The good ole days

Pumpkin is a very popular vegetable in Australia and is a favourite when roasted with potatoes and onions around a leg of lamb for the main family meal on a Sunday. It is also used to mash together with potatoes, butter and pepper and salt. Pumpkin soup is popular as are Pumpkin scones. Pumpkin Pie is not particularly popular in Australia.

These photos of 'Queensland Blue' pumpkins were taken on Saturday as I wandered around the new 'farmer's market' at Taylor Square in Darlinghurst. Although sunny and 18C the wind was bitter and chilly. Similar to the bitter winds that blew through our political establishment that very same day. Over the next 14 days, we await the result of a 'hung' parliament.


When my father was demobbed from the AIF (Australian Imperial Forces) in November 1945, he determined never to go back and work for a boss! Instead, he bought an old Bedford truck, constructed a frame for the rear tray, covered it with canvas, attached a large set of scales, and set up 'shop' as a door to door 'fruit'n'veg' man on the north shore of Sydney.

He would travel down to Paddy's Markets in the city twice a week, and spend the rest of the week selling to house-wives in Turramurra, Wahroonga, Waitara, Hornsby, Asquith and Normanhurst. He did this until the middle of 1956 when he decided to move to the country and chance his arm as a farmer. To this day, he can tell the difference between pumpkins. He can tell a Butternut from a Kent, a Golden Nugget from a Queensland Blue.


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Thank you to Elaine for contacting me about my incorrect definition of AIF (I said Infantry instead of Imperial). Thanks for the heads-up, Elaine.

A golden oldie

Thursday evening at the very beginning of the homeward 'rush', commuters stride up the rise to Paddington Town Hall, built in the 1880s, the foundation stone bearing the proud name, Sir Henry Parkes. The clock tower was added in 1905. Within this building is my local library, and a cinema, Chauvel, which screens independent and foreign language films. The last film I saw there was 'Me and Orson Welles. We are looking east.


Looking west in 1960, back the way we just came,we see trams coming and going. Our current Paddington Reservoir Gardens was a delapidated service station. The creamy yellow is a much better shade for the Town Hall, don't you think?


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Laying down childhood memories

An hour from home, on the fringe of the second oldest national park in the world, a tight-knit band of weekend warriors, expend lick, spittle and elbow grease to make the past come to life.

As I sat in the rear of the gleaming ‘1979’ the squeals from the youngsters and the beams on the faces of the oldies was the proof of the pudding. The volunteers looked the part and their knowledge of trams was voluminous. Col was Head Conductor for the day, and no question was too dumb, no request too wacky.


Sydney’s tramway system commenced in 1861 but only caught the public imagination after the 1879 International Exhibition. By 1922 the tramway system covered 290kms and by 1945 was carrying 400 million passengers per year.

However, with the spread of the city and a dramatic increase in car ownership, the car lobby won the ear of the government and the last tram trundled into the Dowling Street depot in February 1961.


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MYM - More than his belly can ...

A wonderful bird is a pelican, His bill will hold more than his belican. He can take in his beak Food enough for a week; But I'm damned if I see how the helican. by Dixon Lanier Merritt (1910), often attributed to Ogden Nash.

This wonderful sculpture was worked by James Corbett who exhibits at the 'Michael Commerford Gallery' on New South Head Road, Edgecliff.

All the live pelicans in this post were observed in the estuary of the Hastings River at Port Macquarie. The pelicans, gulls and cormorants were feasting on a school of sardines. When the old codger, who had been fishing from the jetty, went over to the BBQ tables to gut his catch, the pelican's followed him. Hence, the smudges of blood.


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MYM - Limping home

Parramatta River, just to the east of Cockatoo Island The Iron Cove Bridge in the background, with apartments on Birkenhead Point

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