Living and dying in our little house

207 Young (a fantastic new blog about renovating a pre-federation house on the east coast of Australia) recently put me on to Trove, which is the digitised archives of the National Library of Australia. It has all kinds of old newspapers, scanned and text-searchable. It's truly amazing.

I'd actually been to Trove before, because there's some great old knitting patterns and stitch patterns on Ravelry that have been pulled from various old newspapers on Trove, but I hadn't though to search for my street address before!

Such good fun! On 21 November 1903 Mrs Cooper gave birth to a daughter at our house, while her husband was in Marble Bar. Poor old Mrs Macmillan held her mother's wake at our house in 1928, and her husband died (in our house) only three years later. Mrs Macmillan must have had some kids though, because Miss Ruby Macmillan won a crossword prize in 1932, a year after her father's death!

Curiously, though, our place is listed as being for rent in the middle of all of this, in 1929. I know that originally there were eight townhouses like ours on a single block, so perhaps some of the houses were sharing numbers? That would seem to make sense, as in October 1929 the property is listed as being "four rooms, conveniences," but only a month later a property at the same address is described as "6 rooms, cons, lawns, etc."

The four room property is listed as being "near running shed." I wonder what that means?

blueberries

Look at that! Our first crop of blueberries! It's cheating a bit, because all those berries were on the bush when I bought it. I should have pulled them off so the plant puts its efforts into growing, but I couldn't help myself. This variety is ripe when it's pinky blue, which I find a bit more appetising than the usual deep purple-blue, to be honest.

Blueberries are so, so expensive here ($4 to $8 for about 5oz/ 150g), so I thought I'd try growing my own. Apparently the low chill varieties do quite well in Perth. I got one bush berry (Sunshine Blue) good for our climate, which is the shrubby one, and one, um... taller one (high bush they might be called?) called Delite. I can't find out much about it, but the label says it's low chill. I can't wait for them to start flowing for next season.

I'd planned to plant out the garlic today, but I'm laid up in bed, sick. I got bitten by someone else's dog at the dog park, and it got a nasty infection that's completely wiped me out, which is about the strangest reason I've ever had for a sick day. My boss told me that if anyone complained to him that work from me was late, he was going to tell them that "the dog ate my employee." Groan.

High seas

From the Cabbages and Roses website

I'm mad for this grey ships fabric from Cabbages and Roses (they also do some great women's clothing). It comes in a duvet cover, but only for a single bed. I think they're implying the print is too childish for adults. I do not accept this. I could buy the fabric by the metre and make a duvet cover, but we all know that won't actually happen.

Peace through organisation

Thanks to Our Fearless Leader and her tutorial on folding fitted sheets, my linen closet is a little oasis of calm. All my bedding actually fits in its alotted shelf. Try it, you'll like it.

Roses with thorns

I planted out some new roses in our front garden this weekend. I'd never given great thought to roses, but before we moved into our place it was vacant for a year, and the only things that were still alive were the roses (and seven(!) grapevines out the back). Since then I've killed a couple of drought-tolerant natives, but the roses have just happily bloomed away.

We had three red Camp David roses. Not what I'd've chosen, but they're tough and they smell good. A really fifties-style, velvety, bright red hybrid tea rose. I've just cut a couple of put them in a vase for the first time. I can never decide whether to cut flowers and enjoy them inside or leave them outside to admire whenever I leave the house!

I bought a fourth Camp David to keep things symmetrical, and then two Jude the Obscures (one for each side of the path). I love their big, creamy cabbage-heads, and they smell so beautiful - like roses mixed with grapefruit! A funny match with the crisp red Camp Davids, but I like it! I also like the name. Hardy's Jude the Obscure is such a grim, dreary novel that it seems like a nice gift to the fictional Jude, that, one hundred years after publication, one of the best David Austin roses was named after him. That's got to be worth something.


Hopefully they're not planted too close together. I'm hoping they'll make a bit of a thicket to screen our house. And, as BCB just told me that a couple of girls that live in our street were assaulted last week, and the word around is that someone in the street is dealing, I think we can do with all the thorniness we can get!

(our street has a pretty unusual composition. Drugs and muggings are simultaneously expected and completely unexpected. I might blog about it sometime, I think).

Don't see Miss Manners doing this, do ya?

So Australia's Queen of Ettiquette, Ms Ita Buttrose, has released her first book in, um, I'm not sure how long. A while. And this is how Penguin have chosen to go viral with the advertising.



Yep, it's pretty terrible. But I don't see Miss Manners willing to give rapping a shot, do I? My mum loaned me her copy of Every Occasion: The Guide to Modern Etiquette before my wedding and whilst it cracked me up (it has sections on how to address anyone, from the Pope to an Able Seaman; and an illustrated section on how brides can dress to suit their figure, with an extremely grumpy looking bride labelled 'heavyset') it was full of solid, practical advice. I'm going to have to see if the Heavyset Bride made it in to the new Guide to Australian Etiquette.

Spring Planting

Image from The Shifted Librarian

The spring bulb catalogues are coming out here, and I'm all about the pretty flowers this year. I think I can be organised enough to put lots of stuff in our front yard. I just hope it gets enough sun. It faces South. The basil and the roses and the spring onions have done well, the agapanthus (which I do not care for much anyway) and the lavender has done poorly.

I'm planning loads of jonquils and freesias for the scent, and ranunculas for the colour. I know the freesias will do okay, because we've got some naturalised ones in the area. I'm crazy about parrot tulips, but I don't know if they're tricky to grow or not... I suspect in our slightly dingy and deshabille terrace garden they may come more tatty than rococo.

Tell me, are parrot tulips tricky things?

amateur floral arrangements

At my request, BCB bought me three bunches of flowers from the Vietnamese (?) florists on Beaufort St, so I could arrange them myself. Emerson Merrick + We Like It Wild on DesignSponge have me totally convinced I can arrange flowers. I got daisies, lisianthus (?) and orchids, all a little wilty, because it was Sunday.


In one of my favourite wedding gifts, a Wembley Ware vase that came with a note saying "I chose a gift I hope will increase in value over time, as the value of your relationship with each other no doubt will." Love the vase, love the sentiment.


In a jug my uncle gave my mum as a birthday present in the 70s. It's Danish, but mum can't remember from who, and she doesn't seem too fussed about it. I'm wild for it.

There was a third vase, rectangular and brown and white speckled, with a tall arrangement of just white daisies, but I forgot to take a photo.

new wheel

I'd been feeling I've reached the limit of my Ashford traditional (inherited from mah mama) for a while, and had saved enough for a new wheel of my choice, but had so many Life Things happening (new dogs, new house, wedding) that I held off buying one until I had some time to savour it.

Now is the time. Majacraft Suzie Pro, with custom black whorl and flywheel instead of the standard green, because green doesn't go with the colourscheme of my study (yeah, I'm serious).


I've had it for only 48 hours and I heart it. It's a dream to spin on. And I love how little floorspace it takes up compared to the Traditional. I love castle wheels for that reason.

birthday present

One thing our house came without, that I really wanted, is a bath. I love having baths. I've totally worked out the relatively minor reno that will need to be done to move the 'laundry' out of the main bathroom and into the unrenovated, 1950s wet area (it's a bit scary to call it a bathroom), and stick a bath in the main bathroom instead.

Anyway, I was looking at reproduction clawfoot baths (our house is 113 years old, she can take a clawfoot with grace) when BCB, unbeknownst to me, saw an ad on a local noticeboard for an antique clawfoot bath. Two kids were selling it (along with some other salvage from their family home) to save up for a puppy.

For a third the price of an acrylic repro, BCB bought me a cast iron real deal. As you can see, it needs refinishing, but even then we should still come out ahead. Not to mention it is really solid and comfortable, and it has these excellent solid brass feet.

Until we can actually afford to put it in, the bath is sitting in our back courtyard (along with the daybed, the potted lime, the dogs' wading pool, the raised vege bed, and a failed DIY chair project, in case you're curious). Sometimes I sit in it and just pretend it's full of hot water.