sometimes you just gotta sniff it

 

3

 

how was your july?

Perry and a dog whose name I think is Toast. 

Ours wasn't terrible, though it was very very busy. I suppose some of it was terrible. It was also very very busy. 

Anyway, looking forward to August I suppose, at least, I never, ever want to experience a 32nd of July. 

I say I'm looking forward to August but I'm kicking it off with major root canal so... how much is that something to look forward to? 

it's good to have a blog

If I didn't have a blog, neither you nor I would ever know that I saw David Kilgour and Yo La Tengo play a show in 2007 (and I didn't enjoy it, but that doesn't really mean anything in itself). Amazing. I literally do not remember this at all, I don't know where it happened and my description of the experience is so oblique I am not sure why I had a bad time. Crazy! I suspect the bad time probably had less to do with the actual show, than I appreciated at the time. I am also surprised to read that I've seen Yo La Tengo six times. Six??? I really like them, but I can only vaguely recollect seeing them once, and it wasn't this 2007 show. Madness!!!

This is a picture of Perry and Nancy yesterday. Perry is at one of his doggy day care hangs today. I would be happy to have him stay at home all week but he really seems to need to expend the energy and he loves going to those places so much I can't deny him. But I miss him. I am fairly sure Nancy doesn't. 

Walking at the moment is not easy because while I am (I'm pretty sure) coming to the end of my four or five-month bout of plantar fasciitis I am still hobbling a bit and every time I stand up I don't know whether it's going to hurt or not. I am also often really, really tired which can't just be the fact that I am 60 now but has to be more than that. Well, I guess I'll find out over time. But it doesn't make me the ideal companion all the time for a sometimes boisterous three year old (dog). 

I got back on Netflix recently, I forget why but to watch something in particular, possibly the Sarah Silverman special which I actually didn't enjoy that much but perhaps it was too close to the bone. Anyway, what I have since discovered is that a lot of Netflix shows have a Finnish captions option, which means I can justify watching any old pap on that basis, as a way to keep treading water on my Finnish. Most recently it was a five-part British crime show called Missing You. The above reads, 'Didn't it bother you that he had a family?' (I didn't translate that all by myself, by the way, though I know some of the words). 

'Did s/he make a mistake?'

This relates to a website called, unconvincingly, 'Honest Aspect': 'I reviewed all Honest Aspect-related documents for errors'. 

I don't know how useful this all is in learning Finnish (my ten-year plan, to be fluent by 2035!) but it can't hurt - can it? 

blackburn

Today Perry and I walked around various parts of Blackburn/North Blackburn. A year ago I mused on Ronald and Charmain Biggs' house in Hibiscus Road,* and finally got around to actually visiting it today. It's nothing special and perhaps that was the point (I mean, not horrible looking houses, but basically an identical row of them I think, or certainly built at the same time, though there have been various remodelling treatments since). I wonder if the Biggs were the first residents in their Hibiscus Road property - the first mention of the whole street in the papers is 1966, could it really be that new? 

Houses in Hibiscus Road:

This (above) is 52. 

We also went to Dixons' Blackburn store, to JB Hi Fi to get a small bluetooth speaker,** and to Blackburn lake. 

Where Dixons' was at. 

The lake.

*I note in that post from last year I say 54 Hibiscus - not sure what my source was for that as it seems to have been 52. 

** Weirdest part of that was going through the front doors of the shopping centre and hearing a mid-teen boy saying to his cronies 'Let's go upstairs and look at the barbecues!' 

walkway to the hotham hub children's centre

 

yarraville to tottenham along stony creek

Perry and I decided to take a walk from Yarraville to Tottenham today. Actually, we decided we would walk to Sunshine but my foot hurt too much (don't ask) and I abbreviated the operation. Perry didn't mind. He was at the stop and sniff everything stage of the walk anyway. 

As so often happens when I uploaded the photos here they all came out in the reverse order I took them, but whatever, doesn't matter does it. Here are a few pictures from the Tott end, a bunch of houses I like to imagine are Anders Hansen homes from the late 20s-early 30s but I don't really know that, except he was the main builder in that area and these houses are all more or less the same dimensions and same age. This boarded-up one is interesting...

I love this brick 'n' weatherboard creation it's rad as:

This 'is what it is'... 

I'm in a guessing mood (after about 3/4 hour of fruitless research) so I'm going to say this could once have been the premises of Riverside Manufacturers. It was apparently a big concern in Paramount Rd, Tottenham, in the middle of last century. 

I like to document Pam the Bird wherever/whenever. 

I have a very soft spot (as Rowena Wallace's character on Cop Shop, Pamela, said to George Mallaby as Glenn in an episode I just watched - 'in the head' - for late period Housing Commission homes, which is what I think these might be, in a dead end street in Yarraville. They're nice.

A-a-a-a-anyway, it was a decent enough walk, Perry was extremely well-behaved, it was too hot and glary, which is just life going forward I suppose, I mentioned the bit about the sore foot, fuck that, 

meander - 3

 Perry having sensory experiences at Cherry Lake, Altona Beach, Helping Hands Sunshine. 

tiring week

Yeah so I don't have anything to tell you, particularly after the bombshell about the Coburg Lake Reserve being in Division 4. How many more headlines can you seriously take? This week has been ridiculously hot and unpleasant for everyone, except people who enjoy temperatures in the mid-30s, are they really people? Cast them out! I have had too much work on, and haven't really done anything of value since going to see Todd Rundgren play in Castlemaine last Saturday, which was by the way excellent. I decided my cutlery drawer needed cleaning, I mean it's not outright unhygienic but you know, it's just been used for its intended purpose. 

I have watched a few D4s - I'm into September 1973 now as was inevitable per the previous post - but I'm finding that by this time Crawfords or the D4 team are getting a bit tired and unfocused, just an impression. I suspect that the regular cast were finding it all a bit draining and a few episodes concentrating heavily on other actors taking the lead in stories with the Yarra Central crew very peripheral, was considered order of the day. So, the 29 August episode 'Willie' which concentrates a lot on Ernie Bourne as the titular character in a somewhat rollicking adventure where, and this is the other issue, crime is considered somewhat fun. Now, that's a change from what we're used to in this show. Then there's 'Damsel in Distress' with Helen Morse and Serge Lazareff as Angela and Ivan; she seduces him so he'll kill her father's new wife, but you know, the whole thing is farcical really (though it does have Hilda Scurr as Ivan's mother, her usual magnificent self in a typically low-key role). And the episode 'Bella' which is mainly concerning the adventures of a prostitute called, yeah, Bella (Margo Lee), her boarder/lover Toby (Brian Hannah) and, very late in the piece but playing I suppose an important role, her daughter Kathy (Rosalie Fletcher). 

Now it's rained and the sun's gone down so Perry and I are going to go out for a while. Talk to you later. 

futsal court this morning

I just educated myself about what futsal actually is, so I now know that this definitely is a futsal court and that's not important really I just needed to check. The main thing is that the people I saw using it last night really went to town on hydrating themselves and then left all the bottles behind like grubs. Perry and I cleaned them up this morning. 

This morning was weird as it wasn't meant to rain but it definitely did, but now it's hot again, which is gross.