Aussie Alternative to Black Friday

If you're down on the Mornington Peninsula (Australia) this weekend, you won't want to miss this! Gorgeous Aussie artists Leisa Wharington, glass-blower and Flick Pope, jewelry-maker, and a host of other vendors open up their Studio in the bush for a yearly pop-up shopping event.  Indie creativity abounds!  ( http://www.facebook.com/events/386081194804218/),
Hop on over, and tell the gals I sent you. You'll see more than kangaroos!
Marjorie

A Dream of a Ming Dynasty Beach House

Last night I dreamed I was walking down the gum tree lane that leads to our Ming Dynasty Beach House in Flinders, Australia.

The two Chinese carved doors still stood sentinel at the entrance, and I was greeted by the sound of temple bells, and the rustling of the young bamboo trees we had just planted.

Inside the door, on an altar table, I found a small wooden shrine with a smiling Buddha, surrounded by green glazed ginger jars.

On the kitchen counter, a ferocious Chinese ceramic dragon, which once decorated a Peking roof, stood guard over our home.

"Shanghai Lil", our vintage VJ sailboat, was safe in its berth high above the lounge room.

Souvenirs of beach-combing, op-shopping and flea-market forays filled the shelves of the antique French curio cabinet.

High above the master bed, a simple bamboo screen floated Zen-like.

A bedside tableau just as I had left it, with a vintage magnolia print, and a red lacquer box.

On the wall in the guest bath, a shell-encrusted mirror by artist, William Walker.

A robe, once worn by a pilgrim in one of the far-flung reaches of China, (only to be bought by another pilgrim (me) at Beijing’s dirt market), adorned the dining room wall.

Light filtered through the shades, and it felt like walking in a bamboo forest.

There, in my office space, was my inspiration board still covered with visual reminders of my many unfinished projects and ideas.

Vintage Chinese tea tins were stacked on top of the Chinoiserie chest in my office.

I traced the names and autographs that our guests had left on the blackboard door of the secret wine cellar. Inside, I found the racks stocked with every fine wine we had ever sampled.

When I awoke, it was a year later, and a world away.

It was a "Dream House". Good fortune smiled on us everyday of the six years that we lived there.

Lucky indeed!
Marjorie

What's On The Menu This Christmas?

Here is a special Christmas menu. Each course comes with a wish from me to you.

Last year I was living in Flinders, Australia. However, this year I couldn't attend the Girls' Annual Christmas Lunch. My good mate Sue sent me some happy snaps from the party. I thought you might enjoy seeing what a jolly group they are.

The festivities were held out-of-outdoors on Linley's deck overlooking Westernport Bay. Note the beautiful arrangement of blue Agapanthus, which grow wild on the Mornington Peninsula.

The table-setting was graced with all of Linley's special touches.

Here are "Les Girls".

They sent me a message.

I was there in spirit!

Robert Louis Stevenson once said:

The best that we find in our travels is an honest friend
He is a fortunate voyager who finds many.

Happy Holidays to dear family and friends, far and near.
Marjorie

Sisters of the Convent

This posting is dedicated to Mary Kane. She lived across the street from me when I was a little girl, and she was Roman Catholic. I am protestant. My father’s family came from old New England Puritan stock. My dreams of becoming a nun began about age seven, when I attended my friend’s first communion. Things really got serious when she taught me the sign of the cross, and the two of us erected a shrine in the basement of my house on Maxwell Avenue. Soon, I was reciting Hail Marys to the astonishment of my parents. All this should not have been so strange, since the other side of my family were French-Canadians and Irish!

How appropriate it was then, that I should find myself living in Belgium, a country with so many remnants of the beauty and theatre of the Catholic Church! Religious imagery and architecture are on show everywhere. In addition to the churches and shrines, many of the larger towns in Belgium had a beguinage, compounds where semi-religious women’s communities flourished in the 13th century. There was even a small roadside chapel or kapel across from our farmhouse. In Brussels, we discovered the “Musée du Coeur” devoted to the heart in religious iconography

On one of our many weekend antiquing excursions, we met a jolly Flemish man named Jan and his wife, Marcelle. They graciously invited us to their home which adjoined the medieval town walls of Mechelen. Inside was a miraculous collection of antique religiosa-statues, chapelets (crucifixes), and bénitiers (holy water fonts). The couple had even built their own chapel next to the wall in their garden.

Elsewhere in Belgium, we encountered other religious souvenirs. Near Antwerp cathedral is “Het Elfde Gebod” (Eleventh Commandment). This unique café offers its patrons sanctuary in an interior illuminated with church candles, and packed to the rafters with effigies of angels and saints.

The more we looked, the more new collecting passions were born within us. We trawled the antique markets and brocantes for delicate paper lace holy cards, ornate silk priests’ vestments and miniature travel reliquaries. The inspiration for my Sacre Bleu necklaces (from The Parrott Collection) with tiny blue enamel medallions, comes from this time. Frankincense and myrrh, purchased at a monastery shop near the Vatican, brought home the memory of the smoky-scented church interiors of Italy. The ancient pharmacy of Santa Maria Novella in Florence was a miss, but it is on my must-see list.


It is comforting to know that so many former religious buildings have been born again. In Australia, and other locales down-under they have the right spirit when it comes to reusing these structures. One example is the imposing Convent Gallery in Daylesford, Victoria, (once The Holy Cross Convent and Boarding School for Girls), whose shop was the source of my slender and graceful beeswax church candles. Near Melbourne is Abbotsford Convent. Eleven heritage listed buildings, once the cloister of the Sisters of the Order of the Good Shepherd, now shelter artists, writers, small organizations, a restaurant and a radio station. On New Zealand’s South Island at the Old Convent bed and breakfast in Kaikoura, we swam with the dolphins by day, and slept in a former classroom of the church school by night.


Long ago, I gave up my calling to become a nun. That doesn’t mean that I don’t weep watching Audrey Hepburn in The Nun’s Story, Deborah Kerr in Black Narcissus, or Donna Reed, the good sister in Green Dolphin Street as she takes her final vows.

These days my spiritual side is sated by a visitation to Diamonds and Rust, at 472 Lighthouse Avenue, Pacific Grove, California. Susie and Marilyn opened the shop two years ago in its current location, and it is ecclesiastical Nirvana! There, artifacts such as shell grottos, Virgin Mary statues, and ex-votos/milagros help me find my lost saints.

Dominus Vobiscum,
Marjorie

Shanghai Lil

“I’ve been lookin high,
And I’ve been lookin low,
Lookin for My Shanghai Lil.”

(From Shanghai Lil, 1933. Lyrics by Al Dubin;
Music by Harry Warren)

“Thar” she was, high in the rafters of the old ship chandlery in Mornington (Australia). She was sleek and trim, and had just the right patina for her age. She was a vintage VJ (Vaucluse Junior) sailboat, built in the 1940s on the bayside of the Peninsula. In an instant, I knew that had I had found the perfect Christmas present for my sailor husband.

We brought the boat home to Flinders, and decided that she was just too old and special to sail the waters of Westernport Bay. Instead, she became the answer to the decorating dilemma in our Ming Dynasty beach house. The main room (lounge room in Aussie parlance) had 12-foot ceilings, and needed something to decorate and fill that space. That something was the VJ. We proudly hoisted her to her new berth, hanging from the ceiling, above us in the living room.

She was christened “Shanghai Lil” after the Busby Berkeley song and dance routine in the 1933 film, Footlight Parade. Ruby Keeler played an entertainer in a Shanghai speakeasy who charms James Cagney. Our “Lil” certainly charmed us, and for five years she was the star feature of our Flinders interior. When it came time to say “adieu” to “Lil”, we found her another safe port of call – this time, as a focal point in a Melbourne restaurant.

Happy sails to you,
Marjorie

Fly Away

Time to say good-bye after six years in this safe harbor called Flinders. But before we leave, it was party time! Since Pier Provedore had become a favorite daily stop, it was the perfect venue for “My Farewell Party”.

With the date set, the invitations designed and sent (each attendee was asked to bring a favorite recipe to share with me), there was no turning back!

Ina, a tour de force in the kitchen, set about working her magic. On offer that day were salmon starters, delicious Coronation chicken and salads as the main, crowned by a dessert comprised of panacotta with strawberry topping. The later was served in tiny vintage stemmed glasses (purchased at the op shop next door), artfully displayed on a tall tiered tray. There was Champagne for all, as well as bottles of gorgeous Australian wines chosen for the day by my husband. The table setting was a group affair. Darling Jacki (daughter of Ina and café stylist extraordinaire) fashioned little blue paper origami boats as a special surprise. Good mates Linley and Sue contributed some table-top elements, as well as the usual moral support. (See the picture of these two dears). Small robin’s egg blue pebbles which I had been hoarding were finally put to use, and the napkins were artfully wrapped with seagull motif tags from The Parrott Collection. All in all Martha Stewart would have been proud! (More “happy snaps” from the event may be viewed on the Pier Provedore blog.)

That lazy afternoon in Flinders, the most amazing group of women were gathered around that long table: a gallery owner, a glass artist, a curator, a silver jewelry designer, fashionistas, a real estate mogul, an antique dealer, a local historian, gardeners extraordinaire, op shop gals, animal lovers, and some just impossible to describe. Each so unique and special in their own right. How honored I was to have known them! How grateful I am for their sharing their lives and talents with me! They all had enriched my life. Some were meeting each other for the first time, and that day many new friendships were made. So much fun was had, that I forgot to make a toast. I do so now-

Dear friends: “May your road be level and peaceful!” I thank each of you from my heart.

Merci beaucoup! Marjorie

A Flinders Sojourn

Here are some Highlights and Personalities from our six-year Flinders’ walkabout

• Each day’s visit to the Flinders General Store, where there would always be a warm greeting and some local gossip;
  
• Julie’s Café and her famous multi-berry muffins;
  
• Textile artist Bernadette Gooden;
  
• The fun clutter of Mostly Deco antiques;
  
• Garden designer Fen Brady’s inspirational outdoor office/studio;
  
• working as shop-girl at Fordholm Antiques;
  
• The shop Tree - quirky and imaginative home of the screen-print creations from Succulent Designs;
  
• The best chicken salad sandwiches ever from Kate and Victor’s Aloha Café;
  
• Pier Provedore, the stylish creation of Ina Low and co, the new kid-on-the-block, which quickly became the home-base cafe for all “the girls”;
  
• Afternoon treks to the village’s picturesque Post Office, where, John the Postmaster and his delightful sidekicks, could be depended upon to inject some humor into the day;
  
• Linley walking her sweet dog Lily;
  
• Sue’s Australian native garden;
  
• Beach rambles and walks to the lookout with Heather;
  
• Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays - Op Shop days, stopping by with a G’day for the crew, and checking out what was new or old;
  
• The once-a-year church fete, when the entire village would turn-out in a setting that was pure Agatha Christie;
  
• Pricing books or the “trash and treasure” items for the above event, with lots of giggles, lots of trash, and few treasures;
  
• Pomme in Mornington, style beacon & home to The Parrott Collection, my design products;
  
• The Studio Christmas Show, hosted by artists Flick and Leisa (Somers General Store);
  
• Experiencing the vibrant food & wine culture of Australia;
  
• Flinders Yacht Club social gatherings: “Bollywood” and “Tapas” evenings, the Commodore’s cocktail party, dancing the night away to local bands, and New Year’s eves lighting sparklers and watching the moon rise over Philip Island;

Our fun-loving Aussie mates taught us Northerners so much about friendship and hospitality, especially how to relax and to follow the “no worries mate” principle. There seemed to be no bad cooks in town, or for that matter in Australia. Many generous invitations came our way, especially during holidays. (A special thank you to Roz and Bill who loaned us their Flinders holiday home during our final weeks in Australia).

How was it possible that we were now saying good-bye to paradise?

A Seachange

Our love affair with Flinders Australia began on one of those Beijing days when the wind and sand blows from the Gobi desert and covers the city in a coat of yellow dust. The streets were mostly deserted, except for an intrepid group of women on bicycles. When the wind filled the diaphanous scarves wrapped around their heads, they resembled bubble-headed extraterrestrials. The world was a sad place, as the tragedy of 9/11 had just occurred, and after 3 years in China, we were once again contemplating a seachange.

I had just settled in with the latest western style magazine brought back from an R&R trip to Hong Kong. There before me on the page was an illustrated piece on a tiny, unspoiled village in Australia on the Mornington Peninsula. I could almost feel the freshness of the cold winds which blew in from Tasmania and Antarctica. I could picture the rocky coast and rolling vineyards and pastures. My mouth watered at the thought of the delicious local food and wine. This was a place where artists (like me), ex-ballet dancers (like me) and ex-prime-ministers (unlike me) have found a safe haven. The more I read, the more it seemed Flinders was our kind of place.

Before I knew it, we had built a house there, and settled in to village life. How wonderful it was to live again in a place where everyone knows your name, (and sometimes your business). For six magical years this was home!