Roll with it

I plan to post three times a week and had hoped to keep this space an app-adjusted-free zone. However... what to do when The Child bakes a Swiss Roll and it's not ready until after the sun sets. Ask her not to cut it until tomorrow? Smacks of child abuse, so to counteract the kitchen lights I've fiddled with my new favourite photo app Snapseed.

The Child is now 14 and a hell of a baker. If you'd like to recreate her Swiss Roll, you'll find the recipe here (don't use fat-free ricotta though. I mean really. If I'm going to eat cake, I want to eat cake. Not fake cake). I'd also double the jam and ricotta quotas.

Baking inspiriation tends to hit The Child late in the day, so it's not unusual in this house to eat afternoon tea treats post dinner. Purists may wish to have this afternoon tea treat in the afternoon...

Long time coming

There's no place like home, which is why I'm back.

Strangely, it was possibly one of the smallest, simplest pleasures on earth that's drawn me back: white pegs. Yep, that's right. Pegs.

I like clothes. I particularly like my clothes. I spend probably more than I can afford but I have a thing about quality over quantity. I even like laundering my clothes - and hanging them to dry. What I don't like is multi-coloured bits of plastic digging into my lovely things and ruining the look for me. To paraphrase a past editor of Vogue Living, if I see things in a setting I don't like I delete them from my visual field. Which is exactly what I've been doing with pegs for years (I'm a simple soul).

Sure, I could have bought packets of pegs and discarded all the coloured ones and built a collection of white - but too wasteful. Tried wooden pegs, but no good if caught unawares in the rain.

So when I found these inoffensive little Japanese beauties in Dollar King at Leichhardt this morning, I bought packets of them. They're made by Daiso, which I learned after a quick google, is Japan's top $2 shop - and we have four of them right here in Sydney.

I don't know why it's taken so long for someone to think of white pegs. I've been looking for (affordable) ones for years. Trust the Japanese to keep it simple.

George Street here I come.

Have a lovely weekend.

Pinning pop-in

Just popping in purely to post these images so that I can then upload them onto pinterest, which I love as an organisational tool. Am very happy creating mood boards for every room of the house.

Can't actually act on any of these redecorating/renovation ideas but virtual planning is almost - if not more - fun as budget is irrelevant. More of a big things, unaffordable pleasures post.

Both these images are from Inside Out's 2012 Renovating and Decorating guide, but don't appear on its website, hence my scanning.

For the record, the bedroom image (it's the bed I'm interested in - Jardan's Leila bed) is from Julian and Louise Thompson's apartment in St Kilda (photography Sharyn Cairns). The bedlinen, which I also love, is from the architect's (Steven Whiting) wife's online shop y10store.com.

Bathroom image is an old one that's got another run, as photographer Sharyn Cairns nominated it as coming from one of her all-time favourite houses (it's in Melbourne and used to belong to Mark and Louella Tuckey, who've since moved to Sydney).

Record straight. Images loaded. Off to pinterest.

Time out

While it's the small, simple pleasures in life that make my heart beat a little faster, I have to concentrate on the big picture right now.

As much as I'd love to continue the blog, I'm going to put it on hold for a while. Nothing's wrong, I just can't give it the attention it needs to satisfy me, so I'm walking away for a bit rather than do it half-heartedly.

I'll still be around and popping in to all my favorite blogs. Just won't be posting here.

Hope to be back one day as it's been a real pleasure. x

Easter break

One of the many good things about having a bike with a basket is that when I spot something dumped in the street, I can scoop it up and leave the scene of the find quickly. So this Easter I'll have my hot-cross buns on my lovely new-old wooden painted tray.

School holidays also begin tomorrow and as such I'll be popping in only intermittently over the next couple of weeks.

Tomorrow we're off to a friend's house to bake hot-cross buns, the smell of which will be heavenly. In the lead-up to Easter, though, I've been adding the odd hot-cross bun to The Child's lunchbox as, like me, she's a big fan. What she doesn't know is that the hot-cross buns she's been enjoying are from a company called Ancient Grains and made with wholemeal flour. Unless you knew, you wouldn't pick it. I figure a little fibre before the onslaught of chocolate come Sunday can only be a good thing!

Have a lovely extra-long weekend. x

Vintage bunny illustration via Lee Mathews.

The Happiest Refugee

What a lovely little book this is. It's hardly new, I know, but I've just read it after borrowing it from a friend.

I normally wouldn't be interested in a stand-up comedian's book but thought The Husband might quite like it. I decided to have a look at the first few pages - and that was it. I was hooked.

It's the story of Anh Do and his family's escape from Vietnam when the comedian was just two and the lives they made for themselves in Australia. Simply, it's a 'boat people' story told from the perspective of a 'boat-person'.

The horror of their journey is evident and I felt like I was on that rickety boat with them, breathing the putrid air inside the cabin. Their boat was attacked by pirates - twice - yet Do's father still managed to bring 39 refugees to Australia, losing one life along the way.

It's something of a tragi-comedy, and something I think every young Australian should read so they don't become anaesthetised to what the term boat-people actually represents.

The beauty of this book is that it's never depressing, even when the subject matter is incredibly sad. I may not be a fan of Anh Do's comedy routines but I think he's a gifted storyteller. And who doesn't like a happy ending?

Sitting pretty

I've got rather a lot of work on at the moment, which is keeping me beak down and tail feathers up, so to speak.

It's a rather nice job with lots of words about wool and woolly events that, unfortunately, makes me want to stop working and start playing with the actual stuff.

Writing's a bit like knitting: one word or stitch at a time will result in something whole.

I figure if a couple of doves can sit in the tree outside my desk window for what seems hours on end, I can sit on my chair and keep tapping away.

Or maybe I'm trying to pull the wool over my eyes with that one.