Here is a fine example of a residence that has emerged in this anthropocene.  For years now the house has looked good. Blue paint work seems a more recent innovation and maybe, not ideal.

The postperson is there again among the passing traffic.

More and more rain today
Pluie, pluie, pars au loin
un autre jour, reviens. 

All the leaves are _____and the ____ is grey.  I've been for a _____ on a _____'s day
I'd be safe and _____if I was in _____ .
_________ Dream'in on such a _____'s  day.

After Mamas Papas 1965

Rain rain go to Spain.  From the ridge above Merewether yesterday 

Rain.
Postman.  Hail Rain or Shine.

Buses.  Less public transport is on the roads on Sundays.

We are full of contradictions.  I don't object to films made in the UK or Europe  and rarely watch anything else and don't bemoan the influences on our culture. They feel right.
No real ties exist now with the UK all that finished long ago. Yet am sorry about the influences coming from sources other than the UK.  In particular violence, guns and non-stop shouting.
One theme shows up from the UK namely an attitude about Eastern Europeans: dodgy, crims, exploited, victims, worthy of rescue and certain banter - is it to help sell the programs in the EU?   We all have certain biases.

Big things seen at the ''Foreshore' yesterday. And how come Alpha Century isn't loaded to the gunnels? 
Century? Another big thing. Alpha Centauri as I understand, is the closest star, really a binary star, the brightest in the Southern hemisphere yet visible in the nothern summer at latitudes like that of Galveston.  The star points to the Southern Cross.

It is entertaining to read Richard Glover's column in Spectrum  (SMH). Recently he was in full swing about how pubs and other little institutions become up-maket, the beach-side kiosk 'converted into an oyster and semillon bar', the municipal pool 'with a bull-necked manager who was a complete bastard'. Spot on.  How would Glover like the Hunter vineyards?

Examples of original old pubs are found in this district but no two country pubs are the same with evidence of a series of alterations and additions in handyman style.  Look hard for signs of a kitchen, a bistro, who takes the orders?  Where does this door lead?
Although I havn't read a notable book in its entirety for several years, why skim thru Spectrum?  The films and TV reviews for one. Food. This and that. Some pages lapse into strange sophisticated Sydney-city speak. Other writers are obtuse but offer a good opportunity to challenge the mind....one of these days....

Old fotos of coal mining.  Heard that little old coal carriages were stopped by throwing a length of wood at the wheels somehow.

Senator Bob Brown, foremost advocate for our good survival, is retiring from the Greens.  He is expert at spelling out the most significant issues of our time.
Sustainability, in its widest sense, was gaining traction.  Hope has turned to disbelief.  Who was to know that this nation would become totally committed to plundering the counryside and seaside on the pretex that any darn fool thing is excusable because the world needs energy supplies NOW.  And jobs - the ultimate test.  And a fast buck.

Where is the revolution to alternative energy?  Where is protection of the environment and of biodiversity?  Protection of food growing areas and the natural scenic appearance of the landscape? Protection from pathogenic coal dust and pollution?  Murray Darling conservation that hurts vested interests?

We have even invited other nations to colonise and mine and up the ante.  To share our resources would be gratifying but it is just feeding Asia's etc addiction to fossile fuel.
At the same time as our fuel exports make sure that other places are polluted and produce carbon emissions, (never at a rate as high as our own), at home we rightly graple with a carbon tax and emissions trading.  And if it does lead us to more expensive electricity and fuel, subsidies from the government apart, well, that's what sustainability takes.  Less consumption is the name of the game.
Our lifestyle is over the odds and it takes a competent member of the Greens to keep calling us to account.

Is it the end of the road, or a no-joy ride or a detour for Newcastle soccer and its problems?  It is wise to guard against car theft  especially state of the art Italian cars that have been known to be taken for a joy ride and worse.  

From a new dining spot.  Probably named Merewether Surfhouse. On Wednesday. What a difference a day makes. Stunning on Monday, perfect on Wednesday.  Windy stormy and rough seas.

We are hearing about the War on Drugs.  Here is a robotic pharmacist at Doc's Pharmacy-factory at the hospital. Be amazed....scared. The legal drugs inside the fortress are mechanically selected and placed on the slippery dip - I suppose.  

Sport in Newcastle is in uproar. The future of the Jets is up in the air.  Does the mining millionaire-sponsor suspect that a CIA conspiracy has drawn him into football and financial disaster?!!  Just saying.....

Cheers from Newcastle, Easter Monday!

Encomium
Autumn twitter at dawn
glorious summer went viral high noon

Cheers from Newcastle!
Bar Beach today.

Paschal Candle.  We have come into the light!
Standing room only this Easter Sunday.

Terrible news.  Supplies of Sanitarium brand Marmite are very scarce in New Zealand. What is the situation in Australia. Tense?  Or is the problem an urban myth?
Marmite, the original yeast spread, is meat free and is said to be unlike the UK product. It is much nicer than Vegemite which is a very serious statement by an Aussie. Sanitarium food company originated with the Adventists who are vegetarian, I understand.  The label states that Marmite is a rich source of Vit B complex, B12 and Iron which vegetarians and all of us need in our diet.

Wedding decor.  This month two figures on the music scene in Newcastle, Bernadette Lannen and Philip Matthias, will be wed at St Joseph's East Maitland in what will be a fine celebratory musical setting due, to a large extent, to their role in Newcastle University Chamber Choir. Surely a ghostwritten Bach Cantata is a distinct possibility for the happy occasion!

Tuff'in Up Boxing Gym. 

You don't get hit You just get fit

What's behind the green door.....welcome to the Hotel California....
Inside the inn.  The Ploughman's Lunch was a good choice, very enjoyable in the opinion of a food luddite.
Settlers Arms, St Albans.

In the early days, drinking on Saturday night, or on any night, might lead to trouble around the horse trough.

How often does it happen that when you tamper with a clock the battery decides to fail?  Do sales of batteries increase with the change to or from daylight savings time?  Midnight and the alarm on our mini weather station just decided to wake us up. How many hours of Delroy will I be listening to? Add carob and hot milk.

Still life in the sick bay!

Get drunk on Saturday nights at your peril.  A surgeon who has manned the fort on selected weekends for most of his career is calling it quits.  No more drunks or motorcyclists or weekend trauma for him. His skills are just taken for granted he intimated.

'
Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabachthani?'  This week's religious dramas will be from the sacred living script of old.

It was more than coincidence that the film 'Into the Wild' was shown late last night (on SBS) - the night of Earth Hour. Also the night before Palm Sunday and the end of daylight saving time.
With social networking it seems less likely that any of us would literally drop-out and 'find ourselves' in the wilderness anymore.  How surprising,  an anarchic, lyrical film such as that emerging from our materialistic society.

Rail crossing at Paterson. Must inner city trains in Newcastle persist with tradition and inflexibility? 
Instead, if they crawled along and exercised some give and take and utilized traffic light controls then we could co-exist, after all, one only level crossing poses a big problem.
Sure and begorrah, with give and take, multiple crossing could be opened all along the rail line in our Central Beguiling District.
A city in Queensland had the rail lines, sans fencing, running down the middle of the street!
Leave it to the experts?  Don't think so. Objectively, the monorail in Sydney is an eyesore, now it may be pulled down again using up the state budget on something nothing.

Hope no big accidents occur, particularly today, to overtax the hospital system as my husband is having surgery done.  However, we do need a fair go all round.

Update. Good value was had from the hospital, it appears. More long and costly procedures have become mainstream - we are rather fortunate that way... I think?  Make it last that way!

The secret agent chanced upon a tete-a-tete.

what the secret agent saw in the garden plot.

Wedding party.

  Awaiting photographs. 

Brick laying.  A skill we take for granted? Then Hawkesbury sandstone used to shore up the river bank and in stairs to access the water.

Some days the Hawkesbury would be alive with people on devices towed by power boats.

 A short and a long route link Sydney and Newcastle. If inclined choose a long route via Lower Portland and have refresments there for it takes hours, is a 'goat track' and has thousands of real bends, half of which are hairpin bends. Or take the train.   

On the banks of Hawkesbury River, south between Sydney and Newcastle.

the farmer in the dell....hi-ho the derry-o, the farmer in the dell....

I'd call this building Art Deco syle.  At Beresfield.

Forget Bali, here is tourism without the hype down by the riverside in Indonesia - our northern neighbour.
Wrote this trivia and minutes later came swiftly 'back to earth' after going to Yahoo which had a report about an Indonesian zoo FROM HELL. Rightly or wrongly my opinon is that animals are simply not their thing, are not part of the domestic Indonesian tradition, are not commonly indulged in and have a low priority which has consequences.  But who can say? 

Choose sustainablity?  Fairfax press reports that a Harvard study published yesterday points to health benefits from cutting back on consumption of red meat.
And on page one we are told that carbon emissions have hit a new record and have risen to their highest level since modern humans evolved (CSIRO, Bureau of Met).
Take the hint.  Choose life! 
At first, no new record was found of a meat study published yesterday. What if it was only a re-hash of old research? Never. Eventually the Harvard site came good and updated or whatever .     

To its credit, a state school organized a weekend of Fair Trade debates and stalls pertinent to the fringe who are into sustainability.
Hare Krishner nosh was appropriate.  Of course, the carbon footprint of vegetarinism is a step in the right direction as well as its other benefits.
I'm big on good intentions but conversion to sustainability remains a work in progress.  That and other issues take forever and ever to resolve, such as justice for piece workers who machine our well known clothing brands and the stall in the picture is drawing attention to their conditions. 

Newcastle's answer to The Parthenon! 
Hellenic Community Centre, Hamilton. Are the old Greek community members counting their blessings in this country as compared to the current times in their homeland, but then, money isn't everything.
The building is way out of proportion to the Orthodox Church next door.

'Bollywood' in Newcastle last year
The university plans to enlarge the inner city campus.  Like the developers, will they make demands about the city rail link, hello, has it come to their attention? The traffic problems associated with 'back to university week' would be eased if they tried various measures instead of everyone kicking off 9am Monday.
A special high speed internet line serves the university and some other entities in the city have very high speed, I believe. Bring it on.
How long before international students begin to reject this and that?  They are expected to 'jump thru hoops', costly hoops designed on a global scale to extract cash and are often repetitous hoops. But think of the success stories.
The previous MP for the city copped a lot of flack over the rail line etc etc.  She lost the seat and all those problems have become a non-event for the new member.
He cops it sweet. Is the new member a long term citizen of Newcastle, did he ever figure in the past in local citizen action and debate, can't say, after all, such is not a prerequisite and can be adopted when it suits.
    

Sports Day, another time another place. Today it's pouring. Magpies are singing in the rain.
I suspect school children over 5 years in Newcastle never ever wear a rain coat. A fashion habit.  But then grown ups don't wear raincoats either.

Locals probably do no more and no less than the prevailing local standards. 
Educational outcomes are flavour of the month and teachers are targetted.
What if nurses were put in a similar spotlight? The conversation is about complexity - waiting times, statistics, hand washing (!).  Instead of that, we have the big little things that count for a lot, the hands on care in touch with lived experience as a work in progress.
Seek out ability to think outside the square and give high priority to sanity as a unique approach to services and look into providing enough staff to do all this in our institutions.

City lane.

 'Bin there done that.

Vocab: Bin...rubbish bin...trash can....garbage bin...wheelie bin.

In memorium.

Latest installation outside the art gallery!  Livesites and irony in Laman Street.
                           Newcastle area is very lucky when it comes to bad weather.  Over the past year at those times when extensive parts of the state had very high rainfall and floods, well, Newcastle enjoyed sunny days. Never the less, the summer has been relatively damp and generally blissfully cool. 

A line of strollers (prams) outside school where young mothers are enrolled in alternative school classes.  A creche is provided.  Hope this service is not 'too precious' and it is a positive step as it has links with a church school.