Suburban Safari

Almost, but not quite, in the grand tradition of such Notable Nesting Blogs as Apartment Therapy & Design Sponge, Della herself will now conduct you, Dear Reader on a House Tour.

My friend AJ & I travelled a Considerable Distance into the very heart of Sydney Suburbia to bring this tour to you.

And you can see that I'm suitably dressed for the occasion in a Safari Outfit. Sadly, I forgot the topee.

The home belongs to Moniker & Ellen. A fibro house built in the 1940s, it is situated at the end of a cul de sac. Oh I do love peppering my blog with French Phrases!

AJ & I were impressed with the overall peace & calm of the place which is only occasionally broken by the sound of a neigbouring whippersnipper. Although I did notice a rather persistent barking dog that kept it up throughout our wonderful roast pork dinner.

(In case you were wondering, I am a Recovering Noise Nazi. This means that in spite of the fact that I live in one of the noisiest areas in Australia, Kings Cross & that I'm rather noisy myself, the slightest outside noise sends me into a frenzy. I am now attempting to get over this & sincerely wish that there was a Twelve-Step Program for Noise. However, I have made some small progress on my own. I now can withstand hearing the Fragrant Man Upstairs continuously playing 'Memories' on the piano without having to scream into a pillow.)

Here's Moniker holding up an amazing light she recently sourced from 'Ikea'. I so want one.

You may recall that in my last post I said that I found 'Ikea' upsetting. And I know for a fact that AJ does too. But, to tell the truth, I haven't set foot in an 'Ikea' since my daughter Maeflower was a child & we bought a strange elevated bed there for her which was almost impossible to put together & completely impossible to dismantle when we moved. In fact, the only way we could dismantle it was to take to it with an axe which is absolutely not what you want to do with furniture that cost good money.

I knew that there was a really good reason for me wanting to go to Spain.

Yes, so that I can go to the gift shop at The Prado & buy these absolutely gorgeous little paper 'Infantas' from the famous Velaquez painting. I'm not sure if I've spelt Velaquez properly. But I'm sure you know who I mean & what the famous painting is.

Moniker has got such a great eye! She spotted them there & lugged a whole troupe of them back home so that now they take pride of place inside her retro dresser.

It sounds like I'm doing a really big crawl job, but its totally true that Moniker is a great cook. I just loved how she'd actually shelled real peas & broad beans for our dinner.

I can't remember the last time I shelled peas. I definitely would have been a child. It was one domestic pastime that My Mother felt was safe enough for me to attempt. Not like the ironing.

Moniker's favourite cooking show is River Cottage on the Food Channel which is hosted by this guy with a name that is straight out of Wodehouse. I wish I could remember it. I quite like it but I don't like the way he lovingly slaughters pigs & just about every other living thing on his farm & then endlessly bangs on about wonderfully 'Organic' everything he kills is. But then I had no difficulty scoffing down large lashings of roast pork with crackling that Moniker cooked. My father used to pride himself on his pork crackling. He considered it a Sacred Art. He would put the pork into the oven & then turn up the heat to v.v. high & let it cook like that for about twenty minutes. And then he'd turn it down to normal. Suddenly crackling would form.

Moniker has two poodles, Black & White. Here's White sitting on the bed. Talk about the bleeeding obvious. I loved the pillowcases & loved even more the wall decorations which I absolutely refuse to describe. You'll just have to double click on the image to get a better look.

I must get back to the TV & Chelsea Lately. That's the name of her show, but her name is Chelsea Handler. She is rather deadpan. Some would consider her crude & perhaps somewhat potty mouthed. I was interested to learn from watching the show that when men don't wear underwear its called, 'going Commando'. But maybe I already knew that from when Kramer stopped wearing undies on 'Seinfeld' & I'd just forgotten it.

How many times do I have to learn something before it sticks, I wonder?