hundred items of rubbish a day

Perry and I have a new activity called picking up 100 items of rubbish a day. How long do you think we'll stick at it? Thanks for your support. Anyway, the idea is any bit of rubbish, as small as a cigarette butt or as big as a detergent bottle. Or bigger. You'll laugh when I tell you about the big wodge of sticky tape I picked up all tangled up in twigs. Hilarious. There's a lot of rubbish out there, but don't go picking it up please, we want to do it. 

yeterday it rained

intensely silly but satisfying

Got to hate-love those neat shows where people have special skills in a kind of superhero kind of way, and they win at everything but they're also troubled. I mean that's why I liked Pinwheel so much (I actually can't remember what the show was called. But I will) and of course The Mentalist. This show is called Unforgettable* and it is about a woman with a medical condition that means she remembers absolutely everything that ever happened, to the degree that she can go back to any moment in her life and do a 360 degree scan of everything and look at it all. SO SILLY. Anyway what made me like this show in particular was that in this scene, above, in a diner, they are playing 'Buy Nothing Day' by the Go! Team, from my favourite Go! Team album, the name of which I also don't remember. Perhaps it is called Pinwheel. 

By the way, the show I meant was Poker Face. The album is Rolling Blackouts. 

* and it's old, like, ten years old if not more

a few days ago in altona

Last Wednesday Perry and I went to the Altona Coastal Park, as recently mentioned. I recommend it. 

I was really, really confused about what this big building was on the horizon. 

So this is a remnant, apparently, of the Williamstown Racecourse which burned down in the 1940s. I don't know why the ruins remain 80 years later. Seems silly. Actually (see below) it will be exactly 80 years in about three months. We should have a party. I hate racing. 

Melbourne Argus 30 January 1947 p. 1

I actually found it quite difficult to place where the buildings were. The clipping above makes the whole complex seem pretty grand. 

We went as far as the sea but we didn't go in. 

It was a strangely cool morning, and the city was partially in fog. 

footscray park this morning

Perry and I really didn't know where to go this morning so wth we went to Footscray Park. We were especially drawn to the Thomson Water Gardens. 

 

Give me a medal because it would have been super easy to sneak around the fencing and go in and look at the stuff close up. Although that could perhaps be a medal for cowardice because obviously I didn't want to get caught trespassing. 

coming back from canberra a week ago - final bit

 

I am writing to you from the road between I guess Orbost and Lakes Entrance in I suppose it's still EastGippsland. The one thing that hadn't occurred to me when I booked  this trip from Canberra to Melbourne via Traralgon was that the winding road might make me feel ill, but I assume that is what's making me feel a bit ill. Certainly as long as I look out the window it's kept in check. But aside from the extreme boredom of having to look out the window, I really like looking out the window and seeing the lush bush and fields of East Gippsland go by. I am a big fan of this part of the world and would like to see more of it.

I am not sure why but we are operating out of timetabled order; instead of stopping in Orbost for 40 minutes which is what the timetable says, we stopped for about that long in Cann River. Where tbh there is nothingbut some toilets, a park and about three cafes. And a post office, a couple of pubs, a petrol station, and some homes. I think that's it. And a visitors centre. I really don't know why we stopped there, I think the driver explained in some way but the back of the bus was so noisy I couldn't hear him. Someone must have told him he was not as audible as he might have been because he then did a 'testing, testing' thing but didn't actually repeat himself. 

So I have had bouts of nausea, nothing shockingly awful but it's never pleasant is it.

You probably are waiting for my ultimate Canberra - NLA assessment to drop, OK well here it is. Canberra great as ever. University House Hotel very nice indeed. Second tramline proceeding apace. NLA full of incredible treasures that you just can't believe have been kept basically for your (my) delectation. I mean, clearly no-one had looked at that interview with Betty Lucas for over a decade, because access was only available either with her written consent or after her death, and she died in 2015. Everybody who works there is ridiculously helpful and they carry themselves with a particular grace, because they know they hold the keys to the people's stories. 

Anyway I have come to be of the opinion that the timetable is really just options and the driver makes a bit of a calculation about where he can stop for how long without making anyone late, and as long as he gets us to Traralgon in time for the train the other bits and pieces don't really matter. Like, there are a lot of stops in the timetable but I don't actually think we're stopping at many of them because there's no point - no-one's bought a ticket to be picked up there. Now we're just coming in to Swan Reach which is a scheduled 2:30 stop and it's exactly 2:30 and I blinked and basically missed it, and now we're in Johnsonville which is a 2:34 stop and it's 2:31 and I guess... everyone in Johnsonville is perfectly happy with their lot and does not want a bus thanks. 

The road is getting less wind-y and I am not feeling sick anymore. I might even chance the reading of a book. Or go back to the other thing I was doing, the writing of a book - assembling chapter 8 of my next book which is due in 3.5 months. It would be nice to get back to Melbourne and to the end of the week with that 'smashed out' as the kids potentially would have it. Oh no, writing 'smashed out' made me feel nauseous again.

Later:

So I am now on the train, which is much better, though crowded. I am in that hell is other people phase which always takes anyone over after they have been in public for a whole day and everyone suddenly starts obviously coughing in a gross way everywhere. I still have two hours to go but assume I made it home, spruced myself up and went and got Perry and we were all reunited and cheerful thereafter. 

coming back from canberra a week ago - cann river to orbost

I am experiencing problems with blogger right now and the uploading of these sumptuous pics is difficult, but here is a big lyrebird.

This is the supermarket, ostensibly under renovation. 

Here is the sign for Shortty's little pie shop in the car park at the back of the supermarket. 

Shortty's little pie shop isn't actually there any more. 

Looks yummy