From little things…

The wonderful Archie Roach and Sarah Storer

I recently bought the Journey cd by Archie Roach. I find it incredibly powerful. It has sorrow and it has light. An incredible album.

So tonight I felt like listening to Archie Roach and Sarah Storer perform the Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody song - From Little Things Big Things Grow-about the Gurindji strike In the 1960’s. A group of Aboriginal stockmen working at the Wavehill Station in The Northern Territory went on strike for better pay. The stockmen had been paid with ’salt, beef, bread and tobacco, and six dollars a week if they were lucky’. They were led by a man called Vincent Lingiari and soon the strike turned into a claim for land rights. The land they were working on was Gurindji land . A huge station - some 20,000 acres was leased from The Commonwealth Government by a British beef baron named Lord Vestey.

After eight years the Whitlam Government handed back a portion of this Gurinji ancestoral land and during the hand over The Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, symbolically picked up a handful of sand and placed it in Vincent Lingiari’s hand.

Watching this performance moves me to tears everytime - so much sorrow , so much light and so much hope everytime.

Anzac day

Yesterday was Anzac day. Anzac day falls each year on the anniversary of the Gallipoli landing - a tragic episode among many during WW1. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

Anzac day is the day we remember the people who have gone to war, fallen or returned. We also remember that war is not to be glorified. War is a tragedy and those that have been in a war or who have grown up with the endless fallout of a war have suffered / still suffer and deserve our care and respect.

I woke up yesterday, turned on the tv , and unfortunately the Sunrise show popped on the screen. The Sunrise show is a morning show on channel 7. The thing that I couldn’t believe was that they were coining the phrase “Happy Anzac day” in their Anzac day broadcast. I haven’t heard that one before. So since when is Anzac day a day to gleefully wish each other a happy day? Does the morning show think Anzac day is only a holiday or are they rebranding the whole experience to suit their impression of their audience?

I read an article in last weeks Good Weekend about the wonderkind behind the show who has put the ratings through the roof with a kind of ruthless clairvoyancy. Hmm, so did he tell the Sunrise crew to put an upbeat bent on the day? I don’t want to think about them having meetings to put their spin on the occasion.

Do they really think that enough people have forgotten the suffering, pain, misery, cruelty and horror that war has brought to this nation and all nations? I guess they do at least on some level. I can’t imagine walking up to a POW from WW11and sunnily wishing him/her happy Anzac day. I don’t think too many Vietnam Vets would enjoy the levity either.

On our national day of remembrance - Lest we forget or happy Anzac day?

Demolition days

I was walking around the city yesterday, clearing my head I call it. I took a shortcut down a faithful old path between the two halves of Myers (a large historic retail store in the Melbourne CBD) expecting things to be the same. What a surprise to find an old building being torn down in this historic precinct. An old building that has sat in the background of things, softly contributing to the space. It is a sad thing for a building when it is given a D grading in the council’s Heritage Places Inventory.

According to a report I read online -the application to the minister for planning regarding the redevelopment of The Myer Bourke St Store- the council’s heritage advisor suggested that if the building was regraded today it would have been upgraded to a C. I wonder why it wasn’t?

So I watched them removing the rubble from the old building - a finished deal. The old Telecoms building at 315 Little Bourke St is almost no more. I couldn’t help but notice the graffiti face on a remaining corner of the building, perfectly expressing fear and the grotesque nature of the iron beast chewing on its innards.

I know demolition can be a good thing. Demolitian can bring change, a fresh and clean start . Even so I am not a fan of demolition. It usually means a tearing down or painful removal of the things that I happen to think give the city it’s past and it’s human scale. The past is discarded way too often - old structures that aren’t seen as profitable lose their space . So many stories gone under this way.

This was a quiet building - I can only just see it in my mind’s eye - literally foggy. I see something like this and I immediately think of blogging. Another detail for the list and something passing. So many things are keeping me from blogging at the moment that I just didn’t think about it for the last week. Mostly I miss reading everyone else’s blogs when I don’t blog.

Washing the dishes

Well, today I was doing the dishes. Looking out the window. A good time to let the mind wander around. It’s no use fighting the job and feeling annoyed at the time it takes. We do have a dishwasher and I don’t use it. So how can I complain?

There is a rose outside my kitchen window. I haven’t lived here long enough to see it flower before. It is a sepia colour. I should take a picture

I really like the way someone mows a track through the long grass in the vacant land across the road. I have always liked tracks - a safe area through something less controlled. The grass is very green. It makes me think about a trip up the Hume Highway a week ago. The paddocks I saw there were way too brown for this time of year. The grass too short to line a track.

Mind boggles and ticks into another quarter.

Why does a Sunday have to pace along so fast?

I found some old tea cards that an aunt - the aunt really- collected for me years ago. They are beautiful; all native Australian birds given away by the Tuckfield’s Tea Company. I will have to blog about them properly some time. Do companies still give cards away with their tea? I don’t think so. I drink Nerada tea because it is Australian grown and organic - I think it is organic. There are no cards in that pack.

Which reminds me of my swap cards that I had when I was a child. Now where on earth are they? Swap cards usually remind me of handstands and handstands can sometimes lead back to playing jacks.

Now a photo comes to mind. A photo taken on my great grandmothers 90th birthday with all the women together - four generations worth. The thing I like the best, apart from the look on my grandmother’s face as I am trying to abscond towards something bright and shiny (no doubt), is the way my great grandmother’s hand is resting on my arm. She is looking straight ahead at the camera but using that simple contact to still me.

What else was I thinking about?

Smiling at the fruit trees

Smiling again. Ah, some things never change. Just thought I’d visit an old fruit tree I used to know in the back blocks of Abbotsford in inner Melbourne. I paused next to the tin fence and looked up into the branches. Nice to see you old friend, still going after all these years. This house and it’s wild, old garden has escaped the rush for change. Somehow, I really can’t believe it.

I took a few photos, loitering as long as I decently could without feeling too weird. It is funny. When I move on from a place that I liked I always feel as though I could just walk in the door, through the time and be there, as things were, again.

Well I haven’t found a way to do that, just quietly, but when things hardly change very much over the years it feels close to a possibility. How funny would it be if my younger self came running around the corner, half smiling at me but taking not too much notice. In a hurry, maybe stumbling on the bluestones, wearing bright lipstick, some beads or other and an op-shop dress. My younger self still so new. Happy in her unique 50c dress. Going somewhere, maybe just to buy a mango.

Victoria St is nearby. The whole street smells like mangos in the summer and bunches of coriander. Libraries of green leafy vegetables line up in boxes along the walls of the little Vietnamese supermarkets. A bright shrine sits in a corner where offerings are made to the ancestors.

That reminds me of a little story. G and I were once walking along Victoria St and saw one of these brightly coloured shrines sitting alone next to the gutter. No one was paying attention to it and it looked odd and forlorn, forgotten in clear view and broad daylight.

We walked past it and then thinking about it I decided we should take the shrine with us. I had no idea what I was going to do with it but we took it home and left it out the front. I didn’t feel comfortable with the shrine inside for some reason. So it stayed on the porch.

So time went by and every so often I would worry a little about it sitting out there. Surely it had somewhere it was supposed to be?

By a string of coincidences G was offered a lift home one day by a person he was involved with for business - someone he met only a few times. When they arrived at our house the gentleman, who came from Vietnam, saw the shrine and instantly showed clear concern.

He explained that it was his belief that the shrine couldn’t possibly stay where it was, shivering amongst the autumn leaves. You see there was an ancestor attached to this brightly coloured box who would be suffering without the regular care of prayers and offerings to maintain it’s wellbeing.

He offered to take it away. He would care for it even though it was not dedicated to a member of his family but an unknown soul - a stranger. What a beautiful concept. G saw the shrine happily in situ in the man’s business a few weeks later. It had it’s offerings and it’s cosy spot. I can imagine it was smiling.

So the shrine took a winding road to find the someone who would look after it or I like to think so anyway.

Lovely old things fruit trees. They always bring back memories.

A few kangaroos loose in the top paddock

Interesting sighting today. I saw a tough looking bald bloke striding along the street wearing a faded pink singlet and dark blue knee length shorts. Then I noticed his feet. He was wearing thongs (flip flops) - the unusual thing was that one thong was dark blue to match the shorts and one thong was pink to match the top. It appeared to me that he had matched his shoes to his outfit but not to each other. I wonder if it will catch on?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not the fashion police, in fact the fashion police have been banned from my establishment. I just enjoy the eccentricities that people casually display. He had a “don’t mess with me” look about him which made me reconsider the desire to take his photo. Instead I offer for your perusal these fine kangaroos loose in a top paddock in Lancefield country Victoria. I love the one at the very front. He is thinking about boxing my ears if I get too close.

Sunday, no Monday

Under the weather - built 1889

I am still a washed out sickie I’m afraid. I have been resting, coughing and keeping warm.

Last week was a different sort of week with the big wind storm, the end of daylight savings (an extra hour of sleepings in) and my determined friend the cold.

I managed to win two blog competitions. That’s right, two. As has been suggested, it could be the influence of my particularly clever cat.

The second competition required that I identify a certain type of plant over at Cody Bear’s friends. My prize was to see my blog in the background of a handsome photo of Cody Bear, the beautiful dog, and my virtual plant was there as well. Great stuff.

Cody Bear, by the way, is a doggie hero in the world of dog bloggers and to some who would like to be dog bloggers but don’t officially live with a dog on a daily basis but would like to again someday. They say patting a dog / cat / horse etc is good for the blood pressure. I say visiting furry friends from over the seas is very good for you too.

As I am still coughing and honking I think I will go sit in the sun now and continue my gentle convalescence. I am sick of being sick I can tell you!

What a wind

Yesterday was a mad weather day. It started out calm enough but ended up with winds blowing up to 130km an hour. I was out in it nursing my cold. I know, that doesn’t seem sensible but I had gone in to work and left early to see the doctor. Little did I know a mad wind was building up outside.

I watched some willows from a sheltered spot and took a few photos which only just suggest what it was like. The wind was howling and all the trees to me looked exhausted and harassed. This was not, however, when the winds reached their peak.

It became scary after a while when the power went out in the area I was in and the traffic lights turned off. I am not that good at crossing the road anyway and without lights well it added to my agitation.

When there is a wind like this one you find out what is loose and unsound. All of a sudden I found myself looking around for loosening signs, poles, wires, tree branches. I waited for the bus because I decided it had more chance of getting me home in one piece. I didn’t want to risk the walk although I saw a few tough old ladies, grim faced, wheeling their trolleys into the wind.

There seemed to be a lot of people walking around considering the conditions. I think we may be too relaxed in Melbourne when it comes to wind. We don’t take it seriously enough. G saw a large gum uprooted in the middle of a road and he also saw a near collision between a bus and a truck.

At home the backyard was littered with small tree branches but luckily all the large trees were able to survive the wind which blew in from the north. I was a little scared to look in case we had lost one of our lovely trees. I am attached to them already - not literally of course.

Special turtle and my special cat

My little tiger

What a great surprise for me to find I have won the naming competition of a very special sea turtle over at the Voice of the Turtle. I have a bit of a dreaded cold at the moment so that really gave me a lift. Thanks lavenderbay and all those hand picked and interesting judges. I hope the young seafarer enjoys the luck of his Irish forbears.

Now, all I have to do is come up with my prize; an interesting topic for the talented storyteller to tell. Ohh, I am wracking my menthol soaked brain, snuffling at the screen and wanting to think of something really good but not too tough.

I have asked the cat. She just gave me one of her “you silly human” looks and settled in deeper on the bed. I am blogging today against her official advice of taking to one’s bed at any opportunity. She thinks I’m nuts with my silly lit up screen.

What do you see in it? She asks.

Lots of great things, miss. I reply.

Ok, this is getting surreal. I am sure you are not supposed to write under the influencing hand of a cold virus. I will probably start speaking in code soon so I must take to my bed with the car cat, tissues, chicken soup (of course), Butter-menthols, tissues, book (fantastic, called A Gracious Plenty by Sheri Reynolds), my tv remote, my chocolate, other stuff, my journal, my mobile (shameful I know) and all the other important things that I might need. Oh and poor G will climb in there somewhere too.

I am finding with this bug that there is no use fighting the warm, receding feeling like fading into an uncomfortable but clicking kind of fog. I will resurface again afresh tomorrow with a vanquished cold and a system ready for serious blogging and blog reading. Good night to all and sweet dreams.

It’s like a giant rusty toy yard

I found these old characters in a yard in Alexandra in country Victoria. They make me think of the fantastic metal toy trucks my brother had as a child. His toys were loved. They made holes and trundled down stone steps. Mum would call and they’d sit out in the evening rain glistening away.

These were toys used for their purpose and some of them got lost. He had a great big dump truck that would have surely corroded under a pile of dirt somewhere. He drove some great matchbox cars and a grader I think. I know he laments their loss now and not just because they already have a collectors value.

I don’t know exactly if the above is a bus or a truck. Does anyone recognise its whale of a grin and fine powder blue livery?

Here is another fantastic old workhorse.

It looks like a jeep with a crane attached.

There is so much metal in these old darlings and a simplicity that just makes me think of those lost toys.