Melbourne

So, I have never really been a massive fan of Melbourne: The traffic, the dispersion and the lack of real color. Though, as my older cousin (more like my big sister) has been living there for the past 6 years I always find myself back there.

However... this trip felt a little different. After spending the last year roaming europe, I appreciate Melbourne more now for what it is. The vast european community here is evident in everything you see. From the street lined trees to the street art... 

The below is my favorite shot. Next to our apartments there was this old building with 3 giant screens on the front. Each screen projecting random blurry images and white noise. I don't know what the proprietor or the artist was trying to portray - but it was captivating and effective. 

Although the photo below doesn't show the screens - It does show my interpretation of the space.

Home . . .

It's the things you see and hear everyday that you take for granted. Being away from home for a year, has really shed light on these things, and makes me appreciate and love them even more.

As a writer, and a reader, lists are lazy. A writer writes faster, A reader reads quicker. Without a second thought from either. However, here is a list, well worth the laziness....

Beaches.                Sunset.             Masters Iced Coffee.           Friends.            Wide Roads.            BBQ's.               Gum Trees.                        Family.             

 Smell of Grass on a Hot Day.              A Kookaburra's Laugh.             Salads.             Chicken Flavored Chips.        

Icy Poles.             Steak!!              Reef Tanning Oil.       

Haviannas (in winter & summer).             Driving.             Sprinklers.       Pink & Grey Gallas.        

Washing that Dries in an Hour.                       Red Rooster.                  

          PawPaw Cream.                             All Fruit & Veg (no matter the season).                     'How you going?' instead of 'You a'right?'                      Afternoon Breeze.                                    

The Sky - something about the Ozone [or lack of] that makes the sky just that much bluer.

There is no denying. Australia is amazing... and I'm proud to call it Home.

“You know you’re getting old when all your friends start getting pregnant - on purpose”

I heard this quote a month ago and it has stuck in my mind ever since. As a traveller with no immediate plans or intentions to settle down, get married and have children, this quote especially hits home - and I mean, literally, home.

I have been back (Perth, Australia) for a week now (of a 4 week holiday) and OUCH does this quote reign truth! My friend from high school, who it feels like only yesterday, I was sneaking out of bedroom windows in the middle of the night with, now sits with me over coffee nursing an absolutely gorgeous baby daughter (Addison). But it isn’t just the new arrivals, it’s my friend who’s little boy (Elias) I was rocking and feeding a bottle too the night before I left on this journey, is now running around and talking. Like a real little person.

Where has this time gone? And how exactly did I get so lost in the transition to ‘adulthood’? It’s not to say that I am immature or a child in any means, but when my conversations start with.. ‘So I met this guy..’ and their’s start with.. ‘She had real trouble when I first started breastfeeding..’ you can’t help but feel like there is an entire universe between you. Or, worst still, the unanswered question of all time, ‘What if?’

Then I find myself sitting on the beach. Alone. Silence. No child to look out for. No one calling my mobile to pick up milk on the way home. No thoughts of paying bills and cleaning the house running through my head. And, I am happy with the decisions I have made in my life. The boys that could have been husbands, have come and gone, and even though their memories will forever be in my heart & thoughts, I hold with me the certainty that my time will come one day - and when it does will be welcomed with open arms. Until then, I will love these gorgeous babies and children in my life, and keep doing what I set out to do - be blissfully happy  xx

Addison

Elias

Happy Valentine's Day, Lovers

As cheesy, commercialized and capitalized this day is… I love it (pardon the pun).

What is truly so bad about a day dedicated to telling the one you love, you love them?
Yes, we shouldn’t need to be reminded to say I love you or to make an effort with our loved ones, it should be said and done everyday! But with days getting faster, peoples work load getting bigger, and the ever consuming and bombardment of technologies, long gone are the nights of coming home, sitting by a fire and gazing into each others eyes. I am an old romantic through and through… I believe in love at first sight, soul mates and good ole’ fashioned ‘being in love’.  So much so, I had the word tattooed. 

So to the ‘Lovers that Love, and the Dreamers that Dream’… whether it be with a boy friend, a girl friend, a fiance’, a lover, a husband, a wife, your child, your dog, your bird, your best friend or your next door neighbor… share the love. God knows this world could do with a little more of it  ♥  xx

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it sure makes the rest of you lonely.

Charlie Brown - Peanuts.

Tim & Jean - Everywhere

A M A Z I N G !!

Great song, by a Great band, covered by some Great West Australian boys…!!

Wanderlust.

An incredibly great friend of mine sent me this recently. 

Without a doubt or second thought, this sums up how I feel with every inch of my body ♥

Alas.... It snows

So, as I am starting this in Feb, let me do a quick re-cap on January. It was dry. In every sense of the word.

Most of the month was spent waiting for it to snow, and the remaining time, keeping away from alcohol. 

December turned out to be a lot merrier than expected, snakebites and hangover foods reigning supreme. 

Then between the waiting and sobriety, finally, every Australian living in London’s wish came true - it snowed….

Love is in the eye of the camera holder...

For a while now I have wanted to start blogging, and as the excuses against it are wearing thin, I find myself here. 

I love to travel. I travel to love.

Two sentences that contain the two fundamental words of my life, and the two principle ambitions in my life. And behind those two sentences, is where my camera and love of photography takes me. 

Last year I embarked on the journey of a lifetime. Starting in Jordan, through Egypt and then Turkey, for ANZAC day commemorations in Gallipoli. I then settled in UK for a quick breather before treking through Spain, running with bulls in Pamplona, I met family for the first time in Milan, visited the birthplace and hometown of my Mother and her family in Sicily [thanks to a beautiful person who will forever remain in my heart and life], bused through France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Netherlands, trained to Berlin (the ‘love’ of my life), Prague, threw tomatoes in Bunol, drunk steins at the Munich festival, Oktoberfest, slummed the streets of Morocco, snowboarded on the slopes in the French Alp of Risoul and welcomed in 2012 standing under the Eiffel Tower in Paris. 

London is now where I call home - a mere 16’000km from where my journey first began, in Perth, Western Australia. And London, is where this is going to begin…