First....

Home made kitchen curtains with very wonky hand stitching.

Outpost.

Cockatoo Island is so good. I mean, it's just this perfectly sized, slightly weird, almost beautiful little droplet of land in the middle of the harbour and it feels like a small encapsulated universe all of it's own.

It's even better with art. Here are some of the things I saw yesterday at the Outpost exhibition.

 

Oh my.....

Look! A crochet aardvark! Awesome! I love him.

This came from Planet June where a very clever crochet queen displays her work and sells the patterns so that you too may crochet an aardvark if the urge takes you. As it probably would.

All at sea.

This whole house buying shenanigans has left me a little dislocated. In all the thrill of purchasing our very own house, we were so caught up in what we were getting, that we didn't maybe give full consideration to what we would no longer have.

So, amongst the excitement of acquisition and the promise of a stable future, there is grief and sadness, felt especially keenly by my lovely son. The fortunate creature had spent his whole entire known lifetime living in the one geographical location. Although we moved around a lot from one rental to another, we were always cocooned by the amazing coastal landscape and a known community.

In our new setting we are suffering some home-sea-sickness and feeling a bit displaced. We are having to appreciate that our responses to the new are indelibly tied to our responses to the loss of the old. And it is a real loss; a sense of drifting, disconnected from the landscape and the humans that populate it. We are no one in this new place. We are unknown and apart, where we used to be tethered down, held in our place in the world by our known-ness. There is a strange sense that anything could happen here, it feels a bit dangerous, a bit unnerving; we have lost sight of ourselves as others see us.

The very nature of home has shifted under our feet. And we are floundering, trying to reconcile a pervading sense of longing with the fact that we are home. Perhaps at the minute, it is more accurate to say, we are in our new house, but we are still looking to find our way home.

First....

...dirty glasses left out overnight by slovenly homeowner.

First time ever in own home (an occasional ongoing series).

First baking extravaganza. Sour cherry and coconut rolls.

First nail in the wall. For the giant Cuban rosary with glow-in-the-dark Jesus. Naturally.

 

And first unveiling of the new faux fur bed sleeping device. I call him - the snow leopard.

Oh my goodness hello.

Holy shitballs. We have just spent 6 weeks with no internet access at our home and survived. I have not made a single aardvark post (clearly) and my email inbox is totally bonkers. Today was the day that the little green blinking lights of joy came back on and thank the lord for that. I'm sure anyone who was interested in the aardvark has by now given up and moved on but hey, I'm back, and I'm happy, even if nobody else especially minds.