Tuesday Tribulations

Not are all tribulations but lets begin with them.

Sunday we visited a German church near St Patricks Cathedral. There was a German Christmas Market. What fun, not. It was in the small carpark at the rear of the building. Oddly the market didn't open until noon. We arrived a couple of minutes after the hour and it was already busy. We noticed a couple of stalls selling jams, maybe one selling something else and one devoted to selling glasses of wine and bottles of wine. 

We decided the only thing to do was console ourselves with bratwurst sausage in a roll topped with sauerkraut and onions. There were some other food options and the volunteers were very well organised. We queued and didn't wait too long and the food was delicious. We then queued to enter the church where there were more stalls but we noticed people weren't staying inside for very long so we gave up and toddled off to a coffee shop near Parliament Station, where we arrived and would depart. The church yard was becoming seriously overcrowded but fortunately we cunningly followed a clever woman with a battering ram containing her child. She ensured the sea of people parted to let us pass.

Aside from the food, the German style Christmas market was a fail. It needs a larger space and interesting stalls. Clearly people were interested in attending such an event. People were still streaming towards the market as we left. If you don't like crowds and I don't really, it was the stuff of nightmares, thinking of you EC.

I've researched these sculptures before and I am not doing it again. I can't remember. But hey, it is so good, near South Yarra Station.

We took a break on a seat after climbing the Parliament Station stairs.

The Windsor Hotel was across the road, apparently owned by an Indonesian family company. 

I think these are ducks but they don't have wide bills. If you know...?

Parliament Station...R struggles with the stairs but you have to walk so far to get to a lift to access the station., nearly to Lonsdale Street. Relatively new being built in the 80s, it is ridiculous that there isn't a lift at the main entrance and two need to be retrofitted at the main station entrance. How? Where? Not my job. We used the train as the tram system right to the city was pretty well closed down because of various protest marches. But that also means R has to walk up a steep ramp at South Yarra Station to get home. No escalator and no lift at one of Melbourne's busiest stations.

Matters medical. I thought I would be fine for a while but no, about three weeks ago a bit fell off one of my canine teeth, then another small bit. Last week my dentist said it could be conventionally filled but that could lock in bacteria and the filling would probably not last anyway. So it is a root canal filling with three dentist visits each two weeks apart, beginning early January. Ka-ching for the dentist. No ka-ching for me. 

Just one more. Sydney has spent AU$17 billion on a brand new inner suburban road interchange and when it opened, it quickly became a disaster. Apparently funnelling four lanes of traffic into two lanes and then into one lane doesn't work. Apparently funnelling ten lanes of traffic into four lanes doesn't work. There has been massive congestion. How can such money be so badly spent. The impact on inner western Sydney residents is beyond the pale. 

Photo from the SMH.

There is some good. We have bought most of our Christmas presents. We had a nice pub dinner Sunday night with Brighton Antique Dealer and her toy boy. She bought me a glass of wine as a Christmas present, a large one at that. 

Tomorrow we are meeting our Friend in Japan for brunch who is visiting her old home city here now. She begins cat sitting in an apartment tomorrow too. We are looking forward to see her after a couple of years.

Friday 16 year old niece Jo is visiting us for the day. We will meet her at So Cross Station (Southern Cross), visit the National Gallery of Victoria and shop for her birthday present. She may help us buy a gift for one of our great nieces. She knows about kid culture. We old aunties don't. 

Our mate from Kyneton is also supposed to be visiting, but I am not sure a retired person who is busy being a retired person can fit that in.  

Monday Mural

I am joining with Sami and others for Monday Mural. 

What to make of these painted on an electric substation? 

Sunday Selections

I'm joining in with Elephant's Child, River and others with Sunday Selections. This week the selections are photos I've taken of buildings which I found to be of interest in some way, and I have rather a backlog of them. 

I took a mural photo near here and noticed the lovely vertical garden. Not being neatly trimmed is part of its appeal. 

This is not really a building, well there is a building behind the walls and a nice garden. It's the Melbourne Club. Rich and powerful white men with the right antecedents are generally welcome. If there is a sniff of a scandal about you beyond an underage sex charge or a tax avoidance charge, or you don't meet the other criteria, bugger orf. 

I've no idea about this display but it looks like a nice repurposed old building.

In 1980 a workmate had a fling with a hairdresser who lived near us in Elwood. He became our hairdresser and we socialised a bit with him. Even once we moved from Elwood, we still had our hair cut by Trevor. His salon was in Russell Street in the city but he moved to Gordon House after it was renovated.. Gordon House used to be a place for homeless single men. 

From Elwood we moved to East Malvern I think in 1982, to one of a pair two minutes walk from the tram terminus. The owner of the other half was the sister of artist Albert Tucker. As I recently ticked off the route 3 tram with tram trips on every line, I walked for five minutes to take a photo of our old house. We renovated it but it has been much renovated since. You may have picked up the two minute walk and the five minute walk. I was twenty five in 1982. 

My roses have all gone but most of the trees remain, including the fig tree in the photo above, who a number of neighbours used to strip of figs.

Albert Park. I was gobsmacked by the prices for US confectionary, and I reckon US folk would be too. I bought nothing. 

This was a surprise to me, in Victoria Avenue, Albert Park. It's such a nice house.

But look at what they have in the small front garden. 

My photos don't do it justice. 

I tried but I couldn't get a better photo and the shop was closed. I've seen Budapest and Vienna and they are fabulous cities, all that I expected and more, and I always wanted to visit Prague, but alas as Yorkshire Pudding recently lamented, you reach an age where you know it just ain't gonna 'appen. 

Studly Saturday

Shorpy.com posts wonderful old photos in high resolution, I think only taken in the US. This photo was published some time ago. It's a simple pose but makes the guy looks so sexy. Do you think the woman, who looks older, is a little smitten? Clearly it was a staged photo and the photographer knew exactly what they were doing. 

Professor Brett Sutton was Chief Health Officer for the State of Victoria over the period of Covid lockdowns. He was calm and reassuring as day after day he appeared on tv at press conferences. Women and men fell in love with Brett. FYI, he is married to a woman. 

I am amused that I wrote he is married to a women. It is a very modern phrase. That 'he is married' would not have needed any qualification in years past. It now does.

There was 'merch' created such as tee shirts, pillows and cushion with the face of Brett. The cult of Brett. I don't know if animated gifs work in Blogger, but it is working here as I created the post. For me, he is nice enough but there are so many hot men in the world and I am a fickle queen. Photos from The Age.

Snap, Send Solve

I don't know if it is a world app or just Australian, that is Snap, Send, Solve. It reminds me of the British train announcements, See it, Say it, Sorted, which is if you see something suspicious on a train or at a station, you report it to police and your job is done. 

I downloaded the app several months ago and I receive annoying emails to encourage me to use the app and I now have, twice in two days. The app works rather well. It pinpointed my location and because I chose rubbish bins or something like that, it knew to report the issue to City of Melbourne that is responsible for rubbish collection. 

The photo I took using the app was of the overflowing rubbish bin outside the Scottish restaurant across the road. Roadworks are kind of blocking easy access to the bin, but that isn't an excuse. I forgot to check the bin today. I will do so tomorrow. As I took the photo using the app, I can't post it here. A lesson learnt. Take my own photo and add it. 

Today I sent another photo to Snap, Send, Solve, this time having already taken a photo of what offends me. One year? Two years? I've lost track of how long this telecommunication post has been like this. I believe it is the responsibility of the former government owned Telstra. Again the app pinpointed the location and helped me add detail, such as Pit/Manholes. My comment added was "Assuming this is a Telstra asset, how many more years will we have to put up with this eyesore?" The grass is now overgrowing the post. 

The app can report all kinds of things to appropriate authorities. I may well become a Snap Send Solve monster. 

Finality

Dear Mum.

We drove to Phillip Island in torrential rain, with rain spray from the road making it so difficult to drive. As usual R criticised my driving after following a car for a few kilometres, I changed lanes to overtake a car. Here we go, said R. Always changing lanes. I don't, only when another driver is travelling well below the speed limit. I just ignored him. He needs to be careful. Ostensibly because of my arthritis, a couple of years ago I stopped driving aside from driving on motorways. R drives in our local area when we go out. Sometimes I think it would be better for if I drove with R yelling at me than him driving. His style of driving while safe, is horrible. 

Sorry for the ramble Ma, but then you were known to ramble on endlessly, both verbally and in writing. Only in you later years did I have a problem reading some of your writing. The youngies don't seem to be able to read old style handwriting at all. Thankfully I haven't acquired the rambling habit and my writing is concise and to the point. No? 

Not quite the whole family were there to meet at the Returned Servicemen's League venue, but no matter. We had an ok dinner there in Cowes, Phillip Island. The kiddies had fun in the play room and we had bought a birthday cake and sang happy birthday to ABI Brother, your second son, as he turned 64 on the Saturday. 

It was about four years ago when we took you to Phillip Island and we stayed in what was the old council caravan park in a cabin. We could not get accommodation there so we chose Anchor Belle a bit further along Church Street. It was fine. I can politely tell you that we concluded we would never take you away again. You were so difficult and R and I ended up arguing. I could only shrug my shoulders and say 'What can I do? She is my mother'. I did that frequently and often.

I think Cowes, Phillip Island has a sister town connection to Cowes on the Isle of Wight. 

I went to the German School in Brunswick to buy Jo an Advent calendar and forgot to bring it to give it to her. I said a very bad word to myself as R answered my phone and Sister asked if I had bought her one. It was an emergency search to buy another and we found a Lindt Chocolate one heavily discounted in a supermarket. Fortunately Advent calendars are timeless, so I can use the one I bought earlier this year, next year.

Once we checked in we waited for ABI Brother to arrive. He didn't. As a birthday gift we paid a few dollars for his Saturday night accommodation in our cabin. I called him but as he was driving he didn't answer. He stopped a bit later and called me. I told him he was late and to meet us at the RSL, which he did. He couldn't drink much as he would have to drive from the RSL to the accommodation. He made up for it once we back at our digs. 

Sunday morning dawned fine and sunny after the 14mm of rain on the island the day before.  

We used to see galahs at home but we haven't for some time. 

All RSLs must have a weapon of war near the frontage of its clubs.

This Santa mail box was nice in the main street of Cowes. Sunday morning we sat at a table outside and had a nice brunch at Gulliver's. Cheapskate ABI Brother ate his home made salad roll but did buy coffee. 

We had a little time the day before to check out the practicalities of spreading your and your partner's ashes. He died about fourteen years ago. I am in trouble for not inviting his family, except I did and the message wasn't passed on.

From about my age of ten to twenty, this was the holiday house you rented, close to Rose Avenue beach. It was larger than it looks and it would be impossible to say how many family and friends stayed there. It was basic but adequate accommodation. I am surprised it looks exactly as it used to in the 1970s to 1980s. 

Rose Avenue beach. I do like a nice groyne or several. The tide was high.

But when it came to spreading ashes, the tide was way out. Sister was very fragile and it would be a poignant photo as she wandered alone on the sand bar, if she wasn't looking down at her phone screen. 

The ashes had been mixed and transferred to crystal vases. In addition to the mementos here, there was a banana (take a banana in case you get hungry) and a handkerchief (have you got a hanky).

Mother was very fond of talcum powder. In the bathroom of her home for decades a set scales sat, covered in talcum powder. Nice work by Tradie Brother.

Bone Doctor's feet. 

As well as ashes being spread in the water, so were some flowers.

Present on the day were your four children, your four grandchildren, your eight great grand children and four of their partners. Mum, I really wish you could have been there and felt the love. This lamp that burns night and day at the end of our cabin is for you, an eternal flame if you like.

Enough about you Mother. Back to practicalities, the symbols on the cabin toilet cistern were hard to see. I couldn't understand which button was half flush and which was full flush. Once I looked at the photo, it is obvious that the three waves are full flush and the single wave a half flush. That would be right, wouldn't it?

Four trains racing

I am obliged to Elephant's Child for directing me to this clip of four steam trains competing against each other. I suspect some effort was made to keep them kind of together and make the race look competitive. In my opinion the green train should be the fastest, for no valid reason. If you think of  races where runners and swimmers launch themselves from starting blocks, that did not happen with the trains as the starting flag was dropped. 

The race is part of the New South Wales locality Hunter Valley's Steamfest. I've never been to the Hunter Valley and I am sure it is very nice. https://www.steamfest.com.au/