Octopus costume

A side effect of working on a lot of projects is having six Christmas parties. One of them had the theme 'Under the Sea'. My original vision was to make an octopus costume that had legs attached to a hood with stand-up eyes. I was going to find an old hoody top, cut off the hood, sew on some eyes, and attach the legs. My final solution, mostly because I ran out of time, was to attach the legs to a neckband fastened with a press stud. I wrapped some felt strips around a headband and stuck on adhesive googly eyes. I sewed felt circles on to the legs as the suckers, and filled the legs with beanbag balls. The most satisfying thing was recycling material from a half-made skirt. I started making a dress for my year ten formal (a few years ago). The silver material was for the skirt and it looked so awful I went to my mother in tears and convinced her that she had to let me buy material for another dress. It was a big ask because we didn't have a lot of money, but my adorable mother agreed. I ended up making a stunning royal blue silk dress that I've worn several times since. The silver material has sat discarded for years, never finding a purpose until it became an octopus. I love using up existing supplies and scraps - part of my vendetta against waste :)



Christmas Lights

The City of Sydney is making a bit more effort for Christmas these days. This week I took a look at the Laneway Arts festival and the Christmas Lights displays. With a group from SPAN I walked the back alleys of Sydney, stopped to listen to the band under the Christmas tree in Martin Place, and stopped for the lights on the Hyde Park Barracks, St Marys Cathedral and Town Hall. There were only a few installations, but the idea has a lot of potential. It would be great to see Council investing a little more and attracting more pieces for display. The laneways of the central business district are perfect for displaying art, and it's a great way to see parts of the city you don't normally see (and find some interesting bars). We almost didn't see the Christmas lights, because we arrived at the Barracks just when the lights were on a break. Worth the wait though. I'll be checking this out again next year. Merry Christmas :) 



Leeches

If you're at all squeamish, you may not want to read this entry. The photo of the leech is taken from here. This story is about a leech that coulda, shoulda and did. The last two weekends I went bushwalking. On my walk to Figure 8 Pools I collected two leeches. One leech I found on my ankle. It must have only just latched on, because when I removed it I didn't bleed. The second fully engorged leech I knocked off my waist when I took my shirt off to go swimming. This leech must have put a good supply of anti-coagulant into me because I bled for about three hours. That wasn't the end of it though. The next day, the bites became really itchy. I did a bit of research and found out two things.
1. People can be allergic to leeches
2. If leeches are removed the wrong way, they regurgitate into you and cause infections.

So I'm itchy and nothing seems to be stopping the itch. I became inflamed across an area about 10cm (4 inches) wide, with the area around the wound becoming hard. After checking with a pharmacist, I treated the wound with antiseptic and took an antihistamine every day for the next week. Just one day of the antiseptic made a huge difference. You can understand then, that the following week when I went bushwalking I was quick to remove leeches as soon as they waved their way on to my shoes. I got rid of about four and my vigilance (some may call it paranoia) alerted everyone in my group to their presence. For those of you who need to know, the safest way to remove a leech is to push your fingernail under their head, detaching them slowly, then flicking them away. Of course, if you can bear it you can just leave them to have their fill and wait for them to fall off. As some have questioned my sources, I'm including a link to an Australian Museum factsheet and one to an American Health website :)

Figure 8 Pools

 

Burning palms is at the top of the beach

On Sunday I walked from Garrawarra Farm in the Royal National Park near Otford to the Figure 8 Pools and the shack community at Burning Palms. We went via the squeezeway straight down the escarpment. The track was little more than a pad at times, and I was soon wishing I'd worn long sleeves. I had long pants on, but that didn't stop the thorns sticking through. The Figure 8 pools are naturally formed by the sea rolling boulders around in soft rock. When you step into the one we swam in, the water is over your head before you touch the bottom. After relaxing on the tesselated rock platforms around the pool, we scrambled across the rocks to Burning Palms beach. Burning Palms is one of the shack communities that sprang up along the New South Wales coast during the Great Depression. Most communities are now gone, but there are still four heritage listed communities in the Royal National Park, including Garie Beach. None of them are accessible by road, meaning that all materials have to be carried in.

We had another swim on Burning Palms beach in water that was brisk but refreshing on a hot day. We soon warmed up again as we headed up the hill back to Garrawarra Farm. The whole walk was a pretty easy eight kilometres, and even easier if you skip the bash down the hill, walking to and from Burning Palms via the direct track.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition



Giant beachcomber, Thomas P Peschak (South Africa/Germany)

I went to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Australian Museum last Saturday. It was an impressive collection of photos, but didn't strike me as much as last year's exhibition. Of course, last year's exhibition attracted a lot of media attention because of the debate about the use of a trained wolf in the winning photo. The photos that stood out the most for me this year all fit broadly into the category of photojournalism. There were some stirring photos showing environmental vandalism and how humans impact on the endangered species of the world. You couldn't have a better location either. The Australian Museum is a grand sandstone building that opened as a museum in May 1857. It sits next to the gorgeous Hyde Park and the mecca of church wedding venues in Sydney, St Mary's Cathedral. The exhibition runs until 13 March 2011.

Gorge swing

If you look closely at this photo you'll see I'm not exactly happy. I had just jumped backwards off a cliff near Victoria Falls in Zambia. When I could bear to open my eyes, all I could see was the cliff falling away in front of me. I don't remember screaming, but according to this photo I did - unless it was one of those soundless screams. The swing at the end of the freefall was great and a couple of minutes later I had a huge grin on my face. After the climb back up the hill I had a red face. I had one go on my own, and one with a partner. I don't recommend sharing the swing - the jerk at the end of your freefall is pretty bad. You can fall off backwards (for the faint-hearted) or step off forwards, facing the gorge. I don't know whether it would be worse to watch the world fall away or step into a void. Despite still being scared the second time, I was determined to keep my eyes open. The compromise? I screamed my lungs out. And I remember that.

Pulling teeth

This is such an obvious pun, but removing my wisdom teeth has been like pulling teeth. In 2008 a dentist told me I needed to remove them just as I was about to move to England. I went to England as a student, so I decided to try my luck with the NHS. This became a lot more urgent when one of my wisdom teeth broke. I went to a dental hospital in Newcastle, England and got an emergency filling. I was told to get a referral from a dentist, but my appointment two weeks later was cancelled as I was ten minutes late. Under duress, they gave me an emergency appointment a week later and I got the referral I needed, back to the dental hospital. The hospital didn't have the facilities to read a digital x-ray, so took another one. I then had to wait another month to come back for an examination with the x-ray. Despite thinking my next appointment would remove my teeth, it was another examination! By this time I only had three weeks left in the country, and figured it was a lost cause. Back in Australia my health fund made me wait a year until they would cover teeth extractions. So finally two years later, I had another appointment for an x-ray, another appointment to look at said x-ray and then I had all four teeth removed at once. The top two took about two minutes each to pull, the one on my left took about five minutes, and the one on my right took ten minutes. All those appointments for twenty minutes work. After getting my teeth removed, I had a deep clean. One of the needles shot adrenaline straight into my blood stream. It gave me pins and needles down my arms and heart palpitations that sped up my breathing and made me cry. I can't believe people take drugs like that willingly! So after ten appointments (not including the two for the deep clean) I'm no longer wise. I'm trying not to think about the cost...

Blonde

Well I've been threatening to do it for ages and I've finally done it. What a shock to the system! It's amazing how comfortable you get with the way you look. Then you change one detail and suddenly you don't recognise yourself any more. For the first couple of days I was taking a second look in mirrors and wishing that I could wear a hat to work. None of my clothes seemed to match any more, and I wasn't sure about my makeup either. People I work with every day didn't recognise me at first, and people that I work with occasionally walk straight past me and look uncertain when I smile and nod. The copper in it helps the colour to blend with my eyebrows - I'll just have to wait and see how I go with the regrowth.

For the sake of comparison I've included the photo of my last haircut where my colour was all-natural. I never thought this would be the case, but I think the blonde hair colour has taken some of the red tones out of my skin. Anyway, it's interesting to compare them. I get my haircut and coloured at Surry Cutters in Surry Hills. It takes a long time to go blonde, so I spent a fun afternoon chatting with the crew and playing with the resident poodles. There's a caramel pup and two white girls, one with purple dreadlocks and a purple tail and the other has pink ears and tail. Last time I went to get my haircut, there were four caramel cocker spaniels camped under the hair wash chairs. I knew I would love the salon because I usually get on with anyone that likes dogs!