Jeudi dans la tete de l'homme du Giverny

Two most joyous days with M. Monet. Firstly, wandering the paths and ponds of Giverny. Secondly, observing his massive waterlillies (les nympheas) in the round at Musee L'Orangerie

Mercredi dans exces de mauvais gout

It is a world treasure, but golly it was disgusting. So I dug deep, with you guys in mind, and found just a few treasures.


It was 26C today, and a glorious day. I sat on Louis' back step and had a ham and cheese roll (delicious bread). No cake in sight ...

dimanche dans le jardin

Soaking up the last rays of warmth in the Luxemboug Gardens.

Stilled at last

Napier Street, just off South Dowling.

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A pleasure of the flesh

Out along The Finger Wharf, jutting into Wooloomooloo Bay, there is a small Spanish cafe, Velero, which serves exquisite tapas and Rose to take one's breath fair away.

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The paradoxes of Paddington - 2

Rosebud Lane runs off Oxford Street, Paddington, beside the Rose, Shamrock & Thistle pub, aka 'the three weeds', which would have to be my favourite watering hole. Any pub that plays Dave Brubeck and still has tiles that withstood the six o'clock closing hose, has to get the thumbs up.

It runs up to COFA (the College of Fine Arts) and leads to a most attractive enclave of urban planning. More on this next time.

Hobartville - a bountiful life - for some

According to the Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser, in March 1834, William Cox of Hobartville was assigned two male convicts, one a farm servant and the other a labourer. All through this fertile agricultural valley, the food-bowl for the burgeoning colony, from Richmond, to Castlereagh, to Windsor to Pitt Town, the landed gentry and small stake-holders, were being assigned the scum of the old continent to work their fields, run their households, and augment their own skills and efforts.


Australia prides itself on being a classless society, of being the land of the fair-go, of treating all men equally. AFTER they had served their sentence. Governor Lachlan Macquarie had been at the forefront of this push for the redemptive power of the second chance. And that is what got him into so much strife with the landed gentry throughout his term of service (1810 - 1821). Especially with the likes of John Macarthur.

But the pages of the Sydney Gazette are testamemnt to the ongoing use of convict labour in the colony throughout the tenure of William Cox (the younger) at Hobartville, in Richmond.

I is for Involved

Every which way we turn as we age, we are slapped in the face with that hoarey old chestnut, 'Use it, or lose it'. I guess this refers to three basic aspects of life: physical, emotional and mental.

Get out of the house, get involved in activities, get involved with other people, confront new ideas and challenge ingrained responses to issues. It is no good just doing more of the same old thing, though. The neural pathways in the brain need to be furrowed deep, but new furrows need to be ploughed in lesser used areas of the frontal lobe. Take up boules. Learn a language. Join a book club. Join a bush-walking club. Join Get-up. Become a 'greenie'. Volunteer to lead the singing at an old-folks home.

Or, like these folk that I steamed the harbour with last weekend, restore an old steam-tug and potter about the harbour for the sheer hell of it!

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Hobartville - the carriage shed

Hobartville is a privately owned working stud. Owned by William Cox (the son of the famous road-builder) from 1816, the house shown yesterday was designed and supervised by Francis Greenway from 1827. In 1877 the property was purchased by Andrew Town and Australia's first yearling sales commenced. This fine example of a carriage shed is undated.

On Thursday, the fertile valley and tethering the convicts.

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The sound of egos colliding

Hobartville Stud at Richmond

And so ... History Week fades for yet another year, not with a whimper but a bang! And that boom-crash-wallop was the sound of egos colliding in the early colony. Macquarie with Greenway which was grandly reciprocated. Macquarie with Bigge where the better man lost. Greenway with Bigge where the more talented man lost. Greenway with Kitchen where the younger man didn't realise it was a contest! The real winner, as it turned out, is the citizenry of Sydney who probably don't much give a toss!!

Above Left: The Rectory at Windsor; Above Right: the Rectory's stables; Below: St Matthew's Windsor

On Saturday, we bused around the Macquarie Towns checking out St Matthew's at Windsor and its Rectory which is where young Henry Kitchen earned the ire of Greenway for competing for the Governor's patronage. Kitchen literally gave up the ghost.

Then onto 'Hobartville' at Richmond which is attributed to Greenway for all sorts of architectural reasons. It is a stunning setting and really rustic collection of outhouses not generally open to the public. More on that tomorrow. This tour was led by Scott Carlin from the Historic Houses Trust.

We finished our inspections with a wander around Greenlees at Menangle across the river from John MacArthur's Camden estate. The gestation of this building is all very skulduggery with both Kitchen and Greenway involved in the plans and the building of same. But with Kitchen carking it and Greenway generally getting everyone offside, it is a rollicking yarn. Macquarie by this time had been recalled for being too profligate.

Left: Entrance to Hyde Park Barracks; Right: St James from HP Barracks

On Sunday with the pealing of church bells resounding in our ears, we accompanied Robert Griffin, Curator of The Mint, around the Queen's Square precinct at the head of Macquarie Street, where he elaborated on the design 'phases' of the area and the various proposals for a 'haussman-like' makeover, especially after the 1909 Royal Commission. The aim was to gain an understanding of the urban design involved in the siting of Hyde Park Barracks, The Mint (and the original three-winged hospital), St James, and the Supreme Court buildings.

Above: The spire atop St James; Below Left: detail from St James northern wall; Below Right: the vista down to the Supreme Court

I have yet to track down the church and hospital in Liverpool attributed to Greenway and also a private dwelling in Cleveland Street Surry Hills also attributed to Greenway. Lots of other structures designed by Greenway (and often supervised by Greenway who came from a family of buildings from Bristol, and who rode builders something terrible), have gone the way of Whelan-the-wrecker.

Greenlees at Menangle

Sitting in the morning sun

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Sitting in the morning sun - a story to take you deeper.