While you're down there....I'll kick you a bit more so you know your place,'k?

You reckon your life is shitty?
Try this on for size.
A homeless bloke, last Summer, shifted into the space under the overpass not far from here. He'd been chucked out of his rental digs and had his worldly possessions tucked in under the disused space where he also had his bed.
An extendable dining table with 6 chairs, a sofa, bookcase, TV, TV stand, and various bed linens in plastic garbage bags to keep them clean.
All quite respectable belongings in pretty good condition.
He lived there without disturbing anyone, he hung a sheet up to afford himself some privacy when in bed.
He was not in anyones way, he was not blocking use of the overpass, plus he was safe from gangs of thugs who bash the homeless.
How ironic that the morning after the Big Winter Sleep Out (ha ha, ho ho, oh, how humourous to sleep out in a cardboard box to raise money for the homeless! Pass the silver spoon, I have a plum lodged in my gullet) was staged by high-flying business leaders and CEOs that we find his space surrounded by council tape.
Monday my husband and son witnessed his worldly possessions being broken up by workers and thrown, piece by piece into the back of a rubbish truck.
BastardCockHeads.

June 30 in history all over the shop

Have had a minor hiccup here, of the autistic child variety and normal programming will resume shortly.

1908 H.H Dutton and mechanic Murray Aunger began the first crossing of Oz by motor vehicle when they set off from Adelaide to darwin.
Pretty pics and further info HERE.
1987/1989 Bank of Canada ceased issuing dollar bills in 1989 and began throwing about, with gay abandon, the dollar coins known as loonies which had been introduced on this day in 1987.
Which you may eyeball HERE.
2005 Prince William piutched up on the Kiwi shores to start his 11 day tour of the Shaky Isles.

Yellow = New Zealand
Orange  = Canada
Green = Australian
Red = UK or other nationality

Italics, bold and coloured blue are links to further info.

Anything outrageous is usually sarcasm and/or humour.

June 29 in history with pictures and chilly cold stuff

1912 W.E Hart, the first to get his pilot's licence in The Land of Oz, won Australia's first air race (from Botany to Parramatta, 25 kms) when he beat the American daredevil A.B 'Wizard' Stone, who landed, lost, at Lakemba.
HERE we can see Hart flying carefree in his biplane.

1937 Joseph Armand Bombardier patented his B-7 snow tractor; this creation was fuelled by the loss of his infant son who died when they were unable to get through the snow to the hospital.

1990 The world's first chickybabe Anglican bishop was appointed when Dr Penny Jamieson was elected by her peers.






It is persistently precipitating here ( like the proverbial cats and dogs) with the mercury hovering just slightly above the 'omg my feet are frozen' level of whinging.
Gluten free dairy free pancakes for Feral kiddo (which went down a treat) and European history on the idiot box for his first part of the school day.
What exciting plans have you got for this chill Winter's day?

Yellow = New Zealand
Orange  = Canada
Green = Australian
Red = UK or other nationality

Italics, bold and coloured blue are links to further info.

Anything outrageous is usually sarcasm and/or humour.

June 28 playing catch up out of bounds with mud galore

1836 Snow fell in Sydney.
Just a trifle cool...
1845 A fire in Quebec destroyed the suburb of St John with 1,300 houses razed to the ground and, combined with the fire at St Roch, $8 million damages in total occurred barely 1 month apart. 
1918 Alexander Turnbull popped his clogs and left his extensive library to 'The King'.
Read more about Kiwi book fanciers who left their extensive collection to be enjoyed by all and sundry HERE.

I have the dreaded Man Flu *cough cough* but am still battling my sons footy gear.
He played 2 matches on Sunday; won 1, lost the other, and managed to bring home about 30 kilos of Ringwood mud engrained into his uniform.
Velvet soap and elbow grease work wonders!

On this day in history June 27 defined by dancing whales

1854 Abraham Gesner, from New Brunswick, patented the process of distilling kero from petroleum which replaced whale oil in lamps.
And the whales danced for joy.
*No, not sarcastic humour. Well, only from a Dancing With The Stars judges viewpoint*

1789 Ooooooooo, there was excitement plus, peoples, when Captain Tench and his party gallivanted upon the Nepean River.
*Yes, that was sarcastic humour*  

1975 Mark Williams hit the top of the charts with "Yesterday was just the beginning of my life".
And hasn't stopped warbling ever since.
*No, that wasn't sarcastic humour. Well, it could be. If you want. But only if you take Russell Crowe back*



Yellow = New Zealand
Orange  = Canada
Green = Australian

Red = UK or other nationality

Italics, bold and coloured blue are links to further info.

Anything outrageous is usually sarcasm and/or humour.

Ballarat visit with photos and burbling from Her Indoors

The photos are a bit light on as it was pouring down in Melbourne, allllllllll the way to Ballarat, the whole time we were in Ballarat and alllllllll the way back home again and I didn't want to get my new baby, a DSLR camera wet.
Yes, I splurged on a DSLR for Feral kid and myself, he loves photography and it was mega price slashed so I got a good deal with his uni fee refund with change left over. He's learning to use it along with me.

Anyway, the pics are light on as it isn't made to swim through Central Victoria BUT we are heading back for a return visit soon.
We got to the Art Gallery and could have stayed all day - they currently have the In Your Face exhibition of political cartoons from 1760-2010.
Feral kid loved this exhibition as he really gets the political cartoons once the storyline behind them is explained to him.
You think cartoons are risque now?
Oh, boy, you should see the political cartoons from the 18th century....!
One blurb states visitors to England were amazed the cartoonists and publishers weren't slung in gaol or hung for the social comments they passed on the Royal Family!

We were pressed for time so we didn't explore the rest of the gallery as we would have liked although we made sure we eyeballed the HUGE Southern Cross flag from Eureka. We hadn't realised quite how MASSIVE it is up close; it's an impressive sight to behold.
The Feral kid loves drawing cartoons and he's booked in to do workshop sessions with an illustrator/author who started at the Melbourne Museum drawing dinosaurs.
Coincidentally this is the second illustrator he'll have met who started out this way (Donna Rawlins who illustrated My Place was the other) so he's going to follow Donna's advice and speak to the paleontologists at Melb Museum.

Anyhoo...we had a wonderful time in Ballarat in spite of the persistent precipitation - walked over the Yarrowee 'Creek' although officially it is actually a river, which purges its way through Ballarat; it was roaring along with all the recent rains swelling it up. Was hanging to snap it with the camera but it was pouring at that stage (See, we aren't made of sugar and we won't melt in the rain. Amazing!)

We managed to find 3 op shops (one which had compiled a list with map for 50 cents was far superior to my outdated list) and I found several fab old-fashioned books of projects for the Feral kid and his Dad to make. Sure, they're old-fashioned things like making biscuit and scone cutters from recycled tins/wooden planes/electric lanterns, etc, but they're fun, some are handy, they are meant to make the kids use their brains and it introduces him to more tools than he's currently familiar with.
Win:win for $2 !  
At the art gallery we were directed to the many free publications available for visitors - like the list of historic places one can visit by bus and the fully published 3 heritage walking trails.
Wow. 

A city which acknowledges that not everyone drives a car and offers comprehensive guides!
We'll definitely be returning soon to use both the buses and explore the walking trail. (NB -V/Line train tickets can be used on both Bendigo and Ballarat regional bus services). 
Yes, there is the usual hills and dales all over Ballarat to negotiate but we honestly didn't notice them as being a bother; we kind of side-swiped Bakery Hill when we realised time had run out and we had to hot-foot it to the train station to get home but it wasn't difficult.

One thing that stood out was the friendliness of everyone we spoke to; big welcoming smiles and readiness to offer directions/assistance to strangers. While the rivalry between Bendigo and Ballarat will go on forever, Ballarat certainly won yesterday.

 I shall leave it there for today's post and will upload the other few pics in tomorrow's history post.
Click on any pic to enlarge the image.

Oh, and the kid managed to change his socks for the day!

My baby takes the morning train...to Ballarat...on the morrow

I shall be running amok in Ballarat with the feral child of my loins.
Should you hear appeals for help from the direction of Central Victoria, please feel free to ignore them and go about your business as usual.
If you do have the urge to have a peek I warn you to wear protective clothing and a full face mask.
I don't know when that child last changed his socks....

June 24 in history...'Rangas rule....apparently

So, here we are in Oz having voted Kevvie off the island and we haz a 'ranga chickybabe for PM, Julia Gillard.
'Ranga being short for Orangutan referring to red heads.
Will she make a better fist of it than Kev?
Who knows *shrugs* but she's been acting PM while he was flitting this way and that, which was more often than he was actually in the country.
So....who knows.

1878 The earliest recorded tennis tournament in Canada was held at the Montreal Lacrosse Club.

1905 New Zealand fish wrapper The Truth hit the streets. Read the full kaboodle of it's bio HERE.

1918 Royal Flying Corps Cap. Brian Peck began the very first airmail service in Canada flying a biplane, loaded with mail sacks, from Quebec to Toronto.

 1942 At Wairarapa a whopper of an earthquake measuring 7.2 rocked the North Island causing extensive damage to buildings. This was known as Wairarapa I as another occurred there in August of the same year.

1978 At 10pm what became the very first Sydney Mardi Gras moved down Oxford Street, then to Kings Cross where the crowd of merry-makers grew to 2,000.
Not to be outdone the police of the day arrested 53 persons in Darlinghurst Rd.

2004 The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom was founded in the Coral Sea Islands with Emperor Dale I the leader.
(Some sources say June 14, others June 24).


Pics are only several of the laundry implements that make up the fabulous historical collection at the Kyneton Museum.

Yellow = New Zealand
Orange  = Canada

Green = Australian

Red = UK or other nationality

Italics, bold and coloured blue are links to further info.

Anything outrageous is usually sarcasm and/or humour.

Kyneton photos BYO popcorn and lime spiders

Today's first few pics are from another camera I was using on our journey up to Kyneton before it got broked.

This is a pretty little valley just the other side of Sunbury on the left as you leave the railway station, on the way further north towards Castlemaine and Bendigo.

I have no idea how accessible it is via road, I've only ever seen it from a passing train, admiring it for the better part of 20 years.

Old water tank just out of the Woodend railway station.

The other side of Woodend it was....

...ever so slightly....

...foggy.

A proper gutter to cope with proper downpours.

A proper fence to cope with proper bovines leaning on it.
As they do.

See?
Told ya there was moo cows!

Pretty dangly things Mother Nature hangs out for decoration.

Proper gates.

Glorious old lamp on bridge going into Kyneton.

For some odd reason no one was enjoying the local pool or river that day.

Totally loved this house.

The last one being the Kyneton Botanic Garden gates.

Slide show 2 of Kyneton

More of Kyneton.

 More pretties.

The shire hall.

Sans hobbits.

 We can haz for ADUCPAS meetings, yes?

Wait....what's that building?

Why, yes....it's what happens to former Salvation Army Churches when the Godless heathens abandon their faith and go sit under Yum Yum Trees to naval gaze.

Someone cuts loose with a bad paint job.

Yes, click the teeny tiny pictures to read the blurb on the memorial foundation stones.
You'd probably be the first in a squillion years...after me, who took the photos, of course.

Kyneton Court House.

Small to deal with petty crime....

Garn, no one will mind if we 'borrow' this little shack for a holiday house.

I am sooooooooo goin' to Hell...

Everywhere we turned there were churches...

And more churches...

And anoth...hey, who put that pub there?

And why were the Godless heathens worshipping there...?

Now I shall leave you with that puzzle to solve while I go fiddle with stuffs.