Onesie (with apologies to Hamlet)

This weekend, in amongst autumn cleaning my apartment (spring cleaning: so passé), entertaining friends, getting back to the gym after injury, and catching a film with MamaK, I’ve been battling a great dilemma:

To Onesie, or not to Onesie?

That is the question.

I am not referring, dear readers, to one piece cossie. Nor am I referring to jumpsuits. There’s no dilemma in my mind when it comes to cozzies and jumpsuits: I like cozzies and jumpsuits. I have time for cozzies and jumpsuits. I’ve very successfully owned multiples of both (believe).

What I am questioning, with the existential seriousness of Shakespeare’s Danish Prince, is the one piece loungewear suit, comprising of a hooded top attached to a pair of legs, made of polar fleece, with a zip fastening.

As a typical Type A personality, I’m working my way through my onesie dilemma not via a dramatic monologue, but by a list of points for, and against, the onesie.

(If Hamlet had been a Type A, he could have written a handy list too. It might have made all the difference).

To Onesie
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Onesies are warm, and they are cozy. It is possible to layer up against the Canberra chill, but there will always be little bits of you – ankles, the juncture of skivvies and leggings – vulnerable to sneaky chills (just quietly, I have a suspicion Hamlet would have found this aspect of a onesie appealing. That castle must have been some sort of draughty).
• Grown adults wearing - essentially - a babygro is hilarious, something which the lovely Miranda Hart has exploited (google Miranda Hart + Onesie Direction if you need proof). I have sufficient self awareness of my hipster tendencies to ironically enjoy this.
• You can get them in tiger print. And leopard print. And the union jack, and…

Not to Onesie
• Slippery slope: I already go more places than I should in gym leggings and baggy tee shirts. Crop top bras (comfy) have become a mainstay of my working wardrobe, even though I promised myself, at point of purchase, they were For Home Use Only (or FHUO, hollah at my APS BroDudes and SoulSistas down with document classifications). I wear slippers to the local shops to buy milk. If I get a onesie, it’s only a matter of time before I’m wearing it to the office on casual Friday – and then I’ll be Onesie Girl. Basically, my relationship with comfortable clothing is like Pandora’s Box: once opened, there's no going back.
• Onesies are sexless. I suspect that being a onesie girl means that I’d condemn myself to a lifetime of being a onesie girl in relation to other sorts of onesies. If you take my meaning.
• Everyone’s doing the onesie thing. Onesies are huge. Onesies are massive. I have sufficient self awareness of my hipster tendencies to sneer at this.
• I’m already tall, with a long body, and ample frontage. Which makes buying one piece anythings (swimmers, leotards, wonder woman outfits etc) tricky. A onesie would magnify this problem, and would, no doubt, result in wedgies. Back, and front.

I don’t yet know whether it is nobler, stylistically, to suffer the slings and arrows of Canberra’s outrageous weather. Or, to onesie – to warm, and, perchance, to cozy on through winter.

Aye, there’s the rub, alright.

Hotties, Heat Lamps, Hoodies and Warm Hearts: How to Survive a Canberra Winter

It’s the middle of winter in Canberra, and it’s Darwinism, pure and simple.

Only the fittest will survive.

Here’s the top ten secrets of the Capital's winter-fit. Now, go and make it work. We've still got two months left.

10) A proper coat. Proper, here, meaning thick wool tweed or worsted, lined, finishing - at least - at your thighs, but preferably longer, with roomy pockets. A lesser garment than the above will be insufficient. If you are new in town, this is the first order of business after ANZAC day (which Canberra natives know to be winter’s unofficial beginning).

A handy hint: the best coats I have found have been vintage, my guess is because air conditioning was less functional back in the day. My particular favourite winter coat was a $45 steal at Narabundah Vinnies. It is my very greatest bargain shopping purchase of all time.

9) Heat lamps and/or heating in your bathroom. Why? Let’s imagine you’re in a particularly awesome hot shower. It’s steamy, you’re washing your hair. You’ve even shaved your legs.

Nice.

Imagine, now, turning the taps off. You’re naked, you’re dripping wet. You step into a frigid bathroom. The air temp hovers just above ten degrees.

Not nice AT ALL.

I have lived in old, cold, Canberra houses/apartments where this sitch was a reality for June, July and August (PhD scholarship ghetto years, yo). It’s a suboptimal way to start the day, but you can avoid it by judicial deployment of energy-guzzling appliances.

8) American Apparel tights. Enough said.

7) A million and a half recipes for soup, or a mother/partner/housemate/really really good friend who will make soup for you. Unless you have a Spartan constitution, you will get sick at some point before a Canberra winter is through, particularly if you’re doing the hot shower-cold bathroom hop (see point nine). When you get sick, you need soup – chicken soup, lentil soup, pumpkin soup, pho, broth, laksa – to get you back to full health. That, and a whole lot of boxed sets of DVD’s.

Gavin and Stacey marathon, anyone?

6) Hoodies, preferably from your alma marta. Australian Bureau of Statistics data released this week indicates Canberra’s population is the most highly educated in Australia. It’s a safe town in which to get your nerd pride on.

If you’re a very clever cookie and have studied at more than one institution, pick your hoodies according to international rankings. Canberra is the only place in Australia with a population who knows and cares about such matters - choose your hoodies accordingly.

5) Hotties (Hot water bottles). If you are no longer deriving perverse pleasure from doing the whole Orwelian down-and-out-in-a-freezing-cold-climate thing, the simplest solution to your problems is to get into bed with multiple hotties.

You can pick them up for $3 at Big W. Too easy.

4) Proper Gloves. Proper, here, meaning fine calfskin leather, lined with cashmere, in a colour that says ‘Hi, my name is Fabulous’ (my gloves are violet, AKA Fabulous). As with coats (point ten), a lesser garment than the above will be insufficient. Good gloves will cost you (unless you or someone you know is travelling to Florence – in which case they will still cost you, but slightly less). It is worth the financial pain, though, because chilblains and knuckles-so-dry-from-the-cold-they-crack-and-bleed-as-you-type are best avoided.

You need the best gloves you can get your hands on. Or in. Just get some gloves.

3) Excellent company. If you are going to make the effort to leave your heater and get out of your trackpants, the conversation had better fucking sparkle.

Canberran natives know this. It’s why we all become fascinating people in the winter months.

2) Multiple Cardigans. You need at least one for each day that you are at work, because, if you are working indoors, heating levels will vary throughout the day and you may need an extra layer to keep you snug.

Some people bring blankets to work. My advice on this issue is that because its cold doesn’t mean you need your blankie. You're a grown up, put on a cardi.

1) An iPod, full of cold weather songs, because listening to Bright Eyes transforms your twenty minute walk home from a cold and miserable plod to a beautiful, pathos-filled journey of wonder. We natives know that’s what a Canberra winter is really all about – cold hands, cold noses, cold toes…

And warm hearts.

Top Ten

It’s been yet another busy week here for Ms Entwhistle – I know, I know, we’re all busy, so there’s nothing new or exciting in my busy-ness. But, some wonderful things have been happening this week, so I thought I’d share some glimpses and snippets of my week with you, in the hopes that you are faring similarly well.

#10 – Sumatran Organic Fair-Trade (also slightly sanctimonious) Coffee. I ran out a couple of weeks ago, and couldn’t get myself to Jindebah Coffee until late this week just passed – but this magnificent coffee is so worth the wait and the journey to the deep south.



#9 – Marking First Year Essays. For a couple of reasons, I’ve ended up teaching a lot more than I intended this semester, hence a large part of my business. This means I get to mark 75 of each assessment task, and there are four assessment tasks in the course that I teach. I’m not doing the math because it’s going to scare me, but if you want to do it, go right ahead. This week I marked the first piece of assessment, and, as always, I’m thrilled by the effort that my little firsties have put into their work. Yes, marking is a headache, literally and metaphorically, but it also makes me smile.

#8 – Macaron Day. On Saturday, MamaK, Tessy Halberton and I had a girls’ afternoon making macarons. Whilst they are our first attempt, and, like the first year essays mentioned above, have a long way to go before they are perfect, they still taste rather magnificent.



#7 – The End Of Fieldwork. Yes, folks, it’s over. Specifically, it ended at 3am at an unnamed fieldwork location, and I was supremely glad. Particularly as The Dreamboat, acting the role of BIG HE MAN PROTECTOR, willingly stayed up all night, and surrendered the wee small hours of his twenty sixth birthday to doing something no one in their right mind would do. Which brings me to wonderful thing six…

#6 – The Dreamboat’s Birthday. Dreamboat turned 26 on Friday, and, although we were both whacked from a hard night’s observing, it was still a lovely day. Happy birthday darling, I’m glad you liked your present, even if I dropped it and it doesn’t quite work properly anymore – incidentally, does anyone know of a barometer repairer?

#5 – Autumn Barbecues. For the Dreamboat’s birthday lunch, we packed an impromptu BBQ and headed out to Cotter Bend reserve. It’s one of my favorite places in the whole world, especially at this time of year. I would have taken my camera to snap some shots to share with you all, but I thought better of it, as I want you all to go yourselves – the golden leaves and musky-earthy smell of the lichen is worth the windy road.

#4 – Lemons (and one lime) In My Kitchen. Don’t they look cheerful? They remind me of sunshine every time I see them.



#3 – Sunday Yum Cha. I promise I will never leave it ten years between drinks with Yum Cha, because it’s so much fun. Especially when you go with a group of ten people. Especially when you can chat about fabulous bargain fashion with friends you hadn’t caught up with in a while. Especially when there’s a giant Lazy Susan to twirl food on. Especially when you discover that friend whitebait is like fish and chips combined in the one foodstuff. Especially when you try tripe and are pleasantly surprised.

#2 – Fabulous Vintage Dresses. I scored two this week – one from the fifties and one from the seventies. There are so many fantastic vintage clothes sellers popping up around the place, there isn’t an excuse not to get amongst it.




#1 – Frogs. But the most wonderful thing of all this week? Victoria and Albert, our new green tree frogs. Yes, they are named after the royals. Yes, they did keep Dreamboat and I awake with what we think were mating calls (which, strangely enough, sounded like a bird-squawk). Yes, I did wake up in a terrible panic and had to check they were still breathing (I was worried they’d frozen to death).



Oh, but aren’t they just darling?

Farmer’s Market Fashion

My dear friend Mimi Goss and I have a standing date every Saturday morning with the Canberra Region Farmer’s Markets, to stock up on lovely fresh fruit and vegetables for the week.

Have you been? If not, you are missing out on, amongst other things, the cutest and most kitschy cherry bags. See below.



Apart from being fantastic fun, the markets are the best place in town to go to for cheap, excellent produce from the local region. Without going too far into the area of ethical consumption – that’s more Virginia Boots’s area – it’s a nice feeling to know that the dollars you spend at the markets are going straight to the farmer who grew the produce you’re buying, rather than your dollars going to Mr Coles or Mr Woolworths and a few measly cents to Mr Farmer.



But there are a few downsides to the markets. Firstly, you need to get there early, because the hipsters invade after 8.30am, complete with babies and baskets and ironic glasses, and with endless comparisons of the ‘Can-Bra’ markets to the ‘Mel-Bun’ markets (Mel-Bun, of course, being unsurpassable in the hipster stakes). Secondly, you will have to carry all of your fruit and veg to the car, which, by the time I’ve stocked up for the week, is a heavy task. Finally, you will have to work out, at a very early hour on a Saturday, What To Wear To The Markets.

In a combined solution to all three of the above problems, Mimi and I have developed a strategy of getting in early, with cute carry bags, and in outfits that, whilst not entirely hipster, are hip enough to trick the invading hipster hordes into believing that, although we may not be one of them, we’re certainly formidable enough in our style to warrant not being taken out by a side-swipe of an organic wicker basket. In short, dear friends, we’ve perfected Farmers Market Fashion.




As you can see in the above picture of some of my favourite Farmer’s Market Fashions, there’s a strong emphasis on jersey –just as comfortable as pyjamas – which is an important thing to consider at 7.30am on a Saturday. Washability is also paramount, as organic produce oftentimes means wash-it-yourself produce-which-likes-to-dirty-your-clothes. A burst of colour, a cute pattern, or some funky stripes will help keep you visible, particularly when you are re-grouping with your shopping buddy at the HOT bakery, where the tastiest…croissants…hang out.

Complete the look with one or two canvas totes with funky prints, and you’re in clover.




The Canberra Region Farmer’s Markets run every Saturday from about 7.30am onwards, at the Epic Markets, off the Federal Highway. They will be open next Saturday (18 December), but will be closed until 15 January for the holiday period. This post, although gushy, was in no way a paid advertisement or endorsement of the Farmer’s Markets – just a suggestion from one savvy shopper to another! Enjoy!