Redevelopment of Newcastle Inner City has been taking place and is a snapshot of building trends over the last decade - sensible, sober, professional, partly back to the fifties type of thing -  please, someone, build an outrageous colourful creative folly here and there.   

Cycles. Which house is about fifty years old?
I detect similarity.
البيت الذي الخمسين من عمره؟

Morgensonne leuchtet einem Raum in der Stadt.

Google translator

The Flying Fox hangs by one leg and wraps itself tight in its 'wings'. The small fruit bat was cold and tried to hang close to the other but was rejected creating typical squawks. Unexpectedly those little beady eyes won me over. The soft wings are unique.

These fruit bats were in the care of native animal rescue who report that bat food is scarce at this time of the year.  They feed preferably on native fruit and flowers while another group might eat insects and small animals and birds. These little bats often seek out a home-base in our urban areas and their habits are not necessarily well tolerated. At dusk they flock over our suburb. They are the only mammals that fly.
The carers are not anxious about disease from the animals and risks are minimised. Long term survival of certain species of flying foxes is unlikely according to the rescurers.
Biodiversity - where will we be without it!

The Duyfken Replica ship visited Newcastle some time ago - where is it these days? The original sailed for the Dutch East India company, round 1606, and sailed not only to Indonesia for spices but ventured south and recorded the first maps of part of the land of Australian.
On that journey the ship sailed in warm waters. No need for the duvet. When the weather is cold enough, as it is right now, many people like to have a Doona as a bed cover. 
Doona is a trade name that has become the common Australian slang description for a quilt with filling.  (So Doona is a form of metonymy).  Derived from the Scandinavian term dyne; popularized by Ikea in the 1970s (Wikipedia). The name, Continental quilt, also became known at one stage.
A Doona has a removable washable cover.  Originally, quilts, which in these parts were often named Eiderdowns, came in floral and coloured fabrics and were stuffed with feathers and eider-down and had the cover and filling stitched together as one. Perhaps the duvet is made the same way and is intended to replace sheets and blankets. The term Comforter is probably not commonly used here.
Koreans and maybe Chinese were seen to favour traditional padded quilts with cotton type covers in yet another style.
Down: the first feathering of young birds. Eider-duck: a north sea duck sought after for its fine feathers.
Wikipedia notes that Duvet Day is used in come countreis to describe on allowance of one or more days a year when employees can simply phone in and say that they are not coming in to work even though they have no leave booked or are not ill.

IF I WERE A BLACKBIRD
(Alister & Judson Armstrong, ca. 1950)

Helen Creighton


I once knew a maiden, a maiden so rare
Fell in love with a sailor, a young sailor beau,
She courted him dearly, by night and by day
Til at length this young sailor, he sailed far away

Chorus
And if I were a blackbird, I'd whistle and sing
I'd follow the ship that my true love sails in,
And on the top rigging I'd there build my nest
And I'd fly like a seagull to his lily white breast

Another crane. Even while beach fishing, men need a crane! 
From the archives, is an old photo, back in August 2008, when a dead whale washed ashore and had to be buried in the sand. Zooming in was unsightly.  Last night the same thing happened again on the same stretch of beach and was buried before I got a photo.

In 2008, the cause of death was unknown and samples were taken. The whale had signs of injury caused a ship's prop and could have occured when it was already dead.

Well, it's Sunday isn't it?
Timeless culture clothes a modern redeemer. A Koori inspired makeover of a traditional pius object.

Last Sunday, before rain set in. Rain... rain.... rainy days are nice.

From the train to Sydney. Leave Hawkesbury River behind and climb over steep sandstone hills then down to the Sydney 'basin.'  The climb is a good section to take a nap.

Other than that, the blog is beset with computer glitches just now. Nothing much is happening.

Eurovision Song contest on SBS TV.  Please do what you do best, quirky style entertainment with an earthy flavour fused with folk and burlesque with fiesty women often in extremely long boots.
Down with globalisation and American lookalikes and overthe top ballads. Stop progress. Stop English. Use European languges as a must. Bare feet were fine as were dresses with burlesque flounces.
And the camera person....please allow a view of what's on stage...please focus long enough to catch more action and more details instead of all the non-stop wandering around the lights and the roof, all of which is creative and magical but is simply overdone.We can take reality...I think. Thank you SBS hosts.

e-Books....i-pad. Where do picture books fit in?
This tale from ancient Java is filled with striking detail in illustrations highlighted in gold and makes wonderful use of traditional motifs.
Indonesian culture has a traditional world of wayang puppets such as these and tell grande tales such as Rama and Sita taken from the Hindu epic The Ramayana. Adventures and the ageless struggle of good against evil is told again and again. 
I suspect the same theme is found in other cultures of South-East Asia.

Rama and Sita. A Tale from Ancient Java. Retold and Illustrated by David Weitzman
Published by David R Godine Boston 2002

Fish 'n Chips?  From the past, a Cafe where real burgers are served. An array of pale yellow pre-cooked things in batter fill the display case waiting to be fried in deep boiling oil. Plastic strips hang across the doorway.

Look what happens when a car gets out of control. Joy ride? At West Wallsend.

 
Last comes the beverage of the Orient shore,
Mocha, far off, the fragrant berries bore.
Taste the dark fluid with a dainty lip,
Digestion waits on pleasure as you sip.

Newcastle Kart Club. Youngsters start with assistance. Others don't need assistance.

One of the young women competitors. Lastly, taking a 'short cut' on the grass.

The Muster Point memorial to the steel industry is created in heavy duty metal work. 

Just now lemons are plentiful and for a change have inspired some cookery. There's old fashioned Lemon Delicious pudding as well as Lemon Meringue pie where the egg yolks go into the lemon filling, heated while stirring endlessly, and egg whites go into the meringue on top.

Fresh vegies are liked best but frozen are always kept on hand. In Woolworths supermarket a lot of frozen vegies are from China and these products meet with my resistance even while knowing this is unreasonable as it can probably be assumed that quality control is operative. As well, it is very strange to transport vegies all those miles.

Every cent counts in the mega food commodity industry. Basic foods are sidelined when there's bucks to be made in the processed, the ready made, the imported bargains. 

ABC Radio investigated local food and fruit picking and the role of illegal immigrants and backpackers who meet all sorts of problems working on Australian farms.

Steel making, food crops, you name it and it's gone off shore.

De-skilled but not defeated!

Metal barrier with cut-out letters instead of ubiquitous bright plastic. (See previous post for another example of this industrial strength feature at the Convict Lumberyard).
Why pick on that perverse feature and fail to show this coffee outlet to advantage? Had I known how this business dominates the search engine I could have given it more attention - maybe.
The location is close to Newcastle Beach where a take-away coffee is an idea. Shame the view is blocked by the fence! Perversity rules.

Convict prisoner symbol near the archaeological remains of convict era, Lumber Yard, Newcastle.
In 1819 the town gang of 256 convicts worked on construction projects around the settlement of Newcastle using the Lumber Yard as their base. Later the site housed convicts. Afterwards  it was leased to a store keeper but eventually burned down.

Coffee

Nobbys Beach Newcastle

Jessica, aged 16 years, returned to Sydney Harbour yesterday after sailing solo around the world.
People have mixed reactions to this feat. I can imagine what grumpy old men might say.

Site of Convict Lumber Yard in Newcastle from when Convicts were held in the colony   Lumberyard could be a  timber yard.

Men need a crane no matter what the job is these days. City Hall clock tower required attention.

Mothers Day, Sunday and all of us mothers were not doing sterotypical things in a romantic white room with a breakfast tray and a scented rose. No, we were free spirits taking in the morning sunshine at Newcastle Beach.

Christmas tree...empty crib....Newcastle Private Maternity Hospital and symbolism....I came across an old photo...tomorrow is Mothers Day.

Coffee at Newcastle Ocean Baths.

Hangul text tells a story with a cow theme.

New fence. It's all or nothing!
Regardlessly, images are posted here every few days while, in counterpoint, day to day life continues with highs and lows, joys and sorrows, birth and death, sickness and health and personal space is usually held private from public persona in the blog. Much more is probably revealed by others via social networking.

All day the marshalls waited for this moment. High drama on the rally track? Finally an excuse to start up the tow truck.

'Yellow' had been going like a blur before a mechanical failure meant it was towed back to the 'pits'.

All wheel drive supercharged are hard to beat. This could be one of them. West Lakes Auto Club, Awaba.

Rally event yesterday.

Classic figures, cast in iron, were truly a curiosity at a country pub (pictured yesterday on this site). The explanation was the hotel manager had a foundry in the city. The hotel held a collection of memorabilia. And served large tender steaks!
See statues from around the world - click the link. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants