#008 Feeling A Bit Sh*t? (FABS)

These things might help?

Yesterday as I was driving to the mini-mart near our house, a little girl and her father (probably) were riding their bikes along the footpath. The girl would have been about four years-old and her little legs were pedalling SO speedily. She was grinning and her curly hair was flying behind her from beneath her helmet. As I pulled in to the parking spaces further up the street and around the bend, they also turned the corner with the little one a few lengths ahead of her dad. I watched them in my rear view mirror and caught her glancing down at the basket strapped to the front of her pink bike. A stuffed toy tiger was shoved firmly into it, his fuzzy face taking in the breeze as they zoomed by, along the street and out of sight.

(Do you have a lovely everyday story like this? Go over here and add it to our growing list of everyday gems.)

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1/ This could be the cutest beanie I’ve seen in my entire life. (Above)

2/ I really enjoyed peeking into these converted churches.

3/ I think this Baked Orzo could be an excellent thing to whip up this week?

4/ Perhaps you’d like to create your own Nostalgia Garden (or you might have already done so?) Found via the always interesting/delicious Foodie Crush.

5/ On opposing facism in 2025: “Because having, and nurturing, in your life a sphere for joy and connection and community and love and food and music and human difference and living and letting live is everything they are not and is everything they are trying to take away.” More here. Via Kottke.

6/ How about some Buttered Pecan Banana Bread for the cake tin this week?

7/ The lost art of research as leisure …

“What does cultural recovery look like in practice? Assembling the pattern of society as a whole begins with a shift in perspective: seeing reading, and inquiry, not as a burdensome or academically cloistered act, but as an act of playful and intentional curiosity.”

8/ Was William Wordsworth the Lake District’s first influencer?

9/ In 2019 a bunch of student anthropologists began to document the 9 storey Alderman Library’s graffiti with an eye on its cultural context.

10/ The Cure’s Robert Smith just shared his favourite songs from the 80’s (and Bananarama is in there, pals.) Found via Wardrobe Oxygen.

11/ Possibly the cutest bird in the entire universe? Do you think? (Surely Jim Henson had a hand in making this species?!)

12/ Meera Sodha’s vegan pilau looks like a great weekday meal option. I bet it’s delicious cold the next day, too?

13/ Author/writer Ann Patchett speaks on writing, kindness and chaos …

“ ‘I am very interested in protecting my brain and not just being constantly interrupted …’ … She uses a flip phone, she doesn't remember her number and she avoids both smartphones and social media. ‘… I've never texted. That seems like a really bad idea. I don't want people to be able to get me all the time.’”

14/ This swank Italian apartment is a jewel, jam-packed with all kinds of treasures and bursting with texture and colour.

15/ The Art Gallery of New South Wales has just appointed its first ever woman director.

16/ In praise of untidy garden edges. Heartily agree. Spill over, dear plants. Go wild. (Below)

17/ The best British TV crime dramas of the 2020’s (so far.)

18/ We could make Garlic Butter Potato Rolls, perhaps? (Above)

19/ I loved this story on Tassie Noir films. Parts of The Kettering Incident were filmed in the yard of our family’s old shack. (I’m also all about the more hyper-local New Noirfolk!)

20/ When printing errors become new notebooks, everybody wins!

21/ D’you fancy a Fried Potato Masala Toastie? (OF COURSE I DO!)

22/ A high school student discovered a ‘light echo’ indicating a dormant black hole that’s MUCH bigger than the Milky Way.

23/ Nicole A Hall wrote about how to get a grasp on ‘The Sublime’ …

“Through the humility we experience in its presence, the sublime conjures understanding of the moral and aesthetic obligations we have towards nonhuman and human entities.”

24/ The incredible works of Michalina Janoszanka. (Above)

25/ More than 800 new marine species were just discovered! Such good news!

So glad you popped by/read or skimmed down to here, pals. May you have a very okay week.

x Pip

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NB: If any of the weekly FABS links ever fail, comment on this post and I’ll fix them up ASAP and add them to the comments too. It’s happened a couple of times so just know that’s the protocol in case you are ever flummoxed by a non-working one and really want to click through.

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