Easter Sunday Driving

Just a brief post today as the Easter break draws rapidly to a close here in Brisbane, and it's back to work for the salary slaves tomorrow. It has been a nice quiet Easter at home this year. The roads tend to be too crazy to head further afield, and it seems to me that, sadly for all the enthusiastic Easter campers, Easter is invariably wet.

Yesterday for change of scenery I headed out with a friend on a country drive to see some of the pretty towns in the Scenic Rim region to the south-west of Brisbane.

We called in at some of my favourite spots, the Art and Soul gallery at Boonah, which I have posted about previously - you can visit if you click here - the Kooroomba Winery and lavender farm at Mount Alford for morning tea, back to Boonah for lunch, followed by a drive though the mountains at Cunninghams Gap with a short stop at pretty Aratula on the way home.

Cattle at Mount Alford

This guy didn't seem to know what to make of me.

Kooroomba Winery and lavender Farm

Kangaroo on the move at the edge of the lavender.

This pristine farm house was part of a nearby winery.

Country church on the road from Mount Alford back to Boonah with flowering Cape Chestnut on the left.

Cape Chestnut

A great find this visit was Suzy Buhle's gorgeous gallery at Aratula.

Suzy with a work in progress

Loved these rustic birdhouses at the local antique store.

Finally,  a couple of the little churches in Aratula with their mountain backdrop

It seems an appropriate way to round up our Easter Sunday drive.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

Work in progress

Even though most of my posts are garden orientated, when it comes to the blogs I follow, my taste is very diverse. I love reading about cooking, lifestyle, art, poetry, fashion, and that's just for starters. Sometimes I am just swept away by the beauty of the photography, or I become absorbed in the daily rhythm of life in a different corner of the globe, like the wonderful Turquoise Diaries.

Last week I was reading one of my favourites, Slim Paley, writing about celebrating summer. I completely identified with her love of tasteful neutrals - I have a huge file of clippings from home decorating magazines in that vein - but she was advocating the introduction of colour and light into the house for summer. 

Let's face it, Brisbane is virtually summer all year round. Maybe that's why I also love flicking through books like Taschen's Mexico Style or Moroccan Style or Indian Interiors (and some of the great Indian blogs like An Indian Summer) for colour inspiration. Maybe too, that's why Brisbane's own Anna Spiro's blog Absolutely Beautiful Things is so popular worldwide. Is there a growing movement of beige fatigue?

While I certainly don't include myself in the illustrious company of the stylish bloggers I have named, I have been having a bit of fun with colours lately at Casa Bella. Firstly, I got the couch recovered and recushioned (Bella and Onslow had eaten the previous ones!).  I had picked out a really 'tasteful' stripe from Barefoot/Barbara Sansoni, who I discovered when I visited Sri Lanka in 2005, but when the design I was after wasn't readily available here in Australia, I threw caution to the wind and opted for Tarala Flowers... so here is your sneak peak.

The recovered sofa

Remember the table runners I bought at the antique markets in Jakarta in May? I grabbed a couple more in pinky tones just before I left and had a bit of a play draping them over existing cushions on the sofa. I'm not too sure how colourfast they are, but I am thinking they could make great cushion covers, if not on the sofa itself, then mixed in with some of the others from my collection on the cream covered cane chairs I have.

Then there were those great Indian vases I bought at one of the big department stores in Jakarta. And now, in the past week, I have taken another big step towards being well and truly in the pink.

I had the painter here last Wednesday to repaint my cream wall, water stained after heavy rain earlier in the year. I had even picked out the colour, deciding to change from cream to Antique White - after all I haven't been saving those magazine clippings on tasteful neutral interiors for nothing. But the night before, I had grabbed a handful of paint colour cards at Bunnings, and when I spoke to him I found myself telling him we were opting for 'Velvet Orchid'. (He looked a bit traumatised, but I think he's come around). The photo doesn't really do it justice, but you can get a bit of an idea from this snap featuring the gorgeous new painting I nabbed in Bali just before I headed home.

I thought the painting and the colours of the table runners/cushions will tie in with my existing blue and white china collection. 

However, there's been another domestic crisis this week as my hot water system has ruptured, and so I have reluctantly turned my attention to replacing that, repainting and re-tiling the laundry. Both the repainted walls and the tiles are in neutrals, I'm almost ashamed to admit.

Next month I am back to Jakarta to finish off the remainder of my contract, but, on my return, it will be full steam ahead, and maybe in time for the big reveal by Christmas. I've got a couple of great suzanis packed away upstairs that might tie in, and who knows what new treasures I will discover on my travels to work into the mix.

Weekend ramblings

It's a slightly scary thought that in about 12 hours I will off on my way to work.  What happened to the weekend?  It started peacefully enough, taking the pups for a walk at Minnippi parklands.

The pups had a snooze on our return, but there is no rest for the weary gardener...

This zinnia bud

had morphed into this beautiful flower.

While I have had plenty of summer colour from the dwarf zinnia 'Summer Brilliance', this and another slightly shaggy bloom were the first from my 'big' zinnias. I thought I would celebrate by trying a tiny arrangement with dahlia 'Marie Antoinette'. (The little jug was my grandmother's, the blue and white china two recent thrifty purchases - the box was $2 at Mount Gravatt flea market and the vase 50 cents at Lifeline!)

And speaking of thrifty finds, I picked up this table base at a kerbside throw-out...

I'm going through a bit of a 'home beautiful' phase at the moment. Although in my case this generally means everything gets a whole lot worse for a while before the transformation is completed. Case in point, my sofa...
The puppies have found it necessary to modify this to suit themselves.

Sometimes they like the one cushion option.

And sometimes the no cushion option.

They always prefer to remove the protective throw, and have eaten the cushion they don't like, so it seems a recover is in order.  I found the perfect fabric. It was subtle, elegant - and had lots of white - so we aren't having that, and have opted for a more vibrant selection. The fabric was delivered last week and looks wonderful.  It is still on the roll, but hopefully will be off to the upholsterer in the next few weeks.

With the new sofa in mind, I rearranged the paintings on the stairway and swapped a few around with others downstairs.

I think the lady with flowers by Aavik from the Eumundi markets is much better here than on the stairway. She is like a little sister to Jane Creenaune's Girl in Chinese Dress

Unfortunately the recent rain resulted in a roof leak that had water running down the wall where many of my paintings are hung, so I have removed a few and propped them against a wall until I can get someone out to repair it.

But one project keeps leading to the next. In the interim, I tried out my Turkish rug, which had been relegated to the safety of an upstairs bedroom after the pups took to nibbling its fringes, with the new colour scheme and decided it desperately needed a wash and repair. So it was off to Taringa to deliver it into the hands of the experts, and I had a bit of a wander on the way home. Firstly I ducked into the Cat and Fiddle deli for a quick lunch, and then detoured through some of my favourite streets round Toowong and Auchenflower.

Typically hilly terrain and treelined streets with beautiful classic Queenslander homes.

Pretty as a picture...

but it was the blue ginger Dichorisandra thrysiflora that caught my eye.

Here is another example.  Doesn't it look gorgeous against the green wall?




Speaking of green walls, while many Queenslanders are painted in pastel tones, I love the stronger colours.  Doesn' t this bright pink work beautifully with the green of the bamboo (and what about pink for a sofa - do you think it will frighten the pups into behaving?)

After all that gadding about yesterday and grocery shopping this morning, I spent the rest of the day in the garden, bulb planting and green ant dodging in the front, followed by serious weeding and mosquito swatting in the backyard until it got too dark. Still it was all worthwhile, I will sleep the sleep of the just: I have finally made a start to the back garden, which has been hanging over my head, and I added another handful of leopard lily seed pods to my collection.  And next weekend, I'll do it all over again, but changes are afoot.  Stay tuned...

Sculpture by the Sea

From the first to the third week of November every year, the stunningly beautiful coastal walk from Bondi to Tamarama Beach in Sydney is transformed into a 2 km sculpture park. The exhibition features over 100 sculptures from artists around the world and now travels, with exhibitions at both Cottesloe Beach in Western Australia and Aarhus in Denmark. This year marked Sculpture by the Sea's 15th anniversary, and, although I couldn't make the trip this time, I was lucky enough to visit the year before last.

The scenery is superb and many of the sculptures are large scale, quirky, or colourful, but my favourites had an organic feel to them and seemed perfectly suited to their temporary environment.

From drab to fab!

Not quite in keeping with a garden theme, and not exactly an adventure, but the excitement levels were high at Casa Bella earlier this week when I had some of my paintings rehung above the staircase.

Some had been stored away for a while. They may not be the most perfectly coordinated collection, but they are all special to me in their own different ways - a tapa from Tonga, an antique still life that was my first art purchase more than 20 years ago, recent treasures from Sri Lanka, and watercolours from my wonderful Auntie Eil...

I've swapped a couple round already and am going to have great fun arranging and rearranging (and adding to the collection!)  I think it will look even better when I paint the walls, ceiling and banister railing white - but that's a project for another day.

I'm loving fiona sutherland's gorgeous redhead "Onwards" at the top of the stairs, looking down over us all! I bought her towards the end of last year becaue she reminds me of my gorgeous nieces, Bethany and Yazzi. I think I might just permanently close the door of the tv cabinet and feast my eyes on old friends and new.