Flower Fields

I have spent more time than is normal lately staring at this wallpaper:

(Blazing Poppies wallpaper by Anthropologie)



wondering if there is some way I could buy it, and then conspire to find a way to use it.   Wallpapering a powder room comes to mind, of course, but we don't have a powder room.  

I have always loved dense floral patterns.  I love it in art:

Untitled no 5 by Kent Rogowski (available on 20x200) 

but most of all I love it in skirts.

(The Sartorialist on the streets of Milan) 

(Prada resort 2007)

(more Anthropologie)

I even know why I love this look so much (and I loved it long before Mad Men came along). It is something to do with this book, which I read as a child:

Because fields of flowers and full skirts make me think of the Swiss mountains.  

Just as children who live in the snow dream of the strange orange dust of the desert, I, growing up with pale green eucalypts and dry hot summers, dreamed of a little Swiss chalet and green fields of wildflowers.   For us, green lawn came for half the year, but tended to dry up over summer.  

When I actually went to Switzerland as an adult, I could not believe how like my imagination the country was.  It was just like I pictured it.  The emerald green, and soft rolling hills.   The little dappled flowers everywhere by the roadside.  Just perfect. 

But back to business.   When, I ask does it become inappropriate to wear a flowery full skirt?  I have been sorely tempted online and in the shops recently.   Does it get to the point where it is a bit silly if one is over 40? 

(Am sorry for my intermittent posts and comments lately. I am flat out at work, and heading up to Queensland for a conference later this week.  Looking forward to the weather (hot and rainy! How can you Queenslanders keep your hair straight?)  Thank you all for taking the time to read and comment over the last few weeks)

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A Tiny Market Stall

There are many things from my childhood I wish I had kept and saved.  Others I am not so fussed about. (My mother recently produced my teenage diaries complete with lock and key which she had kept all this time.  Oh the angst and high emotions in just one day's entry.   I decided after a quick glance not to read them any further).  

When my parents travelled to the UK in the 1970s they made a point of seeking out these little hand crafted market stalls to bring back with them.   Yesterday I got them out of the shoe box and tissue paper they had been residing in for more than 25 years.   I thought I might give them to my daughter for her upcoming birthday.

Apart from the disintegration of some of the glue, they were in remarkably good shape.    They are quite small, only about 20 cm across. 

The quality of the workmanship is quite incredible.  And they are also a little history of traditional English food.   There are pork pies, fresh butter, pigeons, wild rabbit, turkey, Swiss rolls, chocolate eclairs and strings of sausages. 

These apples look the same as they did when I was given them in 1977.

And this wedding cake was always one of my favourites. I found playing with cakes was every bit as satisfying as eating them!

I also have a fish shop, run by Mr Pike the fishmonger, complete with native oysters, Cornish crabs, lobster and salmon. 

These stalls were designed by Caroline Watt, who in 1979 employed 35 people making these crafts, which is quite a sizable business in one sense.   A bit of googling told me the business ceased in 2000.    Her items are catalogued by the British Design Council, and the above photo shows a much newer shop.

What is a cream horn anyway?  I am dying to know. 

I love these little stalls for the same reason I love this book, illustrated by my favourite children's book author, Raymond Briggs, and which tells the story of an elephant and a bad (red-haired) baby who run around an English village stealing various food items from shops, including a pork butcher and a snack bar. 

The illustrations evoke the now gone past world of the specialist food shop.   In our current world of over airconditioned food halls and supermarkets which sell everything, I find that I miss the little local shops.   And I could do with some more East End barrow boys hanging around the place menacingly!   Like this one, who doesn't even notice the elephant behind him. 

After all, it was only in the early 1960s that they stopped delivering milk by horse and cart in Melbourne.  (It's true.  My husband can remember hearing the clip clopping noise of the hoofs).

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Delft Blue from the Past

Over the weekend we made our annual pilgrimage to Handworks to buy cardboard and envelopes for my daughter's 8th birthday party invitations.   Theme as yet undecided.   Date decided but timing as yet undecided, but it will be in the early evening.   Anyway my daughter graciously said I could choose the colour for the invitations if I would let her buy 6 sheets of  origami paper which she tends to keep in secretive piles and never uses.

And this Delft blue colour is what I gravitated towards.   How I love this shade.

Half finished invitations, flowers hand cut and glued by me

Why do I love this colour so?  For me, it begins, as does so much for us, with my childhood.

(by Janeych on Flickr)

When my parents separated and we moved out of the pink house into a considerably smaller white house and my mother went out into the workforce for the first time ever, she promised me that I could decorate my bedroom in colours of my choosing.  In Laura Ashley.  Of course. I say of course because in those days Laura Ashley was THE fabric of choice.  And indeed clothing of choice.  I can remember being pretty thrilled with my Laura Ashley pinafore as a little girl, which looked rather like this:

The fabric I chose for my bedroom was Campion (third along, second row down) for the curtains, and Wood Violet (third along, fourth row down) for the wallpaper.

For me, getting that room decorated my way symbolised some kind of completion of a very horrible stage in our lives.  And a transformation into a more grown up girl.

Go here to see some wonderful Flickr photos of vintage 1980s Laura Ashley prints by Janeych. I do not understand why these old prints are not re-issued.   They still look great.  It's not my taste anymore, but I think they still look wonderful in a little girl's room, or in a guest room.

I still love Delft blue, but now like it like this:

(J Crew from a season or so ago)

(Cocco Lave bag by Bottega Veneta)

Or this:

(Wrottingham Castle)

(via Design Crisis)

(House to Home)

A blue dining room. I think I could live with that. 

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Beogram Memories

In this month's Belle, in an interview with designer Jasper Morrison, responsible for items like this:

(chair for Cappellini) 

and this:

(part of the Crate series)

he reveals the following in response to the question about how his uncle's study inspired his design aesthetic:

'Flashback to the year 1964 in a foggy wet England and imagine a young boy, suffocating from the over upholstered interiors of the typical English home, suddenly finding himself in a room with plenty of daylight, wooden floors, white rugs, modern Danish furniture and a record player designed by Dieter Rams and you'll understand why the first experience of that room made such an impression on me.  The atmosphere of that room changed my whole attitude to life, if a 5 year old can have an attitude to life.  I understood that design could bring about these powerful changes of atmosphere that could lift the spirity and make life more rich and that's why I decided to become a designer.' 

(A record player designed by Dieter Rams looks like this:

When I was little I spent a lot of time in my parents library room, which was filled with shelves of books like this:

and this:

but the best thing about that room was this record player owned by my parents:

(Bang and Olufsen Beogram 3400, in production from 1975 - 1979)

This man certainly got a good airing on this record player.  I guess sleepless nights as a 7 year old are okay if you have to listen to Neil. 

The Beogram was the first truly modern thing I can remember seeing.   I couldn't believe its smooth silveryness.  And the turntable was not just black rubber, but an optical illusion of black and silver circles.    It didn't turn me into a world famous designer, but it certainly made me love all things modern and clean lined.   

(Image of Beogram from beophile.com) 

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Rock cakes and smuggler's coves

We all know that if there is one thing you should not do to your children it is to impose your embarassing ambitions, tastes and foibles upon them.

If you want them to become a neurosurgeon, don't force it.  If you love sailor suits and think they look charming, don't make your child wear them.   And if you want them to have the same obssessive childhood hobbies, be a subtle directionist, and do not push it on to them.

This has been hard for me.   What I want my children to be is bookoholics.   To me, there is nothing more important than a love of books. Books are my stalwart companions, and I learned that early on, as a child, when my happiest times were lying in the sunshine in my bedroom reading an Enid Blyton book.

(this is what my shelves looked like, photo from here)

So for my daughter, I have started a little collection of all the books I read over and over when I was young.   Predictably, and perversely, as yet she shows no interest at all in them.

Here is my list.  I haven't collected them all yet, but I figure I still have a bit of time.
And in case you are wondering, they are all quite readable by adults too.  

1. Joan Aiken 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' (1963).  

(image by Superflygirl on Flickr)

These books are set in early 1800s during the reign of James III, positing an alternate history of England in which James II has not been deposed, but instead Hanoverian insurgents agitate against the monarchy.  To add to the excitement, wolves have invaded England from Russia via the channel tunnel.

This books tells the story of cousins Bonnie and Sylvia who are left by Bonnie's parents in their house Willoughby Chase under the care of the sinister and villainous Mrs Slighcarp.  

This book is part of a series which included Nightbirds on Nantucket and Black Hearts in Battersea, which also feature Simon and a new character, the wonderful and feisty Dido Twite. 

These books are so imaginative, and scary, they thrilled me to bits when I was a little girl. 

2. The 'R' Mysteries and the Adventure Series by Enid Blyton

A little confession - I recently looked at the Enid Blyton Society website and I couldn't find a single Enid Blyton book I hadn't read. 

Now, we all know about Mallory Towers, St Clares, the Faraway Tree, Noddy, the so called racism, the so called sexism, the library ban and other things. But, in spite of all that, what Enid Blyton does so well (the same point has been made about JK Rowling) is engender a love of reading whcih endures for a lifetime.

I loved all the school stories of course and desparately wanted to go to a boarding school in Cornwall and be naughty in a prim way, but I most of all loved the adventure stories.  The above is the Barney series, and below, one of the Adventure series.

Both series consisted of groups of siblings and friends (there is always one outcast eccentric friend who is especially clever at getting out of sticky situations) who have wonderful adventures in sinister castles, villages, islands, etc. 

(all Enid covers from the Enid Blyton Society)

3. Lucy M Boston's Green Knowe Stories, starting with the Children of Green Knowe

This is a ghostly story set in an evocative house.   Part of a series of 5 books (I think).

4. Miss Happiness and Miss Flower by Rumer Godden



Rumer Godden has written some fabulous books including The River.  Having spent much of her childhood in India, she often explores themes of belonging and homesickness.

In this book Nona is sent from steamy India to live with cousins in cold rainy England.  Life is utterly miserable until she is given two Japanese dolls, and instructions to build them an authentic Japanese home, which she proceeds to do.  This was my first introduction to tatami mats, rice paper walls and kimonos.   The book also comes with instructions for the house. 

5.  Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards


Yes, this is the Julie Andrews of Mary Poppins and Sound of Music fame.  She is a rather good writer.  This book tells the story of Mandy, a girl in an orphanage who discovers an abandoned cottage in the forest behind the orphanage.  She cleans it out, 'does it up' and all ends happily when the man who owns it ends up adopting her.

A magical story for girls who want to live in their own home separate from their family (as I did.  Nothing personal, it was just what I wanted). 

6. The Chalet School Books by Elinor M Brent Dyer



As a little girl my Chalet School addiction knew no bounds.   Elinor M Brent Dyer wrote 59 of these books, over 45 years (between 1925 and 1970), so it was pretty much impossible to collect them all.   But wonderful to obsess over. 

The Chalet School was set up by an English women, Madge Bettany, in the Austrian Tyrol in the 1930s.  The stories cover the many and varied adventures of the girls and their teachers over decades.   

They had more substance and drama than the Enid Blyton boarding school books, and were truly exotic, being set in Austria.    Following the rise of the Nazis in Germany the school moved to Guernsey, then to England, and island off Wales and finally to peaceful Switzerland. 

Yes these books feature feisty heroines too, and some wonderful character names - Mary Lou Trelawney, Daisy Venables, Prunella Davies, Eustacia (can't remember surname) and Verity-Ann Carey. 

7. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

We all know about the Secret Garden.  This is about a little girl, Sara Crewe, who is sent to Miss Minchin's boarding school in London.  Instead of being treated kindly, a per her father's instructions, she is treated with cruelty and once her father dies, matters deteriorate.   

This story does have a happy ending, and Burnett's story of a clever, imaginative little girl who manages to make the best of an appalling situation, is quite enthralling. 

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Cushions and Three More Things

Recently I have been the unworthy recipient of some awards.

From Julie at Being Ruby, a 5 Diamonds award.

From Jacqueline at Home, a Happy 101 award.

From James at Garvin Weasel, a Kreativ Blogger award.

Thank you all. In the interests of playing fair here is a little grab bag of things that make me happy\sad\inspire me\that may be vaguely interesting or that you might not already know. No kittens or puppies or flowers will appear in this post, even though these things all make me feel reasonably happy.

1. Cushion-mania

Like many others, I too have discovered the magical thrill of making my own cushion covers and thereby defeating wily over-priced cushion purveyors world wide.

(cushion made with Pakistani textile remnant)

(cushion made with an Amy Butler Midwestern Modern fabric for the green room)

(cushion for sunny lunches outside)

2. Sir Graham Berry

Does this man not have the most interesting, slightly ruthless yet elegantly dishevelled face? A man of Churchillan determination and persistence, born in London in 1822, the son of a victualler, he emigrated to Australia in 1852, set up a grocer shop in Prahran, 9 years later was a member of Parliament, first for East Melbourne, then Collingwood, then Geelong. He was premier of Victoria three times between 1875 and 1881.

A newspaper owner, protectionist and staunch adversary of the Legislative Assembly, at that time controlled by Victoria's land owning squatters (who owned most of Victoria's land), his actions as premier gave rise to class conflict, with massive torchlit processions. Some saw Berry as a radical, who sought to do away with legislative protections. Others as a man of the people who sought to defy the Assembly which 'robs the people of the gold in the soil'.

I mention him first because he is one of Victoria's leading early liberal lights and one of my favourite politicians and second because he is my great-great-great-great-great grandfather. Of course in the manner of families (mine is secretive - although aren't they all?) I only found this out about two weeks ago.

(Disclaimer: it is possible that half of Melbourne can claim Sir Graham as an ancestor. He had 20 children. No mean feat. But of course even more impressive for his two wives).

3. Invitations from a lost era

Well maybe not lost in the sense that WW1 destroyed the Edwardian era. But 1988 sure seems a long time ago.

I am an unsentimental nostalgist. Or should that be a disorganised hoarder? Actually I am so organised that we have a section in our filing cabinet for Lego instructions for every Lego item we own.

I have also kept every single invitation, postcard, letter, thank-you letter, birthday card, travel brochure, ticket, receipt, program, love letter, doomed first novel attempt I have ever created or received.

And these go back a long way:

(Now a fantastic architect so this invitation was very apt)

(1987 - note price of the evening - $32 including full bar)

(engraved invitations from 1988)

(relaunch of my favourite youthful haunt, the Redhead in Albert Park, in 1994)

4. Overeducation

I have three degrees, one in Fine Arts, a Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Laws.

My favourite judge ever is the incomparable Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, Judge of the High Court and Privy Council in Britain, who died in 1999 at the age of 100. I am not alone in this of course. Every law student finds his judgements an oasis in the desert of verbosity so often seen in case law.

A man of succinctness and razor sharp intellect, he was a reformist lawyer who had no difficulty seeing right from wrong and worked hard to ensure the law remained relevant.

How can you not love someone who commenced a judgement thus:

''It happened on April 19, 1964. It was bluebell time in Kent'. (Hinz v Berry (1970) 2 QB 40)

During his time as a judge he made many significant changes to the common law including creating the right to recover for negligent misstatement, the principle that the state should have to prove that a war veteren's injury was not caused by service (previously the injured person had the burden of proving the cause), the right of a deserted wife to remain in the family home and many more.

This could be said to sum up his approach to change and reform in the law:

'What is the argument on the other side? Only this, that no case has been found in which it has been done before. That argument does not appeal to me in the least. If we never do anything which has not been done before, we shall never get anywhere. The law will stand whilst the rest of the world goes on, and that will be bad for both' (Packer v Packer [1953] 2 AER 127)

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