Sometimes we are asked to do an artist's statement... or describe 5 things about ourselves....I agree with someone called Alan. W. Watts ,that trying to...define yourself...
Is like trying...
To bite your own teeth. Yeah?

Today is Bench on Friday, an informal meme details of which can be found at RuneE's blog at http://visualnorway.blogspot.com/

Just before the rain set in this afternoon I was walking in North Adelaide, close to the city. There were not many people around. Although it's Spring, the wind had an icy bite to it, and it was scarf and gloves weather.Although the bench in the photo is quite plain, the church behind has quite an interesting story in the establishment of the young colony of South Australia, which held much pride in the time as being a state founded and colonised by free settlers, not convicts....a better view...It was formerly the North Adelaide Congregational Church, opening for worship on Friday 22nd February 1861. At completion it was the largest place of worship in South Australia, able to seat 600 people. Now of course, amongst others,we have the very large Catholic and Anglican cathedrals. The first minister Reverend James Jefferis (1833-1917) was " a man of vision and "keen social engagement" according to the history of this church.In 1872 the copper magnate Walter Watson Hughes had made a donation of what would have been a very substational amount in those days of a struggling colony, twenty thousand pounds to the Congregational Church. This was to be used for denominational training purposes. "Jeffries" the history continues "had the vision to see a wider potential for Hughes generous gifts and formed a committee to discuss the formation of a broad-based educational institution serving the entire community, and so it was that the University Association was formed, a grant of land sought from the Government, and with Jeffries dedication and committment, in 1874 an Act of Parliament to establish the University of Adelaide, passed.".North Adelaide Congregational church Sunday School teachers, 1915, courtesy of the website Light on the Hill http://www.bpuc.org/ What I enjoy so much about Bench on Friday postings is that , for me, it encourages further research into an area. Having lived in South Australia all my life, I had no idea of the beginnings of The University of Adelaide, and never bothered to ask my father-in-law who lectured in Civil Engineering there and was Assistant to the Dean in the Engineering Faculty.
North Adelaide really is a beautiful area...

Walking back to the car I noticed the wisteria is out for Spring. My dear Great Grandmother worked in many beautiful homes in this area as a laundress walking up and down hills exhausted, back to her little cottage in "lower North Adelaide"(,now demolished but almost identical to this one in Stanley Street)... trying to support her family,.as there were no pensions then. Her ageing mother (back from the interior of Australia, where, after being widowed, she was home help at the newly established Alice Springs Overland Telegrah outpost,) looked after her daughter's three beautiful little girls. My grandmother used to tell me that late into the night her mother would be ironing with heavy irons heated with coals. My great grandmother was deserted by her "wild and poetic" husband, and was very grateful to the nuns who helped with the little ones' education and piano lessons. My late grandmother remembered little about her father, other than he painted beautifully, wrote prose and poetry and took with him the gold sovereigns my great grandmother had saved from his army severance pay. He told them he was going north to look for land for them all and would send for them.He left them, in turn, destitute.
We did some family research,and discovered photographs from distant sources... my great grandfather,he of the grandmother who, we must always add "as legend has it" was a gypsy,he who was good with horses and animals, clever with the turn of phrase, the dreamer and deserter following in the footsteps of his father in doing so...she, my own long-gone grandmother,a fatherless existence, painfully shy as a child, gentle, with a beautiful sense of humour and flourishing handwriting,( thanks to the nuns, who were, she said, kind but strict)placed together now on my shelf, because he's not going anywhere while I say so!!.

What a great meme doing the rounds at the moment through Derek, and courtesy of Weaver at http://weaverofgrass.blogspot.com/ The meme subject is "failed photo". I thought Weaver's featured photo with the little dog was quite delightful. Not really an adjective used to describe the following which probably come under the heading of "mmmm...interesting" or "mmm...strange". I'm sure you have a few in your collection, so feel free to pick up Derek's meme and run with it. Thanks for the idea Weaver, and without further delay...
Mum and I...Now I know that my Great Great Grandmother was supposedly Romany. We have no trace of her in England, only the name Mary Brewer or Bruer...but it was said she sent her young son out to Australia to be with his English father (surname Bishop) who had, after this brief affair, emigrated here. I definitely look like I have the gypsy touch here, but I also look like I have been exhumed from being buried for many years, and quite happy about it. I have my hand out waiting for you to cross it with silver..

Another outstretched hand - My daughter and her grandmother after Graduation - not that you'd be able to see anything with this, hence the explanation...And last but not least...when I told my husband to put his head back for this photo, it's not exactly what I meant... Hope you choose to have fun with this too.

C'mon Pammy - out to play! Who or what's called you today...

I live life small usually...small house and garden, happy husband, a little black and white mouse...here, the three of us, and two undemanding little fish,minding our business,trying to live leaving small footprints (or pawprints and bubbles as the case may be) on the planet... Imagine my suprise when results came back with a huge minus 4 on a bone density test! Off the scale. Oh yes, I do degeneration in a BIG BIG in-your-face way.Evidently it's a bit of a worry if a 70 year old has a minus one or two reading. My doctor hadn't seen such a severe reading on one "so young"(50's??) Being a couple of decades short of 70 , results were not good , particularly if I should have fall, so was given all sorts of pamphlets that I'd expect at 90 . Osteoporosis at a young age. I can tell you my immediate reaction if I were to start an osteo support group...throw out anything depressing in your wardrobe, wear a big colourful flower in your hair, bright lipstick,and don't look at that chart with the three women, one young and sprightly, the middle one "showing signs in middle-age osteo-looming" and the last one - on lordy, or oh lordosis as the case may be - looking like something out of a fairy horror story,complete with daggy cardigan and walking stick.. (which could do with a big flower entwined on it too!! - no lollies, we don't want to look like we're tempting Hansel and Gretel)

So the moral of this tale is get along with the boobie-screening and smear test, get a bone density reading, and the sun, dear fellow-Aussies, does not allow Vitamin D absorption in the quantities we are used to, exacerbated by the fact that we cover up and slather on the sunscreen.. The doctor is "on my case", and I should be able to build up my bones to the extent that a fracture should not be the big deal that looms at the moment.
Wrote this - hope you like it...called...

Ostelin Days.

I don't go out

As much as I need, or should.

"You're low in Vitamin D" the doctor states
Studying me over spectacles

Waiting for a considered response.

"That's strange" I say

"Considering my love of sunshine...

My appointment here last time

To remove with liquid nitrogen,

Melanomas formed on leisured days..."

Or rushing, years ago, I remember

As the sun glared down on work commitments

To sear exposed forearms

Pushing weighty wheelchairs.

"Many times", I feel like saying in justification,

"I asked the sun for company

On beach walks to ponder problems

Beyond my comprehension

And was chastised for not concentrating

Sealing our connection

With a fierce response that stung

My skin, peeling later,

With the delicacy of a paper lantern."
His script pad appears

Offering itself to scrawling and scratching

Prescription for Calcium and Vitamin D

Standardly illegible.

I glance, in this room

To the direction
Of the slatted light.

Slim wooden blinds

Behind the model of a spine

Plastic chambers of the heart

Red and blue.

"We need to be reaquainted" I say.

"I'm sorry?" Doctor quizzical.

"The sun and I".

But here I am, and re-aquaintance is not today.

Sun hides now behind clouds

From my window

I observe

Flowers straining in Sun's direction

Waiting for a blessed benediction

On uplifted faces

While I hastily

Tie back the curtain

And turn my face away.

Some mornings when I wake up, when I first surface, before consciousness truly hits, I could be so little again. I think it has something to do with the light, the birdsong. Then of course, reality hits big time, the weariness, my age,the heaviness, the day ahead. I penned this poem straight off one morning, stumbling to the table pre-coffee, to capture the feeling immediately of my little self, the one who craved the soft dewy grass beneath her feet, instead of "caffeine/shower then I'll be awake." Hope you like it in its simplicity and bleary-eyed honesty. Photos are courtesy of Flickr. In the grey light of day, I'd like to wake with birdsong, and know

I would be dressed to suit the day

Helped with shiny yellow boots

Where fat pebbles lodge

In rippled soles.

To play on ground

Winter-fresh and dewy

In days owned by the years numbered

four, five or six

Where corduroy is tummy-tight

Vistas are expanded to include pink horizons

Or reduced to grassy microcosms.
Climb up for breakfast

Or down from trees where bark peels off

Easy and compliant. To hide just glimpsed, around corners

Or hunched under tables

Listening to voices

That, over tinkling teaspoons, rumble in male chests

And Aunties screech with laughter

In indignant self-defence. To step carefully

Through acrid chicken smells

And find the warm brown egg

To travel back in time

Where the day, beyond the back screen door

Smells like the skin of peaches.

Unique :"a.being the only one of it's kind;unequalled. uniquely adv. "
Bottom right hand corner, white writing, orange background. It says ...unique....

...and he knows he is!

Bench on Friday meme, courtesy of RuneE at Visual Norway http://visualnorway.blogspot.com/.

It's Sepia Scenes again courtesty of http://sepiascenes.blogspot.com.
We're in Dad's shed(s) this week - sifting, discarding, preparing for the parent's big shift to a small unit next month. Every kind of junk collection imaginable is in these sheds....
We thought it would be hard work to clear 56 years of shed collection when he eventually "fell off the perch" but this is harder.
..As my brother noted, we could have been quicker and more thorough had that been the case. Dad doesn't miss a trick.
He loves every broken, cracked bit of plastic, every rusted nail, each tragically dysfunctional camera, biro casing, flat battery, sprung watch.
My father spends hours retaping cracked plastic with gaffer-tape, writing with wobbly hand in black paint to name the objects of his days...

Meanwhile head down, tails up...5 weeks to go but who's counting!

It's 'Benches on Friday' time, an informal meme suggested by RuneE at Visual Norway http://visualnorway.blogspot.com/ . His benches are very scenic. For my post, I was drawn to the city.This was taken outside the State Library of South Australia. Textilosophy quote: (can't remember the source) ..."Listening creates opportunities to talk about yourself".

This weekend incorporates Fathers Day. I know in the next couple of days,I'll be listening to my parents, brother back for six weeks from overseas, friend in the Air Force visiting from Queensland, daughter, husband - and for sure I'll be talking about myself if I can get a word in edgeways.!!!Doubt it! Should be great fun. Happy weekend everyone..

For Wednesday's Sepia Scenes, allow me to introduce to you , the fascinating work of mattjin at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattijn/

Clouds looked like this when I was driving home tonight, but my mode of transport was not nearly as interesting , lumbering, or wonderful...
neither was my destination as curious as this...

Textilosophy quote

" Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you" - Marsha Norman.

Sweet (if not interesting) dreams tonight.