Naomi Bulger: messages in bottles

Exploring Nicholson Village while it is still cold, holding hands and holding coffee, squinting into the parallel sun. Toy stores with hand-made and hand-painted wooden bicycles, puzzles, little upholstered toddler armchairs made by an old man in his shed on the coast. A bookstore just for children: pop-up books, cut-out books, glorious collections of classics.

Then it is our dear friends from Sydney, Aaron and Jutta, well-met in Carlton Gardens. To me, "You're so big it's hard to hug you now!" And to Mr B, "You look positively svelte by comparison." The instant chatter of good friends with months of sharing to pack into mere hours. Aaron and I lag behind. I am footsore with pregnancy, and he limps after having just finished the Oxfam Trailwalk at 6am. I am astounded he is upright.

Outside the the historic Carlton Exhibition buildings, the lineup for the Taco Truck snakes around corners, but we head straight inside to browse the Finders Keepers markets and marvel in all the crafty talent. We buy some hand-painted gift-cards, a three-tiered cake-stand made from old records, and little grey winter pantaloons for the baby, spotted in ladybird red.

Back into the sunshine, which is high and hot and glorious now despite the calendar insisting it is mid autumn, we enter the happy, eclectic bustle of Brunswick Street. Italian paperies, an old-fashioned puppet workshop, vintage clothing, milliners, outlets for emerging artists, and pubs, cafes and restaurants that spill out into the sun-drenched street.

We take the back streets to Min Lokal for a late lunch of grilled haloumi on radish and chat potatoes, Moroccan spiced baked beans with labna and dukkah, and crispy pork-belly over caramelised apple salad.

Then we hug and kiss again. "I can hardly reach you," they insist as I awkwardly try to bend forward, past my own belly and into their arms. We part ways but I am not as sad as usual because I will see them again next week when I head up to Sydney for a brief visit of my own. Mr B and I walk hand in hand back up Brunswick Street, looking in all the shop windows. A drunk man sitting on a park bench enjoying a brown-bottle beverage from a time-honoured paper bag yells at me: "You're pregnant!" then dissolves into gales of laughter.

Home as the sun begins to set, it surprises me how early it sleeps these days. Mr B heads into the bedroom for a little rest and the dog follows, eager steal a nap on the bed since I always tell him no. I rest my aching feet on the couch and read a couple more chapters of The Harp in the South before starting on the roast butternut squash soup that will be our dinner.

How was your Saturday?

All photos are from Finders Keepers today. I must remember to take my camera out more often, but I was too busy having a good time.

I don't have a regular 'favourite things Friday' post for you today. Nor did I come even close to getting through the mountain of work on my desk.

Something happened this morning, and I don't know how to explain it except to say that I guess my body released a massive hit of hormones around about breakfast time, because all of a sudden I started nesting in the biggest possible way.

I mean, I made to-do lists of things I needed to finish before baby arrived (everything from finishing off commissioned work to cooking and freezing meals). I emailed my friends in Sydney to tell them I'd be up for one last pre-baby visit, next weekend.

I made shopping lists of everything I needed to buy before baby arrived, from car-carriers and bassinettes to socks and onesies. 

I called my mum: "Will I need this one or that one? How long before baby gets too big for that?"

Then I hit the Internet. First Mothercare, then Babies R Us, and finally Etsy where I made the sweet little vintage and handmade 'wish list' collection below. It was a veritable nesting bonanza.

I promise to do my best to return this blog to normal next week. And in the meantime, have a wonderful weekend!

Meet one of my favourite* bands in Melbourne, Skipping Girl Vinegar. They just sent a monkey named Baker into space. This is Baker. Almost in space.

First, they built a little space ship out of foam and gaffer tape. They piled into an old Volkswagen Kombi and drove out to an open field on Mount Barker in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia.

3. 2. 1. Blastoff!

Baker soared up, up and away, carrying with him a small video camera, and an MP3 player that beamed their new single "Chase the Sun" and other messages from the people (and monkeys) of Earth out to the universe.

He made it to 110,000 feet, almost to the edge of space, before his balloon burst and he deployed his parachute, drifting gently back home.

Watch Baker in action (and listen to the lovely song) here:

What did you think? I suppose I liked Baker's safe landing best of all. Although after all his adventures, I wanted them all to run up and hug him.

Ok, I wanted to run up and hug him. You know, "Hooray! You're back! Safe and sound! Let's go and have a cup of tea together." That sort of thing.

*I am making one of those nerdy "I liked them when" claims. I liked them when they called themselves May Fly. They were supporting an artist I went to see at The Basement in Sydney aeons ago. At least 10 years. I don't remember the headline artist but I do remember these guys and their glorious harmonies. I bought their EP. If you ever come across a single called "Said and Done" by May Fly, have a listen. It will transport you.

In the meantime, I'm listening to their latest album "Keep Calm, Carry the Monkey" as I type this. It makes me sigh in the best way.

(All images from Skipping Girl Vinegar on Facebook)

Meet Henri, the feline philosopher. Oh how he breaks my heart! The mournful way he hangs his head while submitting to the indignity of having his butt hair trimmed. His slow turn to camera, bringing home the irony of a little sign, "Pay attention to the cat." ("Not that they ever do.")

And oh! Henri! "Immortalised on the wall. Forgotten on the floor." I sob.

Credit:
I first saw Henri on Hila Lumiere's blog, le projet d'amour. You should visit her lovely blog now and if you like what you see (which I'm quite sure you will), vote for Hila in the Best Australian Blogs competition. (There are several pages of blogs, listed alphabetically, and Hila's blog is listed under the letter 'L' on page three as "le projet d'amour.")

Elsewhere:
Today I'm back on the English Muse, bringing you a taster from the stunning Hindu Festival of Colours. Won't you pop in and tell me what you think?

Image from Pison Jaujip

I came across this wonderful letterpress Illustrated A to Z of Melbourne today, by Benjamin Puckering, and couldn't resist buying it for the baby.

As Baby B grows up, so many of these items will become familiar symbols of home to our little one. Like, "T is for tram" and "V is for Victoria State Library" and "F is for Flinders Street Station." Isn't it adorable?

(I took the photo on the right on Instagram a couple of weeks back. When I saw Benjamin's design I had a "Woah!" moment. It's even the same number.)

Guess what I discovered yesterday? FREE creative digital design downloads! But for a short time only. The lovely folks at Creative Market are just starting up and, while they get ready to launch, they are offering some wonderful freebies to give early adopters a taste of what's to come.

Here are some favourites I've already downloaded:

_I think this is a super smart marketing idea, kind of like the digital version of those little tasters they give you in gelati shops that sucker you in to buying the three-scoop cup when you weren't even hungry. I'm fairly certain creativemarket.com has won a future customer in moi.

Also, I need to extend a big thanks to Nicole Balch of Making it Lovely for alerting me to this great opportunity.

_Dear baby,

Last night you battered me from the inside with your sweet kicks and wiggles while I sat on the couch and tried to read my new book. Boy do you love playtime, already.

Your father rested his Sunday-stubble cheek against my belly and spoke, just to you. "Hello baby," he said. "It's your dad. I love you."

You stopped kicking. Maybe you were listening?

Your father rubbed my belly, right where you had last kicked. It's the closest he can come to cuddling you, for now. There'll be plenty of real cuddles to come, we can both promise you.

Then he cupped his hands around his mouth and spoke again into my belly. "Baby, this is your father," he said in a funny, deep voice. "If you love me, give me a sign."

Nothing. You were resolutely still. More than you'd been all day, in fact.

You cheeky little monkey. We laughed. Oh baby, you're not even born yet and you're making us laugh. I can't wait to meet you!

Love,
your mum

_Do you ever get that prickly feeling, when walking through the old parts of your town, that time is not linear? That it somehow overlaps?

As I took my dog Oliver for a walk on the weekend, I had in my head an Australian novel The Getting of Wisdom*, which was written a little over a century ago and set in East Melbourne, through which I happened to be walking that morning.

Looking around, I realised I was seeing many of the same buildings, tramlines and gardens that first caught the eye of the book’s scrappy 12-year-old heroine, Laura Tweedle Rambotham, when she arrived in Melbourne from her ‘up country’ home to attend a prestigious ladies’ college*.

_Here I tied Oliver to the same cast-iron lamp-post that Laura (or at least the book’s author) would have passed. There, the same historic Exhibition Buildings, set amid beautiful gardens. Overhead, a century-old criss-cross of tram-wires, decorating old colonial buildings and terrace houses like spiders’ webs over paintings.

Laura’s world and my world have combined, despite the passing of 100 years. And yet in my world, rising up and around and permeating Laura’s world, stand monuments that would be unrecognisable and unfathomable to her: skyscrapers, cars, new trams on much-used lines, and modern buildings interspersed amid the old.

_This is what I mean by time overlapping. I do not believe the present or future ever really replace the past. Instead, they are simply another layer on the old. Time is a collage.

And I thought to myself: if you look closely enough at the geographical contours of my city, at the odd and ancient tree that has survived, even at the cultural traits that we carry as a people; you’ll find that in this world sit also the worlds of not just centuries but millennia of Australians who lived here before me, going back more than 40,000 years.

It was quite the philosophical walk with the dog.

_*The Getting of Wisdom was written by Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, under the pseudonym Henry Handel Richardson. It is the story of a square peg of a teenaged girl trying desperately to fit into a round hole, with often funny and sometimes heartbreaking results.

*The fictitious Laura attended the factual and still prestigious Presbyterian Ladies’ College, Melbourne, which opened in 1858. Sadly, the original school building (see above) did not survive the years.

The historical photograph of the Presbyterian Ladies College was taken in 1905 and is classified for copyright under public domain.

Better late than never, in honour of Mr B's and my first anniversary two weeks ago, this post is all about love, love, love. Because, dear friend, love comes in all shapes and sizes. Ain't it grand?

Good street art just melts this heart of mine. I adore the creativity, vulnerability and generosity of street artists, and I know I've gone on about this on my blog many times before. So you can imagine how wide my smile was when I came across this collection of "dead hearts" by bicycle-loving, anti-asphalt Canadian artist Roadsworth.

Danni of Oh, Hello Friend (one of my favourite blogs) made this book of notes, inspired by The Jolly Postman, a while back for her husband when he was having a tough week at work. She said there were about eight to nine notes in the book, with one even hidden in a tiny capsule. One day, I will do the same for someone I love. Isn't it adorable?

Whenever you disagree with your lover, just flip for the right to be right! This is genius. "Relationship management in a tin," says distributor Greer Chicago. Found, as so many good things are, on Happiness Is.

When NYC student Chris decided to propose to his girlfriend Julia, he teamed up with paper artist Jackie Huang to make a pop-up book filled with moments from their relationship in which he would 'pop' the question. More from the book on Jackie's blog here. I have always loved pop-up books. In fact I think I want to be a paper artist when I grow up.
(ps. Julia said yes.)

I can't wait to experience this kind of love in just a few short months. This image is from The Glow, a site that calls itself "a glimpse into the world of inspiring and fashionable moms" and features gorgeous photography of mothers and their children. I don't expect to be either inspiring or fashionable, but I'm really looking forward to becoming a mum.

That time when I was 16 and I saw a rainbow end at the bottom of the horse paddock so I ran down to see if there was a pot of gold. There was: the pure gold of looking up to see a magical band of colours begin just out of reach of my outstretched fingertips, curving up, up into the unending sky.

I danced under the end of the rainbow and my brother's friend, still at the top of the hill, said it looked like I was dancing inside all the colour.