WAIFS & STRAYS: (Aireys Inlet, Victoria, Australia)

En route to the 12 Apostles, monolithic stacks on the south coast, and flagrantly ignoring Mum's advice on Australia's beguiling sense of distance, we found ourselves a little way off from our final destination and our reserved accommodation for the night. Humbled, we took the advice of some friendly locals in The General Store regarding alternative places to stay.

Clearly, my 'lost puppy' eyes and general hopeless demeanor invoked the kindness of the shopkeeper, who realising our complete ineptitude, offered to put us up at her home! We were really blown away with the gesture and proceeded to enjoy a great evening chatting over some local wine with our hosts (Greg, Jill, and Asher) about surfing, travels, home design (Greg is a building designer) and…well thrashing the Aussies at the cricket of course.

I grew up in a house where we had allsorts staying - Mum had the softest heart and didn't have the strongest professional boundaries going, so we'd end up with 'clients' coming home for dinner or to stay - she was working with alcoholics (might be where Georgie & I got some of our own work passions from). I really want to be that same kind of family and have the same sense of open home. We offered our hosts an open invitation to visit us, and I would return the favour of removing any large spiders that might crawl into their room.