Easter Sunday

It's a clear still Autumn day in Marrickville - indeed so mild and lovely that I feel some hope for our poor warming planet. Richard's been working hard on the vegie patch the last month or so - paving & planting & staking. What a star. I can take no credit. The patch seems to be on a bit of a rollercoaster and I suspect I could chart its level of order and productivity over the past year in inverse proportions to my own.

Here it was, racked & ruined, in February.

Last September it looked pretty good.

And in August it was just a baby.

Today it looks like this:















Can you see our little cat, Led Zeppelin? We'll sneak up on her...















Hello?















She is not amused.

Other kids on the block

A little Eastern suburbs bird told me that this blog had been the topic of discussion at a dinner on the other side of George St on the weekend. I'm pleased, and hope I paint a good picture of my beloved suburb.

As real estate in Sydney becomes almost impossibly expensive* more and more people who would once never have dreamed of living somewhere like Marrickville are looking over this way.

Well, that's wonderful, but can you please come with eyes and hearts open to all of Marrickville's charm and beauty as it is, not with mindsets that want to transform it into somewhere with trendy coffee shops and rows of plane trees and fancy wine bars full of well dressed people? Because what you'll get here are bunnies. And pay phones.

*Want to own your own home? Simple! Just make sure you and your partner both earn more than the average wage, then save $200,000, then borrow $500,000 on a 35 year mortgage... there has to be a better way. We need real estate collectives, we need public housing for everyone, we need a communist government, we need oh god I need a panadol.

Fading Fedeterranea

There is a classic Fedeterranean home for sale in Marrickville at the moment (I've taken these photos from the real estate website - I don't think they'll mind the free publicity). This is a modest, low-key version of Fedeterranea - no statues, no columns - and I think it has a lot of charm. What do you call that clean minty shade of blue? It's warmer than ice-blue, cooler than aqua.

Somehow I just know that a happy family was raised here. The chairs look so comfy and everything is so well maintained. This home has been treasured and loved and I imagine the children were similarly valued. I love the look of framed pictures on wallpaper. I reckon one of the kids went on a trip to Thailand and brought back those black elephant cushions. The crystal cabinet is full of treasures & memories.

I bet there have been some beautiful meals served at this table, although it was probably reserved for special occasions.

The strangely contradictory mix of freshly swept concrete and abundant vegetables in tubs is very Fedeterranean.

But this is by far my favourite photo. This is where this family would have spent a lot of time - at the kitchen table, sun shining in, kids & grandkids running in and out. I can almost see them there now. Looks like everyone had a favourite cushion for their chair.

Fedeterranea is slowly fading out. This is inevitable of course, as tastes change. Many of the people who created the style are now in their seventies and are moving off to nursing homes or retirement villages. Their grown-up children most likely prefer interior decorating that's more "today". I doubt you can even buy carpet or tiles like that anymore. This home will probably be given a gut-n-smeg by its new owners, unless it's bought by friends of mine who will treasure some of its Fedeterranean features as precious retro while they quickly get rid of others. Either way its loveliness will change, so I'm glad I can put the photos up here.

Election Day

We wandered down to Ferncourt Primary School to exercise our democratic rights this morning. I love election days. Everyone is so polite, there's that good feeling that change is in the air, and you never know who you might bump into at the polling booth. Today I saw my favourite bus driver and a dear friend's girlfriend.

The liberals didn't even bother with any signs at our polling booth... which is safe ALP and usually has the biggest Greens vote of anywhere.

I was impressed by the Greens' multilingual signs - Greek and Vietnamese at Ferncourt School,

and later in the day I spotted Arabic outside St Francis' in Illawarra Rd. None of the other parties seemed to have bothered with anything other than English.

The parents and citizens association at the primary school was selling flowers.

And they had a sausage sizzle, which I really love the smell of although I'm vegetarian.

Pop Art

Marilyn, Jackie O, now me. Photography & manipulation by Maher Berro.