3/52

A portrait of my boy, once a week, every week, for 2013. 

Image above: Oh, the suspense. Waiting ever so quietly in his new tee-pee for me to find him. Break my heart.

Joining in the "52: A portrait a week" project with the talented Jodi.

the most thoughtful of christmas presents

If you want to show your love for someone, build them a veggie garden. That's what my family did for me last year as a surprise and I still get choked up thinking about it.

While Chris, Bassie and I were away on holidays last Christmas, my mum, dad, elder sister, brother-in-law, five-year-old niece and two-year-old nephew secretly built us a veggie garden in a neglected patch of our back yard. My sister is a natural green thumb and she wanted us to experience the simple glee of growing food with little Bassie like she does with her cherubs. 

When we returned from our holiday and I first stumbled across our magic garden, I couldn't believe my eyes. There it stood - as if it had sprouted from the dirt - pretty as a picture. It was full of mint, thyme, sage, basil, eggplants, green beans, baby tomatoes and a chilli bush. There were pink flowers dotted all around and the veggie name tags were written in my mum's beautiful calligraphy handwriting. Apparently the littlies had helped count out the screws that held the bed together. I felt so loved.

Sadly, I soon killed our garden with kindness (I think I may have overfertilised it). After its second planting, our resident possums ate every green morsel in one sitting. Its third planting got flooded out by rain. But finally, with a new net and lots of attention, I am proud to say our garden is starting to flourish. 

Bassie and I love spending time near our veggie patch in the afternoons. We potter about pretending we know what we're doing. While I water the patch and pluck out weeds and fallen tree bark, Bassie keeps very busy - poking holes in the soil with his chubby fingers, making mud puddles at my feet, sticking his hand in front of the water spout and licking the cool drops off his fingers. And I'm sure he would sit and twist that hose for hours if I let him. We are so happy here. 

Thank you, my beautiful family. x

NOTE: If you want to see a real veggie garden in action, check out this stunning film vignette of Fig and Fauna Farm in South Florida filmed by the super talented Tiger in a Jar. I consider this film to be meditation. It is just so peaceful and dreamy. 

holidays are just lovely

We are home after two weeks of beach holidaying on the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast. Our boy is over the moon to be sleeping in his own cot but we can't quite match his enthusiasm. Chris and I voted it one of our best holidays ever - simple, slow, and with a mix of precious time spent with dear friends and close family, as well as plenty of time as just the three of us (baby milestones: Bassie is walking for real now and his new word is "there". Better still, we think he's stopped constantly saying "NO"). 

I will miss our simple mornings spent on this shaded hill overlooking Bulcock Beach, swilling seriously delicious take-away coffees from The Pocket, flicking through newspapers, snapping photos, and playing with fallen seed pods. Daily sunset ocean walks and dusk swims hit the spot too.

As I mentioned in a previous post, this holiday has seen Bassie become even more obsessed with his dada. Today I spent some frustrating hours trying to download photos taken on our holiday. The heartening discovery was to see loud and clear just how inseparable these two have become. Tomorrow is going to hurt when they only get to spend the morning together before Chris heads back to work. 

I am so grateful for our little family and all the loving people we are surrounded by. 

HOLIDAY HIGH POINTS
Reads: Bowerbird by Sibella Court, My Heart Wanders by Pia Jane Bijkerk, A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle.
Beaches: Double Island Point and Noosa North Shore; Bulcock Beach and Happy Valley, Caloundra; Fingal Beach, Northern New South Wales. 
Cafes: The Pocket Espresso, Moffat Beach; The Velo Project, Mooloolaba (thanks Katie); The Natural Food Store, Forest Glen (thanks Sarah). 
Restaurant: The Boatshed, Cotton Tree. 
Shopping: Carmel's Designs and Homewares at James Street, Burleigh Heads (stores also at Peregian Beach and Mooloolaba). Thanks Sarah for helping me tackle my Christmas shopping. Every present is just perfect. I'll be back for more nature-inspired goodness. 
 

a mother's love will flow forever

We are away on our beach holiday. The weather is divine and the time together is most precious. Bassie is lapping up his beach swims and we are loving throwing the bedtime routine out the window. We go for ocean swims at dusk and have picnic dinners peppered with sand. He has become obsessed with his dada, and I wonder if I have become the third wheel in this little team of ours.

Yesterday was such a sad day, but there was also laughter, beauty, and grace all around. Yesterday, we farewelled the mother of one of my dearest friends. Pam lost her fight with cancer after a gallant effort, enduring more than five years of chemo. All the talk was of Pam's beauty, grace, serenity, kindness, and joyful spirit. She was a true lady. Everyone agreed that Pam - an identical twin to the equally gorgeous Fae - made you want to be a better person. To love more and laugh more. To have fun. 

For me, the most beautiful part of the church service was when her loving husband of 42 years (my friend's dear father) said to his two girls: "You are everything to your mother, just as you are." It made me weep on the inside but also made me feel at peace, knowing that a mother's love is unconditional and so strong that nothing can weaken it.

Pam's love will flow to her two daughters forever. They will sense it at the most poignant and most unexpected of times: in ocean breezes and morning sunlight; in Christmas carol celebrations and footy finals; in grocery shopping queues and when putting on lipstick. They will feel her presence at birthday parties and Christmas lunches; when a full moon rises over the ocean and when it eclipses three times in a row. They will feel her everywhere. Because she is all around.

Our focus now is on supporting our dear friend. She is already proving she is brave and strong, although we know her heart is aching desperately. We will be there for her, as she always is for us, so that she knows she is loved and treasured.  

Rest in peace, dear Pammie (although we expect you will be busy up there, moving the furniture around). xx

image above: Pam loved flowers. We threw them to her at sunset, and some floated back to stay a while.

image below: Beautiful trees at the church pointed the way to heaven on a perfect blue sky day.



a beautiful little breather

So, as I discovered last weekend, the wise women around me were right - the anticipation of leaving my little boy for the first time was worse than the actual experience of being away from him. Sure, I missed him and daydreamed about him, but the "missing" didn't hurt like I feared it might. 

After 48 hours away from home and my family, I returned feeling more "me" than I have in a long time. To walk, swim, eat, shower, sleep, do yoga, meditate, be pampered and read (book of choice: Sibella Court's Bowerbird - love, love, thank you Sarah!) at my own pace, as an individual entity, was pure bliss. I haven't felt like that in two years, since before I was pregnant. So refreshing.

The part I didn't enjoy was seeing Bassie's reaction upon my return. At the first sight of me, he beamed the brightest, sweetest smile. But the smile quickly switched to a frown and for the rest of the afternoon he refused to look at me, and preferred to be in his dad's arms rather than mine.

I hear this reaction - to make you pay for leaving - is common. Please tell me it is.

I am so grateful for the love and support around me - for my husband for holding the fort, my mum for helping out and putting Bassie to bed, and my family-in-law for keeping my two boys company. 

Image above: I love this pic of Bassie, taken by my husband.
Image below: i spent a lot of time by this pool. you can see why. 

a boy and a pineapple

Is this perhaps the cutest baby pineapple there ever was? It arrived in our weekly Food Connect fruit and veggie box this week and managed to entertain little Bassie on this spring afternoon. He couldn't quite figure out if he liked touching it or if he really didn't AT ALL. 

I have a post I'd like to share soon about Food Connect and Community Supported Agriculture, but my wireless is giving me issues and Food Connect's website is down too! It's just not meant to be today.

I'm off to cover a story this weekend at an amazing organic health retreat in the Gold Coast hinterland but it will be my first weekend away from Bassie and I'm really not sure how I feel about this yet. He's in good hands with his dad and my mum (thank you, mama!) so I know he will be fine, and I need a recharge so I'm sure I will be more than fine. The wise women around me (i.e. my sister, sisters-in-law and friends) who have been through this 'first-time away' thing tell me the anticipation of leaving is worse than the actual experience of being away. Let's hope they're right. 

When my mum asked me today what I'm most looking forward to about this weekend, I replied that I intend to swim in the infinity pool, and to sit under a tree and stare over the valley for hours on end. All I crave is to be still and quiet. To stretch and to sit. To dream and to breathe. Simple really.

*This adorable pineapple also gave me a good excuse to play with my new portrait lens, a 50mm f/1.8.  
**The photos below are of Bassie getting bored with the whole thing and on the right, biting into a filthy shoe to get my attention away from the camera. 
*** The top image uses my new favourite backdrop, which you'll be seeing a lot of in this space. I love our gum tree that shelters our porch and is right now dropping seed pods, which make the LOUDEST CRACK when they hit our tin roof.

sibella court, objects and memories

Earlier in the week I heard Sydney stylist, creative director and author Sibella Court speak at Riverbend Books to launch her new book, Bowerbird. She is such a sweetheart - down-to-earth, passionate, grateful - and clearly a go-getter. She works constantly ("there's no loitering by the water cooler for me", she explained sweetly) but like most creatives and entrepreneurs she doesn't see her job as "work" because it feeds her soul. 

This year alone Sibella has traveled to 20 countries (she noted Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands were standouts) for design inspiration and research for her books. 

Ever the collector, Sibella made me smile when she said: "I'm not great at remembering what happened last week, but I can tell you about the people I was with and the place I was in when I collected an object from many years ago. It's just that I don't record my life chronologically but rather by the objects I treasure." 

Sibella also commented that collecting objects on her travels and through her life is her way of slowing down, of focusing on the little things, of finding calm within the chaos. I guess this theory rings true whether you are globe trotting or simply pottering in your garden.

I love how memories are hinged to special objects, whether they are found or purchased, received or gifted. When I look around my home and dig through my cupboards, drawers and my great-grandfather's wooden war chest, I find so many precious memories hung on walls, tucked in boxes and wrapped in fabric. 

Last month, I found dried flowers and seeds I had saved from Spain when I lived there 10 years ago. Pressed inside a folded piece of paper, their spicy scent took me back to the cork oak tree farm where I stayed alone in a yurt for a month over summer. There I would read books outdoors for hours on end until the sun slipped behind the hills beyond. Feels a lifetime ago. 

Sibella's book will inspire me to display my treasured objects - perhaps to pop the dried seeds in a tiny glass bottle on my desk, rather than stashing them in cupboards and folded bits of paper.


What would you choose to display if you dug out your memories? 

I'll be picking up a copy of Bowerbird from my friend Sarah's stunning interiors and homewares store, Carmel's Designs, at James Street, Burleigh Heads. Her two other stores are at Mooloolaba and Peregian Beach. So worth a visit. Sarah is a natural when it comes to displaying things beautifully. 

Image: These are four of my favourite things (L-R) A hand-crafted Moroccan ceramic cup from my other dear friend Sarah to celebrate my boy's first birthday; a stone sculpture from our home country of South Africa that I took borrowed from my parents - they've had it in our home since I can remember; two of the three little bison milk jugs my very generous elder sister, Nichola, bought for me on my birthday many moons ago. 

peace among the garden beds

I thought our cafe days were over when our little one started to wake from his newborn slumber. But coffee expeditions are actually more fun now if we get the venue right. We love this local cafe and its veggie gardens - perfect for a boy who likes to clutch at stones with his chubby hands, pull up on wooden benches and swat at flowers. Much more relaxing sitting among the garden beds with coffees in hand than trying to entertain him in a high chair. It sounds obvious, I know, but we're still pretty new at this parenting gig.