New Book!

What heaven to be in Paris, to be young...everyday after we'd dunked our brioches in our bowls of chocolate, we sallied down to the foyer [...then out ] to explore Paris. It was not spring, the chestnuts up the Champs-Elysees were bare - but it was still the most beautiful and romantic city in the world and has always remained so to me.


So Australian Eugenie Louise McNeil (nee Delaure) wrote in 1902 and so Rosemary Lancaster opens her book Je Suis Australienne: Remarkable Women in France, 1880-1945 and which I will be starting, sinking into, devouring and gloriously enjoying tonight.

Superhistorian!!

This morning was lovely; I went walking with my puppy dog down to the river and I wished I'd brought my camera but I didn't, so I thought I'd do a post just with words and with my amazing words you'd all know what I saw this morning...

But then!

I watched this video which is all kinds of awesome!

So you should watch that instead and I'll do my little word painting another time.

My Favourite Thing

My mum bought this small quilt for me from a antique shop in Fremantle last year.

It comes from England and is about seventy years old.

I love it for a number of reasons but not least because when it is over my feet it makes them warm. This seemingly simple thing is actually quite amazing because for years I suffered from frozen feet that won't warm up when I get into bed.

And now it is getting cooler it is back on my bed and I love it all over again.

Louis Vuitton

Love getting to look into other people's houses, especially very famous, very rich people?

Go here http://press.louisvuitton.com/TheJourneyOfaWardrobe/ and click on Paris then the family house - there is lots more to explore but most of it isn't live yet. Make sure you have your sound on!

Smart Woman

I'm always so excited to hear from very smart women who made it to the top of their field, especially when they defend their way of doing things as different because they are women, instead of insisting that gender has no impact on decisions and ways of working.

Anyway, just let me step off my soapbox for a moment to link to this interview with a very smart Western Australian woman, retiring chief judge of the WA District Court, Antoinette Kennedy, in which she discusses the role of the courts and argues against the media's representation of judges and the judgments they make. She makes so much sense that I wanted to cheer.

If you aren't from Australia this might not be so interesting for you, but she is really so clever that if you have a little time spare and find things about law interesting I would highly recommend listening. Or just save it for one of those times when you look to the Internet for something interesting and engaging and it fails miserably!

Find it here.

Cute!

I'm not the hugest fan of little kids but this kid is so cute and so French and, wow, what a great story!!

Cutest French Kid in the World! - watch more funny videos

One door closes and another opens

The thrill of just leaping out into the void and seeing what happens, following a dream or goal, knowing what you want your life to look like and just making it that way, is thrilling.

Yesterday I finished off my first consultant project. I worked at the tail end of a very large project, bring together everything and handing it over as complete as I could make it. I even, in the stresses of the last minutes, started delegating work to the people who'd employed me! Oopsie. They didn't seem to mind though and I brought home made jam cookies to soften them up. :) It was a fascinating project, lots of itty bitty research to do and I now know almost the entire history of a random small town in WA. Just the sort of thing I love taking space up in my brain.

It is a little bit annoying not being able to talk about what I did, but it doesn't matter too much. You just need to know that I throughly enjoyed it and my business earned some money. Win-win!

Look how pretty it is!

WA has just published its first Historical Encyclopedia (well, a proper one anyway) and I bought my copy today. Apparently they are a bit hard to get a hold of (who knew there were so many history geeks in Perth!), but I managed to waltz into a little independent bookshop and buy mine with a business cheque. Hooray! Now it is sitting on my bed, tempting me with its secrets and you'd better believe I'll be reading it cover to cover. Oh, I know, so sad!

The open door then, is a pretty exciting opportunity that I've put my hand up for. Again, I'm not going to tell you much but hopefully I will be able to say more after Tuesday. I don't want to jinx it! It involves a little museum and a fabulous chance at some real experience. More next week.

And now, well...I might just take it easy and do a bit of pottering around. Hopefully manage to drown out the sound of Red Bull Air Race planes that are currently buzzing the city. Did you hear one crashed into the river yesterday? I find that unsurprising.