A New Year At The Hedge

It's high time to rid your blog rolls of the Hedge's Merry Christmas post, so just a quick update on what's been happening here.

• Chrissie came & went in a flash & baby Gracie now has a direct line to Peppa Pig via her new Peppa cell phone.
• MOTH & I hopped in the car on Boxing Day & drove to Melbourne. It's a long 7 hour drive & by Bordertown we've well & truly run out of things to say to each other. But this year was a breeze thanks to Pinterest & the great 4G network on my phone. I managed to add a further 1,278 pins to my account on the trip over & back......how good is that! 
• We did Chrissie Mk11 with MOTH's family, caught up with our mob of lovely Melbourne friends, spent quality time with the 3 Melbourne sons & hit the post-Chrissie sales with a vengeance (well at least I did!)
• Work has been full-on since the 2nd week of the year, lots of nerve-racking, complex cases to welcome me back. I just want it to get easier......
• We've just lived through one of the worst heat-waves in decades, think 5 days + of unrelenting 110-115F. The poor Hills wild-life really suffers in this weather, this photo of a koala trying to find some shade on the verandah roof of my favourite store Maple, in Stirling's main street sums up how we all felt on Day 6.
• A shiny new PC has been installed on the desk at home, I'm optimistic that it may provide me with the impetus to post more regularly, although I think I just heard a collective global laugh from Hedgies everywhere!
• The main bedroom has been totally out of commission for nearly 3 weeks. As usual, what started out as a small 2 hour job, has turned into the full catastrophe. It's too complicated to explain now......pics & an explanation to follow soon.
• The birthday fairy waved her wand at me & added another year to my passport.
• Sadly, no offers for full-time work in the media have been forthcoming since I dropped that less-than subtle hint in my Chrissie post. MOTH's offered to act as my appointment maker, so Helen McCabe from Bauer Media's PA had better be prepared for the call from His Smoothness. Although I'm not sure his opening line of 'Gidday love, MOTH here, put me through to Hels will ya.' will achieve the desired result!
• How are things in your world? 

Travelling Well

I have yet another flight to catch to Melbourne tomorrow for the rest of the week. I like to walk to work, so stay in a fine hotel in Collins Street, but sometimes I wish the office was closer to the very elegant Villa Donati Boutique Hotel in Richmond.

Or it's edgier, funkier sibling Apartment 401 in Flinders Lane.

Life's a blur at the moment, keeping a minor Millie melt-down at bay is my Numero Uno priority.I've promised myself one early night tucked up with room service & some serious blog surfing. I'll be by soon, promise. As that famous Aussie pugilist once said 'I love youse all.'

Images: Villa Donati & Apartment 401

Monday, Monday

..........so good to me, Monday Monday, it was all I hoped it would be. Three gorgeous people did three equally gorgeous things for me today - totally independent of each other, unasked for & very unexpected & in three different cities. I have finished the day with a huge case of the warm fuzzies. Kisses to K, J & P, if only you each knew how you lifted me up & sent my spirits soaring. You didn't have to, honestly you didn't, but I'm soooooooo glad you did!

A quick travel report from my week in Melbourne. The Metropole was AMAZING - please put it on your list of places to stay when next in the City of Millie's Many Sons. Slick, sophisticated, minimalistic, occasionally dark & brooding, with rooms big enough to hold an International Tango Workshop, I loved it & them some.

Then there was Spice Temple, oh my goodness what a night we had. A stellar, stellar meal, with impeccable yet relaxed & friendly service - my little tootsies still curl up deliciously at the memories. And my favourite indulgence, Billecart by the glass (or 3), Neil Perry & the Rockpool group, 5 Millie stars you legends!

MOTH's off to Dog Grooming class & he's taken puppy Lulu to practice on tonight. He's had 5 classes now & has had a ball, even though he's the only bloke. He's under strict instructions to trim not clip Lulu's shaggy coat. I just hope his mind hasn't wandered during the theory lessons, & that puppy arrives home still recognizable. Off to pray to the Patron Saint of Dog Groomers for a miracle.

Images: Arne Maynard

Another Week Away

A busy weekend here at The Hedge has seen me dashing out to walk puppy Lulu amid all the other stuff on the agenda. I thought I'd give her some variety, so took her over to the other side of Stirling to show her my favourite set of entrance gates to one of the big estates.

No house to show her (or you) as it's set so far back from sticky beaks like me, but puppy was very impressed!

Sometimes I must walk around our place in a daze, 'cos when I went out to see how MOTH's garden terrace rock steps project was proceeding today, this was staring me in the face. It sure adds some glorious colour to our garden.

I'm off to Melbourne tomorrow to work. There's an Asia Pacific work conference on for the week. Don't really want to go, but there are a couple of side benefits.

Work's been generous enough to book me a suite at the new Metropol Hotel, really far too very swish & swanky for moi, but I'll take it while it's being offered thanks!

Lovely en-suite, unlike the wreck we currently have which dear Hedgies, is now sans a loo, thanks to a nasty incident involving a careless Plumber recently. Russell the Plumber was still swanning himself in the south of France with the profits he made from 2 days of light work here in the Bathroom-From-Heaven a year ago, so couldn't attend. His recommendation was not up to Russell's standards, & in the process of fixing a delicate issue with the said loo, dislodged it from it's base, sending it rocketing skywards. What goes up, must come down & according to MOTH, who was watching from the doorway, it came down alright, smashing into numerous pieces on the floor. MOTH then made the following big statement to the wide-eyed Plumber, which subsequently earnt him 2 nights in the sin bin aka the Living Room sofa. 'Don't worry mate, Millie will clean it all up when she gets home from work.' He reckons he's never seen a tradie scarper off to his truck so quickly!

I have a dinner date with my favourite Melbourne sister-in-law on Wednesday night. We are going to enjoy a night out at Neil Perry's Spice Temple.

I hope to be enjoying this.............

............followed by this. And of course it will be lovely to catch up with the Melbourne sons & hear all the latest goss. So off to pack a bag - see you soon.

Images: Moi, Crown Metropol & Spice Temple

The Company Of Strangers!

The beginning of Week 3 in my new job sees me flying off to Melbourne for the week. It's the Company's mid-year Sales Meeting & that means only one thing - more rooms of complete strangers to walk into! I long for the return of my comfort zone - it's beeen AWOL & I want it back! May this week bring fun & happiness to you all & see you on the weekend.
Image: The Age

Sorry Skipper!

Love Melbourne Landscape Designer Eugene Gilligan's work!

All images: Eugene Gilligan

Busy Signal

Yes that means you dear Hedgies! Excuse me while I run around in circles getting nowhere fast, but life's like that at the moment. Tomorrow we are heading off to Melbourne early as it's MOTH's younger brother's 60th birthday party there on Saturday. And 'cos MOTH is too tight to fly & hire a car for the occasion yes you guessed it, we have to drive 7.5 hours in the Millie-mobile to get there. A mad dash around on Sunday to catch up with the 3 Melbourne sons & elderly Aunts & then back in the car early Monday for the 7.5 hour drive home. It's Son #5's 28th birthday & I promised to be home in Adelaide in time for his birthday dinner that night. Then a massive week at work follows & Thursday night I can collapse in a heap!!

Wish me luck in the car with MOTH. Last time Mr. Grumpy & I travelled down the highway together, it was no speakies from the Stirling roundabout (where a huge brawl occurred about him not giving way to a poor elderly local who got the fright of his life as MOTH bored through!) to Ballarat (approx. 500kms). The silence was only broken when MOTH got hungry & needed to ask me for 5 bucks for a burger & fries at HJ's. See you all next week, with or without MOTH!

SFC Love!

MOTH & I don't agree on too many things (politics, religion, footy team & exterior house colours for a start!), but one thing we are unanimous about is that the Single Fronted Cottage (SFC) is our very favourite architectural style! SFC's abound particuarly in Adelaide & Melbourne, with sandstone & brick being the favoured building material in Adelaide, with Melbourne doing the timber thing, due to plentiful supplies in country Victoria in the 1880's & beyond.

The majority of SFC's were built in the Victorian period (1837-1901), with a small number still being constructed during the Edwardian era (1901-1910). Long & skinny, with all the rooms leading off one side of a lengthy central hallway, the original floorplan was nearly always the same. The front room looking out onto the street was the parlour, then through an archway directly beind the parlour was the main bedroom, with a kitchen at the rear. A semi-detached lean-too often contained the washhouse (laundry) & sometimes a second small bedroom.

Often referred to as 'Workman's Cottages', these small houses were occupied by working & lower middle-class families & are clustered in the suburbs bordering the inner-city such as Parkside, Norwood & Eastwood in Adelaide & Fitzoy, Carlton & Brunswick in Melbourne. Generally, the majority of the cottages didn't have a driveway. The home owners of the time would not have the financial means to own a horse & buggy, so didn't require a way to access stables at the rear of their property.

However, most have rear access from a small laneway running at the back of the house. This existed for the Night Cart driver, who needed to access the outhouse (loo) near the back fence to empty the cisterns.

Over the years, the layout of the SFC's have changed dramatically.

The kitchen & old lean-to's have been demolished & extensions built to house a new kitchen, family room. bathroom, study etc.

This has meant that the amount of rear garden has diminished, so careful planning of the available outdoor space has occurred.

While some SFC's have a verandah & front door almost bordering the street, others have quite a set back, allowing for a substantial front garden area.

With the advent of informal living areas in new rear extensions, in nearly all cases, the master bedroom is now occupying what would have been the front parlour.

This is a wonderful example the typical configuration of the SFC, with a long hallway leading from the front door. Where the step down occurs would have probably been where the previous back door had stood.

Most of where this new extension is built would have originally been rear garden space.

So enjoy the SFC's on this tribute post. Lots of lovely ideas, clever design & use of available space makes my heart skip a beat. Not grandiose, the SFC is just perfect for MOTH & myself at this time of our lives.

Our goal is to live in one prior to our very last address on this earth - The Twilight Home For The Terminally Bewildered Renovator!