 Another Country Diary Links to images and other pages are in blue, mouse-over pop-up comments when I have them are burgundy. |
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| Week of 9 September to 15 September '02 | ||
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It seems like the camera is doing all the
work of aide memoire and I haven't been writing as much. Work is tense
and involving but it needs to be sorted out and that's the task I've let
myself in for. The garden and home are a real escape.
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 Each
time I've passed the concrete bunkers on the hill outside of
Lake Bathurst, I've tried to catch them in a photograph. Given enough
window seats and enough train trips I'll be able to show them to you. (A
motor drive or burst sequence would do the trick as well, but not on my
camera.) My guess (and someone mentioned it to me I think) is that it was a World War II
period outpost with extensive underground (from the raised bumps) and
above ground gun platforms. They are strategically placed on a
ridge to protect the valley
and railway from invaders (if they got that far). You can't see the
buildings from the road and that's why they've probably remained intact.
I keep promising to stop and explore them some time.
(Note: I was not quite right with my guess about
these as this later entry
shows) |
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 Good steady rain over a couple of days has filled the gutters and soaked
the paddocks. There was little wind and the rain fell in big drops and
stayed there on the canvas chair I forgot to bring inside. Then a clear
cold night turned everything to ice. Icicles on the tips of leaves, and the rain
drops clear, smooth and hard.
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 More
rain and this time with much stronger wind. There were storms on
the coast and wind damage over the weekend. The trees with blossom fully
out like the cherry plum, were battered to pieces. No bees are out
pollinating in this weather, and already we're resigned to a poor year
for fruit. The petals were blown everywhere, sticking to the cars and in
piles up against our house wall. There were shapes and colours that must
have come from gardens up the road, they were like nothing growing in
our yard.
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 No,
the Queen didn't send a birthday greeting. The 130 is the combined age
of Jan's mother Sheila and sister Bev, sharing the same birthday. In the
usual ridiculous fashion, I drove to Melbourne with the two girls on
Friday night, getting to the motel and Jan at midnight, and we returned
to Bungendore on Sunday. 1400k with a side trip to let Kate see a horse
she'd found via the web, that she didn't like in the flesh.
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 Sheila
is 80 and people get excited by birthdays with 'noughts' after the first
couple. The big excitement this time was that we hadn't told her that
Jackie was back from England. Jackie called on the actual birthday a few
days earlier and pretended she was ringing from Brighton. When we walked
in, it was to a teary welcome and you could tell that both grandparents were
pleased to see her. That's what getting together as a family on these
occasions should be all about, it's not for yourself. It's great that
everyone in Jan's family get on so well. In my family those occasions weren't as easy.
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 I
had to photograph some more country roads for the Nats website headers.
Stopping on the way back from Melbourne a few times, I couldn't find the
archetypical country road. At home I searched my image archives and was
sure I'd have a nice road with a ute or two, maybe a 4WD but was
surprised to find there were dozens of empty 'roadscapes' but few with
well placed vehicles. Looking at them I felt like I could easily put
together a post apocalypse vision of the country side. Is it me that's
strange for recording these or do just I live in a largely unpopulated
continent and find empty highways a natural part of it?
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| Fred Harden | ||
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Spring
daffodils. These grew near the compost bin at the back behind the herb
garden. Unless you're dumping kitchen scraps or shovelling the compost,
you don't see them so, they came inside. The pride of place is the
kitchen bench and at night, the low wattage spots illuminate whatever is
there and there are reflections from the glass as it gets dark outside.
I couldn't count the number of 'vase of flowers in nice light'
photo's I've taken over the years. Most of them are pale reminders, but
although they never wilt in the images, it's more like embalming. An
uneasy process.