The 'Rat

Ballarat that is, where Phyllis drove us mid week. We missed a turn onto the M8 from the M80, or something like that, and ended up in Ballarat Road where we found very cheap petrol to fill the up the car's tank. We were soon back on what became the freeway to Ballarat and parked somewhere near to the lane where we could see suspended umbrellas. 

As well as this photo, we took photos of us too.

We walked for a bit and came across the wonderful main Sturt Street, once the major through road and tram street before trams were shut down and the city bypassed by a motorway. This is the Ballarat Town Hall, wth the usual grumpy and frumpy old Queen Vic statue.

If you click here, you can see a night time photo I took of the tower last May from my accommodation when I visited Ballarat.  

The National Mutual Insurance Company building is impressive, with the fountain to commemorate explorers Burke and Wills, who died when investigating inland Australia.

We lunched at the Rusty Spud, where I ate nachos and Phyllis and Kosov had a very loaded spud each. Too much  potato, they proclaimed. Duh, Rusty Spud? You didn't expect potatoes? As we were leaving, a man wearing a dress was entering with a woman. 

Interestingly, we paid for street parking at the umbrella lane, and the unused balance carried over to the parking meter at Rusty Spud.

We stopped off at a supermarket for a packet of soup and some bread for my dinner, me not wanting much that evening after a large lunch. I remarked that there were a lot of fat people in Ballarat. Andrew, Phyllis proclaimed, you are fat shaming. It was just an observation, Phyllis. 

We circled Lake Wendouree with a stop off to see this fountain that I've never seen before, in spite of visiting the city many times. God, it is ugly, but at least it was a working fountain.

We reached the Botanic Gardens, and sadly the tourist tram around the lake on Wednesdays does not run, and nor is the tram museum open. I had to point out the tram tracks running beside the road to Phyllis and Kosov. We had lovely wander around the botanic gardens, although it was a bit warm in the 25/80 heat.

The statue's male groin covering is rather small, and I think things were smaller back in Roman times. The small appendages were seemingly very functional though. 

The hydrangea heads at the top of this photo were the largest I've ever seen. The photo doesn't really show how large they were. 

We did walk along the line of sculptured busts of former Australian Prime Ministers. I think the last one was the exerable PM Tony Abbott. Two more heads are in the offing, and at times a head is chopped off by vandals or someone who hates a former Prime Minister. Moulds are kept to replace them. Some of the trees within the gardens were truly stunning. 

The journey home was slow as we approached Melbourne in afternoon peak traffic. It was a whole lot worse in the other direction. 

Pleasant

Pleasant was my Tuesday as I drove with the company of my neighbour HH to the wonderful Acorn Nursery. We chatted away, never lost for conversation. A remark from Wise Web Woman made me think about the loss of family and friends with whom/who you have great memories. New people may come into your life, but you don't have the shared memories. 

But I do have shared memories of living here for twenty plus years and knowing HH for all that time, even if we only became proper friends since Ray's death. Time over, I would have invited her to Ray's memorial gathering. I did send her photos and videos etc. HH really liked Ray, but he once put her in the freezer and was quite perfunctory with her when they came across each other in the lift, or wherever. She mentioned it and I do remember why but not in great detail. For all Ray's wonderful qualities, he could take offence quite easily.

Anyway, in a confluence of matters, Hels recently posted about Edna Walling, and I read something too about Edna Walling. She was a well known mid 20th English style local garden designer. To have an Edna Walling garden was very desirable. 

She built a house in what was then countryside beyond the city limits of Melbourne, in Mooroolbark and lived there with her close female friend. She designed houses and gardens in the same unpaved road, I believe still unpaved to today, for other female friends and their own close female friends who lived with them.

Have you got the picture? 

What amused me, and HH as I told her, was that the locals in the 1950s referred to the Bickleigh Vale street populated by women as Trouser Lane. 

Oh yes, a couple of you might be interested to know Edna was Yorkshire born. I wonder how many married suburban wives and mothers might have pleasured themselves with thoughts of what went on in the Bickleigh Vale village.