Home territory

I find new eating places in the neighbourhood sometimes by accident.

I happened to be walking along a section of a nearby shopping centre in an area that is sometimes on my beaten path and found a French bakery and pastry company has moved into a small shop previously occupied by who knows what. There is a constant turnover of businesses in the area and within the time frame of a few of months it is not impossible to find a business has closed its doors for whatever reason and vanished into the blue.

Sometimes the doors remained closed for quite some time and the post person does what they are paid to do and that is not think and make personal decisions. They are paid to deliver the mail and even if it builds up into a decent sized pile they must keep stuffing it under the door.

In the case of the French bakery there was very little if any time gap, meaning the alignment of commercial stars; rent, facilities and market share placement must have met an approved business criterion.

The business is a little upmarket for the area which is largely populated by students, both secondary and tertiary. Usually this is a demographic who doesn’t have much cash to splash, especially the tertiary band, who appear to be not as well supported by parents as the secondary students.  It will be interesting to see just how long it holds its place on the street.

I was curious and stepped inside the door to see what was offering.

It is a much smaller version of a very up-to-the-minute café/bakery the same company owns over in the Wood of Colling.   Same pastries and cakes and same bread; I imagine this is delivered on a daily basis from this main bakery.  Their bread, albeit expensive, is excellent.

The seated area at the back holds only a few small tables and is closeted away from the action of the main shop area. However it does have the distinct advantage of being  whole lot easier to access than the main shop in the Wood of Colling, which for me, entails a few changes of transport and a few hours to enjoy the experience.

I may just patronise this new shop in the neighbourhood on an irregular basis.

Cast offs

Whenever someone moves out of the apartments a predictable pattern of events follows.

In the packing-up process people often discover they have acquired far more than they wish to move to their new home, as a result the green garbage bins are filled to overflowing with unwanted goods.

 When no more can be crammed into the green bins then, recyclable goods or not, the blue recycle bins will be pressed into service and an astonishing array of discarded possessions can be found crammed into these bins. Anything which won’t fit into the bins is then simply discarded in any empty space in the garbage corral.

If you have left it till the last minute to dispose of the week’s garbage on these occasions, often the only option you will have is to go out onto the street and investigate what space is available in the neighbouring bins.

The residents have vacated the flat below mine and a small white chest of drawers sits forlornly in the middle of the lounge room.

Guess where it will end up?

Graffiti wars                                   File photo: February 2007 

Oleanders

This summer has been a spectacular season for oleanders in the neighbourhood, especially the one nearby in Our Street.

There is quite a show, the flowers are prolific and are larger than usual.

This pink tree,  only a short distance from the Trash Palace, may be nearly fifty years old. This is the best display it has put on in years - although the photo does not quite capture its splendour.  It arches out over the footpath, forming a canopy, under which pedestrians walk.  Of course those with eyes glued to their device screens will not even notice this tree.

There are others in the area, these dark red ones for example who are the very opposite and have been very miserly with their flowers.

Around the corner and further along the main road sits an example of the plain, white variety , watching the passersby from behind the safety of a picket fence.

As is often the case with plants and flowers, the oleander is not without its dangers and children need to be cautioned about eating them.....

On the farm of my childhood, the oleanders were well fenced off to prevent any sheep eating them and the only child (me) knew better than to even think abut eating them!



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Leaving soon

 Neighbour Heather is packing up her tent and stealing away to a new campground.

She has been offered a deal too good to refuse; a chance to move to a new, modern building, downsize, and still stay in the area.

There is much to do and although NH is in a tizz about getting everything done, once she sets her mind to achieving a purpose you can bet it will happen. And happen sooner rather than later. 

This move is being co-ordinated by her youngest daughter who owns the apartment and the first item on the agenda is for NH to sort through all her current possessions and decide which ones will make the move to the new apartment.   It is much smaller and this dictates which goods will be discarded and which ones will make the move; both the dining setting and the lounge setting will be moving to another place, via one of the charitable organisations.

Although NH insists she has ‘so much stuff’ she is not in the same street as Britt Eklund. When Britt moved from London to California she found she had more stuff than she could fit into her new home.  What did she do?  No charitable organisations for her; she called in Mr Christie, whose representative was greatly impressed, both by the quantity and the quality of her possessions and proceeded to arrange an auction of what was billed as The Britt Eklund Collection.

There will only be one auction for NH and that will be her apartment; the Neighbour Heather Collection will be distributed between the family, the opportunity shops and the hard rubbish collection.  

Energy and logistics - both required for making a move.  File photo: Bolte Bridge July 2016

Garden of Evening Delight

Come on!!  Get up off the couch, you bone lazy lot; now the weather has cooled after the heat of the day we are going to walk across the bridge to the other side of the river and spend some time in the University Gardens.

We will take a short cut through the intersection where it is closed off for the tram works and walk across the bridge over the river, past the workmen who are finishing off the work on the new tram tracks and in no time at all  turn left into the University Gardens.

The gardens are towards the back of this area and were established in the mid-19^th century with the idea of introducing new plants to the colony and to promote botanical science.  What a brilliant idea!  All these many, many years later we have a lovely garden with magnificent trees and throughout the year, a variety of flowering shrubs and plants. 

Feel how cool it is here, compared to the streets with bitumen surfaces, without grass or shade trees to provide relief from the heat. Let's walk across the lawn and by the small pond.

This pond recognises Charles Luffman, 
first principal at the Royal Horticultural School.  Noted for his rearrangement of the gardens layout from the original geometric design to a more informal setting, he was also responsible for the introduction of  women students at the school.



At this time of the evening the flowers on the lily pads have folded up for the evening.

There is still a little daylight left. Let's walk over to the garden beds.

 Here we have a lovely display of yellow and gold flowers

And sitting just a little further along, a bunch of sea holly in muted shades of blue/green.

We will not be walking down this path, it leads to the Australian native section of the gardens and the light is now starting to fade. 

There was a lot of muttering and not just a few exclamations about this sign when we looked at it on the way in and this native section of the gardens is a place where snakes would really feel at home.  Even more importantly I am wearing sandals and I'll get gravel under the soles of my feet.  Not interested in this happening.

Let's turn for home.

The buildings near where we are walking are part of the Horticultural School area and as you can see all the building are surrounded by shrubs similar to the above two toned green variety. 

It's time to leave now.  All the light has left the sky and up there you can see the moon which will be taking over for the next few hours while the earth turns .

Keep to the roadway now, it is easier to see where you are walking.

Last one home has to wash the dishes after tea.  Did I hear some-one say 'Let's get pizza.'?

Evening diversion

My intention this evening was to take the tram home from the shopping centre but as I walked out the door to the car park at the back of the supermarket I changed my mind.   I fancied the idea of a walk through the park.

Since I was declared persona non grata at the community garden, I now rarely walk through the park.

At this time of the year, when most people are on holidays, it is a quiet walk.  No one is playing tennis at the tennis club; the only sign of activity is a construction site to one side of the tennis club with cyclone fencing surrounding a cleared area of ground, where two piles of topsoil are waiting to be spread.

The gravel walk, lined with drooping elms whose branches almost touch the ground, is a shaded, cool path for cyclists and pedestrians during the summer. No one else is using the path and the children’s playground is deserted. A lone ladies bicycle with a kiddy carrier is propped against a nearby seat; it has an air of abandonment about it. On the far side of the park, on a grassed area burnt dry by the recent hot days, a woman watches over her two dogs as they chase balls and generally play about.

On the far side of the footbridge, over the very unglamorous main drain, a rain garden has been established.  The work on this garden took months to complete and the result is a natural water purification plant; the water is stored in underground tanks and is used to water the park and the nearby sports oval.

At some later time maybe I will visit the rain garden again and you can have a closer look. I just know you will all be wildly excited about the prospect of learning more about the rain garden.

In the Park      February 2015 file photo

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