The Maroon Diaries

One of my biggest frustrations in the pursuit of blogging is the failure of a photographic image to match up to reality as I perceive it. I see something, and I want to share it with you. So I take a photo, but when I look at the image I have captured, it doesn’t look at all like what I was seeing. And so I can’t share the experience, and I give up on the fledgling blog post. I have tried a few different devices in my search for verisimilitude, and I don’t know if the better camera is producing a ‘better’ image or not, to me, it’s just another version of the image that’s not the one I saw. I went to start doing the dishes a little while ago, (as one must, repeatedly, apparently) and I was struck with one of those moments that I wanted to share with you. Beauty can always be found in the most unexpected and unappealing places, even in the dirty dishes in the sink. There was a bowl. It had been filled with peaches and cream, and then when it was empty, filled with water and left...

I have begun photographing my collection of vintage crockery before I take most of it off to a collector in town. Of course I wish I could keep them all, because they're so beautiful. But it's time for a Decluttering, so off they go. I found all these pieces in op shops. As you can imagine, there have been countless beautiful treasures I have found since I let my blog lay fallow. Today, let's start catching up with some plates. Johnsons of Australia Midwinter by Stonehenge, England Johnson Brothers, England - there are three different sizes of this one. I love that they are oval rather than round. Two small plates from Japan Tiny dishes. Top two - England, bottom - Japan England Two more from Japan Burgundy Rose by British Anchor, England This pair is unusual for the difference of just one small motif between them. Johnsons of Australia   Classic scenes. Left - Crown Lynn, New Zealand, right - Swan Inn by J Br...

Upon considering my previous post, I felt that the special tree right in front of my home deserved a bit more of an introduction. I've lived so close to her for so long that she has really become a part of the household in her own right. She does protect me directly from the sun and the rain, and beyond that, I feel she has a spiritual guardianship role to this little spot. And yet I still don't know her name. I don't know the proper names of a lot of the plants up here, as they are different to the ones I know from the southern states. As for her personal name, as kind as she is to me, she hasn't chosen to share that with me yet. So she's just the Tree, with a capital letter to distinguish her from all the other trees. When I first arrived, you couldn't exactly tell there was a tree there, so much as infer its existence by the presence of branches poking out of the top of an enormous tangle of weeds. An afternoon's work and a five-foot pile of compost lat...

I'll measure it for you. Just one room, 3.7m by 4.9m, and 3.9m by 2.4m of verandah space, for the two of us. And miles and miles of bushland outside and beyond. It's a considerable downsize from my previous home, a two-storey, two-bedroom townhouse. It's been a long journey to my new tiny home, which began, rather bizarrely, with getting hooked on an American reality TV program. It was Hoarders , and it was really horrible television, on a really ugly subject, but I was fascinated with this tragic side effect of our culture of consumption - a disorder caused by affluence. I was a bit surprised with myself for getting into a reality TV show, but even more surprised to realise, as I watched more episodes, just how closely I identified with these people on the show, these people who had a hoarding disorder. How much I understood exactly what they were talking about. How very closely they were describing the way I felt about possessions. How very easily I could become one...

Aye, and I've been a terrible bad, bad blogger again. Not only that. It's worse this time. Not only did I stop blogging again, but this time I stopped following the blogs I love, as well. And now I know. Life is less without blogging. I miss it terribly. So, what the hell happened, Lady Demelza, to get yourself into such a state? Ah, well, that's where the exciting news comes in. I left off blogging when I got too busy with the mission of moving house. This is where I live now. It's so beautiful I could just burst. I started out with the best of intentions, and a long list of half-finished draft posts that I intended to keep me going through the busy move. But the process of packing, sorting, cleaning and moving proved more than I could handle as it was. The digital world seemed less relevant as the physical world became so very full and demanding. Then I arrived, and as fate would have it, there were some 'issues' with the Internet connection ...

I was walking up the stairs yesterday morning when I first caught it, sensed it. A smell, perhaps, or a feeling in the air - but what exactly? I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Is it that it's a bit cooler today? No, that's not it, it's more than that. Hmm. I got on with my day. Then I was out in the backyard, just a little before sunset, when I caught it again. Oh yes, that's it. I definitely smell autumn coming. I did a little counting of the days in my head and then smiled when I realised, oh yes, it's February already. February 1 - it's Lammas. Perfect timing. I love it when it works like that. Lammas is the celebration of the first harvest. The Sun King has been in his prime, at the height of his powers since the Summer Solstice. The Goddess is heavily pregnant with the Divine Child, his son and heir, and the crops are ripe in the fields. But there is a change coming, and it heralds the time of sacrifice for the Sun King. He must die and re...

I've often thought of making jam, especially when there happens to be a local glut of some fruit in particular. Or when I find a recipe for something tantalisingly exotic, like White Peach and Rose Jam or Blueberry and Blackberry Jam. I've often read through the recipes and instructions for jam-making, and visualised myself performing the actions described. At some point, however, I would feel overwhelmed or discouraged, and come up with a story about why it might be a disaster - anything from burning myself, to bugs that survive my sterilisation procedures, to failing to comprehend the setting point. Somehow I'd been feeling a bit inspired and adventurous when I went shopping at the greengrocers, and found strawberries for 69c a punnet. Of course I bought six punnets, and then I had to find something to do with them. When I found a recipe that used 500g of strawberries to make just one jar of jam, I reasoned that I had little to lose if it didn't work out. I was...

These beautiful works of art were formed by the patient fingers of a generation of anonymous women. I have no evidence that all these pieces were created by women, but I'm confident that it's a reasonable guess. In another generation, I might not be so sure. I have found these treasures in op shops everywhere, with an eye out always for the pretty, handcrafted details on a tablecloth, pillowslip or doily. I can't bear the sadness of the thought of these items being unwanted. I scoop them up and take them home and adore them, and honour the women who have created art with needle and thread since the beginning of human culture. I wonder who the woman who created each piece was, what she was thinking of and hoping for as she stitched. I wonder whether, when she folded the piece for the last time, she knew that she was doing so. I wonder whether she is still alive somewhere, or has passed on. I wonder at the circumstances of the creation, the adventu...