Sunday, February 28, 2010

Fly Far Far Away

I've booked my flights!!!

AND - thanks to His Travel Romance and his frequent flyer points, I get to fly business class from New York to London!!! Such an excited and lucky little duck am I!

In a pre-celebration of this exciting event that we didn't even know was happening until this morning (segue much?), we lazed about for a good deal of time yesterday on the beautiful grounds of Millbrook Winery, quaffing delicious wine and devouring a mouth-watering picnic. Home made relishes and pate, chilli tomato jam, crusty bread, marinated olives, salami and prosciutto, home grown radishes and tomatoes, goats and blue cheese with crackers, and a flan with cream for dessert. We ate so much we couldn't fit in dinner, and I'm pretty sure that nothing I consumed yesterday was on my diet, but oh my, it was oh so very lovely...






Saturday, February 27, 2010

Keeping Busy

Nights have been busy this week.

Wednesday night I had my first Italian lesson. For years now I've been wanting to learn a language. French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Italian... Any of them. All of them! Finally I've found some friends who also wanted to go to lessons and they wanted to learn Italian so, Italiano it is! It's such a beautiful language and, of course, knowing it will make ordering my pizza in Naples SO much easier!

Thursday night was my usual swing dancing lesson night in Leederville with Swing Zing. My fourth and final beginners balboa class followed by a lindy class in which we covered some charleston for the first time in quite a while (for me at least!). The classes were fabulous fun, but the night was topped off by a visit to a newly opened bar across the road - Kitsch Bar - which is just amazing! A beautiful, big frangipani tree grows in the middle of their courtyard, right near a wooden staircase that leans up against their garden gate, displaying gorgeous table lamps that are climbing their way up to no where. The menu is fresh and innovative Thai (and we'll be sampling that before next Thursday's dancing, don't you worry!) and they have a nice little selection of drinks from around the world. I tried myself a little German (having not drunk a German wine before), and found that I quite like it! Dr Loosen "Dr L" Riesling 08 from Mosel, if anyone is interested. Fruity, but not too sweet. Crisp, but not tart. Delicious. And, goes particularly well with Kitsch's delectable prawn crackers, which they brought out with compliments, dusted with sugar and salt. Mmmmmm.

Yesterday I actually had the day off work, with the intention of touring around and visiting four different cat resorts to see which would be the best home for my baby girl for the five months that His Travel Romance and I are both out of the country at the same time. Fortunately for me on a 40 degree day, a friend of mine has said that he knows someone who might be interested in housesitting for us so, after a short conversation, I gave up on the cat resorts and am now very excited at the prospect of Annie being able to stay home with a lovely psychologist lady, who will take care of her and our house while we're not here. Yay! So, Friday was instead spent visiting different secondhand stores, trawling for an outfit for a friend's rubiks cube party. I am now, temporarily, the proud owner of a white skirt, blue top, red belt, green scarf, orange gloves, and yellow sunglasses! I say temporarily because the idea is that by the end of the night, we must all have swapped items of clothing with each other so that we finish up being dressed entirely in one colour. Sound like fun? I can't wait!

Finally, last night was a crazy, hot, sweating-so-much-your-lead-keeps-losing-his-grip-on-you-must-go-outside-to-cool-down-every-five-minutes swing dancing extravaganza at The Mustang Bar which was so much fun I can't even begin to describe it! Everyone was there, the music was great, there was a jam, a shim sham, and we all went for pancakes afterwards. Could there be a better night out?

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Wonderful Two's!

A very happy second birthday to my beautiful little muffin-head, squidgy-pop, darling girl with the fluffy pants!





Just over a year ago, I brought home my beautiful little girl from the RSPCA, and have been madly in love with her ever since. She talks to me all day when I'm home, refuses to snuggle, her favourite toy is a pink piece of string from the wrapping of a Peter Alexander purchase, she thoroughly enjoys hiding in paper shopping bags left on the floor (now done on purpose), loves to get into the corner cupboard of our kitchen and, most impressive of all, she made my cat-disliking boyfriend fall madly in love with her as well. Such is the power of my fluffy ball of love.

May the year be filled with catnip and ham treats for you my gorgeous girl.xx

Monday, February 22, 2010

Going, Going...

I have been struggling to make a final decision on when, exactly, I should leave Perth. There were many factors spinning around in my head and I've been thinking for a while now that I needed to wait to see what happened with several things before I could really make a decision. If I'm honest though, I was scared, and I was putting off making the decision until I absolutely had to.

Today I decided that I wasn't waiting any longer. I've made the decision! My last day at work will be 23 June, after which I will fly to Adelaide to visit my family, and then I'll be on a plane flying to the Northern hemisphere on or around 1 July. Eep!

Photo by His Travel Romance

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Your Genius

I am absolutely loving swimming through the pages of Elizabeth Gilbert's amazingly successful Eat, Pray, Love. Her style of writing hands you a nice hot, welcoming cup of tea whilst she invites you in to sit down and make yourself comfortable in her life. Did you want a pizza with that? Let me grab you a slice from a favourite little place in Naples that I discovered. It's only a 15 minute walk from the train station... I love her! And, I've already started planning a weekend trip to Naples with one of my oldest friends, just so we can find that very pizza shop and experience the mouth-watering pizza that prompted Elizabeth's claim that the taste had her in such a delirium of love that she believed the pizza actually loved her in return! Mmmm, pizza.


Today a friend at work sent me a link to a talk Elizabeth gave on Ted about nurturing creativity and your connection to your creative genius. I would recommend that anyone with even a touch of creativity within them grab a coffee, sit down for 20 minutes, and listen to this inspirational woman speak about reducing the stress and neuroticism typical of creatives by removing some of the burden of their success, or lack thereof, by re-externalising their genius. It's certainly pizza for thought.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Citizenship And A Skirt

So, time was tripping merrily along, getting rather close to stumbling over the two week mark since I last heard about my application for British Citizenship. I will admit that our heroine was starting to get a little antsy about being contacted to attend her citizenship ceremony and was starting to pen polite but enquiring emails to Canberra in her head... Happily however, a friendly little email popped into my hotmail account this morning after I got to work and I joyously danced around in my chair, thrilled with the knowledge that I will be taking the Oath of British Citizenship on Thursday 4 March! Tea and scones anyone?

To celebrate, I tripped merrily along to Wheels & Dollbaby in King Street and splurged a little* on a fabulous new ballet skirt, teeming with layer upon beautiful layer of soft, buttery, french nude tulle.






* ok, maybe I splurged more than a little... But one has to look fabulous to live with the Queen!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

A Day For Hearts


Home made placemats, drawn with watercolours and ink. Paper cut-out hearts, flowers, and candles. Lamb baked in lavender salt with mustard beans with torta nera for dessert. Red wine and water and songs about love, and... Dr Who on ABC! Happy Valentines Day.xx

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Grazie

Thank you to my dearest yak friend for brightening my bed-ridden, flu-infested, icky, sleepy, sicky day with a beautiful new banner for my blog.


xx

Monday, February 8, 2010

London Bound

In what started off as a completely unrelated conversation, a good friend of mine asked me recently what made me nervous. He wanted to know what I've done to challenge the status quo in my own life. He asked me to tell him what things had previously distracted me from taking the big steps in my life that I needed to take, and how I overcame those distractions.

My mind immediately went to travel.

Ever since I left high school, I have wanted to travel extensively and live overseas. It started off as a strong inclination but, after a couple of years, and after becoming a regular reader of Sol's inspiration blog, it blew out into an all encompassing desire and an absolute need. Strangely enough though, it still took me until I was 22 years old to plan my first overseas trip.

I had come up with a plethora of reasons for me not to take the big, scary leap and travel overseas. I had a boyfriend who didn't want to travel. I was worried about missing family events, birthdays, or even just the ordinary every day moments of my niece and nephews growing up. I didn't have British citizenship, which made it seem all that much harder. I was in a good place with my job and couldn't afford to step away. I was worried about not earning superannuation. The fact was, I was nervous and scared, and I easily accepted these reasons as being big enough and important enough for me to stay at home and to not do something that I really wanted to do.

In late 2004 I finally reached my breaking point. I had been out of school for over five years and I had seen people I went to school with travel and live overseas; but I had yet to leave Australian shores. I got angry at myself for continually putting off something that was so important to me, just because I was scared. I decided that enough was enough and that by whatever means necessary, I was going to travel before my 23rd birthday!

I was still nervous and scared, but I was sick of excuses and I was sick of watching my life pass by in a trickle of normality instead of grabbing it with both hands and shaping it into something amazing. So, I railroaded my nervousness and fears, I threw them forcefully into the back recesses of my mind, and I ran headlong into my desire to travel. I began to plan my solo journey through Vietnam.

Recently, and unexpectedly, I found myself in a similar position to the one I was in when I was 22. I have travelled since Vietnman - I've been to Thailand, Bali, Geneva, England, Edinburgh, Vegas, and I've trekked half of the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea - but none of these trips have been for extended periods of time, and I still have not lived overseas. Again, I have let fear and excuses keep me from doing what I really want to do. Again, I justified a choice to stay in Australia with less than emphatic reasons. So, again, I have put my foot down and, just as I decided I would travel before I turned 23, I have now decided that I will live overseas before I turn 30.

If I start thinking too much about the fact that I am actually moving to London - that I'm actually doing it - I feel the panic rising up inside of me like a drowning man struggling for a broken branch. But, if there's one thing I'm scared of more than changing my entire life, moving away from everything and everyone I know, risking my relationship, and leaping without a safety net, it's not doing it. One of my greatest fears is looking back on my life and regretting something that I didn't do. I refuse to be haunted by the fact that I could have lived in London, that I could have travelled and experienced and tasted and danced and lived, but that I didn't because I was too scared to take that step.

So, my fear has become my strength, and by the end of this year I will have taken that big step, I will have challenged the status quo, and I will be living in London.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Spectacular Spectacular

A very crush-worthy Adam Hall and The Velvet Playboys, Sugar Blue Burlesque dancers, and some Swing It dancers made for a fabulously fun night at the Rhythm Spectacular last night! If only we could have danced too...






This morning I'm listening to my latest purchase - Electro Swing Volume 2 - as I compile an ever growing to-do list in my head. Now that my British Citizenship is almost official, I'm starting to wrap my head around the many, many things that need to be done in order to get me to London successfully. Citizenship ceremony, British passport, update resume, contact temp agencies in London, sell apartment, join Workaway so that I can develop relationships with potential new friends, inspect potential holiday homes for my beautiful kitty. The list just keeps getting longer! ... Lets see what I can do about that.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

A Positive

Yesterday was a day for saving lives.



Today was a day for finding out that my application for British citizenship was approved and that my Certificate of Registration as a British Citizen is right now sitting in Canberra! Shortly, it will make it's way to the Perth Consulate, along with whatever other paperwork is necessary, and I shall be booked in to attend a citizenship ceremony - no later than 13 April - which is the final stage in the process. This means, ladies and gentlemen, that I shall be a duel citizen, an Australian Englishwoman, a fair dinkum pommie, before my next birthday!! Oh crikey, I'm jolly excited!

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