Following the wild success of our Xmas trip to Hong Kong, we were planning a similar trip this year and had budgeted accordingly.

But when we attended Sydney Contemporary in September, our travel plans flew out the window. We fell completely in love with a painting by the wonderful Robert Malherbe. Unfortunately the work was the price of a brand new small car.

I’m not going to lie – we really, really agonised about this, so much did we love it. We even signed up to artmoney (absolutely genius initiative that provides interest-free loans to buy art!) just in case we wanted to pull the trigger. But sensibility and the desire to keep to ThePlan prevailed.

We did come away with a postcard of it, which looked at us sadly from the fridge:

some small consolation

But then, of course, we agonised some more. And then we thought, what if we forgo our planned holiday and go for a smaller, slightly less hideously expensive, work? And so we did!

Don had a work trip to Melbourne, visited the gallery and verily this was ours:

We absolutely adore it – and don’t mind a bit that we’re not going anywhere.