Heads-up

Every Saturday, up at the Uniting Church on Oxford Street, there is a flea market. I will probably be chastised for calling it that; rather I should call it an art and craft market. It has over 200 stalls, it has been in existence since 1973, and its stall-holders are not shy about charging.


As stall-holders packed up at the end of another long day, I wandered around, getting more of a feel of how markets like Covent Garden must have felt in the good-ole-days.

Flying solo

Nothing better than stuffing a cheese sandwich while sitting on a rocker in a children's playground.

Childish play, perhaps

I watch them The children of this now generation; I watch them in their communal living room, With their prepackaged trikes Promoting consumer play; WIth their attention-deficit psychoses Pandering to their every whim

Not for them the billy cart Made from planks of rough-hewn pine And rescued pram wheels. Not for them the glued brown-paper kite with shards Of pleated cloth and biting sisal. I watch them with a fine melancoly.

Dreams of childhood

I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by t.s. Eliot

Playgroup

Crawling the floor with a dozen children under 12 months is something I have not done since the '80s when I was a Long-day-care Director. Crawling the mat around one's own grand-daughter is a joy. This was followed by lunch in Tiger Mottle across the road from St George Anglican Church at Five Ways.

Ooo ... I love Fridays.

Winter's afternoon in the park

As the shadows lengthened, a nip gathered in the air, and people gathered sweaters around them. Chatting people, walking people, sipping people, running people. People in pairs, people in families, people in teams.


All readying themselves for the homeward journey and the Sunday evening roast of lamb, with baked potatoes, baked pumpkin, steamed baby peas, and slivered carrot, with a gentle spray of mint picked fresh from the window-sill.

Back to the future

To get a good handle on where you're going, sometimes it helps to know where you have been. Knowledge of what is in front, is informed by what was behind.

Conserving details of each generation of a family is a valuable marker for people desperate to know where they fit in, and even for people who know exactly where they are going. Items don't have to be hierlooms in the commonly accepted concept of worth-a-fortune. Postcards, scribbles on the back of envelopes, ragged letters tumbling from tatty envelopes: all contribute to the fullest picture we can manage of a generation.


The State Library of NSW in Macquarie Street held a "Preserving your Family History" course on Friday where we listened to the "does and don'ts" before having a 1-to-1 with up to four specialist conservators with reference to specific items. I took in my father's drivers' licence from WW2, a letter written by my grandmother in 1910 and the diary of my uncle who died in London in 1956. They were all symptomatic of the problems of my collection as a whole.

Pleasures of late Winter (6 and final)

The promenade is a great, safe place to try out those new moves.

Pleasures of late Winter 4

The mother - who I would lay odds is a flaming redhead! - was not in the park with her brood. Father assumed the entire responsibility for all four of them. And they had a ball ... There was going to be a lot of washing to be done when they eventually arrived home.

As much as I love mogs, I can't see a cat participating quite like this ...

Pleasures of late Winter 2

Some kids have an inbuilt eye for sport. Their brain calculates the geometry of a kick, catch or throw exquisitely. Their body responds with the elegant curve of mastery even at a young age.

Running ahead of the ball and delivering a perfectly targetted back flick was not a problem for this fellow. And his dad was up the other end being ball-boy. Such hard and hot work this playing in the park with dad in winter. Centennial Park in the Eastern Suburbs is perfect for people watching ...

Firing the imagination

Once upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little cottage with her only son Jack. Jack was a giddy, thoughtless boy, but very kind hearted and affectionate. There had been a hard winter, and after it the poor woman had suffered from fever and ague. Jack did no work as yet, and by degrees they grew dreadfully poor. The widow saw that there was no means of keeping Jack and herself from starvation but by selling her cow; so one morning she said to her son, "I am too weak to go myself, Jack, so you must take the cow to market for me, and sell her." Jack liked going to market to sell the cow very much; but as he was on the way, he met a butcher who had some beautiful beans in his hand. Jack stopped to look at them, and the butcher told the boy that they were of great value and persuaded the silly lad to sell the cow for these beans. When he brought them home to his mother instead of the money she expected for her nice cow, she was very vexed and shed many tears, scolding Jack for his folly. He was very sorry, and mother and son went to bed very sadly that night; their last hope seemed gone. At daybreak Jack rose and went out into the garden. "At least," he thought, "I will sow the wonderful beans. Mother says that they are just common scarlet runners, and nothing else; but I may as well sow them." So he took a piece of stick, and made some holes in the ground, and put in the beans.

Happiness is a growing thing

Physicality of love between father and child ...

Joys of Childhood 3

Mumma was never far away. There were times when she had to clench her fists; times when she had to shove her hands in her pockets. She was the most concerned, but probably also the one who realised that letting go was the only way.


Her son had a ball: constantly challenging himself and squealing out with pleasure when his sneakers slipped and he flipped base-over-apex. Even Dad could see that not only was their physical ability being challenged, but their openness to the challenge was changing the way their brain approached the world in which they lived.

Sydney Park, the old Bee-hive kilns, St Peters

Joys of Childhood 2

The poor mother of these two was in a no-win situation: my father wanted this little girl down. NOW! And there was no way in God's heaven that this little miss was having any of this whatsoever. She had a ball! She worked so hard that her poor mother - who was standing underneath most of the time - had to strip her down to just bright pink knickers at one stage! Dad reckons the mother was just there to break the fall! But there was no way she was going to fall ...



And the reason is before our eyes: her brother was beside her during the climb. His hand at her elbow ... just in case! I took him to be 7 or 8 and the girl to be 3 or 4. It was a joy to watch. Wish I had recorded Dad's constant chatter for you ...

Sydney Park, the old Bee-hive kilns, St Peters

Joys of childhood 1

As many of you will already know, each weekend my father - who is 88 - and I go on an expedition of sorts somewhere in our city. I pack a thermos and two collapsible chairs and some biscuits and we are off!

Last Saturday we went to Sydney Park which is in the inner-city suburb of St Peters, a small working class suburb very close to where my father married my mother in 1944.

We spent 2 hours sitting with the sun on our backs, sipping coffee and chatting with everyone who walked past us: whether walking themselves, their dogs, playing with toy planes or pushing a bike. It was a most enjoyable morning. These photos show one reason why. There will be more to come over the next couple of days.

The grin on Dad's face was to die for ... he even sang me three songs: There is a Green Hill Far Away, The Grand old Duke of York, and a recruitment tune for the army!!

Sydney Park, the old Bee-hive kilns, St Peters

Gerontius dreaming

Balmoral Beach, Middle Harbour: Saturday morning in winter

Gerontius devout Everyman contemplates his passing, fearful yet wistful. Glimpsing God he embarks upon the waters of purgatory.