Pesty Jase gave me the time last night when I was resetting our alarm clock - an hour earlier than it really is! I can't believe it - up at 4.30am!

Oh well - guess it means I can get plenty done in the quiet (and dark) of early morning.

Today we are getting a cat - I havent had a cat in my life since my last cat died around 3 years ago - what a fantastic cat that one was - Pussy lea - I named this cat when I was about 7 - so I think he was alive for around 20years. We have a lot of good time on the farm, when I burried my nose into his fur he smelt like urea and oil. He would sleep in Dad's shed on the seat of a tractor or when it was hot under the truck.

He would meow at my window at night and I would let him in to sleep at the bottom of my bed. I love the way he would slide down my bedroom window wall, then pad across the donna ever so lightly to touch my nose with his then find a snuggy place for him to sleep.

He was a very hairy cat, so on the farm his long hair would get all caught up with grass seeds and other bits and pieces which on the rising of the sun he would love to pull out with his teeth and leave a neat pile of cat woolly debry on my bed.

We are a bit nervous about the new cat - our dog is really uncontrollable around cats and he will be really hard to manage - poor kitty. I am also worried about it making KD sick - but I lived very closely with a cat - although it had a big space to live in - we have a smaller space - but still big - we aren't living in a flat in a city.

Here is a poem my mum wrote about my cat after he passed away.

Cat Burial

This boy has blisters, a kind of hand weeping as he digs that rocky ground to find a cat-shaped coffin.

After seventeen years of mousing and possibly longer the cat needs the sleeping space

Now beneath a tree full of birds a tree trunked with test scratches a tree signing in the wind and rain the cat curls inot catdreams forever feeding from his milk bowl his tuna bowl forever sleeping on the couch when we are not looking.

Lorraine Marwood

One hot summer afternoon at Barkly Street, the kind when you should be making love, I was alone, so I decided to dig alongside the house. I found a little bakelite doll's arm. I thought if theree was a girl's toy, there could also be a boy's toy, so I dug a little deeper and found a toy soldier on a lead horse. I said to myself, if there were children, there might be traces of parents, so I dug a bit futher and found a diamante brooch, and I kept digging and found little medicine glass bottles, and I kept digging, by then sweating like a tea cup. I found a soildier's insignia, the sort attached to hats I had seen many times in pictures. I found bits of lovely thick decorated porcelain, and the afternoon passed quickly. I thought of the long-ago previous owners of Barkly Street. I also found in a little cellar an enamelled 1920s bassine which made me happy and helped me to date the other objects. I planned to gig more another time, but the mood did not return.

I am tired, finished reading mirka miroas book - how I loved it.

I havent eaten any fruit today - but a lot of bread (made from white flour) and also garlic I have a terrible taste in my mouth that I am trying hard to ignore.

Panic Panic - an exhibition coming up in 4 weeks and plenty to do. I cant keep away from you computer - it is an affair that I cant escape from.

First meeting with working for via-n today - dont know how useful I will be - being so far away and all - but great to start meeting new people and artists who are artist - working hard at it.

Attended a board meeting today with an organisation that I am getting more and more frustrated with - they make me feel old and like my ideas can't fit into the scheme ofthings. I think they spend most of their time working out how to pat each others back in the 45 and overs club.

I am still making my way through Mirka Mora's book Wicked but Virtuous. Today after the meeting I went back to the apartment - Jase and KD still shopping and I hoped in bed with caramelo koloas and a book and read and doozed - lovely

Found some great quotes

" I am very insired by the image, but can only paint it when my brain has crystallised the memory into a painting, and there lies the mystry of a painting, in my case...It might take years to come or come soon. Being a painter is a little like an athlete: you must take care of the body and mind so it can function well and be clear at all times to be receptive to image that may appear freely, unexpectedly..." says mirka

Do I think in images no ... I think in ideas and what I would like to be ... what impression I want to make

Getting back to that pub crawl that I remembered in my first week of uni - who devoted their time of programming such an event. I was so bitterly disapointed. Drinking a beer from pub to pub that was sour and in dirty glasses. In dirty places and with boys who had sticky fingers and minds of an 11 year old.

I think this might be why I turned to art - every artist works hard to create an experience a perfect experience - the dirty, disapointing and traumantic journey to making the experience is hidden and the viewer is provided with pure experience they can just pass by without a thought - something like a good meal that is devored.

Jared is going back to Berlin. I think his world might be feeling so small - yet so large and unattainable.

Up early yes - havent made it into the studio.

I am waiting for a design I have put together to print off then I am going to tact it together and also put little Queen Victoria motifs upon it.

For the last few days I have been wanting desperately to be glamorous and have a glamorous life and glamorous friends.

I guess the danger with glamorous is that it is a tricky word to spell and also you experience the dirtiness and the disapointment in life.

I like to keep an even keel of routine to keep out surprises and keep my expectations real - but sometimes I get so terribely bored.

I attempt to over come this problem by adding accessories to my clothing or new shoes - am I starting a new addiction I never understood?

Why women have lots of hand bags and shoes - I have a lot of hand bags now - but not ones I brought - people seem to give me hand bags - small ones with bright designs - maybe they want me to step up the glam - might investigate eye shaddow

It is such a different way to write using a blog. Usually first thing in the morning I will write 3 free pages only for me - picking a topic or subject isnt hard work - because there is no audience. Writing on this I have no idea who my audience is - although I have picture of friends faces, maybe even friend's faces who I dont see all that often swiming in front of me - maybe they even smile a little.

I also want to do a little drawinging each day. I feel a little afraid of drawing. Drawing use to be something that came so naturally to me - all I needed was a nice pointy piece of grafite and then my affair with lines began. Now I havent really drawn since February - not even birthday cards, this is even too much to contemplate.

In February I did do a little drawing that I liked very much - it was a drawing of queen victoria - a momument of her in Rosalind Park in Central Bendigo - she is holding a dove, or maybe a baby I like to think.

I then translated this drawing into a sewing piece - a quilt infact. I have burried it in the cellar as I am a little ashamed of it - perhaps I might have a look at it over the weekend and a think.

Maybe I do love it - maybe it needs something else to make it the same love as I made it with the cotton and thread and a bent neck.

A boy sewing.

Lace around a found op shop brozen horse.

Wool wrappred around a skull

A repeating motif the horse

Maps on carpet

A confidence in decision and knowledge of the source of decisons. A confidence that I also ma enjoying in Mora's memoirs. A confidence that I had when I was at art school with my work.

How shy and apologetic I am for my ideas in my own art work. Indecisive.

Time to claim ownership for shit and brilliance.