3 advent calendars

It's almost time for the official count-down to Christmas to begin. The advent calendar was one of my favourite Christmas activities when I was a child. Normally my aunt or my Nanna would give us a calendar, and we couldn't wait to open the new little window each morning. All that anticipation. WHAT will be behind the window? What's in the picture? Sometimes the calendars had chocolate behind the windows but to be honest that wasn't such a big deal. It was the surprise and the anticipation that made the advent calendars so special.

There are three advent calendars in our house this year.

1. The North Pole Express

This lovely wooden Christmas train was a gift from my parents last year. The idea is that you hide little ornaments or sweets in each drawer in the train. I don't want Scout and Ralph to go straight for the sugar without understanding the anticipation so, this year, they'll get a Christmas story instead. I'll hide a slip of paper with one sentence of the story in each box and we can read it together every morning.

2. The Victorian calendar

This traditional calendar will be our main advent calendar. The cardboard tree folds out and stands on your table. The snow-scene picture is filled with numbered windows, like a traditional advent calendar. There's a tiny cardboard tree-ornament behind each window, which the children can then take out of a morning and place on the cardboard tree.

3. The children's book

The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder is a favourite children's story of mine, with 24 chapters, named to match the advent. A little boy finds an old, dusty advent calendar in bookstore. When he opens the first window, a tiny story falls out, about a little girl who followed a lamb back through time and across continents, to the origin of the Christmas story. This year I'll read The Christmas Mystery (again) myself but, when the children are older, I'll read them one chapter a night until we reach Christmas Eve.

What are your favourite advent calendars?

If you're a fan of the homemade variety, I still love this punch-it-through calendar, and this one made out of old match boxes.

Thankful for...

The growing semblance of sleep at night Air conditioning Being loved My lemon tree The exquisite, unbearable heartache of motherhood The morning's first cup of tea Creative freedom Creative inspiration Peace, in my corner of the world The opportunity to contribute Turkish Delight

On the weekend our family shamelessly appropriated the North American custom of Thanksgiving and adapted it for our own purposes.

In our case, that meant gathering together a group of friends and family, eating way too much INSANELY GOOD traditional Thanksgiving fare (cooked up by the good folks at Gerald's Bar, who truly outdid themselves), and talking and laughing and shouting and joking and eating and drinking and eating some more, all afternoon.

The motivation was that Em was leaving for the UK at the end of the week and wouldn't be back until after the New Year. We were a little bit devastated to miss out not only on Christmas with Em, but on the usual summer holidays we would get to spend with her. Em, likewise, would miss out on seeing all the family she normally spent time with at Christmas. So we held the whole shebang a month early and thought "what the hey, let's call it Thanksgiving."

I was over the moon because I have been trying to get my family to give this particular holiday a go for YEARS. It was such a special time for me when I lived in the US. Here's what I wrote about understanding Thanksgiving a little while back.

This was such a fun and stress-free lunch and, unlike Christmas, it was loaded with exactly zero family dramas or expectations. I guess that's one of the best things about taking on a holiday (or elements of a holiday) that belong to somebody else's culture, huh. Clean slate! No expectations! So we plan to do it again next year. And every year.

Next time I might even remember to bring the camera.

What are you thankful for?

Photo credit: Todd Quackenbush (licensed under Creative Commons)

The Honourable Woman

Stop a minute. Why is the Internet not exploding with people talking about The Honourable Woman? Why did I only discover this mini-series in a roundabout, accidental way on iTunes because I happen to like Maggie Gyllenhaal as an actress and happened to notice her face in the promo picture?

Holy everything! I can't believe bloggers all over the world aren't talking our ears off about this show! So I guess I'll have to do it.

The Honourable Woman is an eight-part spy thriller. It starts off compelling but slow, and winds up completely, totally, under your skin. Gyllenhaal's character is Nessa Stein, a British-Israeli woman at the head of her family's company. The company formerly dealt in arms but now, under Nessa's leadership, builds communications networks. Her goal, pursued at great personal cost, is to create equality in communications access and opportunity for both Israelis and Palestinians.

The Honourable Woman is taut, considered, complex, clever, vulnerable and of course entertaining. And it is driven, sometimes relentlessly, by a phalanx of powerful, intelligent, broken, fully-drawn female characters.

Had enough of all the adjectives?

Maggie Gyllenhaal in this is exquisite. I couldn't look away. And have you heard of the stunning actress Lubna Azabal? The two of them together made for some of the most intelligent, brave and beautiful television I have watched in a long, long time.

The final episode (the hands, the hands, look for the hands; also, black on white and white on black, oh the symbolism) has destroyed me. I am undone.

The 10 best herbs to start growing today

Once upon a time, on my parents' property, I had a herb garden.

A really big, old-fashioned, formally laid-out herb garden. I grew herbs for cooking, and also for medicine. My poor family: they were my guinea pigs. I used to grind up herbs and squeeze them into glycerine tablet casings to make them easier to ingest. I made verbena-infused lemon butter and pineapple sage jelly and herb crusted pies.

At some point during the 90s, I wrote this:

"...My garden becomes a place of comfort: hard work, gentle rest, no need to swallow these herbal remedies for the healing to begin.

"Grape vines curl and twine up the walls and espaliered wire that anticipates their embrace. Old briar roses climb over one arch, filled with used and abandoned finch nests, and at the other end, jasmine pulls apart a flimsy metal gate. Different tastes and colours of thyme, marjoram, oregano and sage blend with camomile, tarragon, two types of parsley and lemon grass.

"In this garden comfrey grows in abundance - kept green even in the harsh summer by its deep tap root - tansy, horseradish and borage; onion chives, garlic, santolina and marigolds.

"Chinese allspice flourishes here with the rose-scented geranium, lemon balm smells so good I can almost taste it, mint, spearmint, cold and dark, French lavender fills a middle diamond, while coriander and tarragon spice the furthest end. Strawberries line the path, though few survive the birds' early morning breakfast - and a lemon verbena tree is a suitable diving board for the bellbirds to splash in and out of the birdbath.

"In summer, the basil takes hold, calendula marigolds go wild, and in some years, sunflowers are encouraged to wave their golden heads over the front fence."

It sounds like a rather heavenly place, doesn't it. It was.

Now, I have a tiny, one-metre square box in which I grow herbs and vegetables (although I'm working some extra hours and saving as hard as I can to have our tiny courtyard converted into a tiny garden to grow herbs and flowers and where the children can play. One day…).

But the good thing about herbs is that they grow just about anywhere and for just about anyone. And herbs are incredibly versatile, wonderful plants to have around: they smell good, they taste good, they look good, and many of them come packaged up with a generous dose of colourful history and folklore.

If you'd like to start a herb garden, these are my 10 favourite herbs to grow:

Basil Why? Yum! And also, oooh that smell. Cool folklore quirk: in medieval times, some 'experts' believed that if you laid basil to rot in horse dung, it would breed venomous beasts. I have not personally tried this.

Lavender Why? Purple flowers almost all year 'round. Crystalise the tiny petals and use them to decorate cakes; dry the flower heads and use them to give a relaxing and cleansing scent. Mildly antiseptic. Cool folklore quirk: "Lavender is of special good use for all the griefs and pains of the head and brain that proceed of a cold cause, as apoplexy, falling sickness, the dropsy, or sluggish malady, cramps, convulsions, palsies and often faintings." Culpeper, 1653

Lemon balm Why? You will never smell anything better. Beautiful to flavour summer drinks, jellies and jams. Cool folklore quirk: apparently taking lemon balm makes you live a long time. For example in the 13th century, Llewelyn Prince of Glamorgan regularly took lemon balm tea and lived to be 108.

Nasturtium Why? Grows rampantly and covers a big area with beautiful, sprawling, orange and yellow flowers. The flowers taste like pepper in a salad. Cool folklore quirk: native to Peru, nasturtium was first brought to Europe in the 15th Century by the conquistadors.

Mint Why? Takes your Asian salads to a new level. Not to mention your cocktails, your smoothies, your desserts… Cool folklore quirk: in Greek mythology, Minthe was a nymph who caught the eye of Pluto, the god of the underworld. When Pluto's wife found out about their affair, she turned Minthe into a plant. Pluto couldn't save her, but he gave her a wonderful smell that would get even better when someone stepped on her (!)

Lemon verbena Why? A beautiful little tree with rough, lemon-scented leaves that you can use in cooking or tea. Gives the garden soft shade in summer and lets the sunshine through in winter. Cool folklore quirk: I couldn't find one! Came to Europe from South America in the 17th Century (via the Spanish).

Calendula marigold Why? Happy, sunny, yellow and orange flowers. The petals are a nice addition to salads, and can also be used to treat pimples (true!). Cool folklore quirk: the name comes from the fact that it seems to flower just about all year 'round.

Parsley Why? To eat! In anything (savoury)! Cool folklore quirk: was used by the ancient Greeks to crown victors at the Isthmian Games. Can you imagine sticking parsley on the heads of our athletes today? Let's bring this tradition back!

Comfrey Why? Apparently full of vitamins, and has more protein in its leaves than any other veggie. Also does amazing things for compost. Cool folklore quirk: historically comfrey was considered a "miracle herb" that could fix all kinds of ailments and even mend broken bones.

Rosemary Why? Tastes great with meats and roast vegetables, grows into a beautiful hedge, smells amazing. Cool historic quirk: was believed to strengthen the memory and therefore became an emblem of fidelity.

Photos are of Scout planting and watering basil in our little garden box on the weekend

Incoming mail

I have been remiss in sharing my incoming mail of late, so I've gathered a some bits and pieces together to show you this SERIOUSLY amazing collection of drawings, craft, collage, hand-sewn gifts and beautiful stationery, sent from all over the world.

I can't tell you how blessed I feel every time I receive something in the mail, and you guys are SO thoughtful and SO generous and put so much time into writing to me. I am blown away. And humbled. That sounds insincere but I want you to know it is TRULY, SINCERELY how I feel.

Thank you. THANK YOU!

ps. If you like the look of that gorgeous, hand-made apron, you can find more like it at Libby's Lifestyle on Etsy

Life at mine

Lonely gold shoe // Christmas already? // A tale of two cities: New York and Melbourne // First face paint // Mummy Pig // Celebration in stock // Typewriters in the city // Ralph is crawling now. Can you tell? // Boys' night // "Hey Mummy I writing your name" // Afternoon light

I'm taking inspiration from The Veggie Mama for this post. What's been happening at your place?

Hope

"Out of the darkness, only light can come"

Making me happy today: the wonderful, dreamlike, ever-so-Aussie, inside-the-pop-up-book stop-motion illustrations by Snip Green of "Spring to Come" by the John Butler Trio.

John Butler Trio - Spring To Come from Dropbear on Vimeo.

11 cheer-up links

The night had started out so well.

I went to a meet-up of Melbourne bloggers that just so happened to be held two blocks away from my house, which meant not only could I walk there with no "I'm late and the traffic is hell" stress whatsoever, I could also indulge in a glass of bubbles or two. It was so lovely to meet in person some of bloggers I'd admired from a distance for a long time; and to discover new bloggers (and blogs) to admire; and to reconnect with some wonderful writers and women, especially those I know through the Blog with Pip course.

I wandered home all happy and tired, then curled my feet under me on the couch to join in a chat with Mr B and his cousin, comfortable in the knowledge that my children were sleeping peacefully and hadn't made a peep since Mr B put them to bed not long after I'd gone out. It all felt very luxurious.

And then.

About 15 minutes after we'd gone to bed and just as I was entering that delicious almost-asleep-but-not-quite sinking state, Scout started crying. And screaming. And then Ralph joined in. We ran to their room, to find Scout had been sick everywhere. EVERYWHERE. The smell in their room hit you like a wall. The poor little darling was shaking and crying and Ralph was terrified. We bundled them up and got Scout cleaned up and comforted Ralph and then I stripped the bed (it had gone through the blankets, sheets, pillows, through the mattress protector and into the actual mattress) and aired the room.

Eventually I settled Ralph back in his bed, and Scout came to sleep with us, now chatting happily for all the world as if it was 10 o'clock in the morning and we were all out for a tea party. Until she was sick again, all over the towel I'd (thankfully) put under her. So we got her up and cleaned her up again and replaced the towel and…

Suffice to say that by morning, two sets of sheets and six towels later and having had approximately six minutes of sleep, the day was not shaping up to be an energetic one.

We stumbled downstairs at first light to discover the cat had left a poo in the playroom.

At 7.30am, my watch stopped, and I don't blame it.

We all need a bit of cheering up around here. Do you? I hope your night wasn't like mine! Here are 11 links and ideas that might help to make us all smile.

This poem made me cry with happiness. Actual sobs. For my money, nothing else has ever come so close to describing the powerful emotions of being a mother

Illustrated pet peeves

It's almost eggnog season!

A DIY to try - gold leaf planters

Funny! 80s awareness for millennials (by Kevin Bacon)

The art of drawing on the memory of lighter times to weather heavier times

Chocolate lego!

A fun activity for kids: bubble-wrap prints

Bonfire night. I just loved this story

Beautiful diamond planters

Adorable homemade marshmallow clouds

To market, to market

Do you have a local market? A growers' market has just started up around the corner from us, though I haven't had a chance to visit it yet. We love markets large and small at our place: the hustle and bustle - and fresh produce - of the Victoria Markets; the amazing ring of food trucks at the new Batman Market; the sheer colour of the Rose Street Artists' Market; and the handmade goodness at Northern Regards… just for a start.

Markets can inspire fierce loyalty, and I think that's kind of lovely, don't you? My friend Arrayah Loynd, an award-winning photographer, and her friend Jo Skuse, an anthropology student, are so passionate about their local St Andrews Community market that they have produced a stunning book celebrating the market and the people who bring it to life.

Called "Meet Me at Market," the book is richly populated with gorgeous photography and wonderful stories. The friends have a Pozible campaign running at the moment to raise enough funds to produce, print and distribute the book. If you'd like a copy, you can pre-order one in time for Christmas, here (there's one week left to the campaign so you'll have to be quick).

So tell me: what are your favourite markets?

All images are from the Meet Me at Market Facebook page, used with permission

Home is wherever... (ode to New York)

This is a post about New York but, nowadays, you could apply a lot of the sentiments I've expressed to my life in Melbourne as well. Except my house now is a lot bigger and significantly less... infested... than my old apartment. With not as many steps. Be that as it may. This is also a post about space and city living and interiors and exteriors and worthwhile sacrifices and satisfactory compromises and, most of all, it is a post about home.

68 Thompson Street #36 New York NY 20016

When I lived in New York it was in a classic, shoe-box sized pre-war walk-up apartment. I lived on the fifth floor, which was as high as you were allowed to go without an elevator. There were 84 stairs between the pavement and my apartment, every one of them green and dingy and dirty, and I climbed them several times a day.

Inside my apartment was one big room with a tiny sink, a bar-fridge and a decrepit electric oven near the door; and, at the far end, two tall windows with bars protecting them, and a paint-encrusted radiator that hissed and banged and leaked water over the parquetry floor. A rusty fire escape outside one of the windows would offer escape to only the most desperate among us. There was also a bathroom complete with a full length bath - immeasurable luxury for New York - and a bedroom that, once populated with a double bed, was utterly without floor space.

There were also mice in my living room. And rats in the garbage-filled courtyard downstairs. And the echo of sirens and horns and engines, day and night, from the entrance to the Holland Tunnel only a couple of blocks away.

In keeping with my meagre budget, I decorated my apartment with a dubiously-hygienic bed and couch left behind by the previous tenant, a metal shelving unit found in the hallway, a vintage oak dressing table purchased from the side of the road near Bowery, and some cheap cushions, throws and bedding from a rather traumatic trip to IKEA. It's a miracle I wasn't covered in bed-bug bites.

I absolutely loved that apartment. It was home, my very own home in the heart of New York City. It was the hub of the life I lived in the city, a life that was all about art, adventure, and community. Yet I was barely inside the apartment.

Every day, I would tuck my computer under my arm and head out to one of a countless number of cafes and restaurants and parks to take advantage of the weather, the sometimes-good coffee, the free wifi; and to earn my living. At some of my favourite places, the wait-staff became friends. During my breaks, I'd wander the streets of lower Manhattan, exploring shopping precincts and alleyways draped in street art, peering in at secret gardens behind walls.

At night, I would visit one or more of my friends, most of them in equally-dingy and tiny apartments. We would cook together, and laugh, perch on the edge of couches with our plates on our laps, precariously resting wine glasses on window frames. Or we would head out to hear a band. One of my friends would be singing on Bleeker, or over in the East Village. Someone else would be hosting a party on a rooftop. A new show or restaurant or movie would be opening and one of my friends would have invitations.

On weekends, my friend Mish and I would put on our walking shoes, clip the lead onto my dog Oliver, and walk more than 100 blocks along the Hudson River, starting around Canal Street and ending up in the 90s, before turning around and walking all the way home. We'd walk through floral, landscaped gardens, past people sun baking on pocket-handkerchief sized grass lawns, tennis courts and water playgrounds. Past kayaks for hire and trapeze lessons and territorial geese that terrified Oliver as they waddled up and down the wooden boardwalks. After the High Line opened, we'd look up at all the tourists exploring the tall tracks. Or we'd leave our riverside path and join them, taking in an entirely different perspective.

At home at the end of this marathon walk, we'd hobble around, feet aching, ravenously hungry. We'd call our friends and meet them at Lucky Strike, where I'd order the steak frites and a glass of prosecco in a tumbler, and not feel guilty.

All of this is to say that a tiny, dirty, somewhat-infested apartment at the epicentre of one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world can feel like home. And more, a happy home. And more than that, a home in which you are never trapped, never over-crowded, never fenced in.

Because in New York, the entire city is your back yard. You have 18 miles of back yard in which to explore, play... hey, you can even eat, pray and love, if that's your thing. And nobody questions it. Nobody who understands New York ever asks if you wish you had a bigger apartment, or a place to grow your own vegetables: there are community gardens for that, and window sills. Instead, they understand that the compromise is to sacrifice the space inside your home, for all that space and diversion and beauty and creativity outside your front door.

And then I moved to Melbourne.

(to be continued...)