under your skin

I remember sun-kissed summers. Reading magazines while I wriggled my toes in the scorching sand and flipping over only when I got too hot. I remember hopping down to the water when my skin and tongue alike prickled and yearned for the cooling kiss of the water.

We'd trek home with sand in our knickers, plunge ourselves into cold showers and then lie defeated under the fan and wait for the burning to fade away with the day light. We couldn't sleep on your backs for days.

Our house smelled of after-sun lotion and lemonade.

Then comes the peeling. One day you're tanned and the next day you scratch your back and realise it's begun. You try to moisturise, desperate to keep the skin as part of your body but it's too late, it's beyond repair. You have to wear a t-shirt to cover your peeling shoulders despite the hot weather and the pleas for a singlet from your under arms. But there's no hiding the peeling that's begun on your nose.

And this is what I think of when people talk about skins, long hot summer days and the resulting sunburn and peeling of sheets of skin. It's not a pretty site.

But these are.

    

        

I love these, they don't bulk out your phone but they do look mighty cool. Skins are like thicker screen protectors but with much more interesting patterns. You can download matching wallpaper and they're much easier to put on then those fiddly sheets of plastic that always get bubbles.


Now I just have to decide which one to buy.

gelaskins.com

(L)

i kneed you!

I'm in love.

There is a happiness in my life and instead of being the lonely heart inside my chest it is a pair of hearts on my knees.

These little hearts can traipse around the world with me from country to city and still bring a smile to my dial. I will never have a lonely heart now that it has two new friends to sit on my knees and discuss the weather, politics and of course, romance.

The three little hearts will be best friends and I hope that it's a love that never wears thin.

The best leggings for a lovely winter

(L)

roll up! roll up!

Today I've been inspired. I will pack my socks and jocks into my suitcase and head for the hills, I will run away and I will join the circus. I don't care how far I have to walk, or how many nights I'll spend sleeping under the cover of an old bush tree, I will find a travelling troop and follow them from town to town.

The circus will accept me into its fold, with caring but rough arms placed around my shoulders. I will be  wrangled into the warmth of the Big Tops wind breaking walls. The acrobats will fly from the ceiling on colorful ribbons and scoop me up, flinging me into the air. As I go tumbling towards the bouncy roof of the tent I am sure I will soon be plummeting into the shiny hard wood floor, but I am happy in this precise moment, when I feel as though I am flying, not falling.

A group of rowdy looking boys dressed in colourful cloths cheer me on from the ground, while hairy ladies and slick looking men break character and smile jovially towards me as they go about their tasks. I see them and I know that I have made my way home.

It will be a boho, chai tent, fire loving, clownless kind of circus that only exists in my dreams.

But that's exactly where I'm going to find it!






Thanks Peter Alexander for your run-away-to-the-circus inspiring new collection! And for making my circus joining dreams come true, and very comfortably too I'm sure!


(L)

flutter byes

There's a little butterfly at my desk today, he's keeping me company.

He saw that I was lonely as he fluttered by my office, he was smelling flowers and twirling in the sun and gave it all up to pop in and say hello. He has traffic lights on his wings and love in his antennas and as he flies around my desk I'm reminded of cold mountain breezes and long lazy days in front of the fire.

He and my eyes are a dancing a dance. It's the Charleston Box-step and my eyes know all the moves. 

(L)

winters blews

My boots trudge along the crunchy ice laden grass as I make my way to the top of the hill. My coat blocks me from the coldest winds but my nose is an Eskimo explorer and has no shelter.
Every now and then the wind blows and small speckles of frozen water crash against my face as I burrow deeper down into my scarf.

This is winter.

This is Armidale.

For the majority of an Armidale winter you cannot feel your fingers or toes. Maybe they have run off somewhere warmer; to sun bake on a Hawaiian beach or sip cocktails at a Balinese bar. This can make walking and texting rather tricky.

You must layer. My layers are calculated. Socks, tights, socks, pants, singlet (tucked into tights) undershirt (tucked into pants) shirt, cardigan, jumper, scarf, coat, gloves, beanie. Sometimes you don't see your legs for weeks and weeks, as they have been burried under cotton. When eventually they do brave the cold and pop out they will be much hairier than your expected (the kinds of things that scare small children in the night) and you will tuck them safely away, back into their cottony home. Keep them warm and keep them safe from those who wouldn't understand.

Drink tea, read near a fire, cuddle your puppy dog... these are the things you must do if you want to survive it.




(L) 

I still miss...

My peep show dreams.

a dream and a whistle

She fell asleep there, the rolls of silk keeping her warm against the wispy airs determined searching fingers, watching the stars as they slowly appeared from behind the smog cloud. They looked to her like they to were waiting to dance. Waiting til no one was watching so they could make the dark backdrop of the night their stage and waltz past the moon.

She looked peaceful, albeit uncomfortable, wrapped in the green silk gown. A mess of red hair sprawled haphazardly against her arms, gently holding her sleeping head. She breathed, and her breath played like smoke in the nights air.

It seemed to the girl that no matter how peacefully she fell into her sleep the nightmares would always find. The dreams where she couldn't run, or scream, or defend herself, or help anyone. The dreams where things were constantly held back from her. And so she ran and she screamed and fought, though the efforts bore little result and she awoke in a sweaty howling scream, a scream that could be heard many miles away, a scream that could not be held back by any nightmare.

Later that day as she absentmindedly weaved her piglets in-between overgrown patches of grass she realised she was being watched. A little bird in a tree was sitting on a branch, his head cocked with curiosity and caution.

She glanced down at her peanut butter sandwich and back to the little bird. It was all she had to eat that day, but it was also all she had to offer.