Dumbo Feathered friend (issue 4) Rachel Bending has given us something to sing about with the opening of her Bird boutique in Surry Hills (380 Cleveland Street). The converted century-old pharmacy building stocks ethically produced homewares and clothes, all sewn using solar power. Original fabric designs, inspired by botanical elements, are printed using water-based dyes and, from Spring, on organic cotton. Bird’s cushions, curtains, scarves, skirts, buttons, bolsters and ‘sausage-dog draft excluders’ feel good, look good, are good.

Sunday March 2 is Clean Up Australia Day. Among the 8000 tonnes of rubbish collected by over a million volunteers last year were: ciggy butts, a parking meter, drinks containers and a mannequin’s leg. Visit the online registry and locate a local clean-up site where you can muck-in. Someone will be there to issue you with gloves and rubbish bags. You can also nominate a new site, and yourself as coordinator of it. You’ll also indirectly contribute to the national Rubbish Report which analyses our littering and recycling habits. For years plastic has been the most common source of rubbish, while wood, appropriately, won 2007's wooden spoon, pipping the previous winner, rubber, as the smallest source of rubbish.

Once upon a time, there were many posties delivering mail by river in Australia. Andrew Davey, who connects the remote and carless communities on the Hawkesbury, is the last one. His family bought the mail run (which started in 1910) in 1979 and he's been skipper of the Hawkesbury Explorer for more than a decade. These days he'll deliver practically anything that will fit on a ferry – including you, if you want to to contemplate the vastness of the mighty river.

You can hitch a ride on the mail run from Monday to Friday at the very civilised time of 9.30am. The chug up the river brings new meaning to the term snail mail, with the 45km roundtrip taking about four hours. The starting point is the ferry wharf, Dangar Road, Brooklyn. Adult price is $45, which includes lunch. For more information, call 9985 7566.

There's nothing especially slow about 100 years in three minutes, but it'll crack a smile.

Tis the season for rainbows, when rain - falling between the observer and the sun - allows the sunlight to spread out its spectrum of colours.

It’s always brighter inside the arc of the rainbow. And we’re not just saying that to be poetic. Many light rays refract off water droplets at angles smaller than the rainbow ray, but not greater, so there is a lot more light within the bow.

And because rainbows are a special distribution of colours produced in a particular way with reference to the definite point of the observer, no two observers can see the same rainbow. Even each eye sees its own rainbow. And, yes, there is more than just tourists at the end of the rainbow, so get chasing.

There are knobbled ones, beaded ones, triangular ones, metal ones, flower-shaped, variegated and bejewelled ones at All Buttons Great and Small (419a King Street, Newtown). Sift your hands through the baskets of buttons at the front of the store, or spend an hour feeling your way through an encyclopedia of ways to enhance a dress, a jacket or even a living room. Buy a whole range of buttons and leave them in a bowl to run your hands over when you are bored with everyday objects.

Remember those street gatherings where a bunch of people would ‘spontaneously’ gather in a public space and point a banana or something, then continue on their way?
They’re still doing it in New York, and this one’s about appreciating stillness, so here it is.

Travelling is a luxurious thing. It’s when we find the time to visit markets swarming with local characters, gawk at exotic places of worship, stop at a gallery, sample international flavours and marvel at nature in a city park.
That same inspiring holiday action is happening here at home. Fairfield City Council launched its Tourism site recently, with maps and information on the main attractions.
You could spend a lifetime living in Sydney and never see it, so pack the camera and put on some sensible shoes for a trip to another suburb. And remember to send a postcard from sunny Fairfield.

We're thrilled to show-off the next reader contribution in our ‘I Made it Myself’ series. Sarah sent us this:

‘A bunch of friends went skiing in Japan recently. We all took to the slopes wearing homemade ski masks. This was mine. I made it from a size-22 bra, wire, fabric, teddy-bear eyes, a safety pin and key chain.
I flew down those slopes.’