“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”

Unexplorable

Exploring | Wandering | Collecting



My first few days of 2015 have been a mix of getting up early to go to work, coughing and spluttering my way through the day (I got a nasty flu just after Christmas) and coming home to watch back-to-back episodes of Gotham with Nick and The Cat.  There hasn't been a whole lot of time for reflection on the past year.  Even New Years Eve I was voiceless and sick (and it was 40 degrees) so we amped up the aircon and watched the Melbourne fireworks from the window of our apartment.  Anyway, now's the time to have a look back on the past year and some of my #1 favourite things.

 1. Place
The Lofoten Islands
I've raved about the Lofotens a lot this year.  They weren't on our to-visit list, but we went there because they weren't likely to be as snowy as the rest of Norway.  The frost had mostly melted, and it was easily one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.  I talk about it more here.

2. Clothing Item
Skeleton Dress
It's a real testament to an item of clothing if you can wear it on every non-hiking, non-freezing day for 9 months and not want to burn it afterwards.  That's me with this dress.  It's pretty faded now, and pretty worn (and no longer glows in the dark which is the ultimate sadness) so I might have to pick up another.  Get it from Modcloth.
3. Makeup Item
Jackie Oates
Whether I'm travelling everyday or standing under hot lights at Lush, heavy foundations have not been my jam this year.  Jackie Oates - one of Lush's skin tints - is super buildable and doesn't feel like you're wearing makeup.  Get it from Lush.

 4. Technology
Pico Pro
This is a recent addition to our home.  We'd been looking for a small projector for a long time, reading reviews, looking for something that could accompany us overnight camping (for moonlit projections on the side of the tent, perhaps?) and make a good day-to-day screen, seeing as we ditched our TV.  So far, it's pretty impressive.  Automatically focuses, decent brightness, good definition, about the size of a large Smart Phone.  Get it from Urban Outfitters.

 5. Perfume
Furze
Lush actually discontinued this perfume late 2014 (but it can still be bought at the Oxford St store in the form of a body spray, I think).  I picked one up on a whim but wasn't totally sold on the sugar-sweet vanilla and coconut scent.  I changed my tune when we were strolling through the Northern Highlands of Scotland and the gorse was all in bloom and I kept thinking, "where do I know this smell?"  It was Furze (which is another name for gorse) and I was in love.

 6. Food
Smith and Deli
Okay, this has been the bane of my wallet since I got back to Melbourne.  This place is ridiculous.  If you live in Melbourne or you find yourself visiting, you need to go.  Sandwiches served after 11.30am and different sweets every day.  Follow them on Instagram.

 7. City
Edinburgh
I don't know if Edinburgh was merely the right place at the right time (anything would've been a welcome relief after the bustling, overwhelming adventure that was London), or whether our 7am, sunrise arrival - pulling our suitcases up the hill and watching the orange light hit the city - inspired us to want to stay.  We fell asleep in The Meadows in the afternoon and were already saying that we could live there.  The fact they have a Lush Spa helps, too.

 8. Skincare
Magical Moringa Moisturiser
This is the third and last mention of Lush in this little favourites post.  I write it with a heavy heart because I'm currently out of stock (luckily, a friend of mine is in Hong Kong where they stock the Oxford St line... thank goodness).  The Magical Moringa Moisturiser is a duo moisturiser + primer sent from the heavens, truly.  Try it out if you can.

 9. TV Show
Dexter & Jessica Jones
I'm a little late to the party with Dexter, but found myself devouring every season while I was in Iceland.  I was housebound for a couple of weeks (unable to visit the studio, grocery store or anything else) with crazy painful bronchitis while cold, wet storms raged outside.  I doodled and watched Dexter every day.

 Jessica Jones was a discovery Nick and I made once I'd returned to Melbourne and we binged the whole (short) season in just a couple of days.  David Tennant still gets me excited, 10 years after falling in love with him as the Doctor (even when he's a creepy villain).

 10. Movie
The Dressmaker (also The Fall)
A few weeks back, Nick and I sat in the back row at the Sun Theatre to watch The Dressmaker because it came highly recommended by both our parents.  It was bizarrely theatrical, completely beautiful and sad at times.  Hugo Weaving's character reminded me of his role in Priscilla Queen of the Desert (potentially the last great film to come out of my country) and Kate Winslet looked way too hot to have had a baby.  All in all, excellent.

 Another strange and theatrical film I fell in love with this year was The Fall.  I have no real words to describe it, and most people probably won't love it as I did, but you should watch it anyway, if only for the cinematography.  It's pretty spectacular. 

At Christmas, nothing goes down a treat like rum balls do.  Somebody always fills the role of Chief Rum Ball Maker and dedicates a day to making batch after batch.  This person has never actually been me (I prefer to self-delegate as Chief Rum Ball Consumer - a role that got me tipsy on many a Christmas as a teenager) but this year I thought I'd try my hat at it.

This will be the second Christmas Nick and I spend just the two of us and, though we don't have a tree or any plans to be particularly festive, I decided rum balls weren't something we could skimp on.  It's also my second Christmas as a vegan, so I asked Mum to send me our family recipe so I could veganise it. The results were pretty spot on.
The All-Powerful Family Recipe

A vegan arrowroot was surprisingly easy to source.  Leda make amazing vegan Tim Tams that I've been semi-addicted to for the last year or so, but it turns out they also have a pretty good arrowroot.  It's a little butterier/crumblier than traditional arrowroot, so I upped the arrowroot content from the original recipe.
I thought condensed milk was going to be an issue, but it wasn't.  Pandaroo make a condensed coconut milk that can be found in the coconut cream section of the supermarket.  It was pretty pricey at $5 a can, but is super thick and sweet.  I'd read it was easy to DIY - so I tried that too, and it worked - but didn't beat the Pandaroo on consistency.  



 Vegan Coconut Milk
1 can coconut milk 
1/4 cup brown sugar
Shake of salt

Let it simmer without boiling until you've got about 1 cup of mixture (15-25 minutes).  Don't be fooled by how runny it looks.  Let it cool and it'll thicken up nicely.

The Best Vegan + GF Rum Balls!
makes approximately 20 balls

For one batch, you'll need:
1 can condensed coconut milk (or 1 cup of your own)
1.5 cups desiccated or shredded coconut + extra for rolling
2 packets of Leda's vegan + gf arrowroot biscuits
1 heaped dessert spoon of cocoa
1 tsp vanilla extract
3-4 shots of rum* + extra for drinking

*some recipes will say you can use rum essence - but if you're going to make virgin rum balls why would you bother?

Once you've got your ingredients:
1. Pulse your biscuits in a blender or assign somebody to crush them for you.  The Leda biscuits are soft and crumbly already, so you don't need a crash-hot blender to pulverise them.
2. Mix your coconut, cocoa and arrowroot biscuits in a bowl.  Add the condensed milk and vanilla extract. 
3. Add your rum.  Keep an eye on the consistency because you don't want it too wet and sticky.  If it is, add some more dry ingredients.
4. Refrigerate until your mixture is firm and easy to handle.
5. Form balls and roll in extra desiccated coconut.
6. Best enjoyed in the comfort of your own home, as you probably shouldn't drive after you've consumed them.
This post has been a long time coming.  In the hustle and bustle of arriving back 'home', moving things, unpacking, resuming work, I've felt a little out of sorts.

 Coming back to the familiar is always a little weird.  My local bagelry closed its doors, but there's now a kickass vegan deli within walking distance.  Our apartment is smaller, but more central.  Some team members from my magical Lush store have disappeared, but we've got some kooky replacements.  Same same, but different.


This blog has also been nagging at me just a little bit.  A couple of times I've gotten emails from brands and companies and other blogs, talking about collaboration (and if you're one of them, and I stopped replying... I'm really sorry) and I just kept wondering what this blog was to me now.

 It started as a travel journal to tell my family about my trip, then some of you came along, and I kept sharing my travels and my stories.  What is it now that I'm stagnant and stable and living with my cat?  Do you still care what I'm doing?

 Things got normal really quickly.  Nick and I were going to artist's markets and going to the cinema and I was spending most days at Lush as soon as we got home.  We were building our new home and cooking dinner and trying new eateries.  It's all become very normal.



Coming back down to earth has been tricky, but lovely.  I'm not sure if my regular, everyday, bath-loving life is something of interest, but I missed blogging a lot, so it looks like I'm back for now.  I'll probably be trying out some new things while I work out what this blog *is* to me, so bear with me.

 See you soon (with actual content!)

 <3

A few days ago, I spent a long day in Paris where I walked the stairs of the Notre Dame and ate far too much food.

I'm not one of those people who is a full-blown Francophile, but there are lots of things that attract me to France.  I don't speak even speak French, but I'm really into French words.  Probably my favourite is dérive.  The other is flâneur.


I just spent three and a half months living in a tiny, rural, secluded village in the north of Iceland, and I learnt a lot of things.

Silfra, in case you're not aware, is the spot in Iceland where two tectonic plates are pulling apart, and you can actually get right between them.

Iceland has no shortage of 'hot pots', and they can mean just about anything.  It could be a plastic pool with warm water and slides, the Blue Lagoon its alcohol and masseuses, a hot rocky pot in the middle of (seemingly) nowhere, or anything in between. 

This weekend Skagaströnd saw the first stages of the annual horse roundup or rettír.  The hundreds of horses who spent summer living on the mountains were herded down to a paddock to be sorted and checked on.

Getting a tattoo in Iceland was an idea that had been floating around my head for a while, but I'm not someone to ask for a line drawing of a compass or the word 'wanderlust' on my forearm.

I've been in this strange place between being incredibly busy, and incredibly stagnant.  
Let me introduce you to an Icelandic word I learnt recently: Sólarhringur.  With this word in mind, let's say goodbye to my Scandinavian summer.

I have been in Iceland for two months today, which is completely surreal.  The last week brought a flu I'm still shaking off, and there's nothing like getting sick to make you miss home.

For the last couple of weeks I had been flirting with the idea of swimming in the sea. 

As you've probably read or deduced (or maybe you're new... hi!), I'm currently living and working in Iceland since late June.