Look at moi! I'm writing in a cafe!

I started writing this week's blog in a cafe.

I know! 
It's too ridiculous!

I always laugh at the idea of writers working in cafes. 
I mean, how PRETENTIOUS!

Look at moi!
I'm a writer! 
I'm writing! 
I'm very clever and creative and literary.

I imagine myself waving a fountain pen in the air, as I half-sing, half-laugh these very words, placing special emphasis on 'literary'. I pronounce it with four distinct syllables - LIT-ER-AIR-EE - just to poke a little bit of fun at myself while also making sure that nobody misses the fact that I have a fabulous vocabulary and I'm not afraid to use it.

I also imagine myself wearing a voluminous sack-shaped linen dress, elastic-sided riding boots (no socks), tiny round glasses and no make-up except for a dash of bright pink lipstick. Because I am far too busy and creative and LIT-ER-AIR-EE to be concerned about organising my wardrobe or applying a full face of make-up. 

Look at moi!

Look at moi!

Look at moi!

But, it's not just being pretentious that puts me off the idea of cafe writing. 
No, no, no, no!
It's all those DISTRACTIONS.
There is so much happening in a cafe. 
So much to see and do and hear and touch and smell.
People to watch.
Conversations to hear. (It's not eves-dropping if you're a writer, surely?)
Wobbly tables to shore up with cleverly placed sachets of Stevia.
Coffee to sip.
Cakes to sniff and lick and nibble.
Paper serviettes that are just begging to be transformed into paper cranes.

No, writing in a cafe just doesn't make sense.

And yet, there I was, late on Wednesday morning, writing in  a cafe. 
An Austrian cafe, at that. 
SOOOOO PRETENTIOUS!
But not quite so pretentious when you realise that the Austrian cafe was in Castlemaine, not Vienna.

But I was there for good reason.
It was hot.
Stinking hot.
And the air conditioning in my new house was not yet up and running.
And cafes have air-conditioning.
And coffee and cake.
And this particular cafe, had coffee and apple-custard tart - or as they so charmingly put it, kaffee und apfel-pudding-torte - and it was served by the most gorgeous hipster waiters wearing long aprons and warm smiles.

So there I was, sipping coffee, eating tart and writing this week's blog.
And, to be honest, I was going great guns until I'd chugged down all the coffee, gobbled all the tart and licked every last skerrick of whipped cream off the plate - about five minutes after it landed at my table! (I might be LIT-ER-AIR-EE but I'm a jolly fast eater!)


Now what?

You can't just sit in a cafe all day, using up lucrative customer space, just because you need somewhere cool and comfortable to write.
That would be rude and self-centred and, well, PRETENTIOUS!

Look at moi!
I'm a writer! 
I'm writing! 
I'm so very clever and creative and literary that the cafe owner is happy to sacrifice this table with its wonderful lunchtime earning potential in order to bask in the glory of my non-paying presence.

Of course, I could have ordered another cup of coffee, but that seemed too stingy. 
I'd have to add a couple of sausages to the order. 
Maybe even some cabbage and fried potatoes. 
But I was full.
Really full.
You should have seen how big that slice of apple-custard tart was!

Besides, the würste mit sauerkraut would arrive, I'd gobble it up and I'd be right back where I started.
Except that, now, there'd be sausage grease and strings of fermented cabbage across the pages of my notebook.
And I'd be feeling ill from overeating.

Hmmm. Tricky.

So I packed up my notebook and pen, paid the bill and left.
I'd written two pages.
Two small pages. (My notebook was tiny.)
The word to cake ratio was too low.
Totally unsustainable.

A cafe writer I am not.

But where to go?
What to do?
There was work to be done and a hot house to avoid.

I rejected the park. By this stage, even the shady spots beneath the trees were growing sauna-ish.

I considered writing in the ice-cream freezer at the IGA. It wouldn't be as pretentious as writing in a cafe, but I had an inkling that it would draw unwanted attention and be considered socially unacceptable. Nobody wants to open their Blue Ribbon to find two buttocks imprinted in the top of the ice cream. Not even if they're LIT-ER-AIR-EE buttocks.

Yes, this really is my bottom.
I blame it on all that apfel-pudding-torte.

I considered driving around in the air-conditioned comfort of my car, recording my spoken words on my phone.  But I'm a pen-and-paper, keyboard-and-screen type of gal. I need to feel the words flowing from brain to fingers to page. I need to see the sentences taking shape.

In the end, I did what any sensible person would have done in the first place.
I took myself to the library.
And there I found my space.
A quiet corner with a huge table, a comfy chair and deliciously chilled air.
A place where people are expected to be reading and writing.
A place where one can scribble words to one's heart's content without feeling even a tad pretentious.
And that is where I wrote the rest of this blog.

Castlemaine Library is not quite this big,
but it is just as lovely.

Furthermore, once I was done, I read four home decorating magazines, and toddled home with five DVDs and a lovely book on Switzerland tucked beneath my arm.

All in all, a public writing experiment with a jolly outcome. 
Except that my blog is about nothing more than writing this blog...



*
With apologies to my writer friends who work in cafes rather than at home because:
a) they need to escape their noisy children
b) they need to escape their smelly dog
c) they've run out of coffee at home
d) they have enormous appetites and giant royalty cheques so can afford to sit at a cafe table all day, ordering an endless supply of coffee, cake and toasties while they write
e) they like it

Decorating Trends - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I love home decorating. 

I love poring over Country Style and House and Garden magazines.

I can lose myself in Pinterest for days, searching for white kitchens, rustic dining tables and farmhouse gardens. 

A quirky little home wares store will suck me in like a vacuum cleaner sucking up a fluff bunny.

And for the last two and half years, I have wallowed in design and decorating ideas because we have been working towards building our own new home.

I love, love, love home decorating and decor daydreaming.

But there are a few trends that I just don't understand. Some that I abhor. I know it's simply a matter of taste but the decorating recesses of my mind are full to overflowing and I have to speak out! 

These are my personal ickies:

The butler’s pantry where the sink, the dishwasher and the oven all live. 
What on earth is the kitchen for??? 
Who wants to spend hours cooking and cleaning up in a dark and pokey little space when you have a lovely large, open kitchen to work in? 
Of course, if there's a real live butler hanging out in the pantry doing all the work, that changes my opinion completely...

At the other end of the crazy kitchen spectrum is the outdoor kitchen, fully-equipped with Taj-ma-barbeque and fridge and sink and dinner sets and wine glasses and napkins. 
Come on! How many kitchens can you use at once? 
And what’s wrong with a rusty, dusty barbie propped up against the back wall and keeping it simple? I've never met a person (or dog) who doesn't love a sausage and sauce sanga. 
And don't get me started on having to clean two cooktops, two fridges, two sinks ...

Orange. 

Nobody really wants to decorate their home in orange. 

Except for my mum and dad in the seventies. They splashed it around like it was going out of fashion. And, pretty soon, it was! 

If you want a touch of orange, fill the fruit bowl with mandarins ... buy a bunch of gerberas ... plant some marigolds in a window box. But don't plaster the walls with orange mosaic tiles or cover the kitchen benches in orange Laminex. (Really, Mum, don't!)

Don't even buy an orange cushion. 

I mean it.

Toss it out of your shopping basket. 

Now. 

Buy something blue or green or yellow, even. 
But not orange. 

The home theatre. 
Okay, if you’re a soiree-holding kind of person, I can see how this might be quite nice. ‘Do join us in theatre at 8pm for a delightful  evening of light classical music, pink champagne and muted laughter.’ 
But a room for just watching the tellie? 
It’s like having a room dedicated to just thinking, or just  knitting, or just reading. 

Oh, hang on. A room for just reading sounds brilliant! 

They even have a name for it.

LIBRARY!!!

Those fires that hang from the ceiling like some sort of overgrown cocoon. 
They look a little bit scary in a sci-fi sort of way. 
And they look daft. Even if you’re going for the hipster dufus look.
My husband, the Great Dane, thinks they're cool. Then again,  he tucks his T-shirt into his jeans and still thinks 'Smokey and the Bandit' is the best movie EVER!!! 
Cocoon fireplaces are just not right. And you can't tell me that someone's kid won't swing from it and burn their derriere before wrenching the whole contraption out of the ceiling. 

Rectangular free-standing baths. 
They give me the creeps. 
Too much like sarcophagi. 
As soon as I see one, I start developing a murder mystery plot where someone dies in the bath. Not terribly uplifting. 

Toilets that open onto en suites that open onto the master bedroom.
I dig the bathtub that looks straight across to the bed (unless it’s a sarcophagus tub!). But the toilet with no solid door between the user and the bedroom…

Think about it!

It’s not good.

For anybody.

So what do I love? 

White.

Floorboards.

High ceilings and exposed beams.

Big windows and French doors and natural light.

Wide verandas made for lazing and sipping coffee and reading a book and chatting with friends over a glass of wine.

Hills hoist clotheslines.
Fresh flowers.

Book shelves filled with well-thumbed books.

Gardens filled with blossom trees.

Log fires that are anchored in the wall or on the ground and don’t look like they’re about to split apart and launch an oversized cockroach or cicada into your lounge room that will then bite your head off and spit it out into a sarcophagus-shaped bathtub.

Feel free to disagree. 
Except on the orange thing!

What do you love in a home?

What gives you the ickies?

You can go here to my Pinterest page to see some of my home decorating fantasies.