Casaurina -Upscale and Down

As if fallen from some improbably large Casuarina, this radiate metal casuariana  pod, has evidently released all its cargo of seeds, no doubt with metallic wings.The possibility of further, less vicarious, travels, abides in those charming dolly wheel feet. Not, of course, that the wheels are botanically accurate but they do give it a certain faunal charm.

The location is the Artists Studios on Middle Head Road Mosman, NSW

Take Two Cymbidiums, A Cup of Water and A Conical Flask

August is the month for orchids, and the pale extravagance of this stem of white cymbidiums, suggests both waywardness and a certain self-assurance. Like a stop-motion on an Olympic gymnast, the stem demonstrates a series of poses very like a somersault with a half-pike. The single bloom, detached, in a minor fall from grace is winsome in a vintage Worcester cup, with its perfectly mended handle -  reattached with metal solder, suggests the virtue of endurance. 

Where there's Smoke - Or Why I Need a Dyson Hair Dryer

I’m drying my hair, and actually doing that rolly thing with a brush to make it go into a smooth not quite replica of how it gets done at the hairdresser’s.  This may not seem much of an event, and d it isn’t, but as my practice until six months ago was to blast my hair into a fluffy tangle of variable waywardness, holding the hairdryer in one hand while reading a book in the other hand and thereby getting in another five minutes of reading , the do-ness of the double handed dry, is, for me, a big step up the ladder of grooming.

Of course without the distraction and comfort of literature, the act of hair drying is a little dull and gives me time to wonder. Specifically about the hairdryer. Is it good enough, and though I’ve repositioned the nozzle, if my head was a boat, and my hair the sails (yes, I know a stupid metaphor), and the hairdryer was the wind (corny song warning), it would be a blustery sirocco, and my boat would be going nowhere much. As I pondered all this,  I was wondering how I might justify a new Dyson hairdryer, not for me of course, but for my poor beleaguered hair. I’m thinking I could ask Ceri if there was any Friends of Dyson Discount Scheme, and at this point I superimposed an image of a new hairdryer, hovering over my perfectly coiffed hair, but then the instinctive part of my brain, which apparently is based in my nose, bypassing the daydreaming part, tells my arms to QUICKLY turn off the hairdryer, which is smoking, also known as burning. I do.  The hairdryer continues to give off an acrid smoke that seems to be a precursor to flagrant combustion. In my undies I take it downstairs, place it in an open space on the slate tiles, where if it does ignite, it will not burn other things.  Dressed I come back and pick it up by the cord, like a dead rat, and deposit it in the outdoor bin.  Now I really do need a Dyson hairdryer – for my own safety.