The View from the Carpark.

There are several small car parks along the Mersey River in Devonport, Tasmania. Australia.
It's in one of these car parks we sit and view the ships passing, there are only a few. It's a peaceful place to sit in the car or go for a walk along the waters edge.

We still have a fair bit of business to do in Devonport since the passing of my father.  As the house sold in 3 days, there is no house to go to.  We have never lived in Devonport.

The Mersey River and Bass Strait. Devonport.

Old house opposite one of the car parks.

I made the graphic below.

Wednesdays Fun!

I decided not long ago to make the Initials of our family on some Christmas Tree balls.  I bought some tiny flowers and glue, used old balls to practice on and below is the result of a few of what I have done.

The photos were taken with my Samsung Galaxy Note 4, and I am thrilled with them, the photos are sharp where I wanted them to be, and blurred where I wanted them to be.

The new fascia and guttering all finished. 

Fascia & Guttering

The workmen are here at our house taking down the fascia & guttering, replacing with new.
The old has been on the house since it was built over 40 years ago, it leaked when it rained, was repaired several times over the years.  Yesterday was the beginning of the project and it was very cloudy, of course it did rain.  There is a mess at the back of the house and the front, but will be nice to have it all done.
The back and front door will be painted the same colour as the fascia.
We are going to have new windows all around the house and they will be done late January or February.

The colour we have chosen for the Fascia is Shale Grey.

The Guttering colour is Monument.

The windows will be Monument.

NEW WORLD DREAMING with Andrew McKenna and Peter Fernon 2014

When family history becomes a gripping tale.

A new work, developed by Peter and Andrew created for Storytelling Australia Vic's project  Words on the Wind, was premiered at The Library at the Dock on the 20th November. The fifth in a series of six, New World Dreamingis the second collaborative piece, the first being Teena Hartnett and Jackie Kerin’s The Ways of Winged One and Women.

In the 1850s Andrew’s Irish great, great grandparents fled the blighted potato fields of Donegal and reached Melbourne, via India in rebellion. They arrived in Melbourne in summer, to a welcome of bushfires, wild dogs and news of the Great Melbourne Telescope gazing at the heavens.

Peter’s in-laws left Calabria in the 1950s, where the war had destroyed the established order in their village. Women did men’s work and men, especially the ones who had been prisoners of war, had glimpsed other ways of life. When the old order began to reassert itself those who expected more of life had to look elsewhere. 

These stories are compassionate and moving. Immaculately researched and eloquently told. The idea of people having to move away from their land, language and culture to create a new life away from all that was once loved and familiar resounds powerfully for those trying to reconcile their good fortune with the displacement of others.

Genealogists - you would especially love this show.

To learn more about our next show with storyteller Roslyn Quin on December 18 or to enquire about Andrew McKenna and Peter Fernon,  check out the Storytelling Australia Victoria website.

Words on the Winds shows are FREE and made possible by Melbourne City Council grants and the Library at the Dock.

Dorothea MacKellar OAM

Photo via Wikipedia.

Dorothea MacKellar was born in Sydney NSW in 1885 a third generation in her family.
At the age of 22 (some documentations says 19) whilst in England she wrote the poem My Country which she is well known for.  Missing Australia, her beloved country out came the words with many alterations until the final verses were satisfactory.

My Country,

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die,
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold,
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown coutnry
My homing thoughts will fly.    Dorothea Mackellar.

Gunnedah is where the Memorial below was unveiled in 1983 of Dorothea. I took the photo when passing through this year.

Travelling through Young in NSW.

This little town we travelled through on our recent holiday.  Young is known for it's Cherries, it's hilly, green in the winter and springtime as it's in the hills.
We have stayed in Young a couple of times over the past several years, this time we didn't stay, we just drove through of course stopping to take these photos.

Young Memorial Tower in the town. 

St. Joseph's School. It's called St. Mary's Primary School.

The Church next door, This is St. Mary's Church.

The Spirit of Tasmania

The Spirit of Tasmania is the Ferry that takes Tasmanians across Bass Strait to Melbourne in Victoria. If taking your own car this is the way to go.

Not often am I in the right place at the right time to capture the Ferry coming up the Mersey River in Devonport, Tasmania, I was the other evening.

The New Meter

We have had Pay As You Go Hydro (Aurora ) meter for many years.
This means you have a card, take the card to an Agent, usually a service station or newsagent, pay money and the amount is put on the card via a chip, then you put it in the slot on the meter, and power is available.  We found this very convenient and still do, as you just don't 'forget' to keep money on the card.

Power this way was always cheaper, but it's not anymore, as there are different tariffs throughout the day and at weekends.  The amount of money left on the meter has been unreadable these past few years.

A letter was received last week telling us a new meter was going to be installed.  We decided not to have Pay As You Go anymore as a 'whisper' was roaming around that it was more expensive than the normal meter.  So hence the price and not being able to read the amount of money left we decided to go back to the old way, which by the way is a cheaper tariff.
This meter was installed today, only took 15 minutes, so now we will get an Account.

Introducing The Mahabharata Project 2014 -15

We invite you to join us because … thinking is fun, talking is nice, dancing is good and singing is splendid!

In the knowledge that there are storytellers with an unquenchable curiosity to learn more about the great stories that have been passed down through time, Storytelling Australia Vic and Friends have formed The Mahabharata Project. Living in places near and far and from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds; we are a loose collective of folk. For these reasons we formed our Project on Facebook.

From ancient India, The Mahabharata, is ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, and with roots in the oral tradition, is one of the world’s great texts inspiring all art forms: music, painting, sculpture, cinema, comics, animation, performance, comedy and philosophical debate.

In this group we are sharing ideas, links and resources and where geographically  possible, gathering around food, making music and telling stories. Ignorance is the starting point for many of us, so we are grateful to have some on board who can lead the way.

We understand that the subject is as vast as the ocean but a toe in the water, is a beginning. Our goal is to present the results of our quest in a celebratory event sometime in 2015.

Hopefully this is the beginning of a series of projects where we can examine and learn something of the stories so carefully handed down to us, over thousands of years.

We welcome folk who are not storytellers but wish to participate wherever you are in the world. We’re particularly excited to see people joining us from Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.

 The Mahabharata Project is moderated by Storytelling Australia Victoria and Friends. 

HERE: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mahabharataproject/

Grandchildren and new Phone.

Took a photo of the baby born last week to our eldest son and his wife.
Here he is with his 2 year old sister.
Photo was taken with my old Samsung Galaxy 3 which I have had for just over 2 years. This week I bought a Samsung Galaxy Note 4, a white one which I love.  I must say the camera is rather good, much improvement and I can see it won't be long and I won't take a small camera with me at all, instead using the phone instead.
The phone came with 25GB of data to use in one month, so this morning I watched a movie on it called, 'Love Comes Softly' Directed by Michael Landon JR.

WORDS ON THE WIND: WORKSHOP with Clare Coburn 4 December 2014

click on poster to enlarge

This is a workshop for everyone but has been planned with librarians particularly in mind.

More information and bookings: Anne E Stewart anne@anneestewart.com.au or phone 0408 550 945

BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL as we would like to offer you afternoon tea!

Clare Coburn is a member of Storytelling Australia Vic. Visit her website HERE

Esk, Queensland

Youngest son, his wife and their 3 little ones have moved into their own home after 3 and 1/2 months.
My late dads house sold in 3 days, the new owners have moved in - so that is the end of that!
It's a relief to have that all over. (the house I mean)


On our way home on our holiday we came through a town called Esk in Queensland. Esk is named after the Esk River in Scotland and England.  The population is approximately 1,800 people.  The country is flat and the little town is not that far from the Somerset Dam as the crow flies.

Esk was established due to a short lived Copper mine, settlers came in 1840.  The Post Office opened in 1874.  A Lutheran Church was opened in 1941. There is a school as well as a War Memorial.

 Just south of Esk we came across some crops growing.  The 2 below photos were taken from the car traveling at 110km per hour.