backyard

Oh Spring, she's arrived (!) and so Ive been spending all my time outside. This year I'm making some ambitious attempts at a veggie garden, and the dogs have been really helping out. See - Poppy has been keeping the potato's warm & Frank even kindly carted off some large skeletal remains I found buried in an old planter. Thanks so much guys!

Oh and Beetroot. I love you best when I eat you with feta on toast but also kind of secretly like how you stain my fingers a crazy shade of red. So yeah, Beetroot, thank you too!

a minor place

Walking from my gaff to the little cafe just down the road (for coffee and french toast w/ rhubarb & pistachio mascarpone om nom nom nom!) and then back again. All "ugly" 1970's brick houses besides victorian terraces besides big old wooden things. Thats why I like it here. Oh, and for all the fruit trees in yards waiting around for me to come and (sneakily) harvest!

Melbournians, did you know you can find (and help others find) nearby fruit trees by using this map? Or this one?

Everyone else- I bet a similar thing exists for your city too (and if not you should start one)!

hello peach

Really & truly, I try my hardest not to turn this blog into a full time dog-fest but sometimes you'll just have to indulge me, okay?

visitors

Dawn (of handmadelove fame) and some of her friends came over to my house on the weekend - for cups of tea and coffee, some TV & a quick ride on the swing set. Aren't they the cutest?! & they brought delicious homemade cakes too... such dreamboats! Even the dogs were in love. Dawn was even brave enough to trust me with her big fancy dSLR. I.. I dont think I'd ever even touched one before. They are so scary! And confusing! Anyway, there's some of those pictures on Dawn's blog here and here, if your interested!? Poppy even makes an appearance. Hurray!

the homecoming committee

Re: Heading Home.

Mainly I worry that my excellent Italian Greyhound wont remember me. And that I'll have to get some boring job. And that I'm returning to yet another winter. But now I can move back into my old house again which is really great. Its a bit of a rickety old place, but I like it there nonetheless. I am so excited to see my friends (!), have all my things around me again, cook something in an oven, see how tall my cactus has grown,  watch crazies on trams, eat breakfast in my overgrown backyard, decorate my room, start some serious veggie growing, and do the million other things that are only able to be done properly in Melbourne.

leaving

I'm leaving Utrecht in 21 hours! This is sometimes good, sometimes bad. I guess I'm neutral? I hardly took any photos of this here city so the above few will have to do. In all honestly all but the last photo were taken within maybe 25 meters of my bed aha (and you can even see my roof in the last one)! Is that considered cheating? Whatever, I make the rules around here. Tomorrow I board a bus and with any luck will end up in Italy 25 hours later. I-T-A-L-Y PEOPLE! Not even 25 hour buse rides or the prospect of packing can crush my excitement.

procrastination

This week I have spent more time indoors than I care to admit - procrastinating, not reading Mansfield Park, watching The Wire (all different names for the same thing), complaining about not knowing how to make my new camera do what I want it to, et cetera. Good things, though, include big long skype sessions with my favorite ladies, chocolate chip pancakes, mastering (for the first ever time in my life) the fine art of bicycling without hands and finishing the patchwork bag I've been working on! Yes, its still raining. But now I must venture out into the world for I'm off to London for a week. Yay!