cherry lake

I am not kidding, as a child I was obsessed by Cherry Lake, also known as Lake Cherry. I used to look at it in the Gregorys and wonder wtf it could possibly be. I couldn't imagine what it could even slightly look like. It became one of those things, I don't know if you have things like that, but it was a place of great mystery that kind of entered into a particular plane of consciousness whereby I could hardly deal with it. Well today, without any particular forethought, I dealt with it. I went there. I was there. 

It was honestly an accident. Perry and I went to look at the Stony Creek backwash and having done that, coming out of the little cul-de-sac where I'd parked, I realised I didn't have a chance of turning right and going back towards the city so I turned left assuming at some point I'd be able to make a more convenient or practical turn. Then eventually I was just heading towards Williamstown and a worm in my head said go to Cherry Lake. It wasn't hard. 

Here is Perry examining not a cherry but an apple in Cherry Lake. It was presumably put there for flavouring. 

Here he is contemplating existence and ducks.

Oddly enough a lot of the path around the lake is placed in such a way you can't see it a lot of the time, so great is the distance, and the foliage. 

So, for instance, this is looking out across to the lake but where is it, ya know? 

Presumably this very overgrown and fenced-off path was once a path to the lake, but I wouldn't fancy your chances now. 

This is where something called Cherry Creek enters Cherry Lake. Whatever Cherry Creek has in it, the ducks love it. 

You can see them in the middle distance there. 

Picture where the oil refineries and the city skyline blend across the lake, #1. 

Picture where the oil refineries and the city skyline blend across the lake, #2 (with swans).

So that's Cherry Lake. I now have no more mysteries, at all, in my life. At all. 

Cherry Lake reentered my consciousness incidentally a few months ago when some paper ran a story on the actor Pia Miranda, who apparently walks its perimeter every day I think. I spent a lot of time there trying to remember her last name, my brain throwing up various other Pias, not that there are millions, but Pia Zadora obviously etc. I have since realised where I was going terribly wrong - for some reason I got it into my head that Pia Miranda was Pino Amenta's daughter, but I couldn't really remember his name either, and if I was sailing towards that notion, well, her name is obviously not Pia Amenta. It took a fucking long time to piece it together. Pino Amenta's actor daughter's name is Jade. Pia Miranda has nothing to do with the Amentas at all. Sorry to all concerned. I could have cleared it up with two minutes of wikipedia wandering but I was lazy. 

Oh, and here it is from not the 1975 Gregorys but the 1966 Melways when it was still known as a swamp. There was a lot more swamp around it then too seemingly. I MISS THOSE DAYS

tired

I took two nighttime tabs a little while ago, and already it is making it difficult to type. Now I know what it’s like to be, oh, William Burroughs or some other junkie. You know, you take drugs to be creative and then you can’t even type. Anyway, everyone (as the girl who served me at Safeway tonight when I went to buy Mia some sour cream – her name was Lyndsay) has a fluey cold at the moment, and I am never one to miss out on a new trend, so here I am. I had a sore throat every morning for about four mornings, but each time I got over it, so I thought nothing more of it. And then at about 8 pm last night (Saturday, I’m typing this in bed actually, but won’t post it till Monday I guess) it hit me and I was down. In fact for the last 24 hours I have felt pretty alright, it’s just I’m crying all the time and of course my nose is running like… alright, no metaphors, too gross.

I am a bad diarist because it is really hard for me to remember things. Yesterday we went to see Emily Ferretti’s exhibition in Johnson St. There was a painting of a colander I really liked which luckily was on a postcard just inside the door. She had sold all the paintings anyway. Then we did some shopping at Pascoe Vale Road Market, always a pleasure. I took the dogs out to the park and we met a guy with a little white fluffy dog who Charlie would not stop barking at. The dynamics of Charlie’s world are too complex for me to even theorise about. All I know is she’s trying to defend the pack, because Millie won’t do it. The reason Millie won’t do it is she knows the pack is not under attack (I don’t know what she would do if the pack was genuinely under attack; I hope I never have to find out. Very occasionally she will discipline Charlie, with a front paw on the shoulder, but that’s as far as it goes). Charlie can’t seem to see this.

Down in our lake we have two black swans with three cygnets, and a pelican – and numerous little black ducks and some mallards too. Frogs as well, which sound like they have an echo chamber effect on them – not sure whether they’re underground or just croaking at walls.

Today we went to Ceres for my mother Jane’s birthday. We had Hot Indonesian Eggs and Laurie hurt his head on a rock. Jane retired on Friday which must be weird. I think I might retire too. She is going to get her puppy in about a month. She has already named him, Kenzie. He is a border terrier.

Some new characters are moving to the neighbourhood in a while, Nicole, Julian and little April have bought a house up the road. They are not moving in for 3 months. Christmas in Jacana they say.

I don’t know what else I have to tell you diary. I continue to live the life of an elderly child, attempting to read the minds of animals and also attempting to churn out obscure academic papers on seemingly random topics (seemingly? I must be having an out of body experience). Anyway the coldnflu tabs are obviously kicking in now as I can’t think so I will lie back and enjoy the trip.