Up early this morning still sneezing

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From sneezes to a bit of coughing so woke up early today so got onto the computer. Here are some more complex pictures that developed from just one photo taken in Myers Street, Geelong. Shouldn't have gone out in the rain yesterday - to deliver a gift for a new baby but the family had just moved house and there was only a white rabbit in the garden!

From a shop to abstraction

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After one very warm day, we now have rain again and the land is welcoming it - apart from the horses and fillies all dolled up for the Derby racing in Melbourne which was rather a wash-out.

While the food is cooking I have an hour free, so fiddled with three photos - two taken at a nursery a week or so ago, and one taken at a small garden ornaments shop next to the medical centre we attend. Here are the results - a bit removed from the original photos of course. I try to have a unity in an image, some kind of repetition, some kind of energy. It doesn't matter if there's no title or 'real' subject.

bus interchange

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This week a new bus interchange got going in Geelong. We'd had stuff in the postbox about it but I usually throw out 'junk mail' and didn't read it - as I thought it wouldn't affect the Newcomb bus. So on Monday as I walked quickly to the spot behind Officeworks after our book club meeting at GPAC to catch the 3.30 p.m. there were only workmen in their orange vests digging up cement. MY bus stop had moved! As I skidaddled back to Moorabool Street I realized that I would be late to mind a kid. Well, it was chaos in Moorabool Street with guys in coloured vests yelling at the top of the voices 'Seventeen', 'Twenty-one', 'Sixty-one' or whatever as buses drove in and lined up. Hey, we can read! It was just after the schools finished so there were school kids everywhere and shoppers. The shops nearby surely are not impressed. Anyway, as we get used to it, it should work out okay. I didn't take any photos as I'd lent my camera to a relative. Anyway, here's an artist's drawing of the interchange - without the crowds of people and the dropped rubbish and jam of traffic and the street certainly isn't as wide as indicated!

Good on you Neil

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Our friend Neil is eighty and they've named the Denmead Street tennis pavilion after him. These courts are less than a minute from our house and some of our family were playing there this week - well, having a hit. Neil was one of the men from the East Geelong churches that invited Peceli to work here as a minister. Maybe when Neil and his wife Elaine met us, he discovered that Peceli and the three boys all played tennis. Actually Neil and his wife had come up to Hopetoun a week later than the rest of the Geelong East Parish Councillors - 'inspectors' and we thought they were somebody's grandparents but invited them home for a pot-luck lunch. Neil is a great chap with such a love for tennis and for coaching youngsters.

Article by Nathan Currie | October 27th, 2010
Neil Lamond, still going strong at 80.THERE'S a saying that says you're only as old as you feel, and that's certainly the case with Neil Lamond. Lamond, who started playing tennis in 1945, has just celebrated his 80th birthday and is still going strong in section 13 of Tennis Geelong competition.

He also has a social hit at his beloved Geelong East tennis club every Thursday, and received the surprise of his life when he arrived last week to find the club's pavilion was now named after him.

On top of that, his family and friends were waiting inside to celebrate his birthday and thank him for all he had done for the club.

"It hasn't really sunk in," Lamond said. "It's certainly a tremendous honour to have one's name plastered up there on the front of the pavilion where everyone walking past can see it, it's quite remarkable. There's also a lot of people from other clubs here, and it was very delightful to see them. Not only do we play against them but they're also our friends which is one of the great things about tennis."

Lamond and his family brought the club back to life in 1977 after it had been in recess for almost two decades, and said the fact he was still playing shows why tennis is a great sport. "I don't know how much longer I can keep playing but I'll be playing as long as I can," he said.

"I've decided it's a good game and why not continue to play? It's just great to be out in the open air hitting a tennis ball with friendly people."

Running around with a grand-child

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Trying to keep up with an eight-year old isn't easy for this Grandma, but of course it's a delight to have a conversation with a delightful young girl and to help with her home-schooling while on holiday, planting seeds in trays, digging up weeds, etc. But the days are very full with little time for the internet so here are scraps of images made in the past few days. And I found a nice quote from a facebook contributor, perhaps by Billy Graham. “A keen sense of humor helps us to overlook the unbecoming, understand the unconventional, tolerated the unpleasant, overcome the unexpected, and outlast the unbearable”.

Buckleys Falls

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It has been a lovely sunny day, too good to stay inside, good for some garden tidy-up, but we decided to go shopping for garden stones, bags of stuff to stop weeds growing and Peceli, 'I know a place.' Hmmm. It was a paddock locked up. Anyway we drove down a road leading to the top of Buckleys Falls - Highton area, not the usual side of the river with the steps down and where I had previously made some paintings. The river is better looking since the drought and here are a few pictures. There are picnic spots and 'Friends of Buckleys' keep the vegetation growing nicely. The old Barwon Paper Mill was somewhere nearby but we couldn't see it. Buckley's Falls is located between Highton and Fyansford. A weir and water race was built above the falls in 1876 to provide power for the Fyansford Paper Mill. The falls were named by John Helder Wedge after escaped convict William Buckley who lived in the area with Aborigines for 32 years from 1803. They say that in the still water areas you may even spot a platypus but I've never heard of one being spotted! One of the photos we took is of steps that lead no-where, something that seems to be common in Fyansford - I've previously written about the wooden steps that lead up to an empty paddock, though we later were told that school children used this to get to their primary school a few years ago. In recent weeks we have set out to find undiscovered places in the Geelong region - well, new to us, and this was a lovely walk above the river.

In between gardening and household tasks

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Okay, not so much the household tasks, only some repotting of plants and a bit of tidying up, I was able to rejig an old dull linocut with a real pen and ink, then gave up and used a biro, etc. and also fiddle with a photo of a floral arrangement that I took at the Rotary Auction, an event that is rather not my cup of tea as we don't need to buy more stuff. Anyway here goes - a Fiji village church in the mountains, and the flowers and some horses. The latter were drawn at a horse stud - supposed to be Arabs, an old tattered page of drawings.

Mary of Penola

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Being outside the fold that talks about icons, 'saints', treasured locks of hair, and deference to men, I am uncomfortable with aspects of the canonization of Mary McKillop. However my best wishes go to our Catholic friends who regard this as a wonderful occasion. To me 'saints' in the Biblical sense refers to the ordinary people, and though it does not mean 'perfect' ordinary people are occasionally shining. Certainly Mary was an outstanding Australian, a battler for the education of poor children and the number of schools established by the Sisters of St Joseph which she established is significant. I admire her gutsiness in standing up against the hierarchy at times which is very Australian and devotion to God is well understood. There are thousands of unnamed marvellous people in our world (in the past and present and I really am drawn to Hildegarde of Bingen who of course wrote marvellous music). To honour one for Australia is of course good news.
It is good to see in the news a story of hope rather than the stories of disaster and crime that fill our newspapers.

A nursery in Lara

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Before the sky blackened to a wild storm that gave Geelong torrential rain about 4 p.m. the other day,and we got home ten minutes before the storm, we decided to go down a gravelly road to find the Roraima Nursery which we had seen from the highway may times - glimpsed tropical palms. It indeed was a lovely place with fully grown trees, succulants, sculptures, a garden designer's dream. I took photos and we bought some small plants. Roraima have a website which is worth a look. Of course I couldn't just leave the photo images alone and wanted to create some pictures that suggested feelings such as claustrophobia (Chile miners on my mind - and what courage and wonder today at the successful conclusion to their rescue) and family reunion. I made the pictures by overlapping two images.

Recycling Shenton

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For nine years we lived in the Shenton Manse - in the 80s - a five bedroom house built about 1909. Each of our boys had a separate bedroom, Peceli an office, and it was a lovely spacious house. Of course we used it for hospitality, sometimes homeless people slept in the hall behind, or there were drum kit practices, rap dancing, or gym there also. So it was with nostalgia and interest that I went up to the Geelong High School this morning for the tours advertised as part of the Centenary celebrations. There were only three of us as we missed the 9 a.m. group and soon after Carmel, the music teacher, showed me around the rooms of our old house, the halls, and the church, all recycled in wonderful ways for music, drama, dance. The old 1903 hall now has mirrors and a great floor space for the dance classes. The church of course which is used for plays etc. always had excellent acoustics but it looks a bit dull now with many of the windows blacked out. One time we housed a visiting Fijian choir from Labasa - eighty-eight of them in the Shenton halls, cooking for them with pots borrowed from Geelong College. We found mattresses for all the eighty-eight of them. It was a fun time - in 1985, then a group of fifty-five Fijians three years later. They bathed in the High School facilities across the road and you can imagine a group of rural Fijians crossing that road and holding up the traffic! These days, health regulations just wouldn't allow so many people to stay in old church halls for a couple of weeks. Okay, enough nostalgia for now. Here are pictures of some of the spaces today.

History of Shenton

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As it is the Geelong High School Centenary this week, I've typed up some of the history of the Shenton buildings and I'll give a copy to someone at the school later today as some people might be interested during the tour of the school. Ill put up pictures later, but we are going up to Wyndam Vale in a few minutes for a church meeting.

History of Shenton, corner Garden Street and Ryrie Street Geelong.

Prior to 1855 this site may have been used for a Customs House (according to David Davies)
1855 The land was given to the Wesleyans by Order in Council 13th June for Wesleyan Church purposes.
1855 A Day School commenced in a small cottage brought out from England and called Shenton House after Miss Shenton.
1863 a building 40' by 20' for school and Sunday School.
1868 two wings 10' by 10' added.
1886 church bell erected and was rung for half an hour before each service until someone suggested that was too long. 1890 a classroom erected for 90 pounds.
caretaker's cottage in grounds.
1890s Wesleyan Praise services were very noisy, like charismatic.
1903 new multipurpose hall/church building that could seat 450 people was opened 1905 16 August Gheringhap Church removed and put on the block brought in to meet the request of the Boys Mutual Improvement Society for gymnastics.
1907 An orchestra practiced next door including violins (CA Blakiston) clarinet, flute, piccolo, tenor horn, double bass, cornet, piano, organ.
1909 parsonage built and stables, buggy house. This was during the ministry of Rev James Rogers. The tender was 622 pounds three shillings sixpence. A sum of 200 pounds came from Newtown Latrobe Terrace manse. Mr H Beach builder. Caretaker's cottage was removed from the back yard except for front rooms and stable built at the back and fencing done 9 October 1909, digging and laying out garden for two pounds.
1909 9th September Moved by Messrs Saywell and Anderson that the Sec lay out the Parsonage Garden and have it set with a buffalo at a cost not exceeding two pounds.
1909 Trustee Meeting 9 October moved by Messrs Henry Humble that Mr Saywell interview Mr Felder re removing pine tree overhanging parsonage. Moved by Messrs Higgans and Humble that the Rechabite Band be invited to play selections on the grounds at Shenton previous to Anniversary entertainment on Monday evening.
1915 March 20th From Trustee meeting. Insurance on Parsonage (paid under protest) was one pound, nineteen shillings.
1927 High School rented Shenton hall.
1937 Gheringhap Hall all and school hall removed to behind parsonage to clear front corner area for a new brick church which opened April 3.
1037 at the opening of the brick church the choir sang music by Handel, Beethove, Holst, Mendelssohn and Mozart.
High School continued to use Shenton property.
1964 an Allen electronic organ was installed in Shenton church.1970s with church union of Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational, the congregation of Shenton moved to join with nearby St Andrews.
1980s a charismatic Fellowship rented the Shenton church building (also hall but shared with High School) for their meetings and manse used by Uniting Church ministers of East Geelong until January 1991. Gheringhap Hall used by minister's boys for gym.
1990's Geelong High School bought the Shenton property including the Manse and all buildings to use for drama, music, concerts, and other purposes. Once again buildings were moved, this time the wooden hall turned around with the bell tower facing Garden Street.

Here are pictures I took this morning of our old manse, the church, the front of the old hall. I'll write up a separate posting on recycling Shenton into music/dance/drama spaces.