Upside down

Oops!

SOLD! A steal at a mere $7.1 million!

Sold for $7.1 million last week was 'Brise de Mer', the last remaining fully detached house on the Manly beachfront. A company with restoration credentials bought it. Until now it has been held by one family since 1917. It sits on 910 sq metres, and there is approval for a five-unit, six-storey apartment block in its backyard. Let's hope what rises behind is a little more attractive than what flanks it. More here. The outcome seems better than what was threatened a year ago.

Breakfast fruits

Summer's coming, so peaches, nectarines and mangoes are making an appearance. Cherries soon too. Just the thing for summer breakfasts (and all day, really!) . But it's the last appearance for this year of blood oranges, which I love to juice with ruby grapefruit, lemons and mandarins for my breakfast juice.

Gaudì-inspired seats, Neutral Bay

Today is my birthday. If I were made of money, I'd jet off to somewhere exotic. But I'll just remind myself of lovely Barcelona where I was earlier in the year, and count my blessings.

In 2002, mosaicist, Cynthia Turner, drew inspiration from Antonio Gaudì's famous benches in Parc Güell, Barcelona, in making these seats in Sydney's Neutral Bay.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, Newtown

As I passed by a shop in Newtown which was being set up - new stock being delivered - I glimpsed this fellow catching a few zzzzz's. Unfortunately, in my haste to capture it I didn't have the camera on the correct setting, so it's a bit out of focus. I like it anyway, "the moment" being the thing!

Von Stauffenberg's Stamp

'Two Twisted' was a TV series of half hour shows, each with a mysterious twist at the end. An episode called 'Von Stauffenberg's Stamp' (Von Stauffenberg was the military officer who tried to assassinate Hitler) was filmed using both the exterior and interior of the Bexley Stamp Shop, which I went to today for some collectors' supplies.

The story involved a stamp dealer, and a barber, whose shops were next to each other. The real stamp shop owner told me they used a barber shop in another suburb, and melded the two together on screen, because this barber didn't want to take part.

Three of my favourite actors - Sam Neill, Roy Billing, and Wendy Hughes were in the show. So, a small local 'Brush With Fame'.

Anchors Aweigh

Cruise ship at Darling Harbour passenger terminal.

In the backyard (not mine!)

I've shown a fair few front-of-house pics recently, so I thought we'd take a peek round the back. Here's a fairly typical suburban Sydney backyard - a swathe of buffalo grass lawn, a shed or garage at the side, an old outside toilet (probably converted into a garden shed now), a veggie patch, a traditional wooden paling fence on one side, and a Colourbond (metal) one on the other, and a Hills Hoist rotary clothes line - a miracle of Australian invention. When I was a kid, I had a toy one. Now there's one in the Museum of Melbourne, the National Museum in Canberra and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

What 's your favourite memory of a childhood toy?

There's also another Aussie phenomenon happening in this pic - the house renovation at the back - the back deck, probably with the kitchen or family room opening on to the deck. Many of my neighbours are from Southern Europe or the Middle East, and they tend to spend a lot of their leisure hours at the FRONT of the house, sitting on porches or verandahs entertaining, sipping tea or coffee, and watching the world go by. Many have moved old chairs and sofas out the front for this purpose. Older Australians, in contrast, have traditionally spent their leisure hours in the backyard - gardening, pottering in the shed, having a barbecue, and so now often the first part of a house to receive a makeover is the back. It accounts for the enormous popularity of one TV show called "Backyard Blitz" where a team makes over a backyard in 48 hours.

Andrew (Boy) Charlton pool, Woolloomooloo Bay

Sydney is blessed with lots of swimming pools. This one, on part of the Harbour called Woolloomooloo* Bay, with a redeveloped Finger Wharf behind, is beautifully located.

Andrew 'Boy' Charlton (the nickname comes from the fact that he was only 14 when he came to prominence, in 1921) won a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, swimming 1500 metres in 20 mins 6.6 seconds. He swam in 1928 in 1932 Olympics, won a further 3 silver and 1 bronze medal, and broke 5 world records.

Pool website

*Woolloomooloo: The first wharves were built in the 1860s. It used to be a rough and tough wharves area, then a public housing area. These days, like everywhere, the millionaires have moved in (eg Russell Crowe owns an apartment in the wharf development), as, world-wide, poorer people are pushed out to allow the wealthy to own the best views and most convenient locations.

Woolloomooloo gets its name from a house of that name built by the first NSW Commissary General in 1801. There is debate about its derivation. From Wikipedia: "Anthropologist J.D. McCarthy wrote in NSW Aboriginal Places Names, in 1946, that Woolloomooloo could be derived from either Wallamullah, meaning 'place of plenty' or Wallabahmullah, meaning a 'young black kangaroo'.
In 1852, the traveller Col. G.C. Mundy wrote that the name came from Wala-mala, meaning an Aboriginal burial ground. It has also been suggested that the name means 'field of blood', due to the alleged Aboriginal tribal fights that took place in the area, or that it is from the pronunciation by Aboriginals of windmill, from the one that existed on Darlinghurst ridge until the 1850's."

Kevin Little - Stained Glass Artist

This is possibly the most exciting blog I have made. It's long, but I think worthwhile.
Today the DP Bloggers Theme Day is "Something That Will Soon Disappear". 51 bloggers are taking part (click links below)

Almost the first words Kevin Little said to me when I wandered into his workshop to ask him if I could take a photo of him at work were “I’ve been here for a long time, but not for much longer”.
Kevin is 75, and, one of, if not the, pre-eminent Australian stained glass artists. His workshop is right near where I live.

In its heydey, Kevin's business employed 30 artisans here and throughout country areas. He's had commissions from many of Sydney's leading institutions, includingthe Town Hall, Sydney Hospital and St Mary's Cathedral. But, he told me, "There’s not much of a living to be made any more from being a stained glass artist. “The Protestant churches don’t put in stained glass windows any more, and the almighty dollar rules everything. Even restoration jobs are done on the cheap these days” he said. Kevin also lamented the destruction of much of the stained glass in churches and houses as newcomers rip them out. [I'm pleased to say that we had Kevin repair one in our house when it was damaged a few years back.]

As well as work in glass, Kevin also restores furniture and all manner of things including a gorgeous grandfather clock he found in pieces in a kerbside junkout. He collects an array of things too vast to describe, and his studio/workshop is a veritable museum. Every object has a story, and the connections they weave between people are amazing.

Kevin took me on a tour of his world, and I especially loved seeing a couple of fragments of 14th century stained glass, and the “sweatshop” end of the studio, where Kevin showed me the traditional method of drawing a design in chalk, before tracing it on to paper.
See more photos of Kevin and his workshop here.

This is true artisanship, which is not going to be there for much longer.

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