Loving + loathing for May

May 14, 2012 – 9:59 pm

It’s MID MAY already! Argh! So here are my likes & dislikes for the month:

TokyoMilk - Dead Sexy perfumeWhistles Francoise tote in mustard

IN

  • TokyoMilk Perfume. This brand has an interesting collection of scents. This time round I bought Dead Sexy which is a vanilla-based scent (notes are: deep vanilla, exotic wood, white orchid and ebony) It’s sweet but not in a foody-cloying way. Normally I’m all about fresh-floral fragrances but this sweet woodsy one really got to me. I think it’s a perfect warm fragrance for autumn, and bonus: it lingers on the skin.
  • Whistles Francoise tote. I have been looking for a new bag for a while and when I found this one on ASOS, I was so excited. It ticked all the boxes: a nice large construction, not too boxy, flexible soft thick leather, in a lush dark yellow, with gold hardware. AND it’s reminiscent of a Mulberry Bayswater (one day, I’ll get me one). It was an expensive purchase for me but I hope to lug this beauty around for years to come. (The Whistles website has the measured dimensions for this bag as much larger than what it looked like. Although their website is a hot mess, their online customer service was incredible, responding to my email straight away with the actual dimensions, and in a fab & friendly tone of voice too)
  • Beetroot & feta. I’m pretty sure these 2 food items were invented for each other. Like, they go a long way towards proving there is such a thing as soulmates. Borsch Vodka & Tears (apparently a bit of a Melbourne institution) is a restaurant serving Polish-style tapas and you can get yourself a good fix there. Warning: a great selection of food means there’s a high chance of food coma.

OUT

  • Wardrobe explosion zone. We have a long built-in wardrobe in our main bedroom and honestly, whoever designed it was just stupid! It’s an exercise in wasted storage space. My clothes are jumbled all over the place. Extra shelves & drawers are sorely needed.
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Not much stitching

May 11, 2012 – 11:51 am

My sewing machine is still being serviced *twitches impatiently* Hopefully I can get it back next weekend.

In the meantime I have:

  • Got my sewing scissors sharpened – they make a lovely ‘snick snick’ noise now
  • Bought a couple of patterns
  • Stockpiled a wodge of calico*
  • Got the sweetest 1960′s suitcase to keep all the material in
  • Collected a few notions & tools – including a roll of ‘Swedish tracing paper’ which is just a thick kind of interfacting as far as I can see
  • Bought fabric for a dress
  • Bought fabric for a coat

That’s right, one of my first return-to-sewing projects will be a COAT. A belted coat, no buttons, but still. I made a trip to Tessuti in Flinders Lane and OHMY. So much gorgeous material. Droolworthy. There I found it, a gorgeous caramel coloured wool-cashmere blend, perfect amount of fuzziness. (I was being super picky on fuzziness. I didn’t want it TOO fuzzy, as want to avoid as much as possible the bathrobe look, but didn’t want scritchy wool either). No lining bought yet but I have my eye on this lush golden 100% silk at The Fabric Store on Brunswick St. I like the idea of a pop of bright colour inside, and as I can’t wear yellow it’s like a consolation prize getting to use it for lining.

Christ I hope I don’t eff this up! If you don’t hear anything more about it, know that I did…

In the meantime, I’m SERIOUSLY lacking in colder-weather clothing. I resisted spending dosh on clothes last winter in the UK, as I was saving for travel, so I really am struggling now it’s cooler. But I am not finding anything in Aussie stores that: a) I like enough to try on, and b) fits me, and c) isn’t ridonkulously expensy. Aaaargh.

* This will be for making ‘muslins’. I gather that what we call calico is called muslin in the States. Meanwhile Americans think ‘calico’ is a cotton fabric with fine floral print, and The whole confusing mismatched set of words & meanings can be found in this Wikipedia article.

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Sunrise, sunset, swiftly flow the days

May 9, 2012 – 2:25 pm

Oh hai, it’s autumn and winter’s just around the corner and I thought I would take this moment to compare & contrast.

The start of May in Melbourne is the equivalent to the start of November in London. The darkest month looms on the horizon. At least in the northern hemisphere, that month coincides with a wonderful festive season. The darkest month downunder gets… the Queen Birthday holiday. Huh. Break out the sparklers & bunting, woo hoo.

Yesterday, the 8th of May, the sun rose here at 7.07am. Pretty dark when I got up but by the time I was on my way to work, the sun was low & glare-y in the sky, the wind tugging dry yellow leaves from the trees. The sun set at 5.25pm, turning the city golden as I left work — it was still light as I made my way to the tram.

In London on the 8th of November, the sun rises at the same time 7.07am but sets an hour earlier. I’d be leaving work in the dark.

And by the time the shortest day rolled around in December, I’d be utterly miserable with the sun rising at 8.04am and setting at 3.54pm. (Ack!)

Whereas the shortest day in Melbourne will give me 2 hours more daylight, the sun rising at 7.36am and setting at 5.08pm.

BOOYAH. That goes some way to make up for the non-festive winter!

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Misadventures with AustraliaPost

May 2, 2012 – 9:36 pm

I made a post bemoaning the poor e-commerce in Australia recently. Sadly e-commerce in Australia will be able to meet UK’s standards as long as AusPost keeps doing what they’re doing.

Here’s what happened to me…

In early February, I ordered a small cosmetic item from eBay. An item about the size of a tube of lipgloss — something that could fit in our letterbox with no problem, sent ordinary mail, basically a chunky letter.

AusPost decided they couldn’t be bothered delivering the parcel. And nor could they be bothered leaving me a card to say they didn’t deliver it.

Later that month, I got a ‘final notice‘ from Prahran Post Shop telling me they were holding my parcel to ransom and if I don’t come get it in 5 days, they’re sending it back to sender.

Prahran Post shop is oh-so-helpfully only open Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. Le sigh.

I spent 20 minutes (not exaggerating!) on the phone with AusPost to arrange for it to be sent to a central post office on Bourke St instead, where I could go in my lunchbreak to pick it up. This, they told me, would cost $5.50. Great — but as that is still less than what it would cost me to take time off work to get to the Prahran Post Office, okay.

I asked why it hadn’t been delivered to our house in the first place, seeing as it was such a small item that would’ve fit in the letterbox, and the response was, “It depends on the person who is delivering the mail and what they think.” I translate that to mean: sometimes that guy just can’t be bothered to do his job. Thanks, that guy.

Anyway, so, then they lost the parcel.

Multiple visits to Bourke St post office and more (20 minute) calls, and nope. Vanished. I dutifully filled in the complaint form. A couple of weeks later, I received two letters (I’m not sure why they felt the need to do this. Perhaps if they’d put more effort into delivering items in the first place rather than sending out letters twice…? *waggly eyebrows*) and AusPost confirmed that indeed they had lost my parcel. They said under the Universal Postal Union Agreement, the sender could claim compensation.

The sender? That’d be the person who is a) not inconvenienced because they did everything right in sending the thing, and b) the person who is not out-of-pocket because they’ve been paid by me for it?

Le SIGH!

Sadly, these 2 letters arrived just in time for me to miss the 45 day deadline to make a claim on eBay about an undelivered item. So… I’m basically screwed. My eBay seller doesn’t speak English and has no incentive to help me out. I guess the only silver lining is that it was a $30 item and not a $300 item. Oh, and that I’ve now learned to avoid using AusPost if I can. It’s a bit hard when they get to have a state-endorsed monopoly with no service level agreements (oh yeah).

Weirdest of all, that Universal Postal Union Agreement? It’s 137 years old. There was no such thing as e-commerce in 1875 when they wrote that thing! Perhaps it’s time for an update?

I miss the Royal Mail. *sniff* It seems I’m not alone in my dislike of AustraliaPost either.

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Notions, darts and notches

April 26, 2012 – 2:10 pm

diagram of old sewing machine

I’m really looking forward to sewing again.

I didn’t sew at all while living in London. Part of the whole “I’m only living here temporarily” mindset which meant I didn’t buy Big Things or stuff which would weigh me down. If you’ve ever sewed, you know how much STUFF you acquire. Machine, overlocker, many spools of thread, various notions, scissors, tracing paper, pencils, needles, pins, more pins, tweezers, quick-unpick, ruler, tape measure, and boxes of leftover fabric.

I’m currently re-acquiring it all.

I have a machine getting serviced at the moment, and have made a down-payment on a new overlocker. Both Bernina. Had a grand time in the sewing machine shop getting all the overlockers demo’d to me by the lovely ladies.

(This might seem a bit weird but the half hour I spent in that shop was a real coming home moment for me.)

I was sorely tempted by a BabyLock but OHBOY. Those suckers are expensive. And really, I don’t mind manually rethreading THAT much. So I went with a Bernina for less than half the price.

In a couple of weeks I’ll be able to pick up both machines and get started!

In the meantime… I have to get my sewing scissors sharpened.

Today at lunchtime I picked up some black thread and white thread, interfacing, pins, and a quick-unpick. I’m going to need a toolbox for all this stuff.

I plan to get a bunch of calico for testing out new patterns. Something I never really did before was draft a pattern in calico and fit it first. I purchased a book on fitting recently. Reading it so far, I’ve realised how much I already know about pattern adjustment. Just I never applied it properly by going through a fitting process first.

What I really want a better understanding of is how pulls/slack in fabric translate to what needs altering on the pattern. Hopefully this book will be able to teach me some of that.

And my mum put me onto this totally strange but clever way of creating your own perfectly customised dressmaker’s dummy. Gaffer tape! Huh.

So I’m looking forward to having, in exchange for time & effort on my part, clothes that:

  • fit me perfectly
  • nobody else will be wearing
  • are true to my style
  • won’t have cost as much as in store
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ANZAC

April 24, 2012 – 10:38 pm

ANZAC Cove

Seven months ago, Duffster & I were in Turkey. And one day we joined a tour of the Gallipoli peninsula. I would strongly recommend any Kiwi or Aussie in the country to make the trip too.

We all grow up with ANZAC day, going to dawn services, learning about WW1 and the trials our countrymen faced in that foreign land. Some of the coursework that I remember most strongly from high school were my English classes on WW1 poetry and the play Chunuk Bair.

But there’s nothing like sitting on a boat in the wind & waves of the Aegean, zipping into ANZAC cove yourself. Standing on that soil, the craggy cliffs looming above you. Standing in the trenches and looking mere meters across the road to where the enemy trenches once were. Realising viscerally how many cemeteries there are in this one small area. Touching your fingertips to Lt Colonel Malone’s name.

It was very moving and I was so glad we went.

And I hadn’t thought about Gallipoli being such a monument to the Turks as well. Of course it is, but I suppose it has always framed to me from the ANZAC point of view. But there are many Turk cemeteries and memorials and Turkish visitors on the peninsula too.

The sphinx, ANZAC cove

The sphinx, ANZAC cove

 

Ataturk's speech

Ataturk's speech

 

Trenches at Gallipoli

Trenches at Gallipoli

 

A poppy in Chunuk Bair NZ cemetery

A poppy in Chunuk Bair NZ cemetery

~

And to finish, the lovely & sad poem Last Post from Carol Ann Duffy. Written to honour the passing of the last WWI veterans in the UK:

Last Post

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin

that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud …

but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood

run upwards from the slime into its wounds;

see lines and lines of British boys rewind

back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home -

mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers

not entering the story now

to die and die and die.

Dulce – No – Decorum – No – Pro patria mori.

You walk away.

You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)

like all your mates do too -

Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert -

and light a cigarette.

There’s coffee in the square,

warm French bread

and all those thousands dead

are shaking dried mud from their hair

and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,

a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released

from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.

You lean against a wall,

your several million lives still possible

and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.

You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.

If poetry could truly tell it backwards,

then it would.

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Too much sandwich, not enough demon hunting

April 17, 2012 – 6:23 pm

Aaaaahhhstoryfreakout.

Last week, I had this thought that I’d started Rukan in the wrong place. It wasn’t working in its current structure. In my head I sketched out a different starting place (where I’d initially reckoned on maybe book2 started at) but it all sounded like backstory. If you read it first, you’d think you were reading a sequel.

So I thought, it’s something else. Something else is not quite right here.

Then I read this blogpost: Linear writing leads to flat narrative

Here’s an extract:

“By linear I don’t mean the way time is structured in your story. You don’t have to write scenes all out of order Christopher Nolan style to make it interesting.

This is what I’m talking about: A man is hungry. He goes to the kitchen and makes a sandwich. He eats the sandwich. He is no longer hungry.

The journey from hungry man to sated man is very straight. It’s easy. It’s obvious. It’s dull.”

My initial reaction to reading that was: THAT PERSON DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT.

Ding ding ding.

Of course they do. That was the kneejerk reaction of my conscious brain as my unconscious brain went ‘DUH, THAT’S WHAT YOU’VE DONE AND IT’S NOT GOOD.’

My story is basically one extended sandwich-making scene.

Conscious brain has now sulkily come around to the truth and we’re playing with ideas. How can I compress the narrative to get things moving quickly? What needs to be shown on screen — and what doesn’t?

And everything I’d pencilled in as possible book2 is coming on board. This makes the other main character happy, as he gets more resolution and screentime and to go home (he isn’t a fan of the desert).

Rukan, meanwhile, will need tweaked motivations. I have to make her want something at the start, something I hadn’t imagined her wanting: magic. I’m not sure yet on how that’s going to affect her character.

Aaaand so I haven’t actually started ripping things out yet. I don’t expect it to be very hard (in my experience, editing is always easier than writing fresh). What will I have left? Tatters of a story and a big ole FLAILING middle-of-the-book. BUT. I also get to make up more stuff. Another city, another plotline.

What’s interesting is that this is similar to what I did with Molly’s Gift. When I reached 30,000 words I ended up going back to the start and rejigging and rewriting huge swathes of it. Maybe I need 30k of words in order to judge a story’s shape and determine what it SHOULD look like.

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Readeling update

April 14, 2012 – 11:48 am

Currently reading: The Kingdoms of Dust by Amanda Downum. LOVE this series for its interesting & varied range of characters & settings. This ain’t no medieval ripoff fantasy where the ladies are in dresses sewing in the back room. I wish there were more books like this. Added bonus of lovely writing too. Highly recommended. Sad already to think about finishing it.

(En passant, this may be the last book I ever purchase in a bricks-n-mortar bookstore in Australia: $19 for a standard paperback? Srsly? I knew books were expensive but that’s taking the piss. AbeBooks and Book Depository from now on.)

Recently read: Seasons 2 and 3 and 4-so-far of Shadow Unit (must add up to a whole book of words in total, so I’m going to add it to my 2012 reading list, natch). I’ve told you about this web-based TV series before. I recently went on a complete bender and read all the episodes ever. And the extras & easter eggs. (I got a new smartphone, so I could finish reading the Kindle ebooks, then access the website for those epidoes which are not-yet-ebooked) God, you guys, this is such a fantastic concept. X-Files vs Criminal Minds. Please please give it a go if you haven’t yet — start at the beginning.

To read: This stack of books right here

my to read stack

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