Bonding

What better way to bond with my younger grand-daughter than over a "Milk Coffee" biscuit? Juliet had water, and Ma had a Nespresso "Dharkan". Then we got back into kneading the playdoh.

Theme Day - The creative artisan

My creative artisan is one Walter Burley Griffin, an architect by profession, with a reputation built firmly upon the vision he and his wife, Marion, designed and drafted of Canberra in 1912, the Australian national capital. There is a lake in the heart of Canberra, named Lake Burley Griffin. He was born in 1876 near Chicago, and died in India in 1937.

Griffin is my fascination at the moment. I have just moved to a suburb of Sydney called Castlecrag, which Griffin developed from scratch starting in 1921. Griffin, his wife, Marion, and his business partner, Eric Milton Nicholls, designed dozens of houses for the estates, but only 15 were ever built. By them. These 15 are still in existence. I am introducing them gradually. Come on (beckoning). Sit down (gesturing). Listen to his tale (smiling).

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The attraction of twee to an incorrigible bag-lady

The houses over this way are solid, indeed, if it is not too malapropriate, they border on the stolid. Scottishly so. They are the conceits of Presbyterian burghers, rather than the aspiration of a Bermondsey gas-fitter, as I suspect was many an early cottage in Paddington. But, then again, the earliest establishment in Paddo was Robert Cooper's 'Juniper Hall' in 1828, whereas, Castlecrag was midwifed by the prolific walter Burly Griffin and his wife, Marion, between 1925 and 1935. Paddo is an urban-jungle-mishmash, whereas Castlecrag is a sedate, gentrified estate. In contrast, our little gingerbread cottage endeared itself by being quaint, indeed, twee.