You can see why I'm no graphic designer...

Apologies for the ham-moused attempts at drawing on these photographs! I have "used" Photoshop to try and show where our property is, and where our proposed house sites are, from a different perspective: all the previous photos you've seen have been taken from the property, and it has been difficult to convey a sense of the whole area. These photographs were taken on the way back down to the highway, at a point on the road where you can look back up to the hills and see the property as a whole. Hope you like them!


This is the view from the road with no magnification: you can just see the property: it's the clearer area just below the line of the hills, just to the right of centre

Zooming in a bit, our 10 acres are above the house, which belongs to our nearest neighbour, Adam. His house is very close to the boundary fence between our properties

The red dotted outline (click on the photo to enlarge it) is the approximate area of our property, and the hashed areas with numbers are the two proposed house sites

What you can't see from the photos is that the area behind the trees in the lower left of the dotted outline is actually quite large and has a big hole in it that will eventually be a small lake! To the rear of the property, the koala habitat is in the tree line that curves around the property, up what is quite a steep embankment (a cliff in places).

We're off to see...

...my in-laws, in the wonderful city of Wagga! Yes, we've committed the cardinal sin of taking Ella out of school for two days, only one week before the end of her first term, but who wants to travel over Easter?

Michael's got a Microsoft 'Code Camp' at Charles Sturt University near Wagga Wagga this weekend, so it seemed like an ideal opportunity for Ella and me to go down there too and spend a long weekend with Terry and Joan, and doubtless Annemaree and her children too. I gather that we'll miss Bernadette and her lot because they're off at Jack's swimming competition in Sydney, which is a shame.

What else have we been up to? Well we've worked out when we're next going to be in Europe: we're going to start travelling over on 22nd June, and depart back to Australia on 13th July, so we'll be over for roughly 3 weeks. Plans are in the very early stages at the moment, but we hope to be in Bristol at either the beginning or end of the trip, with a meander from Nice to Venice in the middle and hopefully a quick visit to Amsterdam thrown in for good measure. We had thought about 'doing' Bristol for a week at the beginning of our holiday, but it seems that in doing so we might miss seeing Dad, which I don't want to do, as he may be over in France and Germany holidaying with Fiona... As you can see, it's already complicated and we're still 3 months away! I'll keep you informed as to our plans, but it will be lovely to see you again if we can possibly arrange it.

Our purchase of Lot 31 North Boambee Road has officially gone through now, and we should get all the deeds in the next couple of weeks. Now we have to get Public Liability insurance sorted out for the property, to protect ourselves against claims from people who shouldn't be on our land and various contractors who should... and we need to sort out a 'slasher': someone with a tractor and a large mowing attachment on the back who can keep the grass down. As we're coming into winter it shouldn't need doing so often - as long as its below knee level we can live with it, for the moment, so hopefully this will only be an expense every few months until the grass starts growing again with vigour later in the year. I still can't get my head around the fact that we're in autumn at the moment whereas Europe is experiencing spring time. It just doesn't feel right!

The excitement is mounting as we wait until Thursday next week to see our architect, who has come up with some 3D CAD drawings on his computer with ideas of what he thinks the house could look like. It's incredibly hard to imagine a physical building where none exists at the moment. Michael and I were up at the property yesterday morning (testing out the new off-road tyres on our 4WD!), and it's almost impossible to imagine what it will be like with a home up there.

I am actually feeling quite daunted by everything at the moment: the initial (long) burst of energy that has sustained me through the whole process of moving over here and initial settling in to Coffs Harbour is beginning to fade away, and some of the stress is catching up with me. It's not been helped by having my first cold for six months (thank you Mr Nardini - I caught the cold from you via Michael!), but I guess it's only natural that there will be peaks and troughs in how we're all coping with this. And I miss all of our friends so much. Yes, we're pretty sociable people and we've got lots of 'nodding acquaintances', and we are getting to know two couples (Carol and Ian and Sammie and Duncan), but it's a slow old process and it would be lovely to have you all around to talk to about things... But anyway, we just have to get on with it and keep in touch with you as far as we are able to do so via other means.

Hey ho. I've decided to take things easy for a few days and calm down a bit, and then I suspect my usual enthusiasm will come back and my energy levels will increase again. Then I might feel like doing a bit of work...

Angelic Upstart

Aaaah! Ella's first school photograph...

Time Difference - update

Well folks, Spring has fallen and Autumn has sprung, or something like that, so the difference in times between east coast Australia and the UK/Europe has changed again.

As I write it is 13:15 on Sunday afternoon, which is 04:15 on Sunday morning in the UK and 05:15 Sunday morning in Europe, so the time difference is that the UK is 9 hours behind Coffs Harbour now and Europe is 8 hours behind.

If you want to ring me in at 8pm in the evening, my time, you would ring me at 11am in the UK and noon in Europe. If you ring me at 9am in the UK or 10am in Europe it would be 6pm in Coffs Harbour. If you want to ring me at 9am in the morning in Coffs Harbour you would need to stay up until midnight in the UK or 1am in Europe! Ringing me at 10pm in the UK or 11pm in Europe would get me at a very uncivilised 7am here in Coffs so my advice is, don't do it unless it's urgent!

So I guess that until the clocks change again it is most likely that we'll be speaking to each other in the mornings (UK and Europe time) which will be later afternoon/early evening (Coffs Harbour), unless you happen to be staying up very late.

New Holland

The first time I drove through Coffs Harbour - at the end of last October, although that seems like years ago now - I didn't expect to see The Clog Barn advertised along the Pacific Highway, but it seems that there is a reasonable Dutch population here. Ella and I went to visit The Clog Barn today as a treat after I'd dragged her around three gardens in East Boambee which were opening as part of the Australian Open Gardens scheme which is, as its name implies, modelled on the British scheme.





Lots of windmills, as you'd expect














The owners do make clogs on site - including some beautiful examples with chip-carved decoration



All the model buildings are handmade using latex moulds for each individual brick... A labour of love. By the way, can you spot Spiderman?








The gardens were reasonably interesting, but it was another very hot day and Ella really was quite well-behaved considering the heat, how tired she was after a week of school plus a ballet class this morning, and how little she relishes being dragged around gardens (unless they have play areas in them, of course).


A lovely rainforest walkway created over a small creek; bromeliads tied onto a chicken-wire and moss column suspended from a tree (left)

The tall palms are native, and apparently grew this tall in less than 10 years!

The lake is bigger than our dam will be, but I love the lotus flowers (and dragon- flies) in it, and the edge of canna lilies

I went to see the gardens because I'm interested to see what will grow here and how it all looks when put together into a garden design. These gardens were an essay in how quickly things grow here: trees, shrubs, palms, ferns... All three gardens had shade houses too, and I found that interesting: shade houses are ideal for orchids. Looking at other people's gardens also makes me realise that I don't want vast expanses of lawn with complicated edges and that I like things looking lush, so tropical is more my style than traditional (whatever that is in a land of immigrants!).

Things that creep upon the earth

I don't like things that creep, generally speaking. Big or small, they have a nasty habit of creeping around for a bit and then bouncing out at you - and I think that works for anything from nasty sneaky people to small children hiding to bugs and reptiles. I've experienced a few palpitations because of the last two on that list this week, and I DON'T LIKE IT.

Our friendly Pest Control guy stopped by yesterday to set traps and poisoned bait for our not-so-friendly mice. These lovely furry creatures are nesting in the electricity junction box and the air-conditioner condensing box, to the detriment of each. I can think of at least one person reading this blog who will be horrified at the thought of small furry creatures being poisoned, but believe me, I've had enough. Not only do electrical things suddenly cease to work in the house, but there is also the electrifying chance that I might get a bigger shock than I'd bargained for, never mind the unsavoury idea of the aroma of fried mouse in the mornings...

While he was at it, Mr Pest Control also gassed four wasps nests on the side of the house, which I also found something of a relief. Michael slightly misled me about wasps in Australia: he said there weren't any. What he meant was that there aren't any European wasps in Australia. Australian Immigration and Quarantine Inspectors aren't pleased about the idea of an invasion of European wasps without appropriate visas, and given the amount of damage that introduced species have already done to the flora and fauna of this country I can sympathise, up to a point. However, Michael neglected to tell me that Australia has its own unique population of wasps and hornets - and they're double the size of their European counterparts. Now I've never been stung by a British wasp or bee, but given how badly I react to a mere mosquito bite I presume I won't react very well should the worst ever happen. I can't imagine what it would be like to be stung by one of these critters. I've seen a hornet two inches long. Even the average wasp is over an inch long, and they have strangely long rear legs that drag behind them as they fly... Yuck. So as you can tell, I'm delighted that their nests are no more.

Funnily enough I have no problem with lizards. Not only do they eat nasty bugs, but they don't seem to scuttle about in the same way that bugs do. There was a 3 foot long goanna at the swimming pool a few weeks ago: quite impressive and it certainly made some of the mothers there move pretty fast, but it didn't worry me, and nor did this foot-long blue-tongued lizard that I found outside the back door when I showed the Pest Control man where the air-conditioning box was located.








When Mr Pest Control visits us again in a couple of month's time to do a termite check, he's going to try and sort out the cockroaches - he observed we have 'a lot' in the loft when he went up to confirm there were no mice up there. Lovely.

Ella's turn

Here you are: the local newspaper's article about Ella and me finding pumice on the beach. Please can I reassure you that the overly-dramatic opening sentence is entirely the invention of the journalist concerned! Yes, Ella did take her pumice into class for her 'news' session last week, but it wasn't quite as dramatic as presented here. But she had fun doing it: Trevor, the photographer, is a nice man and they had a laugh on the beach trying to make small pieces of brown rock look interesting.

I can also reassure you that I haven't - to quote Patrick - been "pimping" my daughter to the media! This isn't the rocky road to beauty pageants and earning a small fortune in advertising...

By the way, you should be able to click on the images and bring up a larger version of the picture which should enable you to read the purple prose. Ditto for the article about me, below.

Yes Miss

From the Coffs Coast Advocate, Thursday 8th March 2007 - the arts page




If you've been reading this blog you'll know that I had an exhibition recently and that there was an article written about it in the local paper. I haven't put the article in because I was waiting to get hold of some photos taken by Trevor Veale, the paper's photographer, and also my photos of the subsequent workshop I ran on experimental monotype. Now I've got them, here they are!












The studio is tiny - the table doubles as a base for blotters when I'm printing; I'm always moving things around...






Standing next to some prints in the gallery. Note the 'sold' sticker by my head!







This is what the gallery looked like before the class started on Saturday. Peace! I'd been in there for 2 hours setting up.




Getting started - I had 11 students and it was pretty busy


Lots of lovely work - very few 'finished' images but lots of ideas



People were very energetic - most of them produced at least 3 if not more images during the day

Pumice

Do you recall the news reports about six months ago about a yacht in the Pacific Ocean coming across a volcanic island rising from the waves? I was fascinated, and can't quite believe it's six months since I saw the reports... Anyway, a few weeks ago The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story about how the pumice from the volcanic explosion was due to start washing up on the beaches of New South Wales, and I've been looking out for it ever since. Yesterday Ella and I were walking along the beach in Korora Bay and we found dozens of pieces of pumice!














We're thrilled: I've been telling Ella all about how volcanoes work and how they make rock, and it's been wonderful to find these light, almost fragile pieces of an undersea volcano. Of course having the archive news reports has helped illustrate it for her, and today she took some print-outs, the pumice and her volcano drawing to school for her Thursday 'news' session.

Intertia

I just haven't had the energy to post a blog entry recently - life always seems to go a bit flat when Michael's not around, but I guess it also has to do with the fact that whoever stays at home picks up the burdens of parenting and housework so there is less time available.

Anyway, after a few days of sorting things out (car into garage AGAIN, this time because the air-conditioning is pouring water out from under the dashboard and into the passenger-side foot well; making volcano pictures with Ella; trying to get other things fixed; oven's given up the ghost - you know the sort of thing), I am finally managing to do some painting. Hooray!

I haven't sold any more prints from my exhibition, but I have found out that I've got a 2-week extension because the person who is scheduled to have a show after me isn't ready, which is in its own way very good news. It certainly won't hurt to have my work on display for a little longer.

Scripture

Oooh... we've had our first (minor) disagreement with Ella's school, a situation which took me straight back to my own experiences of parental involvement at school (usually Mum commenting on or objecting to something) and left both Michael and me agonising about what to say or do! Luckily, as it so happened, there really wasn't a drama as far as Ella's teacher was concerned but, as it concerned 'religious instruction', we'd been a bit worried.

When we enrolled Ella at Kororo Public School we knew that although Australian education policy is resolutely secular, nonetheless schools were free - and are encouraged - to provide some sort of religious (read 'christian') instruction at some point in the school week, so we weren't surprised to find that Ella's class would have half an hour of scripture on a Tuesday. We decided to let her sit in for it, even though we were given the option of removing her for that lesson, on the basis that we were worried she might 'stand out' in class by virtue of being British and we don't want to give kids another excuse for picking on her - a parental attitude that goes right back to the fact that Michael and I were both bullied at school.

This was all fine until we found in her bag an example of the sort of scripture lessons she has been getting, at which point we discovered quite strong negative opinions. I don't know the background to the school's decision to use 'Scripture Plus' - a Baptist initiative for kindergarten classes - but the content (preparing for the return of the Master, complete with cartoons showing how those who do not prepare adequately for his return will be booted out of the house of the lord!) was objectionable. I understand from Mary, Ella's teacher, that the visiting teacher who provides scripture lessons, only pulls out the Scripture Plus material at the end of the class, and that Mary also objects to its content. Anyway, as the material is significantly more evangelical in tone than anything we would be happy with (we were imagining little stories about Noah and perhaps a look at the festivals of other faiths), Ella will now be the sole child sitting out the class and helping her teacher rather than absorbing all of that.

Ironically, talking to people who either teach in or know teachers at local private schools - which are usually denominational - less overtly evangelical christian material seems to be taught, which I found a slight comfort. I've always felt that the dissociation between church and state is one of Australia's strengths and it is one of the reasons I have desired Ella to receive a public education (that and the absence of school fees, of course), but if the very good local private secondary school (which just happens to be Anglican) has a more balanced approach to social and cultural education it would be a point in its favour when Ella leaves Kororo Public School.

$10 down!

I bet Michael $10 that almost no-one would come to the opening of my show earlier this evening, and although it wasn't 'standing room only' I was amazed to see how many people stopped by! I had to give a speech and everything... very nervewracking...











In case you're wondering, Malcolm McLeod, on the left, is a Council Arts person, Shellie is the gallery director, and the guy to my right is a jeweller called Jeremy who will be having a show at the gallery in June

This is the only 'official photograph from the show: Shellie's (the gallery owner) camera wasn't working, our big one wasn't working, and although we took our small digital camera with us we were so pre-occupied serving drinks and talking to people that we forgot to take pictures... I think Shellie's a bit peeved that more pictures weren't taken, but you can't do everything.

Tomorrow morning I have a photo-call with the chief photographer from the 'Coffs Coast Advocate', the local daily newspaper, who's coming to the gallery to snap me looking industrious with my printmaking kit. Right now I'm so darned tired that I can't imagine looking very pre-possessing for the photos, but hey, maybe 'beauty sleep' will work this time! On Monday their reporter will apparently be interviewing me.

The most important thing, however, is that people seemed to like the images and I've sold 7 prints! More than I've ever sold before, in fact. And to cap it all, I've got 6 people lined up for my first workshop, and sufficient interest to run two more printmaking workshops in May.

One of the things about this evening that was very nice was that I saw familiar faces at the show. Having been here such a short time it seems incredible that we'd actually know enough people to recognise them at events. Part of it is definitely the fact that we live in a small town, and some of it is probably that people interested in art go to art events and take part in art classes so you're bound to run into them at some point. I don't know, but it felt nice whatever the reason.

...And the hair? Well I had a bit of a blonde moment at the hairdresser's yesterday, if you noticed the 'Mallen Streak' in my fringe. I mentioned this to Michael on the phone last night while he was still in Brisbane and there was a bit of a pause, until he said thoughtfully that he'd never really thought of me as bonde before. He seemed quite relieved to find I hadn't had a full colour change! Anyway, although you can't see it in the photo, the blonde bit seems to have done the job and knocked 5 years off my alleged age! Ah vanity, thy name is woman.

Gotta go now though, because I'm so tired that my neck may no longer support the weight of my enormous head.