small things around the place which make us happy

benoit was very excited about his new tip shop find. "the greatest dishrack ever" he tells me.

and we called her brocolli

there's two rooms now. everything changes. zsuzsa's got her little space away from the noise. to sleep, to cuddle her small giraffe and sprout little psalms before and after sleeping. benoit wonders how we ever lived without a little bird in our life. the weather cools. the rains come. we're rugged up in wools and layers and spending the days making cuttings of wordwood and lavender, planting grape vines and olive trees. i'm starting to make my first patchwork with these new stitches i've learnt. we're still rending the wall with wet clay and straw, but only when the days warm up. dreaming of green grass. of goats. of a whole field of pasture. dreaming of this winter lasting forever so that the earth is drunk, drunk, drunk on all this water.

we've got this little god to keep us company

comme un vieux souvenir...

ce matin on a tourne les robinets...
rien...
alors on a regarde autour de nous.
la terre, gelee, des qu'elle etait decouverte.
temperature dans la maison, 5 degres.
et l'eau, dans les tuyaux, gelee.
alors on a attendu.
comme a brigne.
le soleil enfin est venu.
l'eau avec.

so we're bulding it after all

we're getting the rain at last. and finding the time to saw and drill and hammer the wood into place. to give food for the termites. to give us another room at last. it's all a bit small now with zsuzsa growing up. the dam is filling. we're even thinking about pumping up water again. we're amazed at how little we've been using. the 5000 litre tank is still one third full from filling it in april. the place is greening up. the wattles all in bud waiting to open again. a year has passed since the yellow painted these hills. zsuzsa's some ridiculous age now, seven months, a real lady. sitting up on her own but not yet a crawler. she's giving us time to clean up all the nails.

life goes on. goes well.

all these heads around the place

june solstice, 2009

un week end a melbourne. encore. apres une semaine solitaire. 40 heures de travail. inhabituel. ca doit bien faire 5 ans. et c'etait a Paris...
aujourd'hui on retourne en famille, a la maison. fela kuti brise le silence matinal. zsuzsa est retournee dormir. on a cherche mes parents, sur internet. le solstice d'hiver me rappelle qu'en France c'est l'ete. il y aura aujourd'hui 9h32 de soleil dans ma vie.
on a fait l'essentiel. les jours vont de nouveau pousser. jusqu'a l'ete. torride. insupportable. et suffocant.
un jour apres l'autre. zsuzsa nous explique. une decouverte apres l'autre. chaque jour, chaque instant, differe du precedent. la main gauche. puis la main droite. elle sera sans doute gauchere. tant de nouveaux evenements, tant d'inedits, dans ses yeux, ses oreilles, partout. tous ses sens a l'affut, elle decouvre. un jour apres l'autre. et sourit.

rainbows, playground, threads, tools and this ukelele

a long week in glen iris, whilst benoit bakes the week away at wesley hill. crocheting rainbows, laughing at zsuzsa in her high chair with her toy playground so easily at reach, dreaming up a project with all these threads. wondering about patchwork and puppets and wood fired kilns. have to get back home and hear the magpies again. and finish off that bedroom we're building.

same chair, 33 years later

these are the things we find in the roof here. that we have to dig out from under thick sludge and cobwebs, and hose down, and scrub.
lovely old vinyl high chair. and that's my sister sarah in there in 1976, and there's little zsuzsa just this week. same chair, different 6 month old baby. oh yeah.

there are many things to be grateful for

my red cup

winter with all the

small things waiting for us

this tongue i found

she's dancing

the foto i forgot of me, my daughter and my mum

the world. standing still.

aujourd'hui zsuzsa est malade. elle a pousse une fievre hier, jusqu'a ce matin. on a tout annule. notre fille est malade. a present elle dort, recouvre de ses fatigues et emotions.
aujourd'hui le monde sera calme, et on reste au chaud. tout s'oublie. zuszsa a besoin de nous. n'importe quand. et entierement. aujourd'hui zsuzsa est malade.
c'est l'hiver ici, et je profite. un de ces longs matins. le tic tac de l'horloge. le clic clic clic du laptop. le silence. l'air chaud du chauffage central.
un jour gris.
reposant.

mirrir mirror

there's always zsuzsa

and the chooks won't lay and we're in bed by 8