My new beach & some book works in the pipeline

I always felt privileged living at Coogee Beach and it was quite a wrench to leave it behind. It didn't take me long to get over that - the moment I saw Terrigal Beach on a sparkling summer day, I knew I was hooked. Now that I've moved to the NSW Central Coast I realise that there are many magical beaches and at least 7 of them are within a 10 minute drive of our home.
This is Terrigal Beach, which morphs into Wamberal Beach as it meanders north along the coast. South to the right the beach makes a turn around a rocky outcrop and forms another small beach with a boat launching area, a place for hopeful pelicans to hang out looking for scraps from fishermen. At The Entrance, another town a bit further north, there is a daily pelican feeding time, to which hundreds of pelicans flock, as do hundreds of tourists.
For more on pelicans, see here. One of the things I really love is watching these huge birds flying in V formation over our garden, taking a short cut from lagoon to beach.

I had an interesting afternoon yesterday with my friend P, as we worked on developing a new range of books for his shop. I managed to clear enough space in my work room so that we could lay out leathers and beautiful papers, cutting board by hand and making some serious policy decisions about what we'll make. I'm sorry to say that I was so engrossed I completely forgot to take photos but considering the state of the room, still piled high with boxes, that may have been a good thing. I'm really looking forward to making beautiful books for P's shop. I promise there will be photos as this ongoing project develops.

Thank you to all those bloggers who posted, welcoming me back to the blogosphere. I do appreciate your kind thoughts and I enjoy reading your blogs in turn.

After nearly 6 months of silence ...

... I've surfaced! Still not organised, not completely unpacked, but renovations are done and I love my new house, the surrounding gardens and of course, seeing my little grand daughters daily. The vegetable garden is under way with winter veggies taking off, and even though it's winter we are picking lettuce and rocket every day for salads. The chooks love it and you'd think the old black cat had lived here all his life. I've even bought a car, after many, many years of not driving.

Thank you to all my blogging friends who have supported me through these months with comments and emails; I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. For quite a while I didn't have internet access and the first thing I did once online was catch up on all my favourite blogs. I try to comment as often as possible because I know how encouraging that can be.

At the moment I'm working to get my work room unpacked and usable so that I can make some books. I've done one commercial job and I'm about to do another, so that is a great incentive to get organised.

I received 2 wonderful parcels recently from Gracia & Louise. These contained collaged zines by Gracia Haby - "Tumble & Fall", a magical book of stars, and "A vagary of impediments & a sneak of weasels", an illustrated list of collective nouns. Beautifully presented and packaged, the parcels also contained cards, and a most welcome surprise - a copy of "Tweak, Tweaked, Tweet", a concertina of Australian birds, by Louise Jennison. Visit them and see what they are making. Thank you Gracia and Louise. Oh, and if you are fascinated with collective nouns, do visit their other site here.

Another surprise came my way a few days later when I read in Melior's blog Bibliophilia that I'd won her June give-away. This, #1 of her zine "The Happy Bus" has now arrived in the mail and I'm delighted with it. Original writing by Meliors and others, a fold out map showing Neural Pathways to Happiness and a little packet of stickers - plenty to read and think about. Thanks Meliors. Now, if you don't know Melior's blog I suggest you visit and leave a comment by 14 July. You'll be in the running for her July give-away - a staghorn coral brooch, embroidered to represent a fragment of bleached coral.

Way back at the beginning of this year Astrid tagged me. In response, rather than list things about myself, I think I'll just lead you to a few new blogs I'm reading. There are so many interesting book binders and book artists out there now and I find more each day. In fact Astrid's blog is a great source of new blogs for me. I'll try to add a couple each new post. I think it's important that we support one another.

Blue Roof Designs; Books by Rachel; CaiLun; Moonbindery; Buechertiger; Paper Curious - so read them and enjoy. And don't forget to leave a comment now and then.

Moving house tomorrow

One last day to pack, tie off loose ends, try to send as many email messages as possible because tomorrow morning I move into my new house and workspace. I won't have internet access for a few days because my internet provider doesn't "provide" in my street. We were hoping to get cable but it seems only 12% of Australia has cable and certainly not our little rural area, close as it is to Sydney.

I'm helping my family pack and we are really struggling with the heat - 42'C (107'F) yesterday and expecting higher today. I'm just hoping it doesn't rain on Friday when all my vast store of paper gets moved. In this entire saga of moving twice in a month, my greatest concern has been for the paper; except for the fate of my antique china in the hands of a very dodgy removalist. I always assumed that labels like "TOP", "FRAGILE", "NOTHING ON TOP", "THIS WAY UP" and "GLASS" were pretty obvious indicators but not to these cowboys. We've hired a different company for this move but the damage may have been done.

The main thing is that I get there. I suspect a dip in the pool will be first on the agenda to get us in the mood for unpacking. But right now I have work to do, packing, packing and more packing.

Happy New Year!

Wow! 01-01-2009! Last night (instead of going out celebrating or watching the fabulous Sydney fireworks on TV) I caught up with a lot of favourite blogs. That was a kind of celebration for me and a very satisfying way of spending an evening. I read Meg's page of resolutions with awe, because I rarely make resolutions, but I was quite inspired (thanks Meg) and think that as I'm starting a new life I too should be making a few plans for improvement.

I'm quite good at living in organised chaos and my last house did become almost out of control. Well, to anyone tidy I'm sure it looked completely out of control, but I knew where everything was. However, new year, new house, new workshop - what an opportunity to have a place for everything and everything in its place. I'll try. I think that's as close as I can get to a new year's resolution.

Last night I also caught up with Judy who dyes beautiful fabrics and has a most handsome white Poodle, Barker,
Dana and Daisy - Dana makes beautiful things and has great style, and Daisy is a Calico cat and is the Supervisor,
Di who is a fellow Australian artist and has cats, possums and a wicked sense of humour,
Astrid in Germany, a most talented bookbinder,
Amanda, another Australian bookbinder and ceramicist,
Sarah at Little Paper Bird, a bookbinder,
Barbara at Moon Bindery,
the aforementioned Meg, weaver, philosopher,
Rima at The Hermitage, an artist of extraordinary talent,
Meliors, from New Zealand but travelling around Australia, printer and bookbinder - if you want to know about the Top End of Australia, look a few weeks back at Meliors lyrical adventures, also beautifully photographed,
Rhonda, a bookbinder, always generous with her advice,
Gracia, and Louise, great artists,
Jackie at the wonderfully named Dog Daisy Chains ...

There are still many more favourites to read like Lesley, Sues, and Wendy (QuirkyArtist), whose blog address I can't log onto at the moment and many others. I really love these blogging friendships and to be able to keep in contact with artists who have the same or similar interests is such a privilege. A very happy, creative new year to you all.

Hot, stormy days

I've survived my first move and now I'm ensconced in the granny flat behind my kids' house. I have everything I need close to hand including the two little grand daughters, who continually make my days joyful, fascinating and exhausting.

Christmas was wonderful, the food was great, the day hot and steamy. Every day is hot and steamy actually, and at the moment it's 90'F here and I'm just hoping the afternoon storm will arrive any moment. What will probably happen is that it will be bucketing down with rain just when I have to put the chooks to bed at dusk, as it was yesterday.

We will start packing up the big house next week ready for our next and major move, and as far as I'm concerned I'm really hoping it will be my last move. I'm dying to get into my new place, which is already called the Dooken Hut (because the children call me Dooken). I've spent the day looking at house design books, getting inspiration and trying to remember what my new space looks like and how I can set it up.

The most exciting thing for me is the separate workroom which is attached to my house but can be locked off to keep the little girls away from knives and guillotine etc. It already has a lot of shelving and a sink, which is great if I'm marbling, and my workbench and plan drawers full of paper will fit really well. As I've spent the past 14 years working in my kitchen and spare bedroom, I really can't quite believe I'll have a dedicated workspace. No excuses now if I don't make books. I won't be there until the end of January so at the moment it's just nice to think about it.

Thanks to all those wonderful bloggers who are patiently following this drawn out saga of finding a new home. I really appreciate your support.

Season's Greetings

After more months of silence, and so many wonderful messages from blogging friends, I must tell you what I'm doing. In my last post I said I was leaving the beach for a new life in the country. That was what we'd planned but since then we've looked at lots of properties and have finally settled on a smaller block of land, 1 acre, but big enough to have a beautiful established garden, a tennis court, a solar heated swimming pool, a big vegetable garden, fruit trees, a huge shed for my son and a large house for the young family and a very generous separate apartment for me. And as if this is not enough, there is a workshop, just waiting to be set up for book binding!

This is in a semi-rural area but, wonder of wonders, it's on the Central Coast of NSW, not far from Sydney and there are the most beautiful beaches within a ten minute drive. So now I'm really happy. Back to the beach... can't wait.

I'm moving out of my little Coogee house on Wednesday 17 December and will stay with my son and his family at Galston for a month, until we all move together to our new home at Wamberal. This means I'm packing my computer and will probably be silent again for a while, though I'll try to keep reading all your posts once I'm not frantically packing and making books. The last thing to go in the removalist's van will be my binding bench and materials. I have a large box of books waiting for the courier to deliver to the shop for Christmas.

We'll be celebrating Christmas at Galston with my 92 year old mother and all my family. This will be the first Christmas that Sophia, nearly 3, will really appreciate and Lucilla, at 8 months, will enjoy all the excitement as well. The little girls are such a joy and I feel very privileged to be such a part of their lives.


I wish everyone a joyous Christmas and holiday season and hope we all have a wonderful year to come.

Such a long silence but now, a decision

Can I possibly be planning to leave my beloved beach to move to the country life? I think so. I've decided, after many years ago abandoning life on the land, to sell my very comfortable home close to the beach, close to the city, close most importantly to friends, to join my son, daughter-in-law and two small grand daughters in co-ownership of a small farm between Sydney and the Blue Mountains. No more coastal warm climate but a cold winter and a hot summer, but in exchange the pleasure of seeing my grandchildren growing up, spending a lot of time with my family and - very appealing, the opportunity to have a go at becoming as self sufficient as I possibly can. I want to grow vegetables and fruit, make my own bread and of course, make books. I've yet to put my home on the market but we've been looking for the perfect small farm and think we've found it, so we have fingers crossed that it doesn't slip through our fingers.

For now, I'm going on a holiday, just out into western New South Wales, no destination, just driving, looking and relaxing. I'm hoping that when I return I'll have retrieved the blogging muse. Thank you to all those who have checked to see if I'm okay. I am - I'm just overwhelmed by life.