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December Adventures

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A musical Prelude. In about 1969 I went to see "Beyond the Fringe" at the May Fair Theatre in London.  The curtain rose to a stage with 4 bar stools and a piano.  Dudley Moore came on and sat at the piano.  He began to play something which gradually evolved into 'God save the Queen'.  This caused some confusion with the British members of the audience: do we stand or not?  Being in the Mayfair a good proportion of the crowd were American one of whom, sitting right behind us - from his accent (and attitude) likely from Texas - guffawed loudly about "the Limeys are all confused haw, haw".  For the second half, the same opening, but Dud's tune evolved into the Bar Strangled Spanner.  The Wacko Kid behind us was far from amused and jumped up, while all the Poms sat and laughed. The relevance of this will come later. On a theatrical note I find that just about every literary cliche in English comes from Hamlet, apart from those in the Scottish Play by the s...
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Let the Sunshine in

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 I have posted previously about a visit to Costco at Ardeer - possibly read that after this. Today (21 November) we had quite a tour of the wild west in mind with 4 stops planned. The first stop at Millers Junction in Altona North was intended to be a visit to the Woolies as it is the only place I know still selling Schlossgold no-alcohol beer.  Got a few 6 packs of that and some Edenvale no-alcohol Sauv blanc ($8.90 a bottle vs $12 at Coles at Prahran).  Then to the plant section of Bunnings (a nice potted Dahlia) and a few things at Aldi - as we had the car and thus avoided a walk to Prahran the next day.  Next, following Google Maps as satnav, we dodged around an industrial area to get to 6 Law Court in Sunshine West where Mount Zero Olives can be found.  An interesting warehouse staffed by very pleasant people selling olive products among other things.  We purchased some stuff and had interesting chats about where they source their product: in summary...
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The Western Mosquito Plant

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 We took ourselves out to the Western Treatment Plant (WTP) at Werribee, mainly because we hadn't been for a while and the Summer birds should be around.  I will comment that some of these photos are straight from Crap Bird Photography (CBP)  because the mosquito population (not standard mosquitos, as a bit bigger and apparently didn't bite) so perhaps better to just say Diptera) at times was reminiscent of a swamp in Canada.   We started at the T-section ponds well down Port Wilson Rd.   Here is our route for that site. We soon found a few waders, mainly tiny Red-necked Stints but also some larger Sharp-tailed sandpipers (with orange arrows). Mozzies were very bad here so this pic of a Yellow-billed Spoonbill was taken through a closed and dusty car window 2 Cape Barren Geese. A male White-fronted Chat.  They were present in many areas today. Whiskered Terns were also a constant presence.  Despite appearances these are not perched on the bac...
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Bits of Prahran in an evening or two

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Or in fact 3 evenings - see addition at the end. This covers a few snaps in various bits of Prahran (now and then).   It begins with us going to the Prahran Mechanic Institute Library for a talk about stained glass windows as War Memorials (aimed to happen on Remembrance Day).  This was the opening slide of a relatively brief Powerpoint which started the Presentation. The speaker was Dr Bronwyn Hughes OAM an art historian specialising in stained glass.  She has established GLAAS Inc ( GLASS LIGHT ART & ARCHITECTURE SYNERGIES) based nearby at 140 High St.  She then ran the film Let the Sun Shine In  covering 5 windows in Australia covering major conflicts from the Boer War to Vietnam.  To watch the film, scroll down a screen in the linked page and press an obvious button. It is a ripper of a film. On the way back to 505 we passed through Prahran Square where an installation has been established.  It includes lots of bubbles once fully operation...
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