History Talk Done

So tonight I did my first power point presentation titled 'A History of Emerald' as a guest speaker for the AGM of the Ringwood Historical Society. My colleague and good friend Chris Britton (museum secretary) accompanied me. It went well, I surprised myself with my relative calmness given the nagging anxiety I had endured as I prepared for this over a few weeks, learning the set up at my weekly computer class and gathering photos and notes to tie it together.

Having done it, I understand better the organization of it and would do a better job next time, as I'm sure I lacked rhythm. There's nothing like practical experience. I thought I'd feel great relief when I got home that it was over and I could now put my mental energy to other things. Strangely, there's no such relief, just a slight regret that I didn't do it better, and that I didn't have enough time to tell some anecdotes that I had planned to paint the the picture I wished to about the various eras. A council person was on before me giving a run down on the new Eastland shopping centre soon to be constructed. She was very professional but went on and on using crap words and phrases like "stakeholders" and "iconic" and "state of the art" and "consultancy process" and much of what she said meant nothing to me. But I am a cynic. She went overtime. She invited questions at the end but they cut her off and went straight to me, saying questions to her could come later if she stayed.

So I started late and was conscious of it, the room was warm and stuffy and the audience of about 40 was of senior age, I thought short and sweet was better than to go overtime to get all my talk in. They seemed to enjoy it and applauded warmly at the end. There were some questions. Several people came up to me afterwards telling me they enjoyed my talk and asked more Q's over the supper. It was a happy event for me and I'm glad I accepted the challenge and had a crack.

The good thing is that in my preparation I learned so much, not just about Powerpoint but about the history of the district. I'm sure that's where my relative calmness came from. Knowledge of a broader picture and time frame lets you look beyond daily frustration and strife. As I drove off to pick up Chris, a voice in my head said,

"Go placidly."

About 1900

Hydraulic Sluicing machine Menzies Creek

  

Crook Eyes

A head cold developed for me on Friday, nasal congestion and and an irritated runny left eye, nothing alarming but one of those things that come and go usually pretty quickly (I hope).

Lib got up yesterday full of energy in the mood to go shopping so her and Gord went to Narre Warren early leaving me to my own company and easy pace. I put a few bets on the neddies at Moonee Valley and Echuca and cleaned out the fireplace while the washing machine did its thing. I couldn't smell the magnificent scent of the flowering sweet pittosporum while I hung it on the line unfortunately because of the head cold.

I cooked up a chilli con carne from the recipe on the back of a tin of hot spicy beans which turned out terrific while I heated a tin of pea and ham soup soup for lunch with the delightful farmhouse sourdough bread, that Gord gets from Aldi, toasted with the soup. All well on a gentle spring day. The concarne is in the fridge to give an easy meal next week.

After lunch I put Lib's electric battery hedge trimmer in the van and went down to Vilma's neighbour's place. We crossed paths walking a few weeks a ago and she told me it was due for a trim. It's only about a forty five minute job but the hedge is almost hard up against the fence between her and Vilma and that side of it needs to be done from Vilma's place and is hard to get at because of the fence so the lady asks me to do it as she knows I'm a friend of Vilma's. I parked in the lady's drive where a large a sweet pittosporum in the centre of the circular drive is in full flower. Again I couldn't smell it but it looked so beautiful giving a rain forest feel as the lower branches have all been removed and the canopy extends out and down. It would be an excellent windbreak and shade provider in hot weather was my thought.

I went home and did some gardening,clearing some thick wire grass and weeds, including sweet pittosporum seedlings which need to be removed every year or two if you have mature ones that drop seed like I do, or they will take over after a period of years and nothing else will be there. By the time I finished both my eyes had swollen up and I was struggling to see at all with the weeping fluid. Lib washed them with a saline solution and I watched the footy last night and slept in the spare room waking with both my eyes glued tight shut with gunk.

I rang the doctor thinking I'd get a scrip for something to put in them but being Sunday there's a message telling me to ring a locum or go to William Angliss hospital casualty in Ferntree Gully. Never mind I'll tough it out today, they are still swollen and weeping and slightly painful. I have dosed up with Vitamin C and will probably be much improved tomorrow in any case. I hope so as I will then have saved whatever the locum would have charged or the doctor tomorrow plus whatever the medication would have costed me.

Lib and Gord were very happy with their shopping buying  clothes and a new vaccuum cleaner.

It's a lovely sunny day. I'm going to the museum where Roy Kendall is on roster duty and I've arranged to interview him for a Signpost article in a future edition. I may squeeze in a little more gardening at home afterwards.

It's Never Dull

I walked my way through the forest in Gembrook Bushland Park on Monday to pick bunches of forget-me-not flowers where they grow prolifically along an edge. It was a warm day, the first in quite a while where I'd put on a short sleeved shirt and no T shirt underneath. The forest was still and the treetops glistened in the sunshine, birds chattered. I thought to myself how lucky I am to have this opportunity, this wondrous place on my doorstep almost. To see a place that has not changed much since white settlement. There's concrete brick and bitumen all over the place and cleared land and changed landscape, but here in Gembrook Park there's 65 acres of remnant bush that's never been cleared.

I picked the bunches and was about to make way back when Pip and Snow started barking at somebody moving along the track. I walked towards him in case the dogs intimidated him but when I got there he was happily patting them. He was a big bloke with a camera with a big lens, around his neck. We exchanged pleasantries about the lovely day and I apologized for the dogs to which he said was no problem, he liked dogs. He said he hadn't been in Gembrook Park for eleven years, but he loved the place, and said something told him to go there today and he was so glad he had, he was feeling so much better after being crook for a long time. I had noticed he walked gingerly, not a limp, but carefully and slowly.

I asked him where he was from, he said "Italy", but then corrected himself and said, "My dad was Italian, but I've lived in Berwick since leaving Gembrook. We went on to explain that his dad bought a property in Maisey Rd in about 1970 if my memory is good. It had an old house on it, and Rudy, he said his name was Rudy, and his wife moved into it around 1980 and raised their kids in what were very happy times with few modern luxuries. They were pretty isolated, but it turned sour after noisy neighbours spoiled it with motorbikes roaring up and down and wild parties going all night. They'd built a new house and turned the old one into a woodwork gallery and his wife ran yoga classes. I'm not sure when in this story, but Rudy's wife became ill with cancer, and died fairly recently. He has two boys at University. He spoke of his own recent illness with some uncertainty and a foreboding tone.

He gave me his card, 'Rudy Azzola  Contemporary Artist', and said he also writes poetry. His father had an interesting history he said, coming to Australia when twelve years old after being placed in an orphanage in Italy when his father died, then when his mother remarried and relocated to a sugar cane farm in Nth Qld. she went back and got him and brought him to Australia. Rudy wrote up his dad's story and visited his home village where he received much publicity and appeared on a TV show there telling his father's story.

I think Rudy said the new owners of the property in Maisey Rd neglected it for a decade and it broke his father's heart before he died, as he loved it. It has been sold recently he said to a young couple. The penny dropped. I was stopped in the street by a young bloke recently who asked me how he would find out about the history of a place he and his wife bought in Maisey Rd as it's a fascinating place and he and his family just love it and they are doing it up as it was a bit run down. I told him I'd keep my ear to the ground and come out one weekend and have a look but I'd ring him first. His number has been sitting written on an envelope in front of my computer for a few months, I just haven't got around to following up. Now I think I may have something to tell him, if Rudy's old place is his place it is a nice coincidence. I told Rudy I'd email him to establish e contact in the hope he can tell me more of his father's story, and to suss out information for the young bloke.

Now today, I picked bay foliage at a farm house in Gembrook, a friend's parents' old place. The old timber house is there too, and a third house very small, where I was asked to get rid of a beehive some months ago so they could finish knocking it down, must have been the first residence. With the very old sheds and assorted machinery the history of the place steeped into me.

I then took the dogs to JAC Russell Park so they could have a wander and saw AJ sitting on a bench enjoying a "Gold". He brought my attention to crimson rosellas nesting in the hollow of a messmate tree, quite low down. Mum and Dad came and went and occasionally you'd see a little beak stick out of the hole. AJ said he's watched them rear young there three years in a row.

Tonight I was determined to make some head way on a talk on the history of Emerald I've agreed to do shortly for the Ringwood Historical Society, but the file on the UBS stick wouldn't open so I couldn't access the power point slides I'd done at computer class. A problem to solve at class tomorrow night, but I was hoping to have more of it done tonight. Instead I watched a DVD compiled of old movies made by Bill Ford of life in Cockatoo in the 1950's. It was great and has helped my mood to prepare for the talk. I'm so glad to have watched it as Marg Treloar lent it to me last January and it's high time I returned it.      

Karma

After a dinner of roast chook with a bottle of McClarenvale Pirramimma shiraz 2007 which Gord gave me for father's day I fell asleep in the chair with Pip on my lap.

I just checked my sportingbet account to make sure I wasn't dreaming and yes there was a deposit of $194 for my tip 9 multiple ((for $5 bet) in the last round of the footy, and there's $50 in my bonus bets too, and a congratulatory message from Rickyralph in my hotmail.

So I swooped home to win by a nose in a photo, one after being 4 behind going in to the last round. Fairy tale stuff.

Bedtime now. Sweet dreams.