Salt and corrosion

The local paper has been keeping us up to date with exciting news about national TV doing a story in the City by the Sea. One of those real estate programs, where the host shows prospective buyers three houses they might like. The focus of this series was luxury houses in regional Australia. We had an article when it was being filmed and another when it was going to air. So I watched it, obviously, and it was awful.

( Why I thought that )

Anyway, the reason for mentioning this is that, despite costing nearly $1.4 million and being completely renovated, the house had a really ugly bathroom.



(More photos of it here. I didn't care for the colour scheme at all. And for all that space that's a tiny kitchen.)

This week's Friday Five questions: It figures

What are some figurines you own?
I bought this little guy on a family holiday to Sydney when I was 10. I remember the shop, an old building in The Rocks with dark timbered walls and ceiling-high glass cases of hand blown trinkets. The horse is tiny - it can fit on my little fingertip - and I keep it in my jewellery box so I see it every time I change my earrings.



What are you trying to figure out?
When would be the best time to take annual leave. I'm thinking two weeks in late March, pending further information.

Two circles or one continuous motion: how do you write the figure 8?
One continuous motion. So much more efficient than two circles as you don't need to lift the pen.

How do you feel about Fig Newtons?
Never heard of them, but having looked them up, they're a biscuit similar to what I would call a Spicy Fruit Roll. You don't often see them now. I think of them as an old person's biscuit, largely because my grandfather was the only person I've ever seen eat them.

What’s a good metaphor to describe your first week of 2021?
Giving it 110%. Or more, even, as three of the five accountants were on leave, so it was just me and my grand-boss doing the December financials (and talking about real estate programs).

The City by the Sea normally has a local public holiday in May, but that was in the middle of the first lockdown so it was postponed until today. The first hot day of the year, so I spent it mostly reading under the ceiling fan.

The reason for the public holiday today is the Melbourne Cup. My mother's friends are being a bit naughty: they were having a Cup Day afternoon tea party, which my mother declined to attend as we are still under some lockdown restrictions, including only two visitors at a time to a house. This apparently led to some words between my mother and the friend hosting the party. I mean, I am obviously biased as one party to that argument is my mother and the other is a kind of an old bag, but even taking that into consideration, I think my mother is right.

Anyway, my mother and I bought slices of fancy orange-and-almond cake and had our own little afternoon tea while watching the Cup instead.

Autumn, season of mushrooms. Growing up on a farm, that meant every few days, I would be sent out with a bucket and a little knife to collect them. Little me and my two dogs and quite often Great King Louis the cat, traipsing the fields and bringing home the harvest. Flat brown mushrooms and little round pink ones for the bucket, and funny white puffballs that weren't for eating but which emitted a puff of yellow spores when stabbed.

Our paddocks were flat, green and flat and filled with sheep, but when the rain set in some of the sodden ground would sink, leaving solid little fairy hills like stepping stones. Swathes of field would fill with water; deepest in the far swamp paddock, which had wild ducks on it each year, but even the home paddocks had ankle-deep lakes, which I and the dogs would walk around while Louis waded through them like a silver-grey tiger. The dogs were interested in the mushroom-cutting business, crowding round me in case it was something for them, but Louis would stalk off to the boxthorn hedge on the field border to see if there were any rabbits to be found. Unsuccessful, he would come back and mew to be carried home.

No fields in the suburbs, so these days I buy boxes to grow my mushrooms in. My portobello box arrived this week and already there are a handful of tiny white fists pushing their way through the peat.

I skived off knitting for most of this week and managed only two rows, so no cowl photo today. Instead, a bit of local colour. Four doors away from me, the worst house on the street, an old building that hasn't had anyone in it for years, is being knocked down. First they took the windows out; then they took the roof off; then they removed the interior and exterior walls of the top floor, leaving ( just one fitting visible )

When I stopped to take that photo, a woman came out of the house opposite and called across the street to me: "I have a great view of it from my kitchen sink!" And then she went back inside.

I began my daily entries at the start of June with the news that my accounts officer's contract wasn't renewed, and here we are at the end of the month on his last day. This morning we had a French food morning tea by Skype for him (because he is French), six of us in three different cities. One was a group of three, who had a plate of millefeuilles and macarons; here in the City by the Sea the two of us had éclairs; and our departing colleague decided to do a little bit of French humour by bringing a tub of Yoplait for himself. "It's French for yoghurt," he said (which used to be Yoplait's advertising slogan), "but it's not, that's a lie they told Australians." As a leaving gift, we organised an e-gift certificate from a ticketing outlet, which turned out to be a big hit. It will be going towards tickets to Elton John's farewell tour. So that's that. It's worked out well for him: another department in the organisation offered him a different job and he starts that on Monday. I'm quite sad about it though.

The City by the Sea's annual winter festival of roadworks has begun. Honestly, they do this every year. They're doing longterm work on two corners, so they're blocked off; they're also doing short jobs at random intersections. It's like a game: Surprise Roadworks! Can you get from the bank to the Post Office in your lunch break?

One of the jobs they are doing on the roads is putting down stripes of red and green glitter. Green glitter means that there's a hidden opening, so look out for surprise traffic to emerge. I haven't worked out what the red glitter means yet, but it must be serious because they always do them in groups of three stripes.

This morning, driving home from my Sunday beach walk, I passed the Tourist Information Centre, which had a sign out the front showing its long weekend opening hours. That gave me an idea, so I went back a bit later and found what I was after: a card by a local artist, suitable to send to my accounts officer, the one whose contract isn't being renewed. He is in another state; he's French; and although he's lived in Australia for twenty years, he's never ventured south of the border. Well, maybe to Melbourne, but never to the City by the Sea. So for his leaving card, he's getting this view. (For interest, during the day, I park my car about halfway down the right-hand edge of the card; the office I work in is one block back from that, just out of the picture; the aforementioned Tourist Information Centre (and Maritime Museum) is the triangular patch of buildings at the bottom right; and the beach I walk on is, well, it's that beach.)

Later, I planted a couple of geraniums. There is a garden bed running along the side of the garage, and the only thing that has ever successfully grown there is a geranium. So I bought two more and put them next to the existing one, and watered them in. My watering can is a green metal one, and I usually leave it sitting outside the back door. Sometimes sparrows come and sit on it in the sun. It's very rustic and picturesque.

So I took my watering can and filled it up and started watering the new geraniums. Imagine me, standing there, mindlessly watching the water rain down on my new plants, when I see a twig floating in the watering can. That will get stuck in the spout, I think, and lean down to pluck it out. But it's not a twig. It's a skink! I can see its little legs paddling, and then the wave of the water flips it over so I can see its shiny white belly.

Anyway, I put the watering can on the ground and tipped it on its side so the water flooded out. There was no skink left in the watering can after that, and I couldn't see it on the ground, so I can only assume it scarpered to safety. It must have been having a nap in the watering can when I picked it up. Sorry, little skink.

Around this time last year — actually it was Australia Day, 26 January — I went to a party. A man there revealed he was a manager at Woolworths, in charge of a number of branches across Melbourne. A woman said to him, "Why are you selling hot cross buns in January? It's too early!" People piled on to agree with her. January is much too early for hot cross buns. The manager got quite defensive, saying, "People buy them, so why shouldn't we sell them if people will buy them? We'd like to sell them earlier, but we don't want the criticism." I mean, I see what he's saying, but... they're not special if they're always available, are they?

Anyway, I saw Cadbury Creme Eggs on sale on 31 December.

Hello, f-list. I hope you can hear me OVER THE RAIN. It is fairly bucketing down at the moment. I've just dragged our potted Christmas tree from under the patio where it lives all year to get a bit of rain before we bring it in and decorate it. I hope it doesn't get too wet.

This week: I ran into a friend who is a chef. He had just catered for the Christmas party of one of the City by the Sea's largest employers. "Fifty-two bottles of Pimms on the hottest day of the year," he said. "It was like taking a bath in sugar."

This morning: My mother and I went for our regular weekend walk along the beach front. "They're putting the summer carnival up early this year," my mother said as we approached the green. But it wasn't the summer carnival. It was some sort of emergency services fair. Fire brigade. Ambulance. Police. Coast Guard. SES (they do natural disaster assistance, including tsunamis, according to their website, which may be true if one ever happened here, but I don't think they get a lot of them). Rapid Relief Team, whom I have never heard of (they do mass emergency catering, it turns out). It was the safest place in the City by the Sea, although if you had an emergency anywhere else this morning, you were presumably out of luck.

Also this morning: Further along our walk, part of the Lake Pertobe Adventure Playground was fenced off. They were putting up a summer holiday attraction: thirty life-size dinosaurs. Replicas, I assume. I don't think they're building Jurassic Park next to the mini-golf. (Although if you hear news of a T-Rex running amok in southern Australia, that'll be us.) Anyway, we could see some sort of velociraptor-thing peeping out from the trees, so that was a different sort of wildlife spotting.

Later: A visit to Bunnings revealed knee-high cement garden ornaments in the shape of Star Wars characters: Darth Vader, a storm trooper, Han Solo, R2-D2. All the same size. I mean, one of those things is not the same size as the others, is it? But in cement garden ornament Star Wars, it is. In fact, R2-D2 is the biggest of them all, because once you bring him up to the same height as the others, he is proportionally wider. He could have crushed them all. What a different film that would have been.

Here is a thing: Melbourne has set up email address for its public trees, so people can email if they see a problem. Instead, people are emailing the trees. Just for a chat. Here is an article showing pictures of the trees with some of the emails they have received.

I came back from my shower this morning, ready to make the bed — only to find it occupied. This is new. He will sleep on the bed, not in it, and never when I'm not there. I don't know why he decided today was the day to try getting into the bed, but he seemed to like it.

This week being Race Week, the biggest week in the City by the Sea, there have been police everywhere. My mother was breath-tested as she was driving round the cemetery one morning. I mean, they were testing everyone, not just here. (She passed.) A couple of days later I went for a walk one evening, and ended up being glad I was on foot. There was a traffic jam on the highway and as I walked further I found out why: there was a police block with ten separate breath-testing stations. And three old men standing by the side of the road, watching all the action. "They've all been waved on so far," one told me as I passed.

This morning my mother and I went for our usual Sunday morning walk by the beach, which happily coincided with the fortnightly farmers' market being set up. We usually go to the farmers' market after breakfast, and so miss out on the devilish hard to get almond croissants, which are usually sold out before we get there. Not today! We were there, right there, as the baker's van pulled up, so we nabbed the first two almond croissants of the day.

Today I came across a recipe for beetroot chocolate cake with beet icing. No, thank you.

There were hot cross buns in the supermarket today. Easter things! Already! While I was taking in that sight, three other people passed by and either looked horrified or actually tsked. I'm not sure Coles will be selling many use by 30 December hot cross buns, based on those reactions.

I've never been one for a big New Year's Eve. Crowds: not for me. I think the most memorable was the one I spent, alone and ill, in the middle of a heatwave. Midnight found me lying on the floor under the ceiling fan, dripping like a melting ice cube. Even then I can only remember how sick I felt, not what year it was.

Anyway, perfect health and no heatwave this year, which is good. I made a concession to New Year celebrations by going to the first of the summer night markets at the lake. That was crowded enough. Beach Road (guess what's at the end of that!) was at standstill with bumper-to-bumper traffic, so we avoided that completely and parked at Cannon Hill (guess what's on that hill!) and walked down the road instead. I looked at the market and had a vegetable calzone and mint choc chip ice cream. There, I've been publicly festive.

I enjoy the word "isthmus". And it rhymes with Christmas! What could be more festive? (I have worked out that if I keep doing an entry every second day, plus one extra, the last entry in December should coincide with the last ever Cartland title. What a way to end the year.)

Someone has flicked the City by the Sea's switch to holiday mode today. When I went to the beach this morning there was a small ferris wheel being set up where the summer carnival always goes. Caravans have started filling in the beachside caravan park. Shops have put up signs up with their Christmas week hours.

The City by the Sea's skyline is dominated by what is technically an elevated steel water tower, but which is generally known as the Silver Ball. It's in the grounds of a former clothing factory, as seen in this old postcard:



The factory has changed hands and uses numerous times over the years (I used to work in it when it was the council's IT department and business incubator). The gardens have been made low-maintenance, so they're just kind of... there. But no-one has looked after the ball, which has faded and rusted and looked a bit sad. But this year, the site was bought by a guy who is turning it into a vintage car museum, and his workers have repaired and renovated the ball for Christmas. Last week they painted the ball and the legs yellow, obviously some sort of undercoat, and yesterday it was back to being shiny silver with bright red legs. It looks terrific, and there's more to come. Apparently there will eventually be a permanent light show on it.

Coming home last night, I saw them testing the lights. After scrolling through a variety of colours, they left it lit from underneath by a bright white light, and it looked exactly like the Death Star. So that's not threatening at all.

Something I have learnt today: the singer called SZA is not pronounced Ess-Zed-A, as I thought. It's Scissor. I am now hip to sounds of the hit parade.