These guys pottered about our canal for the whole afternoon. They put on quite a show outside our window…

One fine afternoon, a few months back now, french boy was cleaning the outside of the boat while I was cozily tucked up inside, working away on my book. Unbeknown to me, he had seen two stray swan feathers floating nearby in the canal and, knowing how much I love feathers and how I love to watch the swans when they come by, he grabbed our broom and spent a good while trying to lure the feathers in closer to the edge of the boat. When he finally got hold of them he came inside, and with each feather in the palm of each hand he walked up to me and pronounced, “these are for you”.

This morning I woke up to a beautiful sun shower. The rain looked like tiny, thin light beams falling from the sky.

Yesterday I had an idea. I have a collection of beautiful things gathering here in my little boat home – sweet treasures that have been given or sent to me, and lovely pieces I’ve been meaning to show you for some time. So instead of letting them gather & gather in the hope that I find time to share their stories with you, I thought that starting next week, I will take a photograph of each item every day and post them here in the (blog)house. I won’t write about the item, I’ll just post a photograph and maybe share a link or two directing you to where the item came from.

Would you enjoy that? I hope so.

And here is something I came across via vanessa during the week which I thought was rather fabulous, funny and oh so true. I’ve printed it out and taped it to my wall as a reminder, you might get a kick out of it too (find it here).

Enjoy your weekend, mes amis.

For the past few weeks I’ve been looking into the best way to scan some negatives which I brought back with me from Sydney at the beginning of the year – just a small bunch of old and somewhat recent film,  images that I’d like to include in my upcoming book (commonly referred to as the book). First I asked all my photographer friends here if they had a neg scanner  – I figured at least one of them would have one since they all used to shoot film back in the day. But alas, no! Which was interesting. Then I looked online to see if any of my local photography shops scanned negs, but I also checked out the prices of neg scanners while I was at it.  Long story short, after getting a hefty quote for scanning a few negs I thought it worth investing in a neg scanner of my own as I’d like to start shooting film again soon. Yesterday the neg scanner arrived in the mail and even though it took a while to set up, I soon got the hang of it by scanning a few random negatives from my neg folders.  What is no doubt much more interesting to you though, is what I found among those random negatives: a spoon.

This spoon is possibly my favourite spoon of all time. I haven’t seen it for years, and I’m not even sure if it still exists. I think – I hope –  it is in my storage unit back in Sydney. It has a history which probably dates back to before my ownership of it, but its history with me is special: I bought it about ten years ago , possibly at a flea market,  when I had my store. And then when I opened the teahouse I put it on display there, behind the counter, resting on a little nail in the wall. However one of the staff knocked it unfortunately, and it broke. But I loved it too much to get rid of it. So I bound the two broken pieces rather crudely with some metal wire (time was of the essence back then) and over the years it fused together with rust. I must have taken a photo of it at some point in the last decade with my canon ae-1 and now, all the way over here in my home away from home, I have been reunited with my spoon again via this photo. Today, thanks to this spoon, this photograph,  I am inspired.

xx

PS This is the original photo scanned straight from negative, untouched, unaltered. I just love it. I might have to find a place for this photo in the book I think.

PPS I still think about opening another teahouse one day. I know it’s crazy since the last one nearly killed me, but I do think I’d do it soooo much better this time and really, how many cafés out there know how to make a proper chai these days? I need to bring back the chai.

PPPS I want to say thank you to everyone who has been leaving such luscious compliments about my writing of late. I can’t tell you how much that means to me since the book is filled with such writings, and your encouragement inspires me everyday. So, thank you.