I am totally devastated by the news of Skoota's death. I felt very close to him. We bonded over my artwork and in him I found an inspiring friend. I loved him for his individual way of looking at the world. He helped me realize things about myself that I am grateful for. No words can explain the loss I feel at his parting. I always expected him to be there throughout my life, to email me with the latest update or go for a coffee. The main character of my book was inspired by some of the conversations we had together and as tribute and thanks to him for the times we shared I will dedicate it to him if ever I have the opportunity to publish. I will always have the greatest love and the fondest memories of Skoota. He will live on through these.

What happened to Skoota

Last night we went to a birthday party where a librarian brought along one of her pet snakes. It was awesome. We got to look after it for a while. Now I really want one but unfortunately they don't stay little. This one is expected to grow to over a meter long and we couldn't get one with Keeks and Much in the house:(

You all know how I freak out when I try to do anything computery. Nik is normally there to help but he is increasingly away and so I must begin to do these things for myself. I have MSN now and my contacts from about 8 months ago but if anyone else is on MSN now then let me know and we can have chats.

I just had my first deep fried mars bar EVER!

How could I have lived for so many years and not realized that such food existed. My god I am going to be so enormous when I come back in September. I am already planning my next trip to get one.

I am so happy and I don't feel sick at all.

Bring on the Mars Bars!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just saw the 300. What was I expecting?

It was pretty, really pretty. However this did little to compensate for the fact that I was totally bored throughout the entire movie. Rolling my eyes continuously and trying not to let the dialogue get to me didn’t seem to improve my mood. At least Nik and I got to laugh about it in the car on the way home.
Thick helping of American cheese thanks.

What was I expecting?

Lovely Pie Night. It was a success judging solely on how absolutely sick I feel right now.

I have a question for any of you who might have an interest in fashion or fabric.
I have almost driven myself insane looking for a particular type of fabric for my wedding dress.
It is a strange material and I think it may be a silk. You find it mostly on the ribbons for medals. It is silky looking with the appearance of wood grain patterning. It is a stiff material and I have a feeling it may have been used in Victorian England for mourning dresses. However I have searched and searched but I cant find the name of it.

Any idea of what it could be?

About 2 in the morning Mucha starts howling his little head off. It was a bit unnerving but we thought it must be nothing so went back to sleep. A couple of hours later I got up and went to the kitchen. When I turned on the light an enormous trail of vomit spilled its way from Mucha's bowl to the back door. It was awful and contained many reptile parts. We have a large hole from the last tenant cut out of our back door to let their dog - and now Mucha come and go and the thing must have come through that to get at Mucha's dry biscuits. Its weird. Mucha followed the sent trail around the ENTIRE house. Its creepy to think something that large got in and had a good look around while we were asleep.

Hello everyone. The first thing I want to say is that I am very sorry that I could not respond to LJ comments or the beautiful e-mails I have been receiving from my friends in NZ. Nik and I have just got the internet up and going in our new place. Telstra decided they would put off entering our number in the telephone registry so iinet couldn't use our number. But here I am and I will repond to individual e-mails soon.

Mary and Soames, Nik and I are sooooo distressed that you had to give Jamie back. We were looking forward to all the stories and photos of your boy. At least you can have your free time back. It changes your life so dramatically when you find that your freedom is restricted by someone really dependent being upset at you leaving the house. Anyway we are thinking of you guys and hope you are ok.

Our new house is just fantastic. It is a charming little place and we are staying in a tiny bedroom so that we can use the enormous main bedroom as an art and computer room. After how many months our container finally arrived yesterday. It is the most wonderful feeling in the world to get all of our stuff again. You all know what our place in K'road looked like and Nik and I are determined that we will make our new house a joy to come home to. So we have bought lots of chinese inspired furniture and painted some walls bright red. There is also an 8 seater dinning table that is just begging for a dinner party. Suppose I will have to learn to cook now!

The weather here has been gorgeous and I think we are both getting a bit of a tan. (Just bought sunscreen the other day to remedy that situation) I also have a parasol on order but I am a bit afraid to use it. Its a guy thing. There are lots of blokey guys in WA who think that yelling at you from a moving car is somehow a macho achievement, how sad it seems to be an epidemic over here. The more interesting you look the more unwanted attention comes your way. So the heat makes for shorter skirts and more dumb blokey attempts at getting you to notice them. We will have to move somewhere with perpetual winter next so I can exercise some healthy Victorian modesty.

Luckily we have a few friends here now. Nik has a tendency to find good people wherever he goes and the other geos he works with are so interesting. Unfortunately two of them are moving back to South Africa for 3 months so that is a pity.

Issac you will be pleased that I have started to write a book! I finally decided to bite the bullet and muck out some ideas. You are all going to roll your eyes but I am writing a fantasy novel. Hey it is much easier than real life! Nik has read the first few pages. We are now in competition to see who can come up with the best novel. However I already know he will win as thats the kind of guy he is!

We are both very happy and busy and things are going well here. We have never had so much money or so much to spend it on :)
But in saying that I havent even started to look for a job so that corset from serpentine will have to wait...(Ill just have to make do with what I have).

Missing and thinking of you all :)

Tonight Nik and I move into our new place. I am a bit anxious about going and getting the keys from the landlord because he lives on a street with lots of large willow trees which lean down over the car. Ordinarily it would be pretty, but last time we saw him it was 7 at night and dark. I got out of the car and started walking towards the house when Nik called out telling me to watch out. I didnt see anything and foolishly just kept walking. Then I realized something was wrong and let out a very high pitched and girlie shriek! About 2 inches away from my face was an enormous spider dangling down like a leaf in the wind. Oh my god, oh my god what have I gotten myself into! Recently my fear of all the evil forces on earth has melded into a hatred for the mutant bugs which throw themselves in my way over here. Nik laughs at me every time too! The first thing I am going to do when we move in is invest in an arsenal of bug spray.

Every day I take Muschel up to Kings park for a walk. It is so beautiful here with the climate, tropical plants and Rosellas everywhere. There are also all manner of Gothic folk dressed to the nines wandering around. It makes me feel like a slacker (with everything still on its way over on the container) so in classic Fern fashion I had to solve this problem by investing in a few things to make myself presentable:) (I really should seek counseling!)

I am dreading Summer though. It has already got up to 30 degrees on some days and I am told this is just the start. We shall see how I cope with the heat and the ENORMOUS bugs.

Thanks for all the lovely comments. I have only just read them but it makes me happy to think of all the wonderful people in Auckland. There is still time to move over here if any of you are interested! Nik and I just bought a car. The prices for second hand cars here are absolutely insane. But even more insane is my new must have...a round chinese rosewood dinning suite with mother of pearl inlay which seats 6. Its close on $4000 but im sure its like the ring, if I set my mind to it it could happen:) Take care all.

Hello everyone, I must say that I am so incredibly happy right now. I have my fantastic man back and I must say that overdose of Nik is just what the doctor ordered! Perth has delivered. It is a very clean and charming city and contains many gothic looking buildings which I really love. Yesterday we found a great house who's last tenant was also an artist and it has beautiful polished wooden floorboards which are great for Mucha. Seeing Helen and Chris again brought back many memories of Beam Bar fun and we all went out to Sin last night which had some great Depeche Mode and Covenant moments. There are heaps of goths here and Nik didn't waste any time in directing me to the nearest goth shop which you can imagine put a huge grin on my face :) It has only been 2 days but it already feels like I have been here a week.

Happy birthday Brent, I hope you had a great day.

I am so sad to be leaving but very grateful for such a beautiful group of friends. This is quite an challenging time for me as the future is so unclear, thank you for making my last few days here so memorable.

Hello everyone

I am thrilled to tell you that my website has been completed and is now up and running.
I am very proud of it and would like to thank Brent and Grant (and all those others who worked to make this project come to fruition)for their help and their patience with accommodating my rather demanding artistic preferences - which I'm sure drove them up the wall.

Anyway it is www.fernart.co.nz

Thanks Guys!

I am so happy today, it was my last day of catching the bus out to Kumeu! Lucky too I am far too nice and weirdos take advantage of me. I spent 20 minutes trying to shake the attention of one middle age disgusting guy while another kept staring intently at me. I thought I was going to get stalked! Thank god thats over. Also my sister has arrived and is spending the next week with me. Yay for today!

Hello everyone, this is Fern here.

I thought I had better get a Live Journal so I can stay in touch with all of you ... and you can read all about my fabulous adventures in Perth.