0

Slender Elegance

With immense kindness, you bought me a Coopers Glass.

While you were out, you drifted into an Op Shop and thought of me—a simple transaction yet one abundant with love. You bought this because as we sat outside, you knew I’d be able to pour a beer into it, and for me it would enrich that place.

And you know so well how I love place—especially, our veranda.

It’s a bid that arrived without complication or messy context and simply says, ‘I love you and hope this brings you joy.’ It’s a declaration of devotion and consideration. In a world often filled with loud gestures and grand expressions, its slender elegance and humility hold appeal.

With its fetching, silent curves, it doesn’t beg for attention. The glass is efficient but wants no boisterous recognition. Free of ostentation, there’re no unnecessary embellishments but it catches my eye with its allure, every time.

Quietly, it holds profound enchantment—a meaningful investment of thought and care.

Out back, on the table, with Neil Diamond as the heartening soundtrack, the fading light dances with the garden—a scene both painterly and idyllic. The dark will shortly rise from the lawn. It transcends, a poetic expression of intimacy.

It’s all you.

0

We love our new kennel

 

kennel

Cockroaches might withstand nuclear attack, and forcible drowning as my garden hose was turned right up and blasting onto their stinking evil-black little scuttling arses, but as we know a rubber thong, like a Texan electric chair, guarantees a swift, if messy exit.

Unsurprisingly, there were three or four of these dreadful bugs living in our new, second-hand purchase along with some spiders, who, having heard and possibly witnessed the executions, headed south along the lawn to the pumpkin patch.

The boys and I were cleaning our dogs’ kennel. Buddy and Angel (or Angela Merkel as we also respectfully know her) need an outside bed.

Ignoring the time-wasters and spectacularly moronic wanna-be scammers I love Gumtree. Kerry reminded me just after lunch to have a look, and by mid-afternoon it was home and enjoying an aquatic enema, of sorts.

It was fifteen dollars, but to buy the timber would cost, I reckon, about fifty. It’s sturdy and has a beautiful, homemade, bespoke quality to it that screams, “I was built in a Fulham Gardens garage by a lovely old Italian gent while his wife was in the kitchen cooking.” No, not a cheap stereotype, the truth. She told me as I hauled it to the car, taking some bark off my shins.

With its off-white finish, asymmetrical spires and welcoming façade we immediately christened it The Chapel of Love. Speaking of christenings, remember after the birth of one of his kids when David Beckham was asked if he and Posh were getting the child christened and he replied, “Yeah, we have to fink about it. We’re not sure which religion yet.”

If I squint and imagine a stunning tropical esplanade behind the kennel it also reminds me of St Marys’ by the sea in Port Douglas, but I concede, this might be fanciful.

So pleased were we with our purchase that we sent photos to family and friends celebrating our good fortune and clever commerce.

Under the patio sitting around our new fire bucket- more on this soon- that night I kept sneaking glimpses of our kennel. We love it and it invests the backyard with a sense of completion; a warmth that arises from both its function and its daggy, delightful form.

Now, if we can just get the dogs to sleep in it.

chapel