in the australian boots department i’ve always been baxters rather than blundstones (and laughed at r.m.williams people who like paying two or three times as much as necessary for the name and a fancy box, beautiful though it is) but yesterday i jumped ship to blunnies, not because of gary lineker or gwyneth paltrow heaven forbid, but because, in the lithgow workwear shop, when i tried on the blundstones 600s, after the baxters, just to see, they were so damned comfortable and sturdy at the same time, i heard my-so-called-self say, ok i’ll take them — and now i feel like i occupy this temporary precarious spot on earth a little more fully and somewhat more steadily wearing them. worth every single one of the 150 australian dollars i paid (that’s €92,50 at today’s miserable exchange rate) but they are not vegan. sorry moo cows.

in other product news i hear the new line in rituals is ‘Love’, and i use quotation marks for a reason :

De afgelopen tijd was bij de Rituals vooral ‘Love’ in de aanbieding. ‘Deel de liefde met deze soulful collectie’, beloofde de cosmeticagigant, ‘ontworpen om je welzijn te voeden en vriendelijkheid te delen’. De Love-collectie — doucheschuim, bodylotion, geurkaarsen en geurstokjes — draait om ‘the ritual of kindness’.

i’ll let doortje smithuijsen explain (in dutch).

and these are my last 24 hours in australia…