Swing At The Deen

A small selection of fabulous swing photos of the Best lead and I,

taken by Dabs Ng at the Deen last night.

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...

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?

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

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

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.

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!