Finding Fun Fridays

And so to the challenge for Friday from of Jane...

Whether a happy memory, amusing story or fondly remembered object, your challenge today is to tell us about that “something” in your childhood that makes you smile every time you think about it. Bonus points if you have a photo to go along with your story.
This certainly is a challenge! Especially the photo part... what to do because I want my blog to reflect and tell about things now and in the past. My day was spent with the crew of Aussies going to the Black Saturday bushfire area in Kinglake visiting the schools to find out from them what they would like to do with the funds we raised back in March this year- so finding fun in all that that reflects back on my childhood was becoming a bit of a stretch. However another place and time to write about the visit to the schools I think.

After our day long tour in and out of cars and battling the cold and hail we ended up back in Carlton for dinner and talking then on to see Yvette Johansen (again at Bennetts Lane Jazz Club).

My thoughts sort of roamed then to a music (my link between the day and the challenge) event in childhood that always makes me smile to think about was my memory of our first record. Dad brought home a wind up record player (it played 78's) and we each had a record of our own or at least a side of a record of our own. My side was a song ... yep only one tune per side.... was "My Pony Whipstick"- I have yet to find it listed as a credit to any singer let alone on a CD/ record or on iTunes. The wondrous lyrics went as follows

They sing about horses of ro-de-oh fame
And only the bomshell
And Whipstick's his name
Threw every rider so far and so high
Should have been charged for using the sky.
There's ....yada yada yada.... (memory a problem here)
If you'd only stick
ten seconds upon him my pony Whipstick

I must have been about 4 or 5 when dad brought this treasure home for us/me.

Well now I have just done a google search and found that it is on an album called Hillbilly Song Album 11 and sung by Dusty Rankin and Slim Dusty! And then looking on the list created I found the song that was on the flip side.... My Happy Valley Home..

Gosh thanks Jane I am really smiling now!

Thought provoking Thursdays

Today it is Doris' turn to provide the challenge in the Get it Scrapped blog challenge . Every thursday this month will create a post to get thinking happening on Thursdays. Today's post is about coming up with journaling to go with our photos as there are just so many approaches that can be taken to come up with journaling. Her challenge is to flip through some o recent photos. Find one that speaks to you and try to think of more than one angle you could use with your journaling.
I decided to use Doris' model of trains of thought about this particular photo I took today.
Event focused: Shirley and I had our lunch break from writing and it was well and truly my turn to be the lunch provider and Shirl suggested we go out to Pentridge for lunch. This was fulfilling a couple of needs- one was lunch itself the other was to experience the bizarre absurdity of turning one of the major penitentiaries of Melbourne into a housing estate and restaurant. That's right we went to jail for lunch!

Relationship focused: No I haven't spent time in prison and no I do intend to! Can't now really as it is no longer a prison but then ...... A number of years ago however I was working in a school in Melbourne and a group of students I was working with were exploring government. One aspect to the exploration involved them in giving evidence to the Senate Inquiry on the Status of Teaching. Their work and role was significant in that not many 11 & 12 year olds give evidence to Senate Inquiries. All that is another story the upshot of it was that our photo appeared in the Herald Sun and about two weeks later I received a letter at the school from an old friend. He was studying law at the time I knew him and his life's path had a taken a very poor turn when he made disastrous decisions about investment of funds for a basketball club. His letter was written from the prison farm at which he was still serving time but he had begun his prison term in Pentridge and had described what he could remember of his initial incarceration after sentencing. All this was going through my mind as we walked back to the car in the parking lot/ car park outside the restaurant.

Your own perspective: The rose on the wall- was it planted by the wardens or inmates?
How long has that red rose been there? It looks old and "rose hipped".
The red against the grey/ blue stone is startling and bright.
The idea that someone thought a restaurant with slogans like- "Doing time never tasted so good" was truly a tad bizarre. I thought I've got my material here for surreal Sunday! Fortunately the food was far better than I have been led to believe prison food is like.


Historical perspective: Pentridge Prison has a history!

As a result of a greatly increased crime rate in Victoria due to the gold rush, the government decided to establish a number of penal stockades and also make use of abandoned ships.

Pentridge is built.

One of these stockades was set up at Pentridge (the old name for Coburg) to receive, in December 1850, sixteen prisoners from the overcrowded Melbourne Gaol.

Pentridge was thought to be a good place for a prison, being near Melbourne, yet isolated from it. Moreover the village reserve was the only Crown Land left unsold. The purpose of the stockade was to provide labour for the construction of the newly proclaimed Sydney Road. There was a lot of bluestone in the area so the prisoners could do 'hard labour' breaking up the stone and working on the unmade road.
Residents were frightened and angry because the stockade consisted only of log huts on wheels behind a low 1.2 metre wooden fence with prisoners guarded by an inadequate number of overseers. Because it was so insecure, mounted aboriginal troopers (police) were employed to patrol its perimeter. The first superintendent of the stockade was Mr Samuel Barrow.

Pentridge closed. For a long time, Coburg Council tried to have the prison moved or closed. In 1994, the State Government announced its program to privatise prisons. In May 1997 the northern half of the prison was officially closed and the prisoners sent elsewhere. June 1997 saw the beginning of public tours of the prison. The southern part of the prison closed on 28 November that year and in 1999 the site was sold. It has now been developed as housing estates, parklands and a business precinct.

I could probably go on and on from just this one photo and create a page about Pentridge, thanks Doris.

Wednesday wacky?

The challenge for Wednesday's in August has a wacky focus... in truth my Wednesday has been and gone before the challenge aspect arrived. But this gives me the chance to look back at a day that was spent in great leisure- there was an emergency dash to the corner shop to buy milk (the list on Monday must have be inaccurate and I needed 2 litres for the week). The emergency was to ensure that I had enough for a morning cuppa and an afternoon cuppa and to offer my anticipated guests.
I managed to take Spencer- or should I say he took me on the walk. He pulls with such enthisiasm when one heads out on a walk- he didn't chew through the lead this time- perhaps it was the thickness of the rubberized lead or perhaps it was that I was only in the shop for a short space of time. I was in fact anxiously trying to look around corners to see if he was inappropriately occupied with the lead that was attached to the post out side the shop. All was well however and we made it back with milk and lead in tact.I spent the day catching up on the Frida Kahlo challenges for my art journal and eventually posted the pages for the everyday life album.
Then it was the trip in to the city for yet another meal out. This time with Anne Marie, Sharan and Joyce. A lovely feed at Bamboo House- Peking Duck- yum. Great food and even greater company talking life and politics and laughing about life and politics.
A very productive day really.

Techie Tuesday's

The day started slowly and with a stroll to the station- a refill of the phone card , a journey on the train to the city and lunch with Ian.

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Yet another restaurant for dinner with yet another group of friends. This was a restaurant that was new to me.
The adventure started out as merely meeting up in the foyer of Mary's work location in Bourke St in the city and then going to dinner tea after all we were meeting at 5:15 hardly dinner time!

Ahhh but we hadn't calculated on the restaurant being at the other end of town nor on the rain bucketing down in drought striken Melbourne. Bucket it did and the perfect solution? The tram. Soon we were in Lonsdale Street near Exhibition Street as opposed to Bourke Street near King Street where we'd started out.

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Seamstress- take a guess what the restaurant used to be? I'm not going to tell you!

The building dates to 1896, when it was constructed for an underwear manufacturer. Later, it housed a metalworking operation, a brothel and a sweatshop. The top stories were a Buddhist temple until 2000. The owners/ designers Chan and Herzog did most of the renovating themselves, turning a derelict dump into a place that is charming They've picked up on the dressmaking history of the building by hanging dozens of colourful cheongsams (Chinese dresses) from the ceiling of the top-floor bar which is where we parked ourselves until the restaurant opened at 6. The tram ride and the rain made us real early!

The basement bar is called Sweatshop but we actually went right past that to the top bar and shortly after 6 went in to the restaurant. The Seamstress restaurant has artfully placed sewing machines; cascading wire coat-hangers do for vase holders- I really loved the vases suspended from wire coat hangars with japonica in the them. Apparently the tables are custom-made tables are crafted from Tassie oak and they have a central pedestal easy to be seated at and no dancing with a table leg .

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My source of some of the information is Dani Valent, Reviewer in The Age January 29, 2008

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The ambiance was great and the food and service fabulous- the bill? High but worth the experience..... as to the conversation and the friends fabulous and worth it too!

And so to the techie blogging challenge (which I chose to accept without self -destructing)was:

write about something scrappy. What you are working on, a product you are coveting, a page you just finished.. anything scrappy. In the post use one or the other of the above codes.

I have managed the use of the codes hence all the lines and strike throughs as to something I'm working on etc etc

Everyday Life pages in Melbourne "Cover"
I have yet to photograph the other pages to post at Get it Scrapped but hope to today!

And I hope to get some more Art Journaling done

This one is from a week or so ago. And it will all happen in the company of.....

the ever vigilant, watchful.... Spencer

Make a list Mondays

The challenge for Monday's is obviously to make a list... the specifics of this list from Michelle, Get it Scrapped Teacher- (GIST) as opposed to my sister Michele but then GIST Michelle has 2 "LL's" and my lovely and loving sister has 1 "L" My loving and lovely sister Michele
I digress.... the specifics of the challenge
Today's list is a simple and silly one for sure. I am making a huge assumption that the majority if not all of us are the homemakers in our home. We cook and clean, we keep the general functioning of our home in order. Michelle you are right about making an assumption- I'm currently back home and not making major decisions about anything although Iam doing cleaning, very little cooking and am making decisions in other ways... now if I was back at my home in NYC I'd be making other joint decisions about the shopping list however.. that's not today...The challenge notes continue
I, by nature, am a list maker I love the feel of a to do list being crossed off, but not everyone is. However I would be willing to bet that the majority of even none list makers make a grocery list here and there. Your assignment for Make a list Monday , August 3rd is to show us your grocery list and give us a little insight into your home life. You might want to include info like how often you have to shop, how crazy it is to shop for teenage boys, things that seem to always be on the list, just whatever feels like a fun addition to you.
Given my information above it is all a bit fraught about shopping lists particularly grocery shopping lists but here goes.....
1.Butter- we ran out when I was making my lunch- prefer Australian butter to US butter something to do with what the cows eat I think
2.Mersey Valley Sharp and crumbly cheese- on the list partially because I have to get my fill before returning to the US (see above about cows eating habits 0
3.Milk 1 litre- as opposed to 2 litres as it tends to go off by the time we finish it as only use it for coffee, meusli and the occasional cup of tea
4.Small tins of tuna- with ginger flavouring for Michele's lunch
5.Cheds- cheese flavoured snack biscuits/crackers for nibbling during games of Scrabble
6. Cape seed loaf-sliced for sandwiches one of the best loaves of bread you can buy- can't get enough of the decent bread we can get here in Australia

It is a very limited list as Michele did much of the vege shopping for her lunches on Sunday and this week my diary is full of lunch with friends or dinner with friends.

Take Monday as an example of the week- lunch at home of cheese and chutney on toast and plunger coffee and then dinner with friends at the Leinster Arms in Collingwood. If you go to the link the table near the open fire and the chair with its back to the fire was exactly where I ate my dinner of "Leinster chicken and prawns" and talked with friends about visiting NYC at Christmas time. Tuesday is going to be lunch in the city with a friend (coming to NYC in early December) Ian with whom I will have lunch

and dinner with other friends in the city (they've been to NYC on other occasions).

Tiina and Sue I'm not having dinner with them but I did have lunch with them last week and they are my NYC friends!

So my list on Monday could end up as more of a list of eating houses in and around Melbourne!

Surreal on Sunday

This is beginning to feel a bit like Mission Impossible ... the Blogging challenge for Surreal Sunday are:

"Surreal is anything bizarre or dreamlike.. so let's share a bizarre or dreamlike story. It doesn't have to be life changing or move people to tears or hysterics. Just share a story of something that was bizarre or dreamlike to you. Don't think too hard, it's not a contest and there are no grades. It's just a post here or on a blog, that's all. It doesn't have to be something that you experience you can even just share a bizarre story you heard or some bizarre news you saw on TV. Maybe you will lean towards the dreamlike story and share something that was so fantastic it felt like a dream?"

So being the obliging and obedient person that I am I began trying to think of what surreal thing write and do and subsequently thought about posting the photo of the Dali exhibition "Liquid Desire"- that was a surreal thing!

Signs for the Dali exhibition on the Victorian Arts Centre

but then in getting my blog entry organized it all began to seem surreal and Mission Impossible-esque- the instructions missing were
"And you Mission ,Celia, should you choose to accept it is ..... this message will self destruct in 5 seconds".

The music is playing in my head too! So in all pretty surreal.

Getting back to the gallery visit which I posted about a week or so ago- we'd gone for lunch and then the exhibition- we had to queue in the amazing Great Hall I just love the Leonard French ceiling
then on the way out of the gallery itself Michele stopped to check out the sign with our mother's name which is in the list of contributors to the development of the gallery

6th from the bottom in this photo

Blog challenge for the month of August

Hopefully I can mange this! However I haven't been all that great over the past few weeks but perhaps August will be my better month!

This month the fabulous Teachers at Get It Scrapped are challenging you to blog (or not). Each day they will give a prompt and it can be used to either blog and post a link to your blog in the on the Get It Scrapped website so others can check your blog out.. OR if you aren't a blogger you can just respond to the prompt right in the thread. Everyone can play.. it's free and it's going to be oh so much fun and I'll possibly begin to develop better blogging habits

So August 1 is the first of Snapshot Saturdays,


Here are my entries in the current challenge:

1. Something You LoveThat's the beach at Aireys Inlet

2. Something Yellow

Wattle the great Australian emblem

3. Something From Above

A wonderful cafe latte

That wasn't too difficult!

My Saturday was a busy one returning from Aireys and settling the dog back in to the house (I didn't do all that much other than unpack the car which included the dogs) then a wonderful meal at Anne Marie and Barry's but more on that tomorrow I think.