perry and ferdie a few weeks ago

Ferdie is leading a gay old life. Mia and Emma have chickens now and he breaks in and steals the eggs regularly. He's always himself. 
 

jacana birds

A short walk with Ferdie in Jacana this morning (and Perry too who has had his photograph taken too many times). Lots of birds on the sports ovals. Got some stuff from under the house, might tell you about that later if I can be bothered getting it in from the car/ have time.

it was twenty years ago today

Not this picture. This was about a week ago. Ferdinand and Perry. 

I don't know why but I was moved for a second to examine my blog from twenty years ago, in the year I began it. I was writing a lot in that first year and I was really convinced I was very interesting and leading a fascinating life (so in that regard not much has changed). I was also writing a lot like everything I was into or had just read/watched/listened to was completely coherently obvious and natural, in a way that at the time probably made sense to me but now when I look at it, not remembering the ins and outs of various stupid films I borrowed from Video Ezy or whatever, or tv shows (I seemed to watch massive amounts of tv back then), I can't make head or tail of what I was talking about. Isn't that mad!

So I guess when I started my blog I had just turned 40, and all was possibility in a manner of speaking. I was surprised to see that we went to the Royal Show in 2005 only because I am pretty sure that I have been to the Show every year since I started going as an adult, which would mean I've been at least twenty times in twenty years (actually not, now I think of it, because firstly pandemic lockdown, also there was at least one time relatively recently when I was overseas and couldn't go). You have already seen the nice pictures of my visit to the Show yesterday morning. 

Also I note Donald Horne has now been dead for twenty years, a little more than. I still see that as a bit of a shame, but I don't suppose he'd be having much fun if he was alive.* Also that twenty years ago we saw Electrelane live, though I was a bit down on them for some reason, but I bet they were actually great. I would like to get (I suppose I mean, re-get) some of their records.* I wonder what happened to that band.*** 

* He'd be 104 

* Wow I just saw the prices on discogs and no, I wouldn't. 

* They went on hiatus a couple of years after they played in Australia - around 2007 - then threatened to return in the early 2020s then didn't. 

25 august 2019

Looking at my phone photos from five years ago is a bit confusing because obviously like anyone but particularly like hoarders (it's in the genes) I use my phone (as mentioned in previous post) as just a dump for every impression/ thing that happens/thing I do/ thing I see, but at the same time I can't be friggin' bothered to make a note about why this is important or what it means, I just assume that one day I will sit down and notate on it all, which to be fair.... well, what I'm doing now is the closest I will ever get to making any kind of extra commentary on this shit. 

So five years ago, I made a loaf of bread. Yes. The weird thing about this is that I had made a loaf of bread the day before, too. So I am not sure what this was about. This bread was born in the humblest of circumstances, the scungefest that was the kitchen in Albion. I mean my kitchen today is pretty awful but nowhere near as awful. 

I guess I walked Barry and Ferdie that day, although this is the only picture from that moment, so who really knows. 

It doesn't matter in the slightest but why did I go to the 12th Caulfield (St Johns) Memorial Scout Hall five years ago today? I definitely can't tell you. 

I vaguely recall seeing this book in a bookshop in Elsternwick I think. Maybe it was the first time I saw it IRL? Because I have a short chapter in it, so I would have been interested. Maybe I was just pleased to see it out in the wild. 

Fabulous op shops in Elsternwick, so that's probably where the above images are from. 

This was around the time that I was getting ready to go to Europe, and I visited my aunt Maggie a few times with my mother, apart from anything else, I was proposing that Maggie take on Chanticleer as her new cat. Not sure what this would mean for Pompey but maybe I would keep him, I don't know. Maggie was ill with cancer and as it transpired she died in September. 

Pompey (rear) and Chanticleer in the Albion hovel. If you don't know the story of have forgotten (sometime I forget) I rescued these two from the mean streets of Albion, they were street cats with no future or at least the future of being run over by cars. They were flea-bitten, wormy and undesexed. I am guessing that by this stage they were no longer the first two categories and maybe not the third either anymore. 

Nancy hated them (still does). Though fortunately for Nancy, she doesn't have to think about them too often. & vice-versa. 

Once again this is all trivia but the one thing that I am amazed by is how awful things were five years ago and how good they are now (for me, not for anyone else, just me). I put most of the credit for that with Laura, who is a daily tonic. No doubt by this stage she had already agreed to look after these three cats while I was overseas, and as it transpired - she ended up keeping the two boys, together. It's hard now to imagine ever separating them. 

back

I hurt my back this morning in a weird way probably the weird way most backs get hurt/hurt themselves - I think I was bending down for something. I actually thought my liver broke or some other internal organ but now I think it is just strain of some minor otherwise never bothered with muscle, just trying to make itself known.

I thought 'either I can lie down and see if this passes or I can try to crash through' and I decided. possibly stupidly, on the second option. I was just about to take Perry out on our usual perambulation of 2500 steps on a route he knows well and considers to be a satisfactory walk. I started gingerly but picked up pace and ultimately it was fine, though it is still twingey.

What I noticed, which is what I think is the most interesting point here, is that Perry - who I tend to assume is powering along like a demon without really considering that he is on a lead connected to my hand - was actually extremely considerate of my slightly less mobile situation and walked a lot more slowly and sensibly (loose lead, which he sometimes finds difficult to countenance) and was overall just a good boy. People always tell you that your dog is deeply connected to your actions and demeanour but you forget it's the case in the day-to-day. 

Well, the joke's on him because having fully appreciated this I am going to do more disruptions to get him fully attentive to what I want him to do and remind him more in his conscious brain that I am his leader and don't need to be protected from every dog/tall man who comes past. 

While I'm here I'll tell you about yesterday. We went out with Ferdie (I am now ready to officially announce: Barry died a few months ago. Sorry to be brusque about it, I'm not being glib, he was a very, very good boy and he had an incredibly good life, almost to the end) up around the creek almost to the same place we went in the second week of June but not quite. 

We battled some steep creek banks for a while...

and came out where there is a stretch of open, um, stone, sandstone maybe? Anyway it was weird . It was weird because while we have crossed that terrain many times before now it has been covered in, well, it's probably not hessian but if I say hessian you'll get the picture roughly speaking. Or wait, here's an actual picture:

Ferdie, if you're interested, is in good spirits. It's hard to imagine he's old but he is (11 I think) but still the same affectionate and enthusiastic boy though not as naughty and I would say (never say never but...) his escaping days are over. He spends a lot of his time with the cats, which is bizarre but I guess it's like the cessation of enmity in war or something. They seem to get on well together. 

small walk

I'm not quite sure what the place we went today is called. Is it Westmeadows or Broadmeadows or does it have another name? I have been there before, definitely, in what might almost have been another life. Then, the public housing component was called Barnsley Mews but now I believe the estate that replaced it is called Valley Park and I don't think it's public housing anymore. 

Here's Ferdie and Perry, completely loving the environment and their time together (they get on very well). 

I think I've marvelled about this before but this green slope (it is more severe in real life than it looks here) was surveyed as a street, to be called Lyons St. I suppose it is possible that it was made more severe later on after the Lyons St idea was abandoned. 

Anyway, here it is in the Melways 1966.

More of the land alongside the creek. 

A little way north some gem has erected this sign which I'd like to say is ineffectual (I mean I'm sure it is for most people, but chickens like me don't dare cross into land labeled thus...)

A couple of houses of Gwilt St. Like the slope, they're more impressive in real life. 

So this is looking out across what google maps seems to want to call the Otway Crescent Drain (though there does not seem to be an Otway Crescent) we came across this campsite. I can think of plenty of worse places to live. 

And thus ends our trip for Monday. Happy 'king's birthday' (sigh). 

ferdie and perry walk in jacana reserve this morning no words

 

woodlands park yesterday

New build mansion in Providence Road