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Some football fans really put their support for their team out there. How about the fellow who has painted his house to support the dockers. Very close to where your house was Barbara and Robert. Would have offended your eyes everytime you drove past. Personally I think it is great. The photograph really doesn't do it justice.
We stopped in front of our house in Collins Street to take a photograph and a lady was watching, so we told her we used to own the property. She is the current owner and took us inside to have a look at what it was like now. All the Victorian decoration we put in had been eliminated long before she bought it, however all the lead lights I made were still in place. I photographed them all and attached them to this blog. I did not have a digital record of them before, I was chuffed. The one of the cat is a depiction of our cat Gus. He was a ginger and white cat and the white markings on the leadlight are exactly as he was. I owned that piece of orange glass for about 10 years because I liked it
and before I learned to leadlight. One day at work I mentioned I wanted to do a leadlight of Gussie sniffing a gum flower for the new toilet window. That night my friend Norma went home, measured up her window and drew that for me. Over the weekend I made the leadlight. She was very silent when I showed her and after a while I managed to get out of her that she felt I took her little drawing and made a work of art out of it. My response, I took your work of art and copied it. All in how you see things really.
When we had the property it was a quarter acre with wonderful native gardens and a huge patio and pergola out the back and 5 yes 5 sheds. Somewhere along the line someone subdivided and there are now two, 2 story townhouses behind it and access has been achieved by removing the very productive navel orange and lime trees. Philistines.
The current owner loves the house and says she feels that the house is a friendly and welcoming place. We were pleased. We loved our little cottage.
As we approached the
house we built in Boxhall Retreat in Boulder I said to Graham, I hope I don't cry. It wasn't as bad as I expected. The native gardens had all been pulled out and water hungry grass and roses substituted and really the only thing wrong with it was the facia, gutters and fence were very badly in need of painting.
Whilst we are in Kalgoorlie we are staying with our friend Mieke, we will stay with Mary on our way back home in September. For those who don't know Mieke was her father's carer and nursed him through his final illness and once he was gone had the house demolished and built a new house on the block. This house is beautiful and is filled with memories of her parents, colour, light and books and more books. Mieke being a library worker and highly intelligent also has a cat, Fred. Fred is the size of two wombats, the extra large variety of wombat at that. He is also a total wimp. Hates visitors but after a few days begins to tolerate us as he has worked out we will feed and pet him. He likes a snack sometime between
1 and 3:30 am each night and he is indulged! His best friend is the gas heater and he gets in front of it and just hogs all the heat. Mieke has had to move his carpet further away from the heater because he kept pressing up against the grill and causing the heater to turn itself off because it thought there was a fault. From all of this we have gathered that Princess Fray has a pretty tough life in Brinkworth, though her current slave admits to being totally enslaved.
Mieke was also renowned for her lack of exercise and her extremely purple thumbs. The pod people have descended on Kalgoorlie and left a most alien person behind in her body. She gets out of bed each morning and heads off for a 35 or so minute walk then heads to the back garden to feed the doves and work in the garden. She grows most of her vegetables, has beautiful native shrubs all over the place, citrus trees which are producing lemons and oranges at the present time (Linda the lime is not up to scratch so it is just as well I introduced her to Stone
Pine gin which requires no added lime, http://www.stonepinedistillery.com.au/) and all sorts of herbs. Her pots plants are taking over the patio which is big enough for a game of back yard cricket. She looks wonderful and has a wonderful life in her home where she is very content. Fred will be content when we leave tomorrow but we are assured Mieke will suffer for the next week because we were invited to stay.
Our friend Mary lives in Boulder. It was her birthday last Wednesday so we all went to the Tower Hotel for dinner. The Tower seems to be the one business I have observed which does not appear to be affected by the current downturn. The place was crowded with people enjoying an after work drink and the dining area was more than 60 percent full. We had a beautiful meal. Both GMan and I had the lamb cutlets and according to the menu there should have been 4 of them. We figure the chef was Irish, we both got 5 cutlets albeit very small french trimmed ones, beautifully tender.
We have not seen much of Mary over the past few days because she is babysitting
two little dogs and she does not like to leave them alone for too long. They are Griffins - collectively known as the Bubbas. I cannot tell them apart but there photos so you can try to work it out. They are called Izzy and Rosebud. We dropped out to visit on Friday afternoon and will be going out again this afternoon.
Yesterday we visited Irene and Ritchie. We worked with Irene at the college and Ritchie is now a Postie. His change of job has made an incredible difference too him. There is not enough room on his bike to carry his lunch so he has been going without and he has lost so much weight it is amazing. His struggle with cancer in his mouth is clear so things are looking up. They have become hooked on cruises and have done the Alaskan one, one up the Queensland coast and are current anticipating a Northern Lights Cruise. We chatted and caught up and resolved when we come back in August September they will going us at the Rec for Paella.
Not to be outdone Ritchie and Irene have Gomez the guard goat who likes to stand
on top of his house to be able to survey what is outside their yard. They used to have a three legged Siamese who has long since gone to cat heaven. Great name, Tripod!
Since being here I have been drinking from a very special glass. Anyone who knew Mieke's dad, known to me as Pappa, knew he was a very different character. Once the Council had installed a new posh tip known as a transfer station he was the only person who the workers would allow "withdrawal rights". I have been drinking from a glass which he picked up on the tip and bought home. It is the only red wine size glass in the house, hence mine.
Enough of friends, now the haircut. GMan decided he needed a haircut. I got us all set up on the back patio and was chatting to Mieke as I worked. GMan sat down and I made the initial cut up the back of his head. I thought, gee that is cutting very well, then I noticed I had forgotten to put a comb on the head of the clippers and he had a stripe up the back of his
head which was I guess a 0. Normally he was a 2. I gasped and admitted what I had done. He was very calm and did not yell at me. After an inspection by two giggling women we decided that the rest of the head had to be a number 1. You really can only tell if you look really closely. He insisted that the beard be the usual number 2. Photo courtesy of Mieke.
We are heading off from Kalgoorlie tomorrow heading out to Coolgardie then north via the gravel backroads to Menzies. Across the highway to the gravel roads and up through Niagara, Kookynie to Leonora. Then North to Leinster, Wiluna and Meekatharra. We will not necessarily have any good communications so will send blogs when we can. Today is about mundane things like washing.
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Shirley
non-member comment
Homesick?
Do I detect a future return to Kal????