Number 1. An artwork-a-day desk calendar. I bought this half price in the January sales and it gives me so much pleasure. I'm being super strict about not peeping ahead, so everyday there's a little surprise. Some days are an old favourite like this - Vermeer's Girl with a pearl earring - but often it's an artwork I've never seen before by an artist I've never heard of. I love the contrast too, one day a sentimental Victorian painting of a child and her dog, the next day a hard edged abstract piece... I'm also looking forward to when the year is over and I can glue the pictures into journals, cut up, collage and use for inspiration.
Number 2. A pot of flowers at my front door. This time last year I was in England in spring, the tulips were out and blossoms on the trees. We saw some gorgeous gardens in York and at Harlow Carr in Harrogate. When I came home I was discouraged about my overgrown, chaotic, tropical garden. I longed to have an English flower garden. I don't really think that's achievable! But I can have a pot of flowers by the front door and enjoy them every time I go in and out. These are vincas, the come in a range of pinks and reds, right through to dark purples, the are very hardy in Darwin's hot sun, and handle my not very green fingers!!
Number 3. Fruit in the park. The dry season is here, (that's a BIG reason to be happy, not a little reason!) The temerature's dropped a few degrees and the humidity is way down. So instead of rushing home from work to collapse under a fan, these days I stop at the park for 5 minutes and eat a mandarin, and try to relax and notice whatever's going on.
The dry season means more things are happening around town. This Saturday is the Seabreeze Festival, with stages and stalls all along Nightcliff foreshore. Then the last weekend in May is Wordstorm the writer's festival. I'm hoping to get to both!
