Rosie's Travels

Congratulations to my talented sister Hilary, who has been selected to play canoe polo for Great Britain! A former captain and assistant coach of the Under-21s, this is still a great step up to the Ladies Squad. It's one of the few sports that GB are pretty good at ... perhaps by 2012 it'll be accepted as an Olympic sport. Anyway, huge hugs to the lovely Hil!

Autumn is coming. I was walking across the parklands and heard a rustling as if someone was close on my heels. Turning round defensively I realised it was a little leaf caught in a breeze, skittering along behind me like an eager puppy. Leaves are interesting, I've been taking a lot of photos of them.

After an uncomfortable journey out to the Adelaide Hills and Jane's wonderful studio space, where the pig's legs meant we couldn't jam it into the car boot or the back seat, so I had to squish it onto my lap, we set up for a craft afternoon. Her gorgeous kids were at first a little nonplussed by the giant piggy, which was a different colour every time they looked in on us!

Our papier-mached porker Horatio has been smoothed, the gap between his head and body filled out, completely painted with gesso (a white acrylic base coat) and we've collaged the sky across the top half. (It does remind me slightly of a turtle... one difficulty has been that Jane and I each took a side and agreed to cover half way down, ending at the middle wire - unfortunately the irregular twisted nature of the wire base means that one side now has much more sky than the other.) Rather than simply sticking with dark blues, we took inspiration from Van Gogh's Starry Night and included scraps of orange and yellow - they're at the opposite side of the colour wheel to the blues, and really add contrast. The sparkly silver cardboard stars are proving a challenge to stick down: the body's such an irregular curvy shape that the points keep spiking up.

And, alas, one sandal has fallen apart. I only had it for 18 months and now am stomping around in trainers, feeling way too hot. What can I do with 1 and a half sandals? It's a shame they can't be recycled somehow - unless I create a Crocodile Dundee's Legs style art piece as they have in Hahndorf...

Labels: Australia and Aussie customs, creativity, nature, sport