Another Country Diary
After about a week of these diary entries,
they go to the
archive.
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What I did in April '05 |
 The
old cedar tree that I've documented across the years in this diary, has
just about finished its pollination time. Each breath of wind generates
a cloud of yellow dust. It coats the back yard, comes in the windows,
makes the cars change colour. None of us seem allergic to it and it's
really a time when you use words like magical. and words like 'bloody
pollen'. Without much rain, it stayed on the lawn this year and made the
grass and patches of dry ground in between a funny colour.
 A
lone currawong in Lamberts Vineyard. That's why they use nets.
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 We
had a 4.am visit to the Sydney Produce Market for Regional Food. There's
a
Photo Diary on the website that tells the tale. Here are a couple of
photos that didn't make it into the story. |
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 There's
more than a bit of fatherly pride in watching my daughter coming to
grips with the mechanics of photography. She's had one of my hand me
down digital cameras for two years and taken a lot of great images with
it. But it's fully automatic with a good zoom lens and now she has to
learn about prime lenses, greycard metering and bracketing
exposures.
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 I
played camera assistant one weekend I was down (and subject for a few
portraits for her folio, she's finding it hard to get time to shoot when
she's at school every day and works all day Saturday. Grandparents are
good subjects, they can't say no and are very patient.
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 While
she was photographing Jack, I took some of Sheila, Jan's mum. |
 Jan's
told the story of the family tradition of Cornish pasties in her
Regional Food CV. I thought you might like to read it here. That's
Nanny's left over piece of pastie. To find out why it's put aside, read
on. |
 "If
this is cottage pie, it must be Tuesday.”
"As I was growing up, we had a rigid culinary calendar, of which the
centerpiece was the Sunday roast. Over the next two days, you used up
the leftovers. Other days had similarly fixed menus.
Our favourite was Saturday. Cornish pasties. Home-made, according to the
traditional family recipe handed down from mothers to daughters (and
daughters-in-law). Legend has it that when my father’s extended family
gathered for Cornish pasties, my great grandmother marked each one with
a symbol that identified each person’s preferences. Uncle Bill – light
on the onion, plenty of meat. Auntie Marie – not too much salt.
Jan, Spotty the dog and 'the Aunts' and the Saturday morning pastie.
It was a tradition developed in the Cornish tin mines,
when a miner ate half his pastie mid-morning and saved the rest for
lunch. The pastry was marked so he could identify his own half-eaten
meal, while the crimped crust allowed him to hold the pastie with his
filthy fingers, without contaminating his food. The crust was discarded
afterwards. Our family pasties were goliaths of their kind. Their ends
hung over the edges of the average dinner plate. The convention was to
cut off a corner and put it aside for morning tea on Sunday – a warm-up
for the lunchtime roast!" Jan O'Connell.
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 Meanwhile,
back in the Bungendore garden the parrots are eating the seed heads of
the cosmos. Not something we like when we're hoping they'll self seed
for next year. Still, there's probably some dropped ones. |
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 I
visited Prahran market when I was up early one morning on a Melbourne. I
don't just take pictures of pretty girls, I promise.
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 Just
outside the market, in Malvern Road is this conjunction of white man
marketing icon and graffiti.
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 Melbourne
graffiti is different to Bungendore graffiti. |
 Now,
it's time for the end of the world. I was with Aurore photographing the
Williamstown Festival and I took this picture (I think they were Falun
Dong members preparing for a dance). Have a look at the bigger image. I
don't know why but it seems to me like everyone is preparing for some cataclysmic
event or it's happening. Absurd and threatening.
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That's April. Sorry. Sorry. |
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Fred
Harden
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