Antiques Fair

Armidale holds an annual antique fair in February and we purchase functional items from time to time. Recent acquisitions include my throne and a nice hall-stand. Today's visit ended up with us purchasing a unique item we've never come across before - a storage chest capable of hosting the thousands of documents we seem to accumulate - many of them financial documents of one kind or another lodged in all sorts of places around the house.



Now they'll all be in one spot courtesy of this beautiful - to us at least - piece of furniture. It is made of mahogany with brass inlays and a lovely red marble cap. It has locking side panels which constrain the 16 deep wooden boxes faced in green leather embossed in gold. The piece was constructed in 1910, which makes it a year shy of its 100th birthday. A lot of people were looking at it and we decided to make an early offer.

AS

Addendum

I noted that our weather has recently flipped from a dry and extreme heat to cold and wet weather. This turns out to be an understatement.

The little town of Burke received 195mm of rain in 24 hours (2/3 of its annual average) and then followed up with another 25mm. Yesterday, Bourke reached a maximum of 20C (less than Armidale) and about 15C below average. A little hamlet (Glenreagh) on the coast east of us scored 170 mm last night (= almost 7 inches), while we scored about 27mm. Dorrigo, on the Waterfall Way between here and Coffs Harbour, has received about 700mm in a week (or about 28 inches) and this has led to Bellingen (also on the Waterfall Way) being completely isolated.

A couple of days ago we headed for Wollomombi Falls 25km east of Armidale to see the effect of the heavy rain and the view was quite impressive. The falls are almost 300 m (900 ft) high with the last portion a dramatic drop:

Bizarre Weather

You've heard about the bushfire disasters in Southern Australia, but are probably unaware that the great wet has set in elsewhere. Bourke has just received about two-thirds of its annual rainfall in 24 hours. Armidale also had roughly 40mm yesterday afternoon (or about 1.6 inches) and the temperature plummeted to a maximum of 13C. That was 22 degrees cooler than the maximum last Monday. Now we have rain forecast for the next four days!

AS

A Day Off

Once in a while I get a day-off for myself. Such was the case last Wednesday after I had flown into Sydney from Brisbane on Tuesday evening. I had dinner engagement with several research colleagues on the Wednesday evening, but before then time alone. So, I decided to explore on foot parts of the city I rarely visit these days, a journey that took well over 6 hours.

It took me through Glebe and Pyrmont to Chinatown and Darling Harbour, where I ambled through the national maritime museum. This facility has some real vessels including a pensioned-off warship, a submarine, the famous (to Australians) Krait which attacked the Japanese in Singapore harbour, and a replica of Cook's Endeavour. However, I kept to the exhibits inside dealing with migration, trade, fishing, beach culture, early settlement, convict transport and that kind of thing.

After a couple of hours I wandered off to the Museum of Modern Art at Circular Quay. The exhibits were much like the Tate Modern on London's Southbank - weird pictures and sculptures, artists' ego trips, and quite a bit of film. I spent quite a while pondering a display of household goods towed along a road by a car and disintegrating in the process. Then there was a collage of Hollywood film clips over the last 70 years dealing with marital relationships / breakdowns which was actually quite funny. Still, it's not something to visit daily.

After walking through The Rocks my speed nosedived and I took a train much of the way back from Circular Quay to my hotel in Glebe. I guess I did too much as usual - the only time off my feet for the whole day up to then was eating Japanese take-away for 10 minutes at lunch-time.

Still, it was a refreshing experience from my fast-paced daily routine.

AS

Partial Retirement?

Dot keeps wanting to slow me down, but I'm a sucker when it comes to taking on new work-related responsibilities.

I was invited to be a keynote speaker at a conference in November this year. It's a bi-annual academic meeting arranged by the SOAC (State Of Australia's Cities) group and this time it will be in Perth (WA). My presentation will be a philosophical piece on the relevance of Neo-Liberal ideas to the task of managing / planning Australia's cities and I think they wanted me to counter the soft-left ideology of many urbanists. SOAC will also pay some of my costs.

The one thing bugging me about this opportunity is the fact that my cardiac arrest occurred one week before the last SOAC meeting in November 2007. Am I tempting fate too much for my own good? Or is my bravado justified? I gather that the organisers were preparing my obituary last time round and it would be shame to give them an opportunity to dust it off!

AS

Blowing Hot and Cold

I have diagnosed a bi-polar disorder in the world's climates! SBS TV spent a long time last reporting snowfalls all over Britain, showing among other things a poor commuter exiting Waterloo station on his bum, skating vehicles, and white cloaked landscapes. The problem, I gather, is nationwide and just about to get worse.

Somewhere in the Antipodes, about 18,000 km away things couldn't be more different, but I doubt if UK TV has informed its viewers about 45 degrees C in Adelaide and Melbourne, much less Armidale's unusually hot summer. We've been sitting on 30-32 degrees for quite a while (32C = 90F)and today is not exception. Fortunately, it's not humid and I'm still waiting to see my first cloud for the day. In fact, I'm thinking of going home and sitting in the garden shaded by large trees and a big umbrella, and downing a few iced drinks. The problem is getting home on my bike from my UNE office where I'm typing this.

AS

Brief Coastal Interlude

I was fortunate to get an invitation to a weekend at Broulee (pronounced Browlea) on the NSW South Coast. It lies just south of Batemans Bay, which is itself about 130 km east of Canberra. The region is, if you like, Canberra's beach resort, and is an attractive mix of quiet holiday hideaways, forest clad mountainsides, and lovely beaches and sea-scapes. Greg's parents own a holiday house, and just for a few days I was their guest along with Emily and Greg and Rebecca and Max.



To get there, about 1000km from Armidale, I flew from Armidale to Canberra on Friday where Beck picked me up at the airport and we left straight for the coast at 4.30pm. Emily called the route a goat-track, but it was a bit better than that - long straight stretches across the flat tablelands (c. 850m asl), with steep windy bits down the escarpment to the coast. We met up with E & G at Batemans Bay for an excellent fish dinner and a short drive south to Broulee along the Princess Highway (route 1 to Melbourne) via the quaint 'alternative' settlement of Mogo in the gathering dusk.



After a quick breakfast on Saturday morning we headed off for a short sightseeing trip around Broulee before walking around Broulee Island now connected to the mainland via a sand spit. This was timed for low tide and took about 80 minutes. Max just loved the rock shelves, pools and winding obstacle-strewn pathway. Then we headed for South Broulee beach whose water was just about calm (amazing for the south Pacific!). Nearby Shark Bay was also flat but we avoided that to be near the Surf Club and avoid being bitten by a shark ... which had just happened prior to our visit.

Max did a bit of 'swimming', played with his body board, and built an impressive sand castle, with fortress walls and a moat. We all headed into the water and I looked the part wearing my board shorts and precious little else. The water was supposedly a warm 20C, but everything is relative! The air temperature was about 30C, which made the water feel quite cold. Late afternoon - when the sun was less fierce, we headed back to the same beach for some zoological investigations. We collected lots of shell-fish with their occupants firmly inside and saw them squirt water at us or burrow into the sand to escape our attention. Max was alert to that trick and picked them up to inspect their burrowing technique. Then it was off to nearby rock-pools to search for more marine life - sea-slugs, a sort of sponge, and a variety of fish.

Sunday was much the same, but also included some geocaching. Then, at 4.00pm, it was time to return home. I accompanied Beck to her house in Canberra, where we were joined about 30 minutes later by Em and Greg. Finally, I was on my way to their house in Belconnen for the night and an early morning departure for home. I got back to Armidale by 1.20 (today, Monday 2 Feb) just 3 days and 4 hours after the start. I must learn to do things a little more slowly. However, this time was constrained by Beck trying to buy a house and Em starting a new job with the Commonwealth Dept of Education. Maybe we'll return shortly, as Dot couldn't come this time. She's working!

AS

why worry

It's Australia Day here, with lots of official flag flying, marching bands, citizenship ceremonies, speeches, and cascading gongs. That's the official image; the reality is that great bulk of citizenry spend the day at the beach or some other pleasant pursuit. Australia Day also marks the end of the summer holidays for most, and the school year starts tomorrow. That's strange because the end of January is like the end of July in Europe, a time when most set off on holidays. Moreover, summer here continues for another two months or more!

Yesterday, Dot and I, and Dot's friend Jane, got in the festive mood by driving over to a local vineyard for lunch and a bit of wine-tasting. The whyworry vineyard is part of the big push in this area to produce cold-climate wines. Most of the investment in grape growing come from outside the region, but this operation was set up by a local sheep farmer at Uralla 21 km south of Armidale and he must have had a sense of humour to name it thus. The vinyard is 1130m asl and the owners told us that the climate is much more like France and Southern Germany than most parts of Australia, which is great for producing Riesling.

The lunch was very good and cheap, but I didn't taste too much wine as I was driving. We certainly enjoyed the wines they produce and bought several bottles. We lingered long soaking up the lovely landscape as shown in the picture. The distant hills to the north were about 40 km away and draped with a massive thunder cloud. Between us and the 1400m hills were miles of quiet pastures and woodland, all bathed in fierce sun-light. By the way, the temperature at 1130m was a very warm 31 centigrade (or c. 88F).

AS

Boxing Kangaroo

One of our national flags portrays a boxing kangaroo and it is often used at sporting events. For example, Alan Bond's yacht flew the flag when it won the America's cup back in the 1970s. Well, kangaroos do box each other and I witnessed a couple of 'roos doing precisely that outside my office window at work yesterday morning. Four young 'roos were only about 50m away on a hillside grazing on some succulent green grass and members of this pod (the collective for a group of 'roos) occasionally diverted into mutual grooming and sparring. Shortly after, at morning tea, one of my colleagues remembered driving away from UNE at night and seeing a group of possums fleeing in front of him. However, one of the possums was much larger than the others and seemed to be struggling. On closer inspection it turned out that the possum was in fact a koala! It's nice working on a campus where we can witness such events.

The picture shows some of the kangaroos with the two on the left having just finished their spat.

AS

Lamb and Potato Festival

Dot, her friend Jane and I decided at short notice to go up to Guyra for the Lamb and Potato Festival. This extravaganza celebrates the two main local agricultural products and is mostly visited by locals, except for curious drivers on the main N-S New England Highway. Guyra is one of Australia's highest and coldest towns at about 1350 m asl, and it only has a population of about 2,000.



Extravaganza might be an inappropriate word if you judge by what was on offer: lamb dinners of various kinds, an exhibition of line dancing, a sheep shearing demonstration with kids wielding the shears much to the terror of the quadrupeds, and numerous stallholders vending bits and pieces of use to country people. Mainly, it was an excuse for isolated rural people to get together for a chat. The participants were, to put it kindly, of an older demographic and, from the way they dressed, talked and presented themselves, deeply conservative. Most had something to do with land.

We met up with Dot's friends, Diana and Ian, who own a lifestyle block at Black Mountain. This little village of less than 50 people lies at the top of the range about 8 km south of Guyra in the direction of Armidale, and we spent a pleasant couple of hours there around a table before heading home.

AS