Today I’d like to share with you a few of my favourite things. (Most certainly sung in a Julie Andrews voice) 

They aren’t necessarily the things I’d grab first if my house was on fire, but they would be the things whose charred remains I’d stumble upon in the grisly ruins of my home and feel an acute sense of loss. They are those little things that decorate a life, the thing that I want to show people like we got to in show and tell in primary school. I was sitting almost despondantly on my couch when the first caught my eye, and I followed them around the house cheering up with every tiny step.

Firstly there is my one and only bike, Yellow Betty, where would I be without it? When I came home from 5 months abroad Mum had this as my welcome home present. It was passed on to me by an acquaintance of my mum’s that had decided to update (to something with real gears) and it may be the best present I ever got. If its every stolen, I will not be hold accountable for my actions. Yellow betty, now freckled with rust, was a pristine yellow with a bike pump attached (stolen) and a fancy rear reflector (smashed by someone at the train station) But we go out adventuring everyday

This chair was presiding over the porch of our empty house when we first arrived with the keys. It was donated to us, along with a doormat and an old wicker shelf, by the previous occupants.  I know yet little of this chair, but in time I hope to become well acquainted with it. After all, look at it, its demanding to be sat in idly in the late afternoon sun (cup of tea/glass of whiskey in hand.)

This hat was the fruits of a long search, across continents, for such a hat. In the end I found it in Koblenz, Germany. It is my pride and joy among a suitcase of hats and scarves and it is detested by my girlfriend. Therefore I wear it often. It represents my whole hearted belief that one can never have too many hats (screw the handbags.)



It took an eternity to take this, its oh-so-myspace.



Meet Ted, the best friend any kid could have. He smells like childhood. Prince of bears, a soldier brave and stoic in battle, how can I begin to speak of the lands to which he has travelled, the kings with which he has dined? He is the guardian of my imagination, a very well loved bear.

This harmonica was given to my Poppa by his parents, brought from England to New Zealand for him when he was a boy. I can’t play it, I’m really not musically inclined, but I love the way the harmonica sounds and it reminds me of a man I wish I had known better, and the rolling green hills of New Zealand.

Around my neck, swinging on a leather throng is a kaleidoscope I picked up at an ‘antiques fair’ in Notting Hill.  You know them toy things you look through and the colours go crazy? This ones a pretty simple affair, but you look through it and see the world. I like to think that a kaleidoscope, rather than distorting our view, opens our eyes to the way the world really is. Dynamic, varied, diverse, spinning so fast its hard to see the sea for the storm. In this way, its more useful even than a telescope. (except perhaps, to astrologists and pirates.)  



and this is the world it shows me.



My notebooks. An incoherent history of the last 6 years inside my brain. Or at least, what I decided to admit to my notebook. I have learnt that it’s a bad idea to reread them, but having them there is like a comfort blanket and an obscure, missfounded sense of accomplishment.

Lastly, this painting sits happily on my windowsill. It was given to me last Christmas, a tree and a heart. I smile every time I look at it.

These tangible possessions of worth to me alone are, I realise, only transient, material riffraff but within every grain of meaning rests a sea of stories. What stories fill your home, I wonder?