I passed this fungi a year ago, and I remember being startled by my companion’s observation that an overseas friend had believed that all Australian fungi are edible. Oh, no, no, no. Luckily, they were warned.

Did you ever go mushroom picking? I remember mushroom picking as a child. I was more interested in the strange sight of bones in the unfenced acres, than learning to read the beautiful big mushrooms growing on the dung.

Your grocer sells them.
No they don’t. I have never had a banana cream biscuit, then again, I have never been a flapper either. Swallow and Ariel was a Melbourne based biscuit company, eventually dominated in the 1960′s by Arnotts. Was this when the banana cream disappeared? This photo was taken one Grand Final day in a Fitzroy pub. I can’t think of the name of the pub, but it will come to me. I don’t get much out of football, but on grand final day I can manage to sit in a pub, and share a beer with those who do.

Not my shoes, not my beer. Probably GF day again. Says something about GF day.

This is what all the fuss is about. An intriguing Melbourne view, in this case, in Elizabeth Street. Newmans, was it the chocolate Newmans, I wonder? Funny, the signs that survive.

I saw this in the middle of the drought. I remember at the time longing for this statement, command, plea to come true. This year, so much rain. It would be a relief if it wasn’t for the floods causing suffering elsewhere.

A comfy bench by Coburg lake.

An enchanted moment curtesy of light, willow and creek.

The train had to stop, however, because people were placing rusty old toy trucks, toy dumptrucks, in a line along the track. The train had to brake severely to avoid a tragic end, and I woke up. The symbolism is fairly obvious. Even in my dreams the darn train can’t get through.

The reason for the delay in re-opening the line above Seymour (just over an hour from Melbourne, heading north) is that apparently the contractors did not place enough ballast under the new tracks, and so they are unstable. Can you almost hear the quiet swearing from the old railway workers; the navvies must be spinning in their graves. The loss of knowledge and skill, so quickly, is quite terrifying, me thinks.

As many would know, the XPT train service still runs through to Sydney, once each way, always late in my experience, but the Devonshire tea helps to make up for that. Flash flooding at Wandong stopped the XPT too, in the big rain event we had almost a month ago. The computers were also down at Spencer St Southern Cross, due to leaking water, the ticket man said, and my ticket had to be written out manually. A gesture to the past. It took twice as long to get to my destination that day, via two buses, but under the circumstances the organised chaos was understandable.

Obviously, I really enjoy my vline train trips, with the engines named after different country towns. I remember ‘The city of Ballaarat’, with the lovely old spelling, being one of my escorts. Now the vline train stops and returns to Melbourne from Seymour, and a bus is needed to carry on North.

Originally, it was only going to take 18 months to replace the tracks. Recently, I overheard an elderly woman speculating on just how long it might all take now. “Another 8 months, a year? Who knows?”

I had a poignant train ride back from Seymour on the 7th of Feb, the 2 year anniversary of the Black Saturday fires. How different a summer this has been. Many of the dead and blackened trees are surrounded by the greenest grass, or draped in lush, climbing vines, but they have not recovered. They stand in brutal memory.

I have asked you numerous times to go outside, and return to nature.
I have also told you, and I have pointed at the window. No co-operation from you.
I don’t want to hear your reasoning.
What did spiders like you do before houses, may I ask?
Yes, I know it is fun terrifying me. I can appreciate that.
You know, if only you could stay completely still, I could live with you. It is those rhythmic legs that make me shiver.
You are too fast.
You make me act like a horse with the ‘wind up’ them. All rolling eyes and squeals and side-stepping.
It is not good for my self-image.

Remember our stand-off in the middle of the night a few weeks ago?
I am sure you know you scare me, Spidey.
You looked at me very defiantly, and then sat on the ceiling over my bed.
I slept on the couch. Do you remember that?

I went away for a few days, and when I came back, I saw an empty looking curled up spider on the floor. I thought it was you Spidey, and I felt sad. No, I really did. OK, I was a little relieved to be honest, but saddened by such an untimely death for an active , seemingly young spider, like youself. You had been doing laps of the ceiling before I left, and your death made me think about mortality. Springing with life one day, young and slick, the next, not so much.

Well, life had got back to normal (well, what passes for normal) until this morning, when you emerged from the wardrobe, as bold as brass, jaunty even.
The same wardrobe I had just been re-arranging the evening before. Thank-you Spidey. Thank-you very much.
Where had you been while I was feeling around in the wardrobe? I hate to think.

Anyway, I should get to the point of this letter. You have taken a number of steps too far today, matey. On your first day back, you have done something from which we cannot return. Yes, you know very well that you have. You walked across the wall, to the bed, and climbed down beside my pillow, and sat there, oblivious to my protestations.

You sat on my bed, Spidey! Right where I sleep. If you had kept to the ceiling, who knows? But not this.
That is it, Spidey. You and I are through. Tonight, the chief spider catcher will be releasing you as far down the backyard as is humanly possible, and I truly hope that it isn’t true that you ‘home’.

Signed,

Your Ex-housemate

P.s. I wish I could find you cute. I wish I could see what others see in you. I really do.
In fact, I better just pause to look up now. No, it’s clear. For once. But where have you got to now, you blighter?

P.P.S. G it doesn’t help if you rename him Smiley.

*Spidey is a mid-sized huntsman spider.

Today, as I stay tuned to the flood news from Queensland and NSW I have to wonder at the harshness of this land I love. Sometimes it is too much rain, sometimes it is too much wind, sometimes it is fire. Always at this time of year. In Melbourne it is gloomy, overcast. A grim day and grim feelings. This disaster reminds me of that terrible time – Black Saturday. I am sure many other Victorians are feeling the same. 75% of Queensland has been declared a disaster zone. There have been deaths. Tragedies…my condolences to all.

These are sad days.

Guess what happened.

The pancaked coin on the left was found in the grass next to a railway track. Was it dropped, or left on the track deliberately, then lost? We will never know. We suspect foul play.

I keep happening upon other people’s memories of outdoor toilets. Well, anything to spark a post, I suppose. I have lived in only one house that had an outdoor dunny, although it really was a ‘dunny-lite’ experience, as it was hooked up to plumbing.

This ‘convenience’ had a wooden door, and was riddled with ivy that broke in under the roof, and gave the small space a greenish light. In summer, huntsman spiders skittered along the warm, brick walls and caused no end of anxiety. They liked to sit on the back of the door. When the door was closed, you were left face to face, and wondering how you’d find the courage to reach past them to open the latch. Happy days.

To visit this toilet meant a sprint across a concrete yard, and under the hills hoist (metal, creaking, spinning washing-line). Late at night was the worst.

I remember one particular evening, it must have been about 2.00am, and we had come back from somewhere or other and were too wide awake to sleep. I was living in a shared household. There were four of us sharing, but on this night, only two of us were present. We were all young, not long out of home, and we loved to stay up late into the hot nights, talking, backdoor often wide open. The house was an unrenovated, double-fronted Victorian in an old inner-city suburb. A long house, a creaky, somewhat uncomfortable house.

On this night, I was facing the backdoor, reclining on a couch. I was talking but looking out through the backdoor and into the yard. I could see the angular shape and shadow of the hills hoist. I could see the dark edges of garden beds. I remember good visibility but high contrast in the light. The shadows were very dark.

As I was talking, laughing, I noticed a shadow moving along the edge of my vision. To me, this movement equalled a cat prowling, and many cats did visit our yard. The shadow looked small, stopped and started, and was gradually moving forward into the rectangle of light made by the open back door.

I remember becoming hooked onto that shadow, expecting a cat to appear at any moment. Not worried, just watching attentively. Quite suddenly, the shadow moved more decisively and grew large. Not a cat. A man had appeared at the back door.

He was wearing only a pair of footy shorts and probably runners. I say runners because we found tracks in the garden beds. He had dark hair and olive skin. Memory is funny though. Am I right? Did he look like that? He was illuminated by the electric light in the doorway. He stood at the single back step. I don’t think he lifted a foot to enter the house.

I had that moment where the eyes widen, that pause where you process, the gasp, the about to yell, the terrible moment.

He obviously wasn’t expecting me to be watching the door. Bad luck buster. He had been seen straight away. When he saw me, thankfully he bolted. We heard the heavy side gate slam, he was gone, and he was fast . He was gone before we had even sorted out a reaction.

I wanted to call the police, but strangely my friend felt differently. She thought perhaps he was, and I remember this, “passing through” the yard. I didn’t buy that, but we locked up the house, had a sleepless night, and thought in the light of day that it was in the past.

A week later, I wandered out for breakfast to find my friend distressed that the man had been back, and had looked through her window in the early hours of the morning. She had been awake, light on, and had heard the window vibrating, without any apparent cause. Walking up to the window, she had come face to face with him peering where her old blind was stuck in a bulge.

I was amazed she hadn’t woken any of us up. It seemed that this wasn’t going to go away. We went to the police station, and she told her story. I remember that the police officer taking the report was more interested in why she was awake in the early hours of the morning. That annoyed me. The only thing they could do was send a car the next night to drive down our street. It wasn’t terribly comforting.

After this we had to accompany each other on any late night trip to the outdoor dunny. I seem to remember saucepans being involved, bravado, holding my breath, sprinting. We recruited a male housemate to move in, and the situation seemed to improve.

I don’t know how long this man was visiting our yard, and that was always the worrying thing. You worry, that before he was detected, he was there at other times, hiding in the shadows, and considering his options. You think you would have known, sensed it, surely. You fear you didn’t.

I do know that going to the outdoor toilet late at night became a fraught experience. Never again! The next house, which wasn’t long after, had an indoor toilet. Oh, the serenity that provided.

Funny, it occurred to me the other day that if my grandmother was still alive, we could have a confusing conversation involving the word “wireless.” I would be thinking internet, she would be thinking radio. She was the only person I can remember using the term wireless consistently when referring to a radio, and it always sounded a bit special. Maybe it was the way she spoke the word. There must have been fond memories for her, and that particularly modern marvel.

I saw this vintage radio through the window of an op-shop recently (large one near the cnr of Albion and Sydney Rd, Brunswick if you want to check if it is still there), so the photo is a little stricken by reflection. Still, I was delighted by the name Healing Golden Voice. It just struck me as perfect. A little checking revealed that Healing was the company name, and these radios were manufactured in Australia. I am unsure of the age of this one. Any ideas?

If you click on the picture above you can check out the detail of the radio dial(s). Look, even shortwave. Very interesting.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could tune in the past? This radio looks like it could do it – back to Western Australia 1948 or Victoria 1956. It should be a time machine.

Rattling bones

Lavenderbay recently wrote a fascinating post about an old graveyard in Nova Scotia, and one of the things that caught the imagination of many of her visitors, including myself, was the cemetery turnstile.

If you look at the elegant turnstile on Lavenderbay’s post, you may be struck by the contrast between it and the retired beastie we have here at the back gate of the Melbourne General Cemetery. Our Melbourne contraption looks more like an instrument of torture than a crowd management device. I do admire it, though, this stern relic. Turning through this device, cold iron around you, it would bring a sense of austere comfort and ritual, I guess.

Gate detail looking through to turnstile side on. Ornate, isn’t it?

Further thoughts on the matter:

The emphasized enclosure. There are even bars creating a roof for the turnstile! Obviously, once you are in, you are not supposed to find alternative routes out. (insert own spooky ambience here please).

The mechanics of it all. I suppose the big gate next to it used to be shut some of the time, and this was a way to allow pedestrians to enter independently.

When was it finally retired?

It must sound quite wonderfully eerie, groaning in a high wind.

in 2008, I wrote a post about the impending development of the Whelan the Wrecker building and salvage yard in Brunswick.

This photo was taken a few of weeks ago of the same site. I suppose the apartments are set well back from the street which helps minimize over-shadowing. It also isn’t the ugliest apartment block I have ever seen, although I’ll never love it. The Fed square crazy pattern influence still remains in so much development around Melbourne at the moment. Sometimes it creates an interesting texture and sometimes it just adds visual chaos.

There is an increasing sense of claustrophobia in Brunswick as these towers go up, and they are going up in a number of places – particularly along Lygon St. As an old suburb, full of narrow streets and Victorian workers cottages, it remains to be seen how much amenity is lost by adding so many of these flats to the area. Loss of human scale streetscapes and heritage character is my fear for the place.

This is how the Whelan building site looked in 2008…

I wonder where the second sign ‘building materials…’ has gone? I believe the signs had to be put back after the building work had been done.

My earlier post on Whelan’s

In love with this beautiful family of Australian black swans.

So much so that I wondered how I would leave them.
So beautiful, they be.

But they needed time for their lessons and they couldn’t be hanging about with me all day.

They needed to investigate amongst the sticks

Look under the water and see what might be down there. Mr Eel perhaps?

Try tasting the grass at the waters edge

And then practice an elegant glide with their little licorice coloured feet paddling furiously under the water.

So beautiful!