Yulecart 3301

I hope your weekend was as funny as mine. I saw the Yulecart Agricultural Show. There were ponies of course and inside the Heritage listed bluestone hall there were roses and wool.

The hall was built by the community using bluestone recycled from Strathkellar Homestead. The names on the prizewinning exhibits were the same dozen as on the boards displaying those who served in the 1914 war and the 1939 war. There's a continuity out here in the country.

RIP Wilbur

Update July 2014 - since 2010 when I wrote this:
"In the centre of Rokewood with a lovely view of the church spire (and the pub), Wilbur the hog accepts the admiration of passing travellers. I finally stopped to capture his magnificence for your enjoyment He knows I don’t eat ham or bacon or pork."

Wilbur has passed away, peacefully in his sleep with a full tummy.  His death was widely reported in various daily  papers. I went past today and the junction was not funny anymore.

*******

This week I drove the C146 and enjoyed, as I always do, the sight of this spire emerging from distant trees and telling me I have reached Rokewood where my Tuxedo-Cat Miss Kitty lives on a farm with my friend.

The church under this spire was built in 1862 by

Edinburgh-boy Alexander Davidson who

had eloped here with his cousin Eugenia Cooper, to avoid

a scandal and be married by their uncle the Revd. John Cooper.

They built themselves a substantial cottage in Rokewood and as well as his uncle’s church under that steeple, he designed bluestone mansions right across Victoria’s Western District for all the rich graziers competing with each other for the most rooms and biggest ballroom -
Kurruc-a-Ruc and Wurrok both in Rokewood, ,
Mooleric, and Barwon Park in Winchelsea,
Barunah Plains in Inverleigh, Narrepumelap in Wickliffe, Darra at Meredith,
Titanga and Gala at Lismore, and just up the road from me -Yeowarra which was originally called just YEO -

Photos of all these rockpiles can be found at the National Trust Register

And here’s a fact for Hot Andrew - Between June 1885 and March 1887 Davidson held the appointment of Architect for the Melbourne Tramway Trust and designed the MMTB building at 48 Nicholson St Fitzroy.

behind every successful man

Over at Twuntr, Scott Clarke  aka @Winetosser posits beautifully:

Peta: How did you handle the press?
Tony: I ran away.
Peta: You what?
Tony: I ran away and they chased me. It was cool. I won!

Peta: Did you say anything to them?
Tony: Nuh
Peta: Anything?
Tony: I might have told them
 to fuck off but they were chasing me. 





In this image, his Chief Of Staff Ms Peta*Credlin, is watching her PM giving a speech during the previous election campaign.

This is my photo. The stiletto heeled shoe came out of the ComCar first and alone, then the foot went into it. I liked her right from that moment.
Of course she is a Western District girl. They had driven that day from a Ferntree Gully speech to a 1pm Ballarat Party faithful gathering by invite.
See how tall she is - TA has to look up to her. Between these two photos they had a heads-together exchange, and before, he looked over at me to see if I was snapping them so I didn't.

Then The Candidate strides up a bluestone lane to a crowd waiting outside The Mining Exchange where local LIB members are waiting at an invitation-only occasion. HE immediately embraced the cardigan women waving placards protesting about puppy farms. It was genius for the next day front page Ballarat Courier, with him holding them and them holding small fluffy doglets.  Then he disappeared into the venue. The choice of ignoring several other organised banner wavers for the doggy sweeties was clearly arranged by cellphone well before he even turned that historic corner.
I would love to be that Malcolm Tucker puppeteer. I wonder if Ms Peta swears at Mr Rabbit?
I'd love to do that too.
Her husband is Bri Loughnane the LIB Party Director. It can't be easy. Do follow that link to a LIB refugee joke website he authorised and which will no doubt be taken down any minute.
UPDATE 25/10: it has it was, it's gone. the cartoon refugee boats LIB joke has gone. weasels. Now the schoolboy snipers pretend to be leaders they remove evidence of their nasty side.

love the liberry

Love The Liberry is a journal blog by librarians, on all the batty customers who come to their counter. There are some gems in there that make me think they should get a pay raise for absence of any homicides. Today there was no homicide after I entered my library

I had been there a week ago, looking for a particular biography, and failed to find it, despite knowing my Dewey very well.

Today I tried again so intensely that I actually asked the librarian who replied "In the Business section because it's a biography of a business-woman". Right ....

and this is the exit view across Sturt St to the Memorial Bandstand dedicated to the band on The Titanic. The weathervane has a Titanic shape silhouette. There was probably a librarian on the ship as well, but no memorial for her.
Ballarat - you're welcome to it.

Beechworth, Victoria

As Hot Andrew Highriser did back in January, I too, had to photograph the heraldry above The Royal Arcade in the centre of Melbourne's CBD, and then I wondered how grateful those royals must have been, to allow the use of their very own coat-of-arms with Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense ... could it have been all the stonking great tons of gold we shipped back to The Empire?

Our commonwealth c-of-a has a sheep, a wheatsheaf and some goldmining tools, whereas the Royals just seem to have a lot of lions.

If AUS updated ours, it would have a cellphone surrounded by credit cards and barbecues.

I wish I had a coat-of-arms signifying the fabulousness I represent. It would have a keyboard au courant, surrounded by cats and winebottles possibly.
Last week I made my first visit to goldrush town Beechworth out in Victoria's North-East, and loved this coat-of-arms on an 1856 bank. Isn't the crouching lion just cuddly, and not even slightly looking like he will eat Skippy & The Roadrunner ...

(I do have some readers in other countries so will just explain for them that we Aussies diss our Commonwealth heraldry by referring to the kangaroo by the name of a TV show kanga, and to the emu as that beep-beep US-desert bird)