SKETCHBOOK: STARS, DENIM, EASTER DAISIES

STARTING AUTUMN

Harley Davidson Charisma boots; Volcom Chilled Out velvet dress; Tanglewood Cove Creek five-string banjo; Three Arrows Leather Mind's Eye pouch; Cotton On Body bralette; The 2 Bandits Wrangler neck cuff; Spell and the Gypsy Collective Prism Bomb necklace; Rings: Lo and Chlo, Rejoice the Hands, all others vintage/market finds.

Sometime around a week, or maybe two weeks, ago, Melbourne just dropped the seasonal switch and it suddenly became cold, windy, and drizzly in general and miserable in particular. This is the kind of climate-specific event that sends all expatriate northerners into a deep depression. When I call my parents back on the NSW north coast, they’re still talking about sweltering heat and swimming in the creek, and cracking their first tin of icy beer for the afternoon.

It’s a thing we complain about every year, and we usually spend the next five or six months (because that’s how long winter is – at least – in Melbourne) sketching out plans to move home. I’m sure the city’s surly weather has beaten back more than its fair share of northern migrants who just can not stand, any longer, the idea of only being able to swim for one month of the year. 

Regardless of how good the city might be.

But anyway, I’m just writing all this down to remind myself that I feel this way every year. And that every year, we just batten down and try not to get too sad about the short days and the wet shoes. Because there’s things like paisley velvet, heavy leather, stiff denim and black lace; hot chocolates and T.S. Eliot; extended banjo sessions; weird winter blooms; sketchbooks to fill; infinite variations on turquoise, silver and brass jewellery; a medium-sized brown dog; road trips in knits and blankets; fires and whiskey; new moon night skies; a lover and a warm bed; 80s movies and TV shows; Eaten by Dogs and John Lee Hooker; and a spring that will eventually show up. 

LOVEABLE: FEBRUARY THINGS

Things I loved in the past far-too-short month:

Melbourne finally having a few summer days Δ playing banjo, still, maybe forever Δ Dexter reruns Δ Lester Bangs and Ken Kesey biographies Δ camping under the stars in the Murray River borderlands Δ this Watershot housing for taking photos of Humble trying to swim Δ daylight savings evening swims Δ these Souvenir Sabbath jewels Δ quitting commission work to focus on personal projects Δ hungover foodtruck dinners in the park with friends and dogs Δ throwing our first house party in the new place Δ wild rice and mushroom soup Δ collecting wild everlastings and cockatoo feathers Δ Loving Hut vegan food Δ Pretty in Pink/any John Hughes films Δ drinking games around the campfire Δ Jeffrey Eugenides Δ finally purchasing this Flynn Skye Eterie maxi Δ and the work of Australia artist Rachel Newling -- I'm a sucker for a beautifully drawn osprey Δ

WANDERING: BELGIUM TO SWEDEN

We landed in Brussels half-delirious and totally over it … the 30-hour long-haul flight from Australia was replete with all the usual horrors: loudly airsick person across the aisle, hysterically crying child a few rows back, water doled out in tiny drink bottles begetting perpetual thirst, weak sleeping pills, weird food options, bad rom-coms …

But looking out the window on the way down and seeing all the funny neat houses with their austere-middle-management-type architecture, all the green fields and white wind turbines, all the crisp early light, was a new kind of radical. That’s fucking Belgium down there! We’re going to be in this place, the opposite side of the world, where we don’t know anything, and hardly anyone.

It was probably seven or eight in the morning by this time, and we were met by two friends in a turquoise-green van, papered with DIY skate company stickers and harbouring a case of warm Jupiler tins. This van – along with another of the same make and model, only red, and with a better built-in fridge – would be our home for the next week, as our gang of eight drove from Antwerp to Malmo, questing for skate parks, sunny days and strong beer.

All of which is a fun idea until you’ve built up five days’ worth of hangovers, food poisoning and skating sweat without any showers.

But whatever, the highlights were things like …

ANTWERP

Antwerp was one of my favourite cities on our whole trip – the first place we went into was a shop with skulls and urchins, but I didn’t buy any because I still had to pass customs in five or six more countries. And the last place we went into was essentially a beer café. I have never drunk so much beer in my life. I also didn’t drink beer again for the rest of the trip, and probably not for another three months once we were back in Australia.  

DOEL

Doel is an abandoned town/doomed city in East Flanders. It’s supposed to be demolished en masse to expand Antwerp’s harbour. But it’s got this beautiful thing happening where colourful street art is climbing the walls of all the empty houses and shops like rough Ironlak ivy. There was also Roa artwork and a windmill, all of which I was impressed by. And no venomous snakes or spiders in any of the overgrown houses (natural Australian instincts were in overdrive).

ON THE ROAD

Things like driving on the Autobahn, spotting deer and buzzards, keeping an eye out for wolves, collecting wild poppies and acorns in a vacant lot, photographing nature collections, finding the odd jellyfish, the best spiced whiskey I've ever had (can someone in Europe send me a box of William Lawson Super Spiced Whiskey?) …

GERMANY

The DIY camp in Hannover, Germany gave me a taste for year-round Christmas decorations in outdoor trees, as well as fortresses made of pallets, fake plants, and plastic jewels.

Hamburg was colourful, dirty, scary and cool – we parked the vans in the parking lot, got drunk and barbecued bratwurst … I probably laughed the hardest I’ve ever laughed in that city. I was also the second-most scared I’ve ever been when I was trying to sleep in the van while a homeless man circled outside, muttering and yelling into the night. And in German, no less.   

COPENHAGEN/CHRISTIANIA

In Copenhagen we slept in the vans on the outskirts of Christiania, a ‘free town’ that to my Australian mind was just completely incomprehensible. And before we slept, we trekked out to a little beach on the shore of Christiania’s lake – past beautiful handmade houses and strange rambling constructions – built a fire and drank beers and laughed until the early hours.

SWEDEN

There was a festival in Malmo, Sweden, when we got there – we caught the end of a Graveyard set, ate burritos and drank Coronas, somewhat culturally inexplicably. We walked for miles through the rain to some scary-loose pub to find two ex-pat Australians, who would lead us through the city and the bars and eventually get us so dead-lost we ended up on the grounds of what was possibly a mental hospital, carrying a cardboard cut-out clown, all arguing about how to get back to the hostel. I also remember laughing a lot playing a weird board game in a pub in Malmo – I think it was called Caromse or something, going by the drunken scrawling in my notebook.

And after all that, we waved to the guys in the vans at Copenhagen airport and turned our sights to Iceland … with the hope of a big of rehab and rest, and whatever the strangest place in the world had in store for us.