Under southern skies

Sonnets

~ Mary Hannay Foott

I. CHRISTMAS DAY.

O happy day, with seven-fold blessings set

Amid thy hallowed hours—the memories dear

Of childhood’s holidays—and household cheer,

When friends and kin in loving circle met—

And youth’s glad gatherings, where the sands were wet

By waves that hurt not, whilst the great cliffs near,

With storms erewhile acquaint, gave echo clear

Of voices gay and laughter gayer yet.

And graver thoughts and holier arise

Of how, ’twixt that first eve and dawn of thine,

The Star ascended which hath lit our skies

More than the sun himself; and ’mid the kine

The Child was born whom shepherds, and the wise;

Who came from far, and angels, called Divine.

II. THE NEW YEAR.

With supple boughs and new-born leaflets crowned,

Rejoicing in fresh verdure stands the tree,

Though weather-scarred and scooped by fire may be

Its ancient trunk. So may our lives be found

(God leaving still our roots within His ground.)

Where gaps of loss and waste show brokenly

May each new year that comes to greet us see

Branches, and foliage, and flowers abound.

Where Fortune, spoiling wayfarer, hath left

Unsightly rents, may garlands spring apace.

And if, perchance, some pitiless wind hath reft

Away what newer green shall ne’er replace,

May heaven-light come the closer for the cleft

O’er which no tender fronds shall interlace.

Mary Hannay Foott was born in in Glasgow, Scotland in 1846.  She migrated to Australia with her family in 1853.  She and her husband, Thomas Wade Foott, a stock inspector, lived in Bourke until 1877 when they drove overland to their station, Dundoo, in south-west Queensland. Mary's father was a sleeping partner in the undertaking but the station had its troubles: mortgages were raised in 1880 and 1882. Her husband died on 2 February 1884 after a long illness and in 1885 Mary and her father relinquished all interests in Dundoo. After her husband died she took her two young sons to Toowoomba. There she lived until 1885 when she moved to Rocklea, Brisbane. In 1886 she ran a small school and then became editor of the women's page in the Queenslander. By this time she had written most of the poems by which she was to be remembered.   From her letters and the memories of her elder son, Mary Hannay Foott emerges as a woman of great courage and initiative. Despite her hardships and difficulties she preserved a bright vitality. Though a minor poet, she was probably the first woman in Queensland to make a mark in Australian literature.

Summer holidays

Summer time an' the livin' is easy, Fish are jumpin' an' the cotton is high. Oh, yo' daddy's rich, and yo' ma' is good-lookin', So hush, little baby, don' yo' cry.  ~ Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward

We're off shortly on our annual road trip.  This year to Melbourne, then Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road and home to Canberra following the Murray River and the locust plagues.  Last year we circumnavigated Tassie and we've previously driven to Brisbane and Rockhampton in Queensland.  I think we will have pretty much covered the south-east part of Australia after this trip, and what is achievable by road in a radius from our drive-way.  We have lots of stops planned and many visits to friends and family along the way. It will be loads of fun.  Except for the packing part, which I am about to tackle in earnest.  Right now. 

Visitors come knocking

Some one came knocking

~ Walter de la Mare

Some one came knocking

At my wee, small door;

Some one came knocking,

I'm sure - sure - sure;

I listened, I opened,

I looked to left and right,

But naught there was a-stirring

In the still dark night;

Only the busy beetle

Tap-tapping in the wall,

Only from the forest

The screech-owl's call,

Only the cricket whistling

While the dewdrops fall,

So I know not who came knocking,

At all, at all, at all.

It was a huge day yesterday.  Plans to have a BBQ picnic at the Cotter River were thrown into disarray thanks to the rain.  So we hosted the 'other-side-of-the-family' Christmas party at our house instead.  You have never seen such a whirl of activity getting the house in order in two hours {so that was a good outcome}.  The children hung by the study window waiting for Nanna and Grampa, and Uncles and Aunties, and cousins to arrive.  The moment the cars pulled up in the driveway, they stood at the ready on the inside of the door waiting for the buzzer to sound and then pulled it open immediately and bounced about excitedly, giggling and beaming at the visitors as they hovered on the porch, head and shoulders damp and with arms full of bounty.  It was as good, if not better, than waiting for Santa to come through that same door, as he usually does, since we do not have a chimney. 

Working on enjoying the holidays

Holidays

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The holiest of all holidays are those

Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;

The secret anniversaries of the heart,

When the full river of feeling overflows;

The happy days unclouded to their close;

The sudden joys that out of darkness start

As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart

Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!

White as the gleam of a receding sail,

White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,

White as the whitest lily on a stream,

These tender memories are;--a fairy tale

Of some enchanted land we know not where,

But lovely as a landscape in a dream.

It's beginning to feel a {bit} like Christmas.  I have a pudding to make, gifts to finalise and a road trip to plan and pack for, as well as playdates and birthday parties and family parties to attend.  I like the story of Penelope who forestalled her many suitors during Odysseus' long absence with a classic ruse.  She told them that she could not choose between them until she had finished work on a tapestry which she wove by day and unravelled by night.  That is precisely how I feel; in limbo, with the best laid plans unravelled by distractions and where each day seems to have as many jobs to do as the previous one. It helps to pause and remember that holidays are about making memories and savouring more intense moments of togetherness than we enjoy during the rest of the year.  If only there were more hours in the day to get the essentials done as well, and have a bit of a lie in.  Ah well, must away to soak fruit and sort laundry.

Image: Bronze sculpture, Penelope, by Emile Bourdelle, 1912. National Gallery of Australia.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. SouleMama


Image by me: You know where. EVERY Friday.  Should be a sponsored post. D'ya hear AIS?

Breaking-up day!

Bird in the Classroom

The students drowsed and drowned

in the teacher's ponderous monotone -

limp bodies loping in the wordy heat,

melted and run together, desk and flesh as one.

swooning and swimming in a sea of drone.

Each one asleep, swayed and vaguely drifted

with lidded eyes and lolling weighted heads,

were caught on heavy waves and dimly lifted,

sunk slowly, ears ringing in the syrup of his sound,

or borne from the room on a heaving wilderness of beds.

And then on a sudden, a bird's cool voice

punched out song. Crisp and spare

on the startled air,

beak-beamed or idly tossed,

each note gleamed

like a bead of frost.

A bird's cool voice from a neighbour's tree

ith five clear calls - mere grains of sound

rare and neat

repeated twice

but they sprang from the heat

like drops of ice.

Ears cocked, before the comment ran

fading and chuckling where a wattle stirred,

the students wondered how they could have heard

such dreary monotone from a man, and

such wisdom from a bird.

Breaking-up day!!  School's out.  The art work has come down from the classroom walls and has made its tattered way home.  The ugly, hired digital keyboard has been returned to the Young Music Society.  (Please Santa can I have an ebony Kawai upright piano for next year?) There is rampant speculation about who the teachers will be next year and firm preferences are already being expressed.  There are parties galore in every class (thank heavens for pantry popcorn - the working mother's saviour.  It's as close to home-made as I can get this morning) and it's a free dress day.   All this merriment also signals the end of Little Wanna's kindergarten year ... sigh.  We are squarely in the primary years now. 

Congratulations kiddos.  We are very proud of your accomplishments.  Bring on the holidays! 

MY TYPEWRITER

~ Edward Dyson

I have a trim typewriter now,

They tell me none is better;

It makes a pleasing, rhythmic row,

And neat is every letter.

I tick out stories by machine,

Dig pars, and gags, and verses keen,

And lathe them off in manner slick.

It is so easy, and it's quick.

And yet it falls short, I'm afraid,

Of giving satisfaction,

This making literature by aid

Of scientific traction;

For often, I can't fail to see,

The dashed thing runs away with me.

It bolts, and do whate'er I may

I cannot hold the runaway.

It is not fitted with a brake,

And endless are my verses,

Nor any yarn I start to make

Appropriately terse is.

'Tis plain that this machine-made screed

Is fit but for machines to read;

So "Wanted" (as an iron censor)

"A good, sound, secondhand condenser!"

Those were the days.  A slow, measured pace. Time to think.   Time to respond.

No rest up for me at the moment.  I am a slave to new technology and the quick turnaround.   On that note, I'm out the door and off to log-on in the office. Four days 'til the holidays and counting.   

Poem first published in The Bulletin, 6 September 1917
Illustration: From www.mariecampbell.com, with immense thanks!  A wonderful illustrator from the UK.

{this moment]

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. SouleMama

Image: Dance/fashion show of a very special, lavish Arabian Nights costume received in the mail.  A Christmas present from a sweet friend in Riyadh - thank you A.

Lead On

VB

How does it happen?

Your reading the news

Or lighting a fuse

Or straining till you thought you would burst

You sure got a thirst

A hard earned thirst needs an ice cold beer

And the best cold beer is Vic

Victoria Bitter

You can get it jumpin' You can get it pumpin'

You can get it chasing a cow.

Matter o' fact, I got it now

A hard earned thirst needs an ice cold beer

And the best cold beer is Vic

Victoria Bitter

The week's end!  Hurrah.  Charly is down with the 'flu now too and had yesterday off school.  Must strip sheets and disinfect the house tomorrow to minimise its further spread {that's something to look forward to!}.  One week to go before school breaks-up and we take some leave to embark on one of our famous roadtrips.  Meantime, I still have to go turbo-charged through today.  While I am most definitely not a beer-drinker, except perhaps with a curry, I can empathise with the sentiments of the well-known Australian advertising jingle for Victoria Bitter.  This past month I feel as if I have been wrangling cattle or crossing hostile, uncharted territory on horseback and the thought of an ice cold something in a glass and feet up, sounds very appealing.  Right. Off to get my lasso and spurs.

Image: Cassilly Adams, 1843-1921, Winter Trail.

Wage Slave

The Song Of The Wage-Slave

 ~ Robert William Service

...extract

When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,

I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say.

And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met --

All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.

Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my calloused hands;

Master, I've done Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands --

Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich;

I've done their desire for a daily hire, and I die like a dog in a ditch.

I have used the strength Thou hast given, Thou knowest I did not shirk;

Threescore years of labor -- Thine be the long day's work.

And now, Big Master, I'm broken and bent and twisted and scarred,

But I've held my job, and Thou knowest, and Thou will not judge me hard.

Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I've played the fool --

Whiskey and cards and women, they made me the devil's tool.

I was just like a child with money; I flung it away with a curse,

Feasting a fawning parasite, or glutting a harlot's purse;

Then back to the woods repentant, back to the mill or the mine,

I, the worker of workers, everything in my line.

Everything hard but headwork (I'd no more brains than a kid),

A brute with brute strength to labor, doing as I was bid;

Living in camps with men-folk, a lonely and loveless life;

Never knew kiss of sweetheart, never caress of wife.

A brute with brute strength to labor, and they were so far above --

Yet I'd gladly have gone to the gallows for one little look of Love.

I, with the strength of two men, savage and shy and wild --

Yet how I'd ha' treasured a woman, and the sweet, warm kiss of a child!

Well, 'tis Thy world, and Thou knowest. I blaspheme and my ways be rude;

But I've lived my life as I found it, and I've done my best to be good;

I, the primitive toiler, half naked and grimed to the eyes,

Sweating it deep in their ditches, swining it stark in their styes;

Hurling down forests before me, spanning tumultuous streams;

Down in the ditch building o'er me palaces fairer than dreams;

Boring the rock to the ore-bed, driving the road through the fen,

Resolute, dumb, uncomplaining, a man in a world of men.

Master, I've filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands;

Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.

Master, I've done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west,

And the long, long shift is over . . . Master, I've earned it -- Rest.

Image: Darlinghurst nights and morning glories : being 47 strange sights observed from eleventh storeys, in a land of cream puffs and crime, by a flat-roof professor: and here set forth in sketch and rhyme by Virgil Reilly and Kenneth Slessor, 1933.

Virgil Reilly’s terrific illustrations accompanied a series of poems by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor in Smith's Weekly. They opened a window onto inner-city Sydney during the early 1930s. Cocaine was the drug of choice then.  Coffee is mine as I head off for another tough day in the mines.  Only two days to go and some semblance of normality will return.  I only saw the children at breakfast-time yesterday, and that was to say good-bye.  It's tough.

If

IF

~ Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same:.

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

The companion poem to the If for Girls I posted a few days ago.  This one is for Ro-Ro, my early bird, who jumps out first thing in the morning to surprise me and then gets his own breakfast while I make the packed lunches for school or happily lolls about on the couch under one of Grandma's crotcheted rugs reading library books.  This morning he finished his Christmas cards in a very business-like fashion and I can hear him chatting away to Daddy now while the girls slumber on. 

Reflection

Superfluous Advice

~ Dorothy Parker

Should they whisper false of you.

Never trouble to deny;

Should the words they say be true,

Weep and storm and swear they lie.

Mad day at work, but decided that I would NOT bring papers home tonight.  No time anyway, as the lovely F. invited me over for a girls' night in at her house.  Charly went ice skating with Guides as a final celebratory outing.  The Strong Silent One has been stuck at home with the 'flu and it appears to be catching.  We are nearing the end of the school year and every-one is exhausted.  I can't wait for 2011 to start afresh. 

Image: Possum Magic

Tribal habits

On An Unsociable Family
~ Elizabeth Hands

O what a strange parcel of creatures are we,

Scarce ever to quarrel, or even agree;

We all are alone, though at home altogether,

Except to the fire constrained by the weather;

Then one says, ‘’Tis cold’, which we all of us know,

And with unanimity answer, ‘’Tis so’:

With shrugs and with shivers all look at the fire,

And shuffle ourselves and our chairs a bit nigher;

Then quickly, preceded by silence profound,

A yawn epidemical catches around:

Like social companions we never fall out,

Nor ever care what one another’s about;

To comfort each other is never our plan,

For to please ourselves, truly, is more than we can.

Though little is known about the life of Romantic poet Elizabeth Hands, it is believed that she worked as a domestic servant near Coventry, England, and married a blacksmith in 1785. Together they had at least one child, a daughter. Publishing her poems under the pseudonym Daphne, Hands drew the attention of Thomas James, the headmaster at Rugby School. The school’s press published her collection of poetry, The Death of Amnon: A Poem with an Appendix: Containing Pastorals, and Other Poetical Pieces (1789). The volume reached more than a thousand subscribers, including Anna Seward and Edmund Burke. Her poetry, often quietly satiric, also favors plain speech and themes of domesticity and literary tradition.

Doesn't she sound delightful?  A blogger if ever there had been one in the 18th century.  That poem pretty much sums us up as well.  We often mooch about doing our own thing, then sub-groups form, focus intently on an activity for a while, and disperse.  It's also interesting having a middle boy between two girls.  It leads to charming gender-less games, like building stage sets of lego for miniature role play, and a genuine respect for differences. It is just accepted that Ro-Ro will find sticks at the park and wave them about like swords while the girls collect flowers or rocks.  He will get muddy knees scavenging for cicada shells which they will arrange decoratively on a bed of grass bordered with eucalypt leaves.  My little hunter and gatherers. An urban tribe with its own distinctive rituals and rhythms and a little unsociable too.

Quote: National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

In an old house in Forrest

In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. In two straight lines they broke their bread and brushed their teeth and went to bed.

They smiled at the good and frowned at the bad and sometimes they were very sad. They left the house at half past nine in two straight lines in rain or shine — the smallest one was Madeline.

In another old house that stood next door, lived Pepito, the son of the Spanish Ambassador. An Ambassador doesn't have to pay rent, But he has to move to wherever he's sent.

One day the Spanish Ambassador, moved into the house next door. "Look, my darlings, what bliss, what joy! His Excellency has a boy."

 

"And that's all there is -- there isn't any more."

Source: Ludwig Bemelmans (1898 – 1962), German American author, an internationally known gourmet and also a writer and illustrator of children's books. He is most noted today for the series of Madeline books.  Bemelmans published six Madeline stories in his lifetime, and a seventh was discovered and published posthumously.  They are:

1. Madeline, 1939: Madeline gets her appendix out.

2. Madeline's Rescue, 1953: Madeline gets rescued by a dog (later on named Genevieve). Winner of the Caldecott Medal for 1954.

3. Madeline and the Bad Hat, 1956: The "bad hat" Pepito, is the Spanish ambassador's son.

4. Madeline and the Gypsies, 1959: Madeline and Pepito have an adventure at a gypsy circus.

5. Madeline in London, 1961: Pepito moves to London, and Madeline and the girls go to visit him.

6. Madeline's Christmas, 1985: Everyone in the house has a cold, except Madeline. (First published in McCall's in 1956).

7. Madeline in America and Other Holiday Tales, 1999: Madeline inherits a fortune from her rich American great-grandfather. The book also reveals Madeline's surname, which is Fogg, as in Madeline Fogg.

Photos by me.  The suburb of Forrest in the the embassy belt of Canberra, Australia's national capital.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. SouleMama

Image:  Rite of passage: graduation from Junior Guides to Guides.  Three Christmas 'parcels' being prepared to deliver to their new Guide leader.

Grace under pressure

An “If” for Girls

~ Elizabeth Lincoln Otis

(With apologies to Mr. Rudyard Kipling)

If you can dress to make yourself attractive,

Yet not make puffs and curls your chief delight;

If you can swim and row, be strong and active,

But of the gentler graces lose not sight;

If you can dance without a craze for dancing,

Play without giving play too strong a hold,

Enjoy the love of friends without romancing,

Care for the weak, the friendless and the old;

If you can master French and Greek and Latin,

And not acquire, as well, a priggish mien,

If you can feel the touch of silk and satin

Without despising calico and jean;

If you can ply a saw and use a hammer,

Can do a man’s work when the need occurs,

Can sing when asked, without excuse or stammer,

Can rise above unfriendly snubs and slurs;

If you can make good bread as well as fudges,

Can sew with skill and have an eye for dust,

If you can be a friend and hold no grudges,

A girl whom all will love because they must;

If sometime you should meet and love another

And make a home with faith and peace enshrined,

And you its soul—a loyal wife and mother—

You’ll work out pretty nearly to my mind

The plan that’s been developed through the ages,

And win the best that life can have in store,

You’ll be, my girl, the model for the sages—

A woman whom the world will bow before.

Source: Father: An Anthology of Verse (EP Dutton & Company, 1931)

Swimming day!  The weekend is upon us.  Hurrah, hurrah. It's been one of those weeks.  I found myself quoting Rudyard Kipling  in my head -- "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ..." and the design bloggers mantra "Keep Calm and Carry On".   Nothing like being thrown completely out of your comfort zone to test your resilience and leadership ability.  There have also been many reminders this week of the value of staying quiet and dignified under pressure .  Valuable lessons for me and my girls.  I think I shall take another therapeutic stroll tomorrow. 

Childish pursuits

When we were kids

 ~ Clive James

When we were kids we fought in the mock battle

With Ned Kelly cap guns and we opened the cold bottle

Of Shelley’s lemonade with a Scout belt buckle.

We cracked the passion fruit and sipped the honeysuckle.

When we were kids we lit the Thundercracker

Under the fruit tin and we sucked the all day sucker.

We opened the shoe box to watch the silk-worms spinning

Cocoons of cirrus with oriental cunning.

When we were kids we were sun-burned to a frazzle.

The beach was a griddle, you could hear us spit and sizzle.

We slept face down when our backs came out in blisters.

Teachers were famous for throwing blackboard dusters.

When we were kids we dive-bombed from the tower.

We floated in the inner tube, we bowled the rubber tyre.

From torn balloons we blew the cherry bubble.

Blowing up Frenchies could get you into trouble.

When we were kids we played at cock-a-lorum.

Gutter to gutter the boys ran harum-scarum.

The girls ran slower and their arms and legs looked funny.

You weren’t supposed to drink your school milk in the dunny.

When we were kids the licorice came in cables.

We traded Hubba-Hubba bubblegum for marbles.

A new connie-agate was a flower trapped in crystal

Worth just one go with a genuine air pistol.

When we were kids we threw the cigarette cards

Against the wall and we lined the Grenadier Guards

Up on the carpet and you couldn’t touch the trifle

Your Aunt Marge made to go in the church raffle.

When we were kids we hunted the cicada.

The pet cockatoo bit like a barracuda.

We were secret agents and fluent in pig Latin.

Gutsing on mulberries made our lips shine like black satin.

When we were kids we caught the Christmas beetle.

Its brittle wings were gold-green like the wattle.

Our mothers made bouquets from frangipani.

Hard to pronounce, a pink musk-stick cost a penny.

When we were kids we climbed peppercorns and willows.

We startled the stingrays when we waded in the shallows.

We mined the sand dunes in search of buried treasure,

And all this news pleased our parents beyond measure.

When we were kids the pus would wet the needle

When you dug out splinters and a piss was called a piddle.

The scabs on your knees would itch when they were ready

To be picked off your self-renewing body.

When we were kids a year would last forever.

Then we grew up and were told it was all over.

Now we are old and the memories returning

Are like the last stars that fade before the morning.

Images: Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia by Frank Hurley  (1885-1962)

It's my early day to knock-off work and collect the children from school, and it's wet, wet, wet outside.  We are bunkered inside at home.  The bags have been unpacked, music practice has been completed and four hot chocolates have been made.   We are about to cuddle up to watch the next (recorded) episode of Junior Masterchef.  TV might be high definition, in colour and on a flat screen but it's still the classic after-school indulgence.  What's a childhood without the telly?  We rarely watch it, so this is quite a treat.  "C'mon Mum!"  Better scoot.

Old Canberra Streetscapes: Inner South

 

 

South of my Days

~ Judith Wright

South of my days' circle, part of my blood's country,

rises that tableland, high delicate outline

of bony slopes wincing under the winter,

low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite-

clean, lean, hungry country. The creek's leaf-silenced,

willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple

branching over and under, blotched with a green lichen;

and the old cottage lurches in for shelter.

O cold the black-frost night. the walls draw in to the warmth

and the old roof cracks its joints; the slung kettle

hisses a leak on the fire. Hardly to be believed that summer

will turn up again some day in a wave of rambler-roses,

thrust it's hot face in here to tell another yarn-

a story old Dan can spin into a blanket against the winter.

seventy years of stories he clutches round his bones,

seventy years are hived in him like old honey.

 

 

Yesterday I went for a walk with my trusty pocket camera. I so needed to clear my head and get some exercise. I also wanted to capture some authentic Canberra streetscapes and vernacular architecture. The location is one of the most expensive postcodes in the country - unbelievably, since there are no ocean views. It was interesting to discover some sneaky back streets, ramshackle houses and new building works going on amidst the planned thoroughfares and embassy residences as well as some historic remnants of Old Canberra. Well, "old" in a modern sense. 

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) was declared on 1 January 1911 and an international competition to design the new capital city of Australia was held. More than 130 entries were received in the competition and the winning entry was submitted by American architect Walter Burley Griffin and his partner and wife, Marion Mahony Griffin. 

My meanderings took me around these original, early streets of this young Bush Capital. The majority of the precinct was constructed in 1926 – 27 to meet the urgent need to provide housing for public servants prior to the opening of the provisional Parliament House in 1927.  The street layout is directly derived from Griffins 1913 plan which defined the major axes of Melbourne and Hobart Avenues radiating from Capital Hill and concentric circles.  The latter always has me completely baffled and it is almost impossible to navigate even with a map.  I took it slowly on foot determined not to get lost.

Saturday Morning Bliss

 

 

Eternity

~William Blake

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies.

Lives in eternity's sunrise.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This week I'm grateful for:

Saturday morning cricket

 - gets the boys outa the house early

Impromptu ball games on the back deck

- the sound of bounces ~ ka-thump ~ giggles and no broken windows so far

Invitations to birthday parties close to home

- a very best friend, no distance to drive and a mermaid theme party with an entertainer.  Even I'm excited! 

Home-made birthday cards

- dictating the spelling for sweet personalised messages. "How do you spell 'hope'?"

This is one blissful Saturday morning. 

Playing along with Maxabella

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  SouleMama

Hairy situation

Combing
 ~ Gladys Cardiff

Bending, I bow my head

and lay my hands upon

her hair, combing, and think

how women do this for

each other. My daughter’s hair

curls against the comb,

wet and fragrant— orange

parings. Her face, downcast,

is quiet for one so young.

I take her place. Beneath

my mother’s hands I feel

the braids drawn up tight

as piano wires and singing,

vinegar-rinsed. Sitting

before the oven I hear

the orange coils tick

the early hour before school.

She combed her grandmother

Mathilda’s hair using

a comb made out of bone.

Mathilda rocked her oak wood

chair, her face downcast,

intent on tearing rags

in strips to braid a cotton

rug from bits of orange

and brown. A simple act

Preparing hair. Something

women do for each other,

plaiting the generations.

I'm in such a rush in the morning, and leave so early, that the children are still asleep or groggily emerging from their rooms by the time I've got my bag over my shoulder and am heading towards the door.  Alas, little Wanna still wants Mummy to do her hair.  Nothing more intricate than plaits or piggy tails, but still, for me, a complicated affair trying to get the partings straight, not pull knots and not produce 'bumps' as she calls anything less than completley slicked back.  It's fraught.  Yesterday, I quickly produced two small, dangly side plaits which satified her requirements, although when I picked her up in the afternoon it appeared that Daddy had quite expertly combed the whole lot into a ponytail.  Morning hair has clearly a become a team effort.

Sniff

Sneeze

Sneeze on Monday, sneeze for danger;

Sneeze on a Tuesday, kiss a stranger;

Sneeze on Wednesday, sneeze for a letter

Sneeze on a Thursday, something better;

Sneeze on a Friday, sneeze for sorrow;

Sneeze on a Saturday, see your sweet-heart tomorrow.

It's official Ro-Ro has hay fever.  He's never had it before. Maybe it's something to do with the street trees around here.  Or perhaps it's just an exceptionally bad season for allergy sufferers.  I've heard such speculation among adults afflicted with the condition.  Anyway, following a trip to the doctor yesterday we now have a regime to adhere to, involving an uncomfortable-looking nasal spray and regular steamy showers. (Thanks Daddy, since Mummy is consumed by work commitments.) We also have to trip off some time today to get Little Wanna's wrist x-rayed after her fall on the ice rink.  Just to be sure. We're all at the end of our comfort zone this week. But according to the rhyme, we should expect 'something better' tomorrow.

Kitchen as metaphor for life

I Chop Some Parsley While Listening To Art Blakey's Version Of "Three Blind Mice"

~  Billy Collins

And I start wondering how they came to be blind.

If it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister,

and I think of the poor mother

brooding over her sightless young triplets.

Or was it a common accident, all three caught

in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?

If not,

if each came to his or her blindness separately,

how did they ever manage to find one another?

Would it not be difficult for a blind mouse

to locate even one fellow mouse with vision

let alone two other blind ones?

And how, in their tiny darkness,

could they possibly have run after a farmer's wife

or anyone else's wife for that matter?

Not to mention why.

Just so she could cut off their tails

with a carving knife, is the cynic's answer,

but the thought of them without eyes

and now without tails to trail through the moist grass

or slip around the corner of a baseboard

has the cynic who always lounges within me

up off his couch and at the window

trying to hide the rising softness that he feels.

By now I am on to dicing an onion

which might account for the wet stinging

in my own eyes, though Freddie Hubbard's

mournful trumpet on "Blue Moon,"

which happens to be the next cut,

cannot be said to be making matters any better.

Painting: Australian contemporary artist Julie Byrnes

Soundtrack: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers

Not that I'm doing any cooking lately since work has spun out of control.  The Strong Silent One has been master-minding in the kitchen with his three chef assistants.  The menu has recently featured prawn risotto and Moroccan lamb.  I am indebted to Junior Masterchef for cultivating an interest in food preparation among my children and a willingness to sample new flavours.  Meantime I'm running around like a blind mouse.

The Royal Game of Goose

 

'It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.' (Kierkegaard, Journals)

It was games night last night.  After a round of Pictionary we moved to reacquaint ourselves with The Royal Game of Goose.  The game board comprises 63 coded boxes arranged in a spiral. It is a race between players with rewards going to those who land on a goose and penalties for those occupying the other pictures. Stakes are won or lost until the player who first reaches the end wins everything.
 
Apparently, the first mention of the game comes from Francesco dei Medici, Grand Duke of Florence in Italy in the 1500s. He sent a copy to King Philip II of Spain where it caused great excitement at the court, and the adult gambling game spread rapidly to other parts of Europe.  It reached England by 1597, when John Wolfe entered "the newe and most pleasant game of the Goose" in the Stationers' Register.  According to the letters of Horace Walpole, it was played by Duchess of Norfolk in 1758. 
 

We picked ours up at a garage sale.

DESCRIPTION OF AN AUTHOR'S BEDCHAMBER

~ Oliver Goldsmith, Anglo-Irish writer, poet and physician (1728-74)

The Red Lion flaring o'er the way,

Invites each passing stranger that can pay;

Where Calvert's butt, and Parsons' black champagne,

Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane.

There in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,

The Muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug;

A window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray,

That dimly show'd the state in which he lay.

The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread;

The humid wall with paltry pictures spread.

:

The royal game of goose was there in view,

And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew;

The seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place,

And brave prince William show'd his lamp-black face:

The morn was cold, he views with keen desire

The rusty grate unconscious of a fire;

With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scor'd,

And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board;

A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay,

A cap by night--a stocking all the day!

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  SouleMama

Neutral language

THE EDITOR'S REGRETS

~ Norman Campbell

Although we're quite respectable,

And virtuous, and old,

We love a lie, delectable,

If it's discreetly told.

A libel that is hot with spite

Affords us infinite delight.

But, oh! the Law's severity

Holds as an iron band;

It curbs our wild temerity,

And stays our dauntless hand.

Much defamation we would dare,

But Damages make us forbear.

Our duty to society

Is ever in our mind;

We stand for strict propriety -

For fear we should be fined.

We keep our sheet from libels free

Because it pays us best, you see.

We ever strive to stimulate

An arctic air of probity,

And virtues oft we fabricate

From nauseous necessity;

The pen is greater than the sword -

But Costs are things we can't afford.

First published in The Bulletin, 13 May 1915
Cartoon by Michael Leunig.

My week?  There have been some challenges but we are working with stakeholders to ensure a positive outcome. Code for 'flying by the seat of my pants'. At least there's swimming tonight. Some things stay the same.