A Home Other Than My Own

Today I'm Making a Home Visit.

Please come with me.

The home is owned by my friends, Merlin & Maud who are pictured above with their dog Rabbit. I v. generously visited them yesterday for a hearty brunch.

It is a spacious Terrace House in Sydney, built in the late nineteenth century where The Museum of Natural History meets The Pickwick Papers With Modern Conveniences.

I've always wanted to talk like that. You know, where Something Meets Something Else. Like SATC 2 is 'The Red Shoes' meets 'The Wizard of Oz'. Or 'Casablanca' meets 'The Princess Diaries'.

I've just realised that only a v. special kind of brain can actually do that & I don't have that kind. But perhaps its an Acquired Skill.

Like Skipping. Ooo.. I must tell you about My Skipping Renaissance. Remember that I told you that Miss Jay produced some fairly shoddy skipping ropes at Boot Camp & demanded that we skip a hundred skips & I couldn't even skip One Skip?

Well, last thursday I suddenly remembered how to skip & skipped seventy. Hurrah! Move over, Mike Tyson!

Another Character in a Sit Com.

This has got to be the Absolutely Best Photo Ever taken of me. Maud took it. Of course I'm totally channelling Morticia Addams from 'The Addams Family', who I never really liked because I didn't know what she saw in her creepy buck-teethed husband, Gomez. Remember how he used to maul her arm like he was lasciviously gnawing on a Lamb Shank?

Anyway, the only thing that I have in common with Morty is that she sat on a huge Cane Chair & so am I, only Maud found this one in the back lane near her house.

Finding furniture & other treasures in the street is my Absolutely Favourite Way of acquiring things. Sadly though, I've never had much luck, although last year I did drag home a wooden bookcase which proudly holds my collection of Schoolgirl Annuals from the late fifties & sixties.

Two Grandmothers

The painting which is of Sydney Harbour featuring Fort Denison before the Harbour Bridge was built was painted by Maud's grandmother. My own grandmother was certainly living in Sydney at the same time, but she didn't paint. Instead, she chain-smoked out of a long cigarette holder whilst still managing to have nicotine stains on her fingers which she diligently scrubbed off each morning in the bath with a pumice stone. She read Carter Brown & Mickey Spillane & Earle Stanley Gardner crime stories whilst she smoked. What a peach.

But back to Maud's Grandmothers. Note the beautiful little picture of a tweeting bird on the left of the painting. That was sent to Maud by her other grandmother in Germany.
There's nothing besides finding Treasures on the Street that I like more than an old edition of a book I love. If you look sideways at this intriguing Domestic Still Life, you will note that the top two books are 'Vanity Fair', Vols 1 & 2. I soo loved hating Becky Sharp when I was young & totally thought that she got her well-deserved comeuppance at the end by running a Boarding House. Of course I'm now gripped with fear that this is going to happen to me. But that's a whole other story.

Can you see the bone & the little birds?

Its time to say goodbye to Merlin & Maud's Home.

I'd love to end with a Wonderful Sentence that summed up to a tee their home. But I'm too tired. I'll just give you a few words & you can string them together yourself:

whimsy, memories, comfort, delight, happiness, heart, family, warmth, belonging.