T.

^ Tiny Bianca with Launceston Post Office. I'm fairly sure it's been used continuously as a post office since it first opened. I haven't posted anything there yet.

^ Tiny Bianca with town hall. This building looks amazing. It's hard to pick a favourite building in this city as every single building is immaculate, very very old and extremely well taken care of (unlike any building in Newcastle).

^ We stopped in a tiny little town called Latrobe on our travels the other day and this place caught my eye. Interesting shop name.

^ Yesterday we stopped at two sets of markets and as we were sitting down eating our lunch we saw this van with an interesting numberplate. I can remember when Obama first got elected and Australia totally had Obama-fever.

^ I found a great deal of old postal paraphernalia at Evandale markets, but only picked up a bundle of things. These old postcards were about ten cents each. There were lots and lots of collectible envelopes with first edition stamps on them, but I didn't trust myself to get too many as I'd probably want to cut them up or repurpose them.

^ C bought this box of post themed rubber stamps for me at the markets. I've seen these in a shop in Newcastle for $60, but we picked them up for $20. They make me squeal how much I love them, ahaha. As soon as I got back to C's parents I stamped them all over everything.

^ Other markets finds; cheap organic tea, a gorgeous red silk kimono style jacket, a canvas bag that says 'Holiday Knitting Bag' which I am going to turn into my holiday mail bag (I'll have to find an appropriate patch to stick on it), two cute match book pads and a handbag I'm still deciding whether I like or not that I got free.

Yesterday we also did a little tour of an old estate called Clarendon House and made a visit to the magestic Cataract Gorge. Definitely somewhere I'd like to go again, I wish I'd taken more photos. Last week's trip to the honey factory, chocolate factory and cheese factory all in one day was wonderful.

I've been picking up a few postcards everywhere I go and here are a few things I've found so far;

^ The die-cut wombat and Tasmanian devil postcards are definitely my favourites (bottom). I picked up the lovely writing paper (left hand side) at a little information centre in a town called Deloraine. The two cow postcards came from the cheese factory we visited. They gave the life size (plaster?) cows to primary schools all around the area to paint and now all of the cows stand around the cheese factory property. Those two were my favourites. The yellow one was actually stolen from the property and they've never been able to find it. We're going to visit some of the lavender farms pictured on those postcards this week too.

^ Here is the Tassie devil postcard biting C's finger before we put him in the post box. C said it actually hurt. The postcard is so small I could only just write a paragraph. I hope his recipient likes him!

Houses to rent in this area (and in Tasmania in general) are ridiculously, irresistibly cheap. For the price we pay for our tiny little house in one of the 'bad suburbs' of Newcastle, we could live in a gorgeous, well maintained four bedroom house with a huge yard. Oh to dream.

^ This house is advertised for rent, and only around the corner from where we're staying and I have totally fallen in love with it. C's parents nearly bought it when it was for sale last year and they said it is amazing inside. I can't get enough of that red door. $250 per week and right near the university and the bus stop, WANT! I'm trying to convince Sophie to move to Launceston and live with me in it! I'm letting my imagination run wild with how lovely it would be to live in Launceston. The listing for the house is here, have a peek if you like :P

^ At C's parents.

On Saturday we went to meet up with a guy C met last time he was here and he basically listened to us go on and on about how beautiful Tasmania is (he's lived here all his life). He said we've been "bitten by the Tas bug", C made a joke that "now we'll have to go to the hospital again".

Entirely irrelevant to anything, I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but back in June when I first bought my Macbook, a week into owning it one of our cats knocked a cup of hot chocolate on it and it screwed up the screen. As it is very expensive to fix and having a slightly impaired screen doesn't really bother me too much I haven't done anything about it, but I just thought I'd put a picture up and show you what it looks like, haha. It's basically like having a big see-through mushroom cloud on your screen;

We're going camping this week in Hobart (the South city of Tasmania) so no internet for me! Today we're going for a 'historical walk around Launceston'. Hope you're having a lovely start to your week :)

^ An old photo/postcard of Launceston circa 1881 (link).

So, I am in beautiful Launceston. It is my third day here and so far I've been to the museum, wandered around the town a little, enjoyed the beautiful weather, though most notably, I have spent much of my time taking in the wonderful sights and sounds of Launceston General Hospital and had a minor operation.

We caught the train to Sydney from Newcastle on Sunday night, stayed with some of C's friends and in the morning caught the Jetbus to the airport, just made the flight, and due to my very swollen, sore tail bone the flight was pretty tear inducing, teamed with feeling like I was being repeatedly stabbed in the face on the descent due to my bad sinuses readjusting to the pressure. We arrived in very fresh 11˚C Launceston and not long after driving back to C's parents house and dumping our things, the pain was too bad and I was taken up to the local hospital where I waited in emergency for three hours. Of course, I forgot that being really pleasant to the desk staff and downplaying your intense pain doesn't mean you get in sooner. The characters in the waiting room were kind of amusing, most notably a slightly white trash family with a whole bunch of kids and a daughter named Shakira. Eventually I got in, after much wailing and shaking in the waiting room, and got put into a tiny little stall. A doctor with a delicious American accent came in and I showed him the damage. An hour or so of lying with my butt in the air, he operated, but my pain medication came only a few minutes before the procedure was to begin, so I basically was cut up with a scalpel on my very swollen tail bone with NO PAINKILLERS for about forty minutes. I definitely feel as though I've well extended my pain threshold now. Sadly I can't remember the doctor's name (the pain and the drugs), but I have basically been referring to him just as "my dreamy American doctor". He did have glasses, was in his mid thirties and was slightly balding but I loved him. He apologised each of the 15 times he made an incision into the flesh around my tail bone. Haha. I basically just murdered the pillow that was under me by grabbing it and pulling on it each time he made a cut and screamed and cried loudly and bit the pillow. Today when I came back in to have my bandage changed the woman at the desk said "Oh were you the girl who was yelping on Monday night?". Yes, yes I was.

Anyway, all very painful and unpleasant. My medication makes me tired and queasy, sitting, lying and walking are still painful, but I'm not going to complain about it any more because it's all on the mend :) The rest of our stay, although slightly marred by my sore butt, will be spent doing fun things! Tomorrow we are going to a chocolate factory, a honey factory and a cheese factory, and they all offer tastings :P

Last night we all went out to the movies. C and his parents went into one cinema to see Van Diemens Land and I went to see New Moon (yes, I read the books, yes I saw the first movie, no I absolutely don't think it's any good). Launceston has five candy shops and the one across from the movies is very strategically placed. I got a huge mixed bag. C's parents have been lovely and I've been taking their little camera around with us wherever we go, so I have some photos to update you with! Hoorah;


My first photo in Launceston, after just getting back from surgery, obviously I'm having an awesome time so far. And me with a big red train they had at the museum.


My lollies from the movies, the photo doesn't do the never ending bag justice.


C's mum stuck in a room in the museum, it was amusing. All of the dust from the museum got in my eyes (see below) and I couldn't stop rubbing them. I swear I am just illness prone.



C was taking photos outside the museum while we waited for his parents to come back with the car and I sat with my head in C's jumper to stop myself from scratching my eyes. A man walked by us and saw C taking photos of me looking like I was crying and asked C what he was doing and if I was alright. Aw, nice Launceston folk looking out for me.


Here's me posting some posty goodness this morning. Also, if you've never seen an Australia Post box before, there you go :)



Then I had to go back to the hospital to get my wound checked up on. Sadly the dreamy American doctor wasn't there :'(. I did get a sweet female med student and another American doctor, but he wasn't as hunky. Here is me having a heaps good time;



This is me leaving the hospital, and waiting for the bus. I did spend a lot of time here, so C thought it was necessary to take a photo of the hospital as "one of the main places we went on our holiday";



C told me there were monkeys in town park, but I didn't believe him. Turns out there is just a random monkey enclosure in the middle of the park. How cool is that? Little school boys were throwing things at them, it made me angry;



And here is me with an old fashioned post box that is still in use. I LOVE IT! I'm going to post all of my letters here (even though there are like three post offices way closer);



And I thought, just to show you that I am still working on my mail and writing letters down here (though I haven't actually written any yet), I'd take a photo of the 'mail kit' I brought with me. It's full of supplies for making mail (pens, glue, etc), some stationery, letters to respond to and envelopes needing letters put in them. I spread it out on the little table in the backyard. C's dad came out and looked shocked. I love that it was still so lovely and bright out at that time of night. It was about 8pm when I took these pictures;



Anyway, that has been my 'holiday' so far. I will try to update a few more times while I'm down here :) I hope you enjoyed my really fascinating, awesome holiday snaps.

^ Unknown. Ps. I don't really feel this way.

Being ill is so all encompassing. I want to be getting ready for our trip and cleaning the house, but all I can seem to manage is hobbling from one room to the next, knocking myself out with painkillers, sleeping for hours and barely being able to sit, lie or stand without a great deal of pain. Needless to say when I'm sick I'm a very vocal, complaining person. C seems to be enjoying being my nurse, holding back my hair when I need to throw up, making me food, cleaning up, etc (he does all of those things regardless). My mum and her boyfriend came over this evening and we ordered pizzas and ate them in the park and wandered around, it felt good to get out in fresh air.

Tomorrow if illness subsides I'm going to Bird In The Hand's zine making day - I got some awesome zines from there a few days ago. One in particular I really liked, called 'Statistical Analysis Of The Things That Happen But Don't Matter And Everything Else', is full of all different types of graphs measuring mundane things;



Zines I picked up;
♡ Statistical Analysis Of The Things That Happen But Don't Matter by Sarah McNeil

♡ By The Time You're Twenty Five by Flying Machine

♡ Nuns I've Known by Prunella Vulgaris

♡ The Second Side

♡ Berlin By Bike Or and some mini zines by Maddy Phelan

Receiving lovely mail was some consolation from the sickliness, a letter with a great decorated envelope from Chandlerguera. I always enjoy her mail;





And one little outgoing;





And I saw these pillow cases on Sylvia's blog today and I adore them, the Australian dollar is meant to overtake the US dollar by a few cents next month so maybe I should lash out. I'd make C sleep on the queen side;



And I think I really want one of these strange ergonomic kneeling chairs. They look oddly comfortable and seem much better for your posture;

^ I love this, but I have no idea where it came from.

I spent the majority of today wincing in pain. Over the past few years I have had a recurring cyst on my tail bone which tends to flare up at inopportune times, especially in Summer. Sitting, standing and lying down are some of the things that are made very difficult by this condition. Uncomfortable, painful and gross are words that accurately describe the ailment. I went to my doctor and of course I had to pull up my dress and have her poke and prod me from behind before she'd hand over the painkillers and antibiotics. The painkillers made me go pretty woozy. I had a lot of trouble forming sentences and it felt like my tongue wouldn't fit in my mouth and I occupied myself by decorating envelopes with psychedelic patterns for a few hours. C bought me our favourite pizza for dinner and upon eating two slices I felt disturbingly ill and retreated to my bed. The trouble with those really heavy painkillers is that when they wear off they leave you with a headache and create a need for themselves. Anyhow, for the time being I'm just going to endue the tear-inducing pain and sit on my sore, sore tailbone. Tomorrow I'm going to try to hobble my way to Bird In The Hand distro to pick up some zines to take with me to Tasmania and buy a new pen (I go through a pen a week).

C was quite jealous of my mail haul today. A gorgeous little Halloween themed package arrived from a girl called Wendy from Ohio. The very batty card reminded me a little of Missive Maven. It actually has a hologram on it, but my scanner had a bit of fun with it. She also sent me a whole bunch of cute Halloween stickers that I couldn't get a scan of. If Australia won't celebrate Halloween I'll just have to infiltrate through the post by sticking Halloween everywhere;





Plus a sweet little package from the lovely miss Julie, which contained a great letter, some sweet post cards I've already used up and the 'Woman In Black' letter set from her Etsy that I won in the giveaway she held at her blog, We've Got Paper. I've already written a letter on it today, and the paper is great to write on, soaks up ink well and I had lots of fun decorating the black envelope. Ps. You should probably send Julie a birthday card;





And a cute postcard from a lady named Anu in Santa Fe. It gave me deja vu when I saw it, though I have no idea why;



I only have two more mail-receiving days before I go to Tasmania :( Of course, I will be taking my computer on holidays and will thankfully have internet access, though we'll be keeping busy and seeing the sights. I am so grateful to be getting away from this heat. When we return on the we'll be staying in Sydney for a few days before seeing my favourite band Why? at the Annandale on the 16th of December. C often talks about when you want something but you don't think you can afford it or obtain it, that you 'send the idea out into the universe' and wait to receive it. Of course, being the sceptic that I am I did no such thing, but a lovely lady named Jade bought me two tickets out of the blue and I am ever so grateful and excited :)

C brought me home 8 stamps today and I'd used them all up within a minute. This is one of my outgoing today - I took part in a Tumblr Secret Santa, and I sent my recipient a mix cd, letter and some postcards. Hope she likes;





Hope you're having a lovely Wednesday.