Yo-yo Weather

I know.

There was some doubt about another post on weather for the month of January.

There is no longer any doubt.

This is the January weather summary – not that anyone is interested. Discuss the weather and the inevitable happens. Eyes glaze over with boredom. The listener only wants to talk about their weather which is usually far more interesting, dramatic or nastier than yours.

The month started off with reasonable summer temperatures and then the yo-yo effect kicked in.

There is much to be said in favour of yo-yo weather. Days of relentless heat, without a break, are very wearing; a drop in the temperature, even if only for a day or two, is always welcome. It makes summer life more bearable.

I could attempt to describe, in excruciating detail, how the daily temperatures in January fluctuated but I will save you that pain.  Instead you can look at this lovely little graph which you will find far more interesting than me prattling on.

February may well bring a scorching day or two but January is now at its end.

Hurrah.

Flowers at Santa Fe Farmer's Market           September 2007

Whether I write about the weather again this month, is anybody's guess.

The weather is a perennial topic in Blogland. A weather post is sure to bring a spate of responses in the comment box and the result is often a summary of weather reports across the countryside.

The northern hemisphere winter is a force to be reckoned with – in North America there are immense falls of snow and the dreaded polar vortex sweeps down and freezes people’s socks off. People talk about bitterly cold temperatures and how they wish the snow would go away.

Across the way in the sometimes-United Kingdom, the same theme continues.  Bleak, chill days and thick ice on footpaths make walking out dangerous. Snow is forecast and makes travelling by road hazardous. A handful of people don’t mind the colder weather and walking about outside is fine with them, even if the temperature is on the low side.

And I sit here, in the heat of a southern hemisphere summer, and wonder whether I am living on the same planet.

         Eucalyptus trunk                      January 2005           

Recovery day

Yesterday was the hot day to end all hot days for this summer.

With the temperature set to top 40C I set my day up around the increasing temperature stages.

This means staying inside when the temperature passes 35C.

After that I spent my day sitting, reading or tapping away at the laptop with the fan keeping me cool.

The public had been warned about the possibility of rolling power outages because maintenance work was being carried out on generators in the Latrobe Valley and this meant a shortfall in the availability of power.  Perfect timing….

And so it came as no real surprise, when I was resting on the bed and reading, that the fan stopped and the lights on the digital clocks went out.   

I put my book down, closed my eyes and slept for a couple of hours.

Ten thousand homes and businesses were affected in a long strip, extending for many kilometres. It happened during the lunch hour and cafes could not make coffee, prepare food and the refrigeration units were not running, plus there was no air-conditioning.

There were a lot of unhappy people, and many of the cafes simply closed shop for the rest of the day.

The power was off for a couple of hours and when I woke from my sleep the digital clocks were flashing and the room was very warm.

Today was recovery day.

These very hot days totally sap my energy and today was spent doing as little as possible.

Bathurst Gardens       circa November 2006

M Pavillion

Every October, since 2014, an M Pavilion is erected in the Queen Victoria Gardens to coincide with the Melbourne International Festival. 

Last October the fourth in the series appeared but I was unable to visit until the beginning of this month. Pearlie Shirley was on leave for a few days in early January and we met up for a chat and coffee at the M Pavilion.

I liked the idea of the greenery sweeping up the banks at the side, although after three months the vegetation was looking a little neglected and in need of watering and some attention. The interior seating layout limited me to sitting on the lower tier.  Swing seats were suspended from the upper structure and young girls were having the time of their lives, swinging wildly in every direction.

 On one side a caged area, surrounding the seating, provided a great play area for two toddlers who discovered that banging anything against the cage wire resulted in a very satisfying, very loud noise.

The usual coffee and snacks were available and we sat for a while, drinking our tea and coffee and looking about, discussing the pavilion and the people in it. Eventually the two toddlers won the day with their repetitive banging and we moved on to a quieter place.

  

Anyone interested in learning more about the M Pavilion and its benefactor can go this website and learn more.

Thank you Naomi Milgrom, for one more pavilion in the series.

I love them.

January

You, Dear Reader, (the singular you – I would be totally delusional, not to mention presumptuous, if I thought for one minute there was more than one reader. See this post earlier in the month) will have noticed there is a certain pattern to the minimal activity around blog posting in the Soup Kitchen.

There is a minor flurry of activity at the beginning of each year; possibly it’s something to do with the undeniable move forward into yet another year.  A fresh sheet, marked 2018, begging to have something written on it. And so, the January posts get under way.  It may be only a short time before they falter and fall into total neglect but January is the month where the blog puts on a bold, brave, forward-looking face, the post machine is cranked up and begins to churn out the material.

It’s also the month that stretches away through the expected hot days; cafes which have been closed for the holiday break re-open as the days pass and mothers heave a sigh of relief as the end of the month draws near. They turn to the task of filling book lists, uniforms are pulled out, passed on if they are too small and replaced in time for another year of growth.

It’s also the month where people take advantage of time away from their work place. They may go down to the Surf Coast, or any other coast which takes their fancy.  It’s the time of the year when those holiday houses which often stand empty for many months of the year are alive with families, their friends and passing visitors, who take the opportunity of a break away from the city.

The tennis juggernaut rolls into town, activity is observed at the Tennis Centre from the windows of passing trams and there is much talk about who will win what and every second tennis player seems to sport a totally unpronounceable name. Yes, the Australian Open is the sporting news of the moment.

The second national public holiday presents itself on January 26 and without a shadow of doubt it will be accompanied by much media hype about the suitability of the date, sides will be taken and opinions stated.

That’s January in a nutshell.

Surf Coast                                                       Archive photo: Year unknown

Xclusive tour

A few days back, casting aside the rigours of more de-cluttering and seeking comfort in an air-conditioned building, I took a tram into the city and walked across the bridge to the NGV International.

It was pleasantly cool inside the gallery, even in the open Federation Court area, which is currently home to Semicircular Space, a work by Jeppe Hein.  I stood for quite some time, watching people: old, young, tall, short, all wandering through this semi-circular installation. 

View from upstairs

View from ground level 

Figures appear and disappear, fragmented by the spaces between the polished aluminium uprights, whilst simultaneously reflected in other places.  Dizzying.  And highly entertaining.  I laughed along with a bystander at the antics of children as they ran and attempted to hide and they found the whole game great fun.  Fingerprints were all over the shiny aluminium uprights; children are not keen readers of notices and the notice, Do Not Touch, was being totally ignored.

The bystander turned out to be an NGV volunteer guide, waiting for interested parties to join her for a tour of a particular area of the Gallery.  No one else appeared, and as she was willing to do a shorter tour with one person, away we went. 

Along the way I made some new acquaintances including John Ashburnham, looking resplendent in his outfit of the day, the doublet with vertical slashes in the sleeves, the wide white collar and the gauntlet gloves.  Quite the man of fashion. Ashburnham was a prominent figure in the court of Charles 1; he has been described as a courtier, diplomat and politician and his portrait was painted by Daniel Mytens, a Dutch portrait painter. 

John Ashburnham (Daniel Mytens)

The 14^th to 16^th century gallery, often part of the tour, has a collection of religious icons and St Barbara was our first stop.  St Barbara, like any other woman of indeterminate years, appreciates the subdued lighting in this area. Of French origin,  a solid woman from the early 15^th century, carved from oak, she is showing some sign of the passing years. Nearby is a group of religious icons, representing art often found in early Orthodox churches.

St Barbara

Madonna & Child with Saints  (Agnolo
Gaddi)

We finished the tour near that well known painting, The Crossing of the Red Sea, a work by  Nicolas Poussin. This work is a depiction of Pharaoh's army being swept away just as the Israelites make the shore safely. Poussin preferred to paint grand scenes with crowds of people and, according to the guide,was much influenced regarding colours and form by his time spent  in Italy.

Detail from The Crossing of the Red Sea. 

This painting underwent  a twelve month restoration and was returned to public display in 2012.  Restoration is a lengthy process requiring great attention to detail; layers of dirt and varnish are stripped away, some areas damaged during earlier restorations needed careful research to ensure the colours used today were in keeping with the original and in this regard Poussin's works in America and Europe provided valuable information.

The painting was restored by  Carl Villis who kept an essay blog, in remarkable detail, of the work he carried out. The ornate gilt frame was also restored to dazzling splendour; dazzling by today's standards but when the original work was commissioned, rooms, even rooms in palaces, were gloomy and the lighting poor, so the frame would have had far less visual impact then it has under today's vastly improved lighting.


When the tour finishes I take the escalators upstairs to an exhibition of contemporary bamboo works. Bamboo is often used for building material, scaffolding, flooring, cooking utensils, bowls for food and nowadays clothing. 

Contemporary bamboo weaving

Here it is used in a display of beautiful woven sculptures.  Some pieces are woven from wide straps of bamboo and others from fine strips, the latter curved, twisted and turned into all manner of shapes. For further information on the history of bamboo and its weaving, click on this link and scroll down to the Essay heading and click on the READ MORE box.

Another few hours well spent, admiring artworks at the NGV International.

Recent Investigation

The Moat Café below the Wheeler Centre has been on my ‘to-be-checked-out’ list for quite some time and today it was crossed it off that list.  I was on my way to do a spot of hospital visiting and had some time to spare, so I stopped off to investigate.

It was a rather horrid, windy, dusty, hot day and some time in an underground haven out of the heat, dirt and filth seemed like a good idea.  It seemed an even better idea when I sat down, looked through the menu and found The Moat version of an Eton Mess.  Perfect antidote to the day outside.

Almost perfect – it’s not your standard Eton Mess, when it has tapioca as an ingredient but this minor variation on the theme didn’t stop me from ordering it. The ingredients are:  vanilla tapioca pudding,  rhubarb, strawberry, mint & lemon curd.  A tarted up and distant relative to the original Eton Mess.

A slightly messy photo of The Moat version of Eton Mess

I ate it all, tarted up or not, like a good little girl. And then I ordered coffee, helped myself to a book from the shelves and in Cameron Forbes’ Australia on Horseback I read an account of the Warrigal Creek massacre in 1843.

A glass of wine or a book? Difficult decision.

Warrigal Creek was not far from my childhood stamping ground and at that time also the name of a large pastoral property, situated in the area of the creek of the same name.  This killing of aboriginal people was a black mark on the history of the district, and was very rarely mentioned.

According to Cameron Forbes' version of the story, it happened along these lines:

Brataulong Aborigines had killed a nephew of Lachlan Macalister, one of the more powerful of the Scottish settler’s.  In reprisal, the so-called Highland Brigade, formed by Angus McMillan the leader of the Scottish clan, set to and cornered the Brataulung at Warrigal Creek and killed what has been estimated at between 60 and 120 aborigines.  

According to local legend, and unsurprisingly, the creek ran red with blood.

Forbes’ account is in total contrast to The Valley of the Sky, a small novel which we read in the first year of my secondary education, some 60 years ago.  In the school version, Angus McMillan was a benevolent ruler of the lands he took in Gippsland, on good terms with the local aboriginal people and butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth.

I close Australia on Horseback and this reflection on a dark part of Australia’s past, drain my coffee cup, pay the cashier and reluctantly return to the blast furnace outside. 

Yachts

In December, in this part of the world, the thoughts of men who sail on yachts and other interested parties, turn to the Sydney to Hobart yacht race , and those other lesser sailing races between Victorian and Tasmania.  The latter, though not in the same league as The Big One, are equally important to those who compete in them. 

I have watched the televised start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race for many years and it was standard viewing on Boxing Day each year, in the family home. 

A yachtsman from Adelaide, interviewed on radio prior to this year’s race, was asked what training his team did before the race.  His laconic response was to suggest that sailing their yacht from Adelaide to the race start in Sydney, was suitable preparation for his team.

The setting on Sydney Harbor is spectacular, the jostling for positions adds drama and once the spinnakers have broken out, it is a truly wonderful scene to behold as the yachts make their way to the Heads and the start of a sometimes difficult and dangerous race. 

I don’t always see the televised start these days but I did catch part of it this year.  And a very bad tempered, abusive man from one of the leading contenders for taking out line honours was extremely vocal about other yacht crews who crowded him and ruined his flying start.

What a tantrum!

If he was unhappy about the start, can you imagine the language (not captured on television) when his yacht was forced to withdraw from the race due to a broken hydraulic ram.  This happened on Day 2, just as the yacht entered Bass Strait and it was the second year in a row it had withdrawn from the race.

Yachts come from all over the world to compete and this year Perpetual Loyal, a yacht from NSW, took out Line Honours after a disappointing race last year when it too, was forced to pull out with rudder damage. 

Owning and sailing yachts is can be a very expensive and not always rewarding pastime. 

Perpetual Loyal arrives at the finish line at Hobart