Community gardening

This morning, early, I received a feint phone call, 'Ma, would you like to come, too'? Would I ever! So off we went to Bondi Junction looking for the Waverley Community Garden, somewhere off Ebley Street. Off, and down a gully, as it turned out.

But what a wonderful way to spend a short morning: three generations working at weeding, watering, growing, talking, and bonding. The first image shows the flower of an onion and, yes, my girls are in the photographs. too. I have already located the nearest community garden to the house that we move into at the end of January. In our suburb! And our local council - Willoughby Council - runs seminars on 'Chooks in Backyards' as well as promoting the 'Sustainable Street' programme. 'Twas meant to be, dear God; 'twas meant to be! See in that final photograph, Alannah's hand on her mother's arm? Kirsten had been showing the other little girl - Marlo - the flowers and fruit of the zucchini plant. I have a series of shots that show Alannah's thoughts: 'Huh! I will put a stop to that! She is MINE!'!

Sensuous to the touch

These belong to my grand-daugter, given her by a friend for Christmas. Smashing aren't they? Their shape, their colour ... and they are hollow and stack one onto the other.

They don't write on walls. They can't write on floors. They only write on paper. From what I have read, they were designed in Australia. Notice that: designed! That probably meants they are manufactured in that area north of us whose century it is going to be. Go get some. You will love them.

Now I have to remember to get another scrap book, as our current one is full to the gunnels.

Spring Racing Carnival

I have only been to the horse races once in my life, and even that was too often. I spent the afternoon standing in a crowd about ten deep on the fences, then after hearing the thunder of hooves, trying not to get lost as my own mother made a desperate bee-line for the tote windows. I did not get within cooee of a horse all afternoon. I am telling you all this because my daughter and her husband went to the races at Royal Randwick on Saturday. And if you are at all aware of the year they have had, you will shout 'Hurrah'!!


Now the up-side is that I got to play with my grandaughter all day. What we did first took me right back to my daughter's teenage years: her room was splattered with clothing that did not make the cut-off. A dress draped here. Shoes scattered there. Hats perched here. A grand flummox of finery. Ally and I gathered all the discarded hats, and tried them on, one by one, before returning them to the hat box.

What joy!

Widow's waeds

They set a cracking pace, chattering as they scurried, throwing hurry-ups over their shoulder to ensure none was tardy. Checking that I, the intruder, didn't miss my step over the gutter, I snatched a glimpse as they ducked around the back of the crematorium. Luckily, I caught the hem of the black sheep as he stepped in behind the Eastern Wall. An unexpected vista opened before me.


Could they have internalised Robert Frost's 'Mending Wall'? In this small section, maybe half a dozen rows, there they were, laid cheek-by-jowl, peas-in-a-pod, not an inch between them. One big, happy family with bountiful tending and respect. I heard the tumbling gush of ancient-tongue, the bustle as bouquets unfurled, and water fetched. The tsk-ing and the tut-ing as the week's embarrassments were confided.

I moved on, with a spring and a smile. Not only Frost, but Dylan Thomas as well:

Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.

Paying one's respects

As the bus meandered down the peninsula, it increasingly filled with passengers who, to me, were all very similar. I took a wild punt that they were going my way. And sure enough, the bus emptied at the Botany Cemetery stop.

Mostly the other passengers were in their 70s, short and a little overweight, wearing black. Predominantly they were female, but not exclusively. I followed them; they were all in a jolly mood; and, they all seemed to know each other well.

Mostly, they were Greek. Am I supposed to say 'of Greek extraction'? Anyways, they were Greek. They led me to the most beautifully maintained section of any cemetery I have ever visited. *whispers* I think they compete with each other. *shhh*

Shall show you more over the next few days.

... twowit, twowoo said the wise old owl ...

Reading aloud to children, from an early age, is a fun thing to do, and creates a bond of emotion and involvement that lasts their whole life through.


My grand-daughter, Alannah, is about 5 1/2 months. Her mother, Kirsten, first read to her when she was three days old. She read her a little Golden Book, 'Baby's Birthday', which was her own very first book. I gifted it to Kirsten on her 30th birthday in 2009.

Alannah already has 35 books on her shelf, some in French which I picked up in Paris last September.

On gossamer wings

I am spending three days with my older brother in Wauchope. Be back late on Saturday.

May I introduce my grand-daughter

Born on Thursday 22nd July 2010 at 2:13am, to Kirsten and Darren, a daughter, Alannah Jane, weighing 3.16kgs and measuring 49cm. Mother is exhilarated. Father is pooped. Baby is much loved.

Mother turns 31 years of age today.

Back to the future

To get a good handle on where you're going, sometimes it helps to know where you have been. Knowledge of what is in front, is informed by what was behind.

Conserving details of each generation of a family is a valuable marker for people desperate to know where they fit in, and even for people who know exactly where they are going. Items don't have to be hierlooms in the commonly accepted concept of worth-a-fortune. Postcards, scribbles on the back of envelopes, ragged letters tumbling from tatty envelopes: all contribute to the fullest picture we can manage of a generation.


The State Library of NSW in Macquarie Street held a "Preserving your Family History" course on Friday where we listened to the "does and don'ts" before having a 1-to-1 with up to four specialist conservators with reference to specific items. I took in my father's drivers' licence from WW2, a letter written by my grandmother in 1910 and the diary of my uncle who died in London in 1956. They were all symptomatic of the problems of my collection as a whole.

Abbey Road 40 years on

When I was about ten, each Monday afternoon my father brought home a copy of a trashy magazine, "Australasian Post". Buried somewhere near the back was a quiz page which contained two drawings, similar except for 8 differences. I loved circling each of those differences! Which brings me to my erstwhile beatle ...

As I meandered down Begg Lane, I saw him walk past on Glenmore Road. My refugee. From another time and another continent! It's him. Enchanted, I admit to stalking him. However, I was not the only one protective from afar. Protective, yet respectful of declining independence.


Later, with the slow motion replay available to umpires but not necessarily to live spectators, I began to doubt my own eyes. Here is the image from that sweltering Melbourne Cup day back on Tuesday November 3. How many essential differences can you find?

Glenmore Road, Tuesday

Stifling heat settled in early With the mercury rising inexorably into the high thirties. A refugee from another time and another continent shuffled alone along the footpath clutching his pastries in a plain plastic bag, His black felt bowler sitting incongruously with velcroed sneaker, flapping shirt-sleeve and crumpled trouser cuffs.

Feeling connected

Mid-afternoon the first Tuesday in November Australians morph into blood line experts, slow track experts pontificate about odds, and training methods, recall the days of Think Big, of Gunsynd, the Goondiwindi Grey take a punt in a sweep or splurge big on the tote connecting to the race that stops the nation.

Homeward bound

As this lad is wending his way home from uni on a Friday afternoon, so today I wend my way home after ten days in and around Hobart.

Home where my thought's escaping, Home where my music's playing, Home where my love lies waiting Silently for me.

Those who cannot remember the past

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" aphorised George Santayana.


The old Rozelle Tram Sheds are alongside the Johnson Creek canal tucked in behind Harold Park Paceway. They have been vandalised in an overwhelmingly tragic and demeaning manner. Trams are a sorely missed iconic reminder of our city's past: a reminder of the foolish deeds of politicians and the futile fad-following of the hoi polloi.

Many thanks to Peter Liebeskind for the above two images. He has been most generous with access to his Flickr site

During the 1950s the motor car ruled the roost, and the NRMA pressured the lilly-livered pollies - the likes of Cahill, Heffron, Renshaw and Askin - into removing this cheap and efficient means of mass people movement from our streets, to make way for the ascendency of cars and their concrete flyovers. The tramway was in place from 1861 until its winding down in the 1950s and closure in 1961. It had a maximum street mileage of 291 km in 1923 and at one time could boast in excess of 1,500 trams!


The Rozelle Tram Sheds opened in 1904 and closed in 1958. Ownership rested with the government for 50 years until being transferred to the NSW Harness Racing Corp in 2002. The damage had been done during those 50 years of neglect. Now these buildings and their contents cannot be given away.


Here, in 1955, an O class tram (thanks to Bruce Caspersonn who corrected an error in the text here) rattles out of the sheds, along the canal and into The Crescent heading up Ross Street towards Parramatta Road and, thence, into the city to its terminus at Fort Macquarie (Bennelong Point). This trip was two sections and cost 1/-.

With all the developments in the preceding 54 years, it is difficult to reproduce the '55 image. The curve is now underneath the circular overhang of the pacing track - it was too dangerous to venture under there. Standing as close as I could - would that I had the guts to jump into the canal! - I took a photograph to the south (the concrete monstrosity) and to the north (the canal).


Such a sobering set of images ... Let us pay tribute to the past and to its people.


Image 1: Taken in 1930 as a tram heads West up Broadway just prior to turning into Glebe Point Road. Sydney University is on the left.
Image 2: Taken in 1957 as trams turn to their right from Parramatta Road into Glebe Point Road.
Image 3: Taken in 1958 as a tram progresses along Glebe Point Road.

I also wish to extend my appreciation to LindsayBridge for access to the superb set of tram images on his Flickr site

Pleasures of late Winter 2

Some kids have an inbuilt eye for sport. Their brain calculates the geometry of a kick, catch or throw exquisitely. Their body responds with the elegant curve of mastery even at a young age.

Running ahead of the ball and delivering a perfectly targetted back flick was not a problem for this fellow. And his dad was up the other end being ball-boy. Such hard and hot work this playing in the park with dad in winter. Centennial Park in the Eastern Suburbs is perfect for people watching ...