Urban compassion

This is a study in meaning. The denotation of this alley is Tattersall's Lane. However, its connotation could quite easily be Hope Street.

The ceremonial heart of the City

Some of you may disagree with my title here. However, this is the intersection of George Street with both Park Street, and its extension Druitt Street. In the lower shot, I am standing on the Town Hall steps. Hopefully, before I die, the buildings opposite the Town Hall will be razed and a public park created. Council already owns many of the buildings, and are just waiting for a few hold-outs. Below this intersection, is a criss-cross of arcades. Below the arcades is the city-circle subway.

Oh for a lane, an alley, a row

This is the sort of streetscape that sets my curiosity afire. I don't give you tuppence for the gloss of the Pitt Street Mall, with its concrete and glass and designer stores, tickling brass farthings. Give me an alley, with a rusty fire-escape draped with potato sacks anytime.

The stench of markets in olfactory memory

Standing in Mullins Street, just down from Market Row, and facing east, with the Queen Victoria Building filling the view-finder. The QVB used to be the old Sydney markets, until its metamorphosis in the 1880s.

Off-cool

And yet, some of York Street can be acceptable, if you know where to look, and squint just the right way. You see, York St is off - I cannot say 'off Broadway' because we actually DO have a Broadway, and unfortunately, York St is nowhere near Broadway. I think it boils down to, York St being 'off-cool'. Our main street is George Street, and York is one to the west of that. How last-year can a street get!

Man in phone booth

This is a study in depth. There is a tree. Behind that is a facade. Within the facade are the internal lights. Imprinted on that is the reflection of the building across the road, in front of which I am standing.

Cities can be glamorous places. But much of a city is simply tawdry. York Street borders on tawdry on occasion.

Concrete geometry

The facade of a high-rise apartment block in Haymarket, which is an inner city suburb.

Grey, but not bleak

Lincraft is just on this corner, and I was looking for squares of felt to use as grass, and mud, and a pond, and stuff to go with the village through which our wooden train set runs. It was spitting a smidge, but the people scurrying back to their burrows after lunch were not overly worried. I am looking south, down York Street towards the Sydney Town Hall. On my left is the Queen Victoria Building. Back over my right shoulder, out of sight, is forever imprinted on my psyche as the corner of York'n'Market'n'Clarence where my father started work in 1936 as a 15 year old, on the 4th Floor in the haberdashery firm, D&W Murray. He used to pack suitcases for the travelling-salesmen who did set routes through the country areas of the state.

History down the gurgler

As I meandered through the WW2 wing down at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra recently, I happened upon a display board showing part of the city of Sydney with lights indicating assorted facilities available towards the end of the war. See that large light, the one in Hyde Park. That fascinated me!

Upon my return, I did some research, and some stepping out within the park, and bingo! I learnt about the existence of The British Centre from June 1945 until November 1947.


It was a large, two storey unsophisticated building housing a wonderfully sprung dance floor, run for the sustenance of the many British troops of the Pacific Fleet transiting through Sydney at the end of the war. There is not a skerrick of informaton available about it in Hyde Park now: not a plaque. Nothing. The building itself was sold for one pound and transported piece by piece up to the northern suburb of Hornsby where it was transformed into their maternity wing. It is still protected by the two English stone lions that guarded its entrance from College Street.


Nowadays, the section of Hyde Park which housed The British Centre is an expanse of lawn, and the Sandringham Gardens, which were opened in 1954 by QEII. Jim showed the gates to the gardens in his post yesterday, which jiggled my faltering memory. The opening photograph for this post is the fountain at the centre of the gardens, and the photographs adjacent here, show the gardens themself.

The Eye of the Beholder

Gardenias in my courtyard, this afternoon, before the storm

Our eyes ‘see’ the world around us, but our brain moulds that image. It is our brain that determines what we make of the image our eyes collect: what we focus upon; what we include in our field of vision; whether we pay attention to the periphery, as well as to the centre.

Do we see in a range of colours, or in shades of grey? Do we see the disabled, or just the able-bodied? Do we include the aged in our vision, or filter then out completely? Are we aware enough to include the aged and the young in equal focus, looking to the past as much as to the future?

Sometimes it is said that a squeaky wheel gathers the most oil; that the customer is always right; that money buys happiness; that the grass is greener on the other side. Is our mindfulness mindlessly shaped by cliché , or are we able to assess each situation afresh?


Into our daily discourse strides a battlement mentality: we batten the hatches; we pull up the drawbridge; we protect our own, and see off the invader. An ‘us versus them’ mindset pervades, which divides society into three groups along socio-economic lines: the ‘haves’ who are increasing their stranglehold on global wealth; the ‘have-nots’ who are increasingly requiring/demanding social support; and, the burgeoning ‘aspirationals’, desperate to continue up the ladder, rather than down the slippery slope.

I am not a member of any political party: neither Liberal, nor Labor, nor Green. I do not understand ‘Occupy Wall Street’ let alone support it. I would like the world to make space for both India AND China. I do support education and informed mindfulness over and above ignorance, and bigotry. I wish for people to check their facts, prior to opening their mouth.

A cool beauty

A Phalaenopsis Orchid is so different from a Cymbidium Orchid. Think Grace Kelly cf Marilyn Monroe. Think Monet cf Picasso. Think Melbourne cf Sydney.

Flowering veggies

The other day I belled-the-cat on my illustrious past as a veggie gardener. Jim mentioned that he would like to see a Zucchini flower. Well, tongue-in-check or not, JimBar, your wish is my command.

The image above is a Zucchini variety known as 'Black Jack'. I am hoping it has silver splodges on its very large leaves, otherwise I have a bad mould infestation already. The image below is a Pumpkin variety known as 'Potted'. We are good with pumpkin names, we are. The old Queensland Blue is known now as a grey pumpkin.

Both these plants are gross feeders, and are in the same large black plastic bucket. Come Christmas, I am going to be inundated with fruit from each vine.

Late spring in Paddington

Paddingon, in Sydney, is one of those suburbs where bearings can be anchored by reference to a pub. Just a few doors down from the esteemed Lord Dudley in Jersey Road, can be found this row of terraces, its beauty intensified by a setting sun. At my back is the Paddington Bowling Green, and a smidge beyond that the start of the walking trails through Trumper Park.

Green Park Hotel

A most atmospheric internal beer-garden sets this basic 1893 suburban pub apart from others. Along with the $5 glass of wine all weekend!


Whereas this pub is on the intersection of Victoria Street and Liverpool Street in Darlinghurst, Green Park itself is another 200m along Victoria Street and opposite St Vincents' Hospital. It is the park with this outstanding folly.

From little things big things grow!

In case you are carried away by the beauty of colour, and form, and style, permit me to direct your attention to the solitary, basic Jacaranda pod on the left.

A frenchified eastern wall of a terrace in Elizabeth Street, close to its intersection with Sutherland Street.

Cock Horse

Today reached 38C when the average for this time of year is about 24C. We sought refuge walking around the stables in Centennial Parklands, but continuing to swelter we quickly repaired to the nearby cafe for an ice-block.

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, To see a fine lady upon a white horse; Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, And she shall have music wherever she goes.

An eye-poping colour for spinach

Recycled designer fashion on consignment, just down from the Victor Chang Centre and across the road from 'bills', a Bill Grainger cafe that does a mean brekkie.

Purple haze

The city is sluicing in a purple wash. Each year, my assessment is that it is late, that the bloom is anaemic - and then! Poof ... it is everywhere.


Yes, Mr & Mrs Pedant are writing letters to the editor and complaining that the tree is of South American origin, not native, therefore should be eradicated.

G.e.t. a. l.i.f.e.

A ripe old age

Nothing like being an unproductive member of society - a pensioner - to turn defence into offence. I have grown flowers and ornamentals all my life. However, the last veggie patch I had was when I was 13.


A half-century fallow should suffice. Accompanying this 'Russian Red tomato vine, are lettuce, zucchini, pumpkin, rhubarb, and strawberries.

Drool!

Armistice Day - From the vortex of time

Photo taken by Michelle Potter, my second cousin, once removed

Continued from yesterday.

Ross Cole's neice, Wendy, was a solitary woman, born in 1938, who died in 2005. It was her ceiling. It was her box. They were her memories. The curator and I pieced this together after much sleuthing. The curator, Robert, was in the midst of successfully unraveling a 'cold case'.


Not surprisingly, for me, it was more than that.

Earlier this year, we held our first ever Cole family reunion, The Colegium. Ross Cole's father, Cyril, was one of nine children of our 'bedrock' couple - my great-grandparents. Two died in infancy, two were childless, yet for four we had descendants with which to correspond. Only one line eluded me: Cyril Cole.

And here is fate giving me a shove along. Fate telling me never to give up. Fate imploring me to continue to touch the cold headstones of those who have gone before. That remembrance requires mindfulness.

Photo taken by Michelle Potter, my second cousin, once removed

Remembering them

Within two minutes of the torpedo from UB-64 striking the 'Tregenna' in the North Atlantic in September 1940, she had gone to the bottom with the loss of all hands, save four. My father's cousin, Ross Charles Cole aged 24, was not one of those four.

Today, I accept, from a curator at the Australian War Memorial, a box of original letters, documents and photographs that was found in the ceiling of a deceased-estate in Canberra that a real-estate agent was readying for sale in 2009. The curator tracked me down via Ancestry.com and insists that we share the contents with wider family before donating specific items back to the AWM. More tomorrow.

Ms Scarlet, on the balcony, with panache

This flaming redhead, beckoning from the balcony for gents to come up and see her sometime, transports me back to the days of Hayworth, Hepburn, Hayward, and O'Hara. It is a Brachychiton Acerifolius, with the common name Illawarra Flame Tree. Can you match these first names to the redheads in my reverie: Susan, Maureen, Rita, and Katharine?

Aye, there be dragons!

Sheath your sword; do not smote this beast. 'Tis no mythic fire-breathing devil-substitute from the Middle Ages, but a simple Australian Water Dragon. On the fight-flight axis, it is most certainly the latter that he will employ if you take one step closer. He will lift himself high onto four legs and scarper comically through the underbrush where he camouflages excellently.


Australian Water Dragon (Physignathus lesueurii), found on the east coast of Australia from Victoria north to Queensland. They are fast runners and strong climbers. When threatened, they seek cover in thick vegetation, or drop from an overhanging branch into water. They are able to swim totally submerged, and rest on the bottom of shallow creeks for up to 90 minutes, to avoid detection.

Ship pulls away from the shore

And so endeth my bushwalk around Little Sirius Cove in the harbourside suburb of Mosman. I bought a chocolate paddle pop - one of my many addictions - and waited for the small zoo ferry (known as the 'Lady' class) to arrive from Circular Quay for another load of passengers. Our green and gold lady for today is the 'Lady Northcott'.

We chugged away from the Athol Street ferry wharf at the 'bottom' of the zoo, and as we slooped through the harbour, we were rapidly overtaken by the much larger ferry on the Manly run, 'Freshwater'.

My closing image is the obverse/yang of my opening image: I open with a view from the zoo to the city; I close with a view from the ferry to the bush that softens Taronga Zoological Gardens, with just the scar of the chairlift slicing through the bush.

Camp Curlew

Camp Curlew, on the eastern shore of Little Sirius Cove, was a famous artists' camp, where many prominent Australian artists lived and painted during the 1890s. Artists such as Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, Julian Ashton, Henry Fulwood and Nelson Illingworth.

Nothing remains of the camp, save marks in rocks and once-cleared areas. It is accessible by pathways and steps. By the early 1900s the camp had been well-enough established to include a weatherboard dining room, a billiard tent and well-maintained gardens. Camp Curlew was maintained for about 22 years, but was finally abandoned when the adjoining land was chosen for the new Taronga Zoo.

The two paintings included are:

Tom Roberts, The Camp at Sirius Cove (1899), and
Arthur Stretton, Near Stretton's Camp at Sirius Cove (1892)