Holidays in Raumati

I’m moving my holiday away from home for a couple of weeks and flying to New Zealand to visit my mother who lives in Raumati just north of Wellington.

Friends there have told me that it’s got very cold and to bring thermal underwear. I hope that is partly in jest. Although it has got cold here in the morning and the evenings I have been able to sit in my courtyard at lunch time.

I am hoping that the Internet Café near my mother is still operating and I can up-date my blogs, down load some photos and generally catch up with people.

I feel the loss of a computer as I would not having a telephone available. The e-mail communications and the communications through various blogs have become part of my day.

I think it may be good to take a step back into the past and not have to be ‘on-line’ every day.

With luck more contact from Raumati.

On Holiday

I have been on holiday for two weeks now and it’s become relaxing time.. The first week a friend stayed with so she and I rushed around Melbourne. We had a great shop in Brunswick Street and on another day when we were in the CBD with all those lovely arcades. I can spend days in those and my favourite is the Block Arcade with coffee at the Doumo Café. I love showing it off to out of town friends.

We spend Sunday morning at the Camberwell Market. I found a lovely old wire plant stand. Very rustic with the bottom two shelves bowed from the weight of plants. I saw one the same the other day in Prahran for 160% more. It was in a slightly better condition and it was rustic- worn-white rather than rustic-worn-grey. I couldn’t believe the price of $160 on the tag and had to have it confirmed. I was happy with my bargain of $10 but on seeing what I could’ve paid I was over the moon.


A couple of weeks ago I bought an old music stand from the market to display my photos.
At my last assignment I was working opposite Office Supplies and I found I could buy A4 photo paper reasonably cheaply so I have used it to print out some of my favourite photos. A lovely old music stand with the lyre on the top is just the thing for a changing display.

The last week has drifted by with chilly weather. I have watched videos, gone for walks, fussed about my fence. Some days it has been warm enough to lunch outside.

The blissful thing about holidays is that as the evening drifts on, I can drift with it without worrying about the morning alarm.

Fences and cork tiles

A fence is a fence is a fence, or so I hear. It is a wall that keeps out wandering people and stray animals and wind blown rubbish and it gives the home owner a sense of security. It should be simple to have one erected and if you have the money it is simply a matter of getting someone to erect it.

Or is it?

The problem lies in our desire for a particular fence. A fence to enhance our property, to make passersby say ‘wow’ and also for the owner to arrive home at the end of the working day and be able to say – “Great fence” and smile smugly knowing that the money was well spent. Fences are not cheap.

I am planning a fence and I had a view in my mind of the fence I wanted.

At the moment I have a silly little concrete fence that comes about halfway up my shins. The metal gate of the same height isn’t worth opening and we all step over it. On either side of this gate there is a pillar that comes to about my mid thigh.

I have removed part of the fence to put in an entrance for my car.

When I first put it in I imagined that I would have a high pillar on either side of both entrances and very close together palings in between.

This is not to be. The fencer gave the fence a shove with his foot and announced that the whole structure had “had it” I would need an ordinary paling fence. I also want a sliding car gate and that makes a pillar pretty impossible.

He has quoted for a paling fence but when I visualize his idea I’m not sure that I am going to have that smug pleased feeling that I desire when I arrive home at the end of the day.

I have talked too much about it to the people who matter in my life and have now taken on a suggestion, said with exasperation from one of them, that I get in landscape gardener to see the area as a whole with the fence as a part of the garden/courtyard..

The area behind the proposed fence is small but in this inner city where every bit of land counts I believe it should be an area where we can have breakfast in the summer and where there is a feeling of beauty and peace. I have a vague picture of a cross between and Italian and Balinese garden

I don’t feel creative when I think of how to do it. In fact I feel bewildered A landscape gardener is coming on Saturday to sort out that bewilderment and give ideas.

And I’m coming round to the idea that there are some things that we don’t know how to do ourselves and professional help is the only way to go. I come from a long line of do-it-yourselfers and it is hard to admit that I don’t have the knowhow.

Now that I have some holidays I am full of ideas of things to do. I want to paint the boring cork tiles. Replacing them is expensive and the fence problem comes up again. I don’t know what I want to replace them with but I have decided that I do want to paint them to cheaply create a different ambience.

I have been to two paint shops without having got very much advice. They both say they have never heard of any one doing that before. This doesn’t seem to be a reason not to do it.

I will keep exploring these two issues – more to come.

100th Blog - A Tribute

This is my 100th post. It seems a momentous occasion. It also seems odd that when I come to this bench-mark in my blogging the readership of my blog has flagged. I believe this is due to the attention I have given to my other blog Dogs of Melbourne and not this blog.

I want to mark this milestone on this blog with a special blog. It is raining today. A steady continuous fall – an unusual event in this sun-burnt country. We do get thunder storms where the rain dropped from the sky and floods everything then stops. Today it is regular and very relaxing.

I have decided that a tribute to S is the right blog to mark this century.

Three weeks ago I was sitting on my bedroom floor by the open door of my wardrobe. The dark shoe filled cavity was where my lovely cat S decided to hole up.

When I came home from work I had to search for her. I had hoped to find her with a new lease of life basking in the last rays of the afternoon sun in the garden. Instead she had found this dark corner. She lay in one position for a while then slowly heaved herself up, looked around, appeared to wonder if she would come out but instead flopped back again but in a slightly different position. She was uncomfortable, not only because of the shoes but because her little body was failing her.

That morning before work I stroked her and when my hand moved down her back she flinched away from me. The whole of her hind quarters appeared to be painful.

I had arranged for it be her last night in this world and I wondered if her thoughts worked that way she would be hoping it would be. That she could get away from the feeling of sickness and the pain.

I sat cross legged, leaned into the wardrobe and gently stoked her head and around her ears. She responded by raising her head and I talked to her about her life.

We didn’t know all her life. She came to us as a grown cat but the lack of nourishment in her early years had left her growth stunted; her body tiny. She was a long hair domestic black and white cat. At that time her small body appeared to a vehicle for keeping her beautiful, huge and fluffy tail up-right. Her tail was magnificent.

We had a dog and when she arrived I thought this could be a problem. J introduced them the first night and all was well.

Our dog Goldie was fascinated by her but what she thought was a mystery, At that time she was traumatized and withdrawn into herself. She never made a sound, neither a meow nor a purr. I thought she had a problem with her voice box but the vet assured me that this was not the case.

She learned how to scramble under the house and to come inside via a funny half door that led under the back stairs. This door opened to the downstairs bathroom and the first sound I heard her make was from behind that door. I was soaking in the tub reading when I noticed a funny squeaking sound. It happened a few times before I realized what it could be. I struggled from my hot bath and open the door. S stepped into the bathroom and asked to be let out into the passage way. The response to making a noise and achieving what she wanted encouraged her to keep making a noise. From that day she was no longer a silent cat.

I reminded her of this time and enlarged on it by reminding her that she had needed her voice when she got stuck on the roof of the back verandah and has lost to courage to get down. And so much later in life when she had lost her spring and wanted to be lifted up placed on a bed of a couch..

The purr came back too. On night like last night when the rain fell noisily onto the roof she and I would lie in bed and she would add to the comfort and security with her purr.

Since those early days she has moved countries and become an Aussie cat.

When we moved into this house she was at home instantly. It made me realize that she was always a little on edge in a busier and nosier part of Melbourne. Her immediate acceptance of this house and its vibes gave it a special meaning to me. Positive and good things must’ve happened here in the past.

She is buried here in the garden that she sun bathed in and where she spend many a warm and sultry night on patrol and where, not longer ago, J found she had a trespassing cat bailed up under the barbecue.

She was released from her pain and distress by a kindly vet who came to the house and accepted that she desired to be in the wardrobe.

Splodge 1990 - 2008

John Cargher - Singers of Renown

I wrote this on Saturday.. but didn’t get the chance to publish until today Sunday.

I will miss John Cargher at 4pm today (Saturday). I have been cleaning and clearing up the house. The morning has flowed into the afternoon during these activities and I am looking for something to define the day, give it a structure. Singers of Renown would have done that. An appointment with my kitchen radio and some relaxed slow cooking.

I wrote of John Cargher and his programme in a blog last year. I have read what I wrote and I don’t think I can add anything. This is what his programme meant to me in my early days in Melbourne. His theme ('Ho sognato una cassetta' from Il Tabarro by Puccini) always brings a feeling of anticipated pleasure when I hear it

June 2007 - “I have made a chicken pie and as I stripped the chicken from the bones I listened to ‘Singers or Renown” with John Cargher on Radio National.

This was nostalgic. It brought back memories of my first winter in Melbourne. I worked 5 ½ days a week out in Blackburn and on my way home on Saturday afternoon I’d call into the huge Safeway at Ashburton and fill my trolley with a week’s ‘fuel’ and a large amount of food for Saturday evening’s dinner for my son and myself. Then, I’d push my bulging trolley into the liquor section and buy the evening’s wine. I made a point of getting home in time for John Cargher’s programme.

I listened while I unpacked the produce and began preparation for dinner.

I loved those evenings. John’s choice of music filled the old terraced house. The door to the courtyard let in soft early evening air and pigeons were outlined on the dead tree three houses down.

My son twisted the doorbell at 5.00pm, as the progamme ended. There was the pleasure of knowing he’d be on time and we’d spend several hours chatting. He was a heavy smoker in those days. The table was by the back door and I sat inside with my coat on and the gas-heating heater hissing behind me and he sat outside rocking back on his chair with a glowing cigarette between his fingers.

Today as I listened to John I cooked for tomorrow’s guest and myself. I still cherish the memory of those Saturday evenings. They were the highlight of my week. We usually drank and ate too much but I still managed to get up on Sunday morning and take the week’s washing to the local laundry-matt by 8.30 to ensure two machines were available.

Life has changed for both of us. I work only every 4th Saturday now, I live somewhere else and I have a washing machine, my son doesn’t smoke and his Saturday’s have a different pattern.”


John Cargher will always be part of the memories of my early days in Melbourne.


Yesterday I didn’t turn on the radio because I didn’t want to hear something else in his place but this morning as I got up about 10 to 7 I found his music was there and Julie Copeland was the voice at the end of the programme. I will be sure to tune in next Saturday with the hope that life doesn’t change and John’s music will flow forth.