Brisbane Sunday

Going back to the place where you grew up arouses all sorts of memories, some good, some not so good and some hazy and ill formed.

The Old Museum Brisbane on Gregory Terrace in Bowen Hills has good memories for me. I'm smelling the aromas of the dusty halls filled with old glass cabinets of insects and artifacts and the well trod timber floors, from its days as the Queensland Museum (until 1986) and remembering the excitement of seeing the mind blowing Scandinavian Design Exhibition back in 1968 and my first original Picasso paintings in the rooms given over the the State Art Gallery collection before the collection found its permanent home on Southbank.

The Old Museum Brisbane is now home to the Queensland Youth Orchestra and together with the buildings surrounding it, forms a lively performing arts precinct in the city.

Last Sunday the Old Museum hosted the Finders Keepers Design and Art Market.  The place was packed with high quality work, talented young designers and trendy young (women mostly) locals.  The men there all had a slightly bored look on their faces apart from those queued up at the organic hand made beer marquee.

We met up with my friend Jane later the same day. We used to teach together at Canberra High School a hundred years ago.  When she moved to Brisbane I suggested she look at Bulimba as a possible place to live, which she duly did. Rob and I loved our time living in Bulimba back in 1972. 

This Sunday Oxford Street Bulimba was packed with movie goers, shoppers and a buzzy bar and cafe crowd. It took us ages to drive through the jam of cars and people.

But we found a quieter and much more sunny spot down on the river at The Jetty Oxford.

K. Rudd is a regular at The Jetty, but not this afternoon it seems.

We spent a few hours over drinks catching up with a year's worth of family, travel and work news as the sun slowly worked its way across the western sky.

Four weddings and another one

It's been physically and emotionally tough this week to pack up Granny K and all her belongings for her move to aged (hostel) care.  Alongside all that we've had to get her townhouse ready for sale too.   There's been lots of opportunities to be reminded of things past.....This selection of photos, framed proudly (if a little wonkily) on her bookcase tells a story - about us but also about family life over the last half century.

Exciting news from the UK this week also made us turn our minds to the anticipation of another family wedding in the next year or so (more on that later).

This is Granny K (Mum) and Dad on their wedding day in Brisbane on 20th September 1941 just before the war was really starting to heat up for countries in close proximity to Asia.  Betty was 27 when she married and Dad was 26.  Their wedding outfits were very elegant, and good quality, but they reflected the prevailing mood of wartime austerity. Dorothy Coleman was a well known studio photographer in Brisbane at the time.
  

Twenty six years later on the 25th November 1967 Maxine (my sister) married Rod at St Andrew's Church in South Brisbane. Ros and I were their bridesmaids, and looked very fetching in powder blue satin with upswept hair dos (lots of teasing and hairspray).  The 60s social revolution had not really hit families like ours so Maxine and Rod's wedding was still quite traditional - although Maxine had tried to introduce some personal expression by designing and making THE DRESS (and the veil).  Maxine was a week off 21 years old when she married Rod (who was 21 himself by then).

Forty years ago in 1972 we were married in the Catholic church on Annerley Road on a hot January day (the 8th) in Brisbane.  I was twenty years old at the time and Rob was three days off being 21.  The 60s social revolution had even hit Brisbane by now but not much of it influenced our wedding.  There were a few informal touches (that Carly Simon style hat was considered very daring) and my dress, the colour of Rob's shirt and the length of his hair were all a bit hippy inspired but apart from that our wedding was mostly what our families at that time expected it to be.  We didn't have a professional photographer and relied on friends and families for their "happy snaps".

Then, in 1978 on the 4th March, Ros married Pete in a beautiful sub-tropical garden setting in Sunnybank in Brisbane.  They had a marriage celebrant and a casual buffet style reception under marquees in the garden...no veils, no trains, no professional photographers, not even a tie for Pete.  Ros was 19 when she married Pete.  Pete was just twenty. I remember really enjoying Ros and Pete's wedding! 

Mum in particular found it hard to cope with all the changes that the sixties and seventies brought to the family and society in general but even she was happy with and supportive of the choices Ros and Pete made for their wedding and everything after that.

We were all so young!!! It's an absolute miracle we've all made our marriages work the way they have....they've stood the test of time.

I do envy our kids though who've never felt the pressure to marry quite so young and who were left pretty much to choose whenever and however they wanted to do it, and even IF they wanted to do it all.  Whatever they choose to do Davey and Cath will do it beautifully I know. We can't wait to be a part of it too!

Equinox

As we're past the winter equinox the days should start to seem a little brighter soon.  It's been a cold week and darkness feels like it comes on way too early.  We're very busy packing up Granny K for her big move and fitting in work commitments, household chores and quality time with E, J and A when we can.

A lot of our time is spent indoors... Ella celebrated two successful sessions at preschool this week (and a new haircut - with fringe) with a session of shoulder stands with Grandpa.

She's pretty pleased with herself at the moment.

The weather is perfect for Sunday lunch dates with young friends - great food and a chance for playtime with Yasmin.  She is just at that age when she really enjoys a present - and not just for the crinkly paper and the purple ribbon.

We could see fresh snow on the Brindabella Mountains at midday today from the west facing window of our friends' house in Garran.

But I did not feel any sympathy for this possum, brazenly swinging on our phone line near our back laundry door tonight. It is one member of the possum army that rages across our roof at random intervals most nights - I guess they're staying active to stay warm.

Jervis Bay Territory

My work provides support for the leadership team at Jervis Bay School, situated in the Jervis Bay Territory, about 200km south of Sydney.  The Commonwealth of Australia acquired the land and sea that forms the Jervis Bay Territory in 1915 and established the Royal Australian Naval College there, which was reopened in 1958 as the HMAS Creswell. 

The Jervis Bay School was originally established back in 1914 to serve the families at the naval college. HMAS Creswell and the Jervis Bay School remain on Department of Defense (Navy) land within the JB Territory. The ACT ETD has run the school on behalf of the Australian Government since 1974.


The area is also home to the Wreck Bay Aboriginal community who won a historic and long fought land rights claim granting them ownership of all the lands and sea in the Jervis Bay National Park (now named the Booderee National Park) back in 1986.  The Wreck Bay Aboriginal community jointly manages the national park with the Australian Govt. under a lease arrangement. In 1965 the school at the Wreck Bay Aboriginal settlement was transferred to the Jervis Bay School.


 This all means that the principal of Jervis Bay School has a very complex environment in which to run his school.......but a very beautiful and mostly pristine physical environment.  Anyway he chose to orient our work team (and my trusty driver) to the physical environment first: the gorgeous Murray's Beach, across the bay from the naval college and the school, and then Greenpatch Beach....

Greenpatch is claimed to have Australia's whitest sand (and therefore the bluest sea) but on this rainy cold day it just looked wet and grey to us.

There's great facilities for campers but no other development at Greenpatch......

so the kangaroos, kookaburras and wombats pretty much rule here. The Rosella's were very much in charge too; and clearly hoping we did not know the don't feed the birds rule.

The principal (and his guests) is always a welcome visitor at the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community. In this pic below we're at one of the highest points in the village overlooking Summercloud Bay, a pristine spot for fishing, dolphin spotting, whale migration and good surfing under the right conditions.  The Wreck Bay community is a well run, tidy place but this wonderful location does make it difficult at times for the young people to stay at school when there are so many distractions (although at least they're healthy ones).

We spent an afternoon and morning at the Jervis Bay School.......gorgeous kids, great teachers but they do have to deal with a huge kangaroo problem. The kangaroos are everywhere, including one rogue one that recently had to be "dealt with" after bailing up the principal and two other big burly blokes in the playground.  There's kangaroo poo everywhere too - got to keep to the paths!

We stayed in Huskisson overnight and managed to fit in dinner at the Seagrass Brasserie, an amazing sunrise from the balcony of our motel room and a late delicious lunch at the Hyam's Beach Cafe before driving back to Canberra late on Friday afternoon.

On the mat

In the last week or so Ella has mastered a proper, chin tuck, smooth roll, on the mat, somersault.  It was the right occasion for her to teach me how to send a video attachment of the milestone....

...to her daddy, using my iPhone.

It required a lot of repeat performances for me to get the framing right.

She can do them perfectly - one after the other - it's my camera work that needs the tweaking!

From the other mat Abi watches everything that Ella does - with all her attention focused and smiles ready.

Abi loves Ella being UP CLOSE the most, and in her face, which is just as well......

They're very tactile... Ell's very squeezy and boisterous and Abi gives almost as good as she gets, sucking on Ella's cheek and grabbing her hair nose and chin when she can.

In amongst all the love  we can see that Abi is starting to be much more conscious of the connection between her hand movement and how good it feels to hang on to someone's nose.

Coogee cocoon

It was a very cool and wet weekend in Sydney so apart from a few hours of retail therapy at Bondi Junction it was a perfect weekend for cocooning in Sydney, catching up with The West Wing series 4, the growing Gourmet Traveller collection and my excellent new book for Reconciliation Week Am I Black Enough For You (Dr Anita Heiss).


A lovely highlight was dinner last night at our favourite local restaurant, Barzura, beautifully located opposite the southern end of Coogee Beach. I loved my butterfly spatchcock with Moorish spices, pearl couscous and cucumber yoghurt. I couldn't recommend it highly enough.


Rob stuck with his usual Barzura pasta dish and found his Spaghetti marinara with prawns, calamari, fish, mussels, scallops and tomato sauce absolutely delicious. We also had a glass of a 2010 Petaluma Hundred line Cab Sauvignon, from Coonawarra. A wine we want much more of in the future!


I am toying with the idea of using some of my Coogee photos for something - not sure what yet! 
     

Or...

         

Catching up

Friday last week was a perfect day for catching up with Sydney family over an extended comfort food lunch, snug inside at our house on one of the coldest Canberra May days on record.


We had two babies in the house, both with names starting with A. They're second cousins born 4 months apart.  It's very amusing how much baby A resembles his grandfather C - only cuter.


We think his Mum and Dad make an exceptional couple too.

Miss Z and Ella, second cousins too, had a rollicking day together.  They both share a love of tiaras, dress ups and dancing, and exhausted us just watching their antics on the dance floor - for HOURS.

Great-grandma had an opportunity to see her knitting efforts meet their mark and an even more amazing opportunity to see four of her five great grandchildren in the one place.

Come time to leave and Ella and Miss Z were very loath to say goodbye.  They've made each other a promise to have their next play date at Luna Park in Sydney.

Then come Saturday, not quite as cold, but just as bleak, it was time for Sophie, Maddie and me to celebrate their birthdays with our annual date at the Hyatt for high tea.  At 13 and 15 years respectively Sophie and Maddie are entertaining company for our delightful afternoon catching up with school and holiday news over many plates of (mostly) raspberry embellished treats.