Photos from the road

 Hello! I hope you've been enjoying Eko's posts so far...I definitely have!

James and I are in Melbourne for a few days at the moment, and staying in an apartment with free internet, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to share a few photos from our first days on the road.

I arrived in Sydney early Wednesday morning, and we spent the day there, braving the torrential rain to visit Doug Up On Bourke (and buying quite a few exciting bits and pieces this time!), The Society Inc (fantastic!) and The Red Lantern for lunch. About 3pm we started our road trip...on 'the road to Gundagai!' We stayed the night there (at the motel in the top picture) and then had a big day of driving in order to reach Daylesford by the following afternoon. It was such beautiful country between Gundagai and Daylesford. All the rolling hills, the fog and the trees changing colour made it feel very European. We stopped at some sweet little towns along the way, too, like Holbrook and Kyneton, and larger towns like Albury.

We've now had a couple of days in Melbourne, catching up with friends and celebrating James's birthday with a delicious meal at St Jude's Cellars last night.

Tomorrow we start our journey back towards Perth, heading first along the Great Ocean Road - I can't wait!

Happy Loot!

It feels like everyone is having their birthday at the moment! It’s Anna’s husband James’s 30th birthday today. Happy birthday James! It was mine on Tuesday and I share my birthday with Anna and James’s beautiful little nephew Andreas, who turned one! It has to be said that Anna is the birthday queen! She sure knows how to spoil a girl, so I thought I’d share my presents from her with you since she bought most of them in Sydney, which means they’re particularly special.

One of our favourite shops is David Met Nicole in Surry Hills and the beautiful antique Union Jack and the capital E writer’s block are from there.

The lovely little jugs are from Bison. Anna has a little pink one that I was jealous of so I was particularly excited about them!

She also gave me the cool twig candle that smells yummy and is from Via Alley and a fab oversized tee from Staple.

She bought me way too much (as always)! Only 363 days til my next birthday and with a friend like Anna to spoil me I sure am counting!

Achitectural Awe

I'm so excited about being the 'guest blogger' while Anna's away! I feel a little daunted about thinking of interesting things to share. I don't know how Anna does it!

I thought I'd start out by sharing some architectural eye-candy with you since Anna promised I'd send some design themed blogging your way. These pictures come courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron Architekten, a Swiss architectural firm which is the bomb. Their most famous recent building was the Beijing National Stadium, a.k.a. the Bird's Nest, for the Olympics, but I first discovered them in London via the magical Tate Modern Gallery (pictured first). They are now working on an additional wing to the gallery (pictured second) that is due to be finished in 2012. The new building will will draw most of its energy from heat emitted by EDF's transformers so is being touted as a model of environmental sustainability. I'm also a big fan of their CaixaForum building in Madrid. My parents were there last year and thought it was beautiful (pictured third and fourth). I'm really looking forward to seeing their 56 Leonard Street apartments (pictured fifth and sixth) in New York as I'm going there in July! The most recent building of theirs that's caught my eye is their Vitra Haus for furniture company Vitra's headquarters (pictured seventh and eighth). I love this architectural firm! I find them very inspiring and I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Goodbyes and hellos

I am saying goodbye for a little while, as tomorrow I head off on a two week holiday! I think I mentioned a while ago that I would be returning to Sydney briefly soon, and that is part of this trip. James is turning the big 30 on Thursday and what he really wanted to do for his birthday was drive across Australia, so that's what we're doing! He's already flown over to Canberra to spend a couple of days with his best friend, who lives there, and he's picking me up from Sydney airport early Wednesday morning in our new Volkswagen Golf! Very exciting :) We'll spend the day in Sydney (revisiting Doug Up on Bourke and a couple of other spots!!), then take a couple of days to drive to Melbourne, stopping at Daylesford on Thursday night to stay in this amazing place (I can't wait!). In Melbourne we're meeting up with a group of friends for dinner at a delicious restaurant (it's a surprise for James so I can't tell you yet where it is yet) and going to see our friend perform in this undoubtedly fantastic play. Then we really hit the road. We're taking about ten days to drive from Melbourne to Perth, and the only places we've really decided on stopping in are Streaky Bay (because everyone says it's beautiful) and Kalgoorlie (because I've never been and I really need to tick it off my list!) - for the rest we're just going to take it as it comes. I can't wait!

So what about Mr Sparrow and this blog? Well, I'm leaving the shop in the very capable hands of my wonderful mum and my fantastic shop girl, Elli. I'm sure they'll take good care of it...and you, should you drop by! As for the blog, I'm very excited to introduce you to my best friend and extremely stylish and creative girl, Eko, who will be guest blogging while I'm away. No doubt that name rings a bell as she pops up in here just about every day! While not taking on one of her many creative projects, she's doing her honours in sustainable design, with plans to turn it into a PHD. So expect lots of architectural and design-themed posts, peppered with plenty of other interesting bits and pieces, I'm sure!

I'll also be popping in now and then when I can with a post from the road and will be taking lots of pictures and storing up stories to tell you on my return!

Oh, and wonderful news! I've just heard that the online store will be ready to go as soon as I return so get ready to shop online from June 14th and stay tuned for a special promotion I'll be running for blog readers...

Have a wonderful couple of weeks and I'll see you soon!

PS The photos are of some lovely new Karin Eriksson ceramics that have just arrived. I think the little votives are just so beautiful!

Cafe Mueller

So...onto part two of Dave's birthday! After a few drinks at the Rose & Crown, we jumped on a train at Guildford and got off with a little trepidation at Midland. None of us had any idea where we were going (except James, who has a really freaky ability to guess just about anything and had managed to somehow guess this, too! Feel for me trying to surprise him on his birthday next week!). All we knew from the facebook invitation was that "...at 8pm, we will be whipping everyone into gear and ordering you to shuffle to a SECRET DINNER LOCATION. Bring enough money for the train kids, because we will be going on a perilous group trip to a 'world of wonder' (Dave's words). Let's just say you should get ready for some hot, homely, hearty, wholesome food..." Needless to say, we were pretty excited!

As we wandered through the suburban backstreets of Midland, we began to wonder whether we were going to someone's house (because what else could there be here?)...and then we stumbled across Cafe Mueller and realised that in a way, we were right. It looks just like the other houses on the street and in many ways going here feels just like going to a friend's place for dinner. There is only one meal on offer, the owner himself serves you and casually asks if there's anything else you'd like, and after your meal you can wander off into one of the many other rooms in the house and just chill out. Some of us relaxed on some couches by an old stove and read from the stack of magazines on the coffee table, while others holed up in a tiny lounge room watching soccer on the tv. It felt like we had stepped into another world and time was sort of suspended - I think paying the bill took about an hour but nobody minded much because we were having such a nice, relaxed time.

The place is covered floor to ceiling with all sorts of kitsch artwork and collectibles (as you can see in the photos), including an enormous portrait of Katharine Hepburn and a tiny photo of a teen aged Tom Cruise, as well as a lot of other weird and wonderful pieces!

Our meal was absolutely delicious, too! Probably the highlight was the homemade bread, which we devoured by the basketful! The beef soup we had for entree was amazing as well, as was the beef and potato main. The food is German with a French influence and according to our friends Dave and Jill, who have been there several times, other dishes on offer include schnitzel and curry. The prices are ridiculously low (I think mains were something like $15) and it's free to BYO. Mostly it was the welcoming and relaxed atmosphere that made this place so special, though.

Thanks for a great night, Dave!

The Rose & Crown

Last weekend our friend Dave celebrated his birthday and instead of just suggesting we hang out at our usual haunts, he took us to a couple of exotic locations! Well, maybe not exotic, but definitely different and absolutely worth the trek out of our comfort zone.

First up was the Rose & Crown hotel in Guildford. I'd never been here before but I aboslutely loved it! Built in 1841, the hotel houses a very nice-looking restaurant upstairs as well as a bar. Our party was downstairs in one of a series of cellars. It was amazing down there - beautiful hand-made bricks and wooden tables and bench seats. Our cellar also had a well (you can see it in the second photo), which was built by convicts. One of the other cellars had the remnants of a tunnel (now walled-up - it's behind the wheel in the top picture) that used to lead to the nearby Swan River and was used to bring in stores from barges...although there are all sorts of other stories circulating about convicts escaping through the tunnel!

I've been a fan of Guildford for a long time, mostly for its antique shops (although James is also a huge fan of the bakery!), and now I have another reason to make the trip there on a Sunday afternoon...

Stay tuned for another post on part two of Dave's birthday shenanigans, involving a train ride to a secret location for a delicious dinner and all-round amazing experience!

Tape your world

 
I've just got word of a fantastic competition telegram are running with MT tape! They're asking fans of the Japanese masking tape to come up with a creative way to 'fix it', 'wrap it', 'label it' or 'name it' with their tape and to upload a photo of their creation to the Tape Your World flickr page. The more creative, the better!

Every month for three months, telegram will choose four winners, who'll each receive a boxed pack of 10 MT tape rolls! The competition started in April, though, so you've only got until 31 June to get your entries in.

Pick up an entry form at Mr Sparrow when you buy a roll of MT tape, or if you've already got your tape in hand go to the Tape Your World website for more information. And take a look at the flickr page to get your creative juices flowing!

Tonight's the night

You might remember me waxing lyrical about the many talents of local photographer/filmmaker/designer/curator (and, I'll admit, good friend of mine), Jack Pam.

Back in March, Jack created a magazine, eleventhirty, whose pages were published at various public locations around Freo. Around the same time, his documentary film Photography Hijacked was filming as part of FotoFreo. Now for the exciting bit...that same film is screening tonight on ABC1 at 10pm!

To quote Jack, "The film is a journey through the processes, techniques and outcomes of 12 unique photographers from Australia and America. The idea that individuality of process is what underwrites and makes possible all interesting artwork is explored with each new artist in the film representing a new way of looking at the contemporary medium of photography."

I saw it back in March and can honestly say it's really worth watching...plus it only goes for half an hour so you won't have to stay up too late :)

And just to prove it's not only me that's excited about this, take a look at the write-up on sixthousand.

For more on Jack's work, check out his website and blog.

*photo by Graham Miller via Photography Hijacked

And the winner is...

I've just used this random number generator (so it was totally fair!) to pick a winner for the blog birthday giveaway and the winner is...uglygirl! Congratulations!

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments - I really appreciate all your support and well-wishes and really wish I could have given everyone a prize.

Uglygirl, if you could email me (info@mrsparrow.com.au) with your address and your preference for a design, I will get your Once-A-Year Book in the post right away! The designs to choose from are Red Bird, Red Wreath, Yellow Bird, Green Elephant and White Flowerpot.

Thanks to everyone who took part!

I'll be back later today with a post about something very exciting that's happening tonight :)

*photo by Kasia Jacquot for Laikonik

Autumn at Mr Sparrow

Some pretty liquid amber branches in a stoneware vase by Karin Eriksson. Aren't the colours amazing? Gotta love autumn.