I've been a bit bad at blogging lately. I don't have my office space set up properly yet and over the last week our office has doubled as a spare room while my mum stayed with us. We had a great time with her here (although I think C is relieved as she likes to be very cheeky to him and says lots of mean things to him) and it was lovely to see her interacting with Theo and him enjoying her company and we took some nice drives with her and had lots of good chats. She has some pretty incredible stories from her formative years, especially from the years when she used to ride around with bikers in Western Australia when she was about 18. On the drive to Strahan she shared lots of her stories from that period and I had this beautiful image of my mum with her long blonde hair, on the back of a blue Ducati that was loaded up with lots of bags, riding through the Nullarbor Plains, with a tough biker on the front, and my mum trying to read a book and only being able to read every right hand page because when she'd try to turn the pages they'd rip out and fly off into the desert (a true story). Only my mum could turn riding around with tough bikers into something cute and dorky. I love her stories and I hope she gets to write some of them down before her memory goes. She's a really incredible person.

I have a Pinterest board dedicated to places in Tasmania I want to visit and the West coast was high on that list and somewhere we hadn't taken my mum, so I was really excited to go there. We initially planned to visit Cradle Mountain on the way back from our trip to Strahan and go for some nice rainforest walks there, but we didn't get a chance - the drive was several hours long each way and Theo made us stop frequently, although when we'd stop we'd always find a great lookout and were kind of grateful for his whinging!




Before we left we went to the Harvest Markets in Launceston and got some delicious Wanderlust pies and a big punnet of blackberries which Theo enjoyed!

The whole drive was amazingly picturesque and there were such varied landscapes - desolate plains, lush rain forests with leafy canopies over the road, enormous pink granite mountains, winding cliff-side roads, burnt out forests, grassland moors, barren hills, alpine highlands, rocky scrub and hulking, majestic mountain sides. The wind on the West coast could knock you off your feet and much of it is blanketed in snow in colder months and totally uninhabitable. Since I've been home I can't stop thinking about the landscapes.


Near Queenstown.


Penguin Cradle Trail.


An amazing house in Queenstown.


Queenstown.


Black Bluff, Middlesex.


My mum and I freezing on a platform at Gormanston, freaking out about seeing lightening all around us!


Gormanston.


A burnt out inn at Gormanston. The water is full of tannin.


Queenstown's famous gravel football oval.


Gormanston.


Gormanston.


Queenstown.


Strahan.


Gormanston.


The theatre in Queenstown.


Black Bluff, Middlesex.


A sweet house we saw in Queenstown.






We stayed at a lovely boutique cottage in Strahan and ate delicious pizza on the harbour when we finally got in. I wish that we had had more time there - driving through the amazing landscapes was wonderful, but it would have been nice to be able to explore a little more - next time!

I started to ride my bike again (and got a flat tyre that I still need to repair, poop!) - and rode every day to Summer school. We bought a baby trailer and have been taking Theo for lots of rides - he likes to watch the scenery. I have so missed riding. I feel more me when I ride a bike.


We moved into our lovely new house (and we're still unpacking) and we're so happy. It's dreamy.


I found this very cute, very tiny letter while I was packing up to move house. I know it came out of a letter I received, if it was from you, thank you!


I unearthed some old photos while I was packing and this one brought back some memories from when I was school president (and blonde! And really short?).


I also found this old photo from when I was about Theo's age with my Mum. I think Theo and I look so alike.


I got Theo's room almost totally unpacked and arranged. I'll take some proper photos once I've hung up all the pictures.



Despite the fact that we already have a couch and a sofa bed, I found this amazing purple couch and two armchairs and had to have them. I feel like it's like they're out of a cartoon.


This little boy had a month full of developments. He's now crawling, can pull himself up from crawling to sitting and can pull himself up to standing in his cot and eats foods by himself. He tried kiwi fruit today and dried apples and dried bananas are BIG favourites.


I made a zine!


Our next door neighbours left this enormous zucchini on our doorstep and I thought I'd put it next to Theo for size.


The cats have really enjoyed our new house so far. We are able to let them all out and they don't wander very far and seem to really enjoy lazing around the garden. Sadly, they are also enjoying catching birds (non-natives, but still sad) - in this photo they are congregating around a tiny dead bird they'd caught - I thought they were just hanging out!


Such a cheerful boy.


...and possibly possessed?


Theo had his first go on a swing and loved it! It's a shame the same can't be said for the beach.


I made my own pizza dough for the first time and it was very edible. Our new kitchen is a lot smaller than our old one, but has lovely stainless steel appliances and good storage and I'm really enjoying cooking in it - my favourite things to cook at the moment are spiced pumpkin cake and pesto polenta with roast vegetables.

Reading | Call The Midwife but I've been craving some good fiction lately.
Watching | Orphan Black is our latest obsession. It's a Canadian show about a girl who sees a girl who looks exactly like her jump in front of a train. I also got really obsessed with a 3-part German miniseries called Generation War - it's not often that you see a WWII drama from the German perspective. I also watched A LOT of tennis - I love watching the Australian Open each year, it feels like it wouldn't be Summer without it. We also started watching a British show called In The Flesh about zombies (usually not my cup of tea) that get rehabilitated and try to assimilate back into society.
Making | Lots of woodcut prints and a zine.
Consuming | Pumpkin cakes, polenta with roast veggies, salads and icy poles.
Listening to | The Hottest 100 on Australia Day (pretty boring), Jurassic 5 & The National.
Looking forward to | My mum visiting tomorrow for a week! I'm hoping we'll be able to take her to Lilydale Falls and go on some pretty walks at Cradle Mountain.
In February | I go back to university to finish my degree!

I'm not typically a big fan of Summer. That is part of why we moved to Tasmania - because we couldn't stand another mid-40 degree Summer in New South Wales. This Summer has included a handful of mid-30 degree days which are very atypical for Tasmania and were pretty uncomfortable especially for my little Winter baby who sleeps best when it is chilly. Complaints aside, there are lots of things to like about Summer here - the longer days (I'll still never get used to the sun setting at 9.30pm!), delicious salads and cold beverages, beach-going weather and those irresistible perfectly warm days when staying inside would be a crime. Here is a list of some things I'd like to do before this season ends.




I actually got to tick one of the items off this list today - we took Theo to the beach for the first time. We went to Devonport Bluff which is a really lovely family place to swim and has a great burger place on the shore. Unfortunately, Theo hated the water and was terrified of the waves, though did enjoy eating a bit of sand. The water was probably a bit cold for him and the sound of the waves was pretty intense - we'll have to take him to the aquatic centre instead I think. Because days warm enough for beach-going are so few and far between here, we'll probably have to wait until next year to try the beach again with him. I am a huge fan of the beach (there is a photo of me, just a little bit older than Theo is now, in a bonnet, on my hands and knees in the water at the beach with a massive grin on my face - apparently I would crawl into the waves, get knocked over, laugh and then get back up and do it again), so I'll be so sad if Theo hates it forever!


+ Note sand on face. Delicious!

I thought I'd share some photos from the Tasmanian Creative Arts Summer School exhibition that I participated in. There was such a great variety of art exhibited. I'm kind of thinking of sticking around at uni for just one more Summer school, they're so fun.





Here is my work set up. I collected a couple of hundred shopping lists while working at my old supermarket job and was happy to finally have a use for them. They took me more than an hour to put up, but C thankfully helped me to take them down. I had a little plinth where I sat my zines and I sold most of them and gave a couple away. I loved the work to the left of mine, a guy from my class called Maximilian - it's hard to believe that they're relief prints with such a huge scale.

Below is some of my classmates' work.




Here are some photos from around the exhibition.








These cute little brooches and earrings were made by my friend Holly.

I'm looking forward to semester starting and getting immersed in creative materials again.