Colonial Georgian

This afternoon it all came together. I’ve been researching house designs, although I more or less have a firm idea of the type of house I’ll build. Basically a courtyard house. Three buildings; two pavilions, running north-south and a third barn- type building at the southern end, all forming a U. I have almost decided on strawbales for the construction and I’m wondering about a steel frame for the barn, as apparently its not altogether advisable to go too high with straw bales. I like the idea of straw bales because I like the idea of thick walls.

What gelled this afternoon, were the design influences. Basically I thought today, it’s a Georgian style house with a verandah. Lo and behold, this is exactly the description in one of the books I’ve beem reading, describing how the Georgian style of architecture was modified for Australian conditions by the addition of a verandah.

Rouse Hill House is a fairly typical example.




I then began to wonder where exactly on earth, this influence in me had stemmed. And I remembered my sometime youth living in the midlands of Tasmania and being absolutely blown away by the houses that belonged to the friends of my parents.


Here is a photograph of a house that had a profound impact on me.



It has been added onto over the years and the original was built sometime in the 1830's and comprised only that part of the structure to the left. It wasn’t a particularly large house but it did have the obligatory servants quarters out the back, and (oh!) stables! It also had the most incredibly spooky cellar, near the entrance through a wooden door down cold stone steps to a completely pitch dark stone lined chamber. And it was haunted (of course).

I went to the best New Year’s Eve party I’ve ever been too at this house. I wore a pink bib and brace dress with a flounce and white knee high, patent leather lace up boots. It was 1973. I was nine years old. All the adults got incredibly pissed and a fight broke out between the host and a man who I remember was reputed to be filthy rich and as if to drive home the point, was that night brandishing a very newly minted (?) fifty dollar note . My mother had a drunken accident dancing with another woman and they crashed into a sideboard. My father ferried them back to his surgery in Campbell Town and stitched up her chin. He was as pissed as a newt, but did a fine job. I assisted or more probably looked on agog. He was so drunk he was swaying. He was the only doctor in town, (heh). She barely had a scar. I remember this woman, she and her family lived in this house. (Amazing huh?) It had a head room. A room absolutely chokker block with the heads of wild animals one of their ancestors had shot on safari in Africa. It was very unnerving all those eyes staring down dumbly from the walls. There was even a stuffed bear and its cubs. The family used to sit, cool as cucumbers at one end, watching tele. How, I will never understand.

The Georgian style is basically the one that as children most of us drew to illustrate a basic house--a square with a hipped roof, two windows upstairs, two windows down and a front door dead centre. A simple style based on carefully calculated symmetries.

Reading about Australian domestic architecture I’d have to say that it all went horribly pear-shaped, as far as I’m concerned sometime after 1850. The Art Noveau influences of the ‘Californian’ bungalow of Federation, the interiors of which are too heavy, too dark and too cold for my liking and the Victorian era of lacy wrought-iron work too fussy.

This description of houses could quite easily apply today.

By far the majority of houses are built by speculators; which means that they are very badly built , run up in a tremendous hurry, constructed of the cheapest and nastiest materials, with thin walls—in short, built for show, and not for use. Everything looks very nice in them when you walk around just after they are built, and it is only after you have lived in them for eighteen months that you being to understand why the owner was in such a hurry to sell. . . . R.E.N. Twopenny, 1883.

I've found a wonderful site that basically lists all the incredible buildings I knew as a child. They're all ancient and fundamentally all Georgian. Clearly this was when I first became impressed and influenced by architecture.

When we finally moved back to Sydney and I got a horse, I used to ride around the 'new development' areas in the suburb where we lived. Being on top of a horse gave a great vantage for peering over fences. I remember coming home one day, and declaring that the majority of these new B.V. monstrosities ought be bombed, they reminded me of cash registers. That day I was 'going to be' an architect.

All men were bastards.

Whether you're male or female, imagine if you never had to think about shopping for food, or cooking or preparing meals. Never. Somebody else did it for you. You could waltz in at day's end, perhaps ask--What's for dinner? But aside from devouring what was put down in front of you, that was the sum total of the effort or interest you put in to that which sustained you. You took it completely for granted that it was not your role to engage in such labours. Imagine the time you would have on your hands. The freedom from never having to concern yourself with cooking or cleaning. The freedom of being able to simply turn up in time. You stripped off at day's end, threw your clothes on the floor, crawled into bed and in the morning? Voila. Freshly ironed, clean clothes miraculously awaited.

Fewer and fewer men live like this, but still in these areas, a sort of pathos of pity is evoked in both themselves and those who know them, and helps to explain why single men get invited out to dinner a great deal more than single women. Fifty years ago, practically all men were able to live through the unpaid labour of women. Many still do and vociferously defend their right to maintain the status quo, and its pretty obvious why. I know I'm merely stating something we all know, but I just find it staggering.

Women across the world are the meal-makers and cooks, but I doubt that this 'role' was one they chose necessarily, but rather one they were enslaved to perform, harking back to a time when women were property. Perhaps 'progress' would have been slowed, but were the roles played by men and women more equitably performed and both engaged in all aspects of survival, no doubt we'd live in a slower, but healthier and fairer world.

Where that cattle pad might lead.

I picked up a book from the library a few weeks ago-The Lady Bushranger, a historical novel about a woman who fled a murder scene and an unhappy relationship in a then rural Granville, stole a carriage and with a friend and her baby, drove across the Blue Mountains, stealing a colt on the way, to hide out in the wilds of the Wollomi. Specifically on Nullo Mountain. She left the friend and baby in a bush hut and continued up to Nullo Mountain where she figured no one would find her. She would later make a 'selection' of 80 acres, near the Widden Valley on Emu Creek, where if you look, on a topographic map today, you will indeed be able to spot along the upper reaches of Emu Creek, abandoned cattle yards and a building described as 'ruins'.

Her name was Elizabeth Jessie Hickman, she was an accomplished circus performer and the Australian Rough Rider champion in 1906, when I guess she would have been about 14. Her Nullo Mountain adventures began sometime in the 1920's. She was probably more a cattle duffer than a bushranger, as she didn't exactly hold anybody up. She lived for many months in the bush on Nullo Mountain in the rough and later in a well-known cave. Through very severe winters she subsisted on possums and pigeons and the odd stolen sheep. She rounded up and broke in wild horses that had escaped from various studs and farms and was eventually befriended by a cattle duffer and encouraged to move into his hut on a property that was then and probably is still called Thalgoona. Her new friend exploited her skill with horses and her ability to live rough in the bush, to expand his cattle duffing operations. He had connections further west towards Bathurst and orchestrated the movements of stolen cattle. However, it was Jessie who did most of the hard yards in the saddle, navigating her way through incredibly rough terrain and spending many nights on her own in the bush. Back then on Nullo Mountain, there were no fences and stealing cattle was a way of life for people, who usually living alone were desperately trying to make ends meet. She would move stolen herds through incredibly rugged terrain, along a series of secret and treacherous tracks, up apparently blind valleys, through mysterious passes that would emerge in the Hunter Valley, where she would sell them at markets in Singleton.

I found the whole story, written by Pat Studdy-Clift, absolutely compelling and so have been checking out maps and the mysterious Nullo Mountain where Lizzie, as she was called there, lived and roamed. That a woman only eighty years ago lived mostly alone in this incredibly harsh environment moving hundreds of head of cattle and horses, for the most part undetected, is remarkable. She became well known in the district and her activities were indeed suspected by the constabulary in Rylestone, but she made legitimate money breaking in horses and was held in high, if not begrudging esteem for her horsemanship. She was eventually tracked down, had a few miraculous escapes, but was nabbed and tried on horse stealing charges and incarcerated at Malabar. She went back to the circus life for a while, leaving the hut that she'd built on Emu Creek and for a time found herself married to a wealthy man, living a gentile kind of life in Rose Bay. The call of the wilderness beckoned however, and she returned to her beloved selection on Emu Creek. She died in her forties and is apparently buried in a pauper's grave near Newcastle at Sandgate.

The Wollomi National Park is one of the most spectacularly rugged wilderness places in Australia. I have an archaeologist-friend, who has been exploring and documenting the many rock art galleries there. Since the discovery of the Wollomi Pine, the area is now under much more scruitiny, although given its inaccessibility it will probably always remain fairly remote to most people. My friend says they just keep uncovering more art and relics all in pristine condition.

At the back of my place I sometimes follow the cattle tracks, they tend to follow the most economical route in what is fairly hilly country. There's something mysterious about following a well worn cattle pad that traverses down the side of a steep hill to a hidden spring and then gently tracks up and around the edges of another hill to emerge on what looks from the creek flat as some far off hill. I am developing a respect for bush cattle and I wonder just how much of it they've opened up by way of their tracks to those of us who decide on a whim to follow them.

In the next couple of weeks I'll be making a sojourn back to the Mountains, and I've decided to take the scenic route that skirts the Wollomi. Muswellbrook-Sandy Hollow-Bylong- Baerami-Rylstone-Lithgow-Blackheath. The National Trail I see, runs through the Widden Valley, up Myrtle Creek and onto Nullo Mountain and was undoubtedly once used and perhaps even established by the Lady Bushranger.

I am not going to die.

Well not in the near future. Supposedly not according to the Doc who I went to see today. Something of an event in my life, as I haven't ventured into a doctor's room's in um, er, well, at least three years, preferring to stick with a dash of denial and the occasional preventative acupuncture session. Over the years of my generally rude good health, I have found doctors, at least where I'm concerned, to be fairly useless. They never seem to have any idea what's wrong with me. Well one did once, when I presented with a sharp pain in my ribcage upon breathing and glibly thought, he's never gonna know what this is. But voila, much to my surprise, that particular doctor announced quickly and convincingly that I had Bornholm disease* and the only reason he could be so sure was because he'd just had it too. There was nothing that could be done, it was an inflammation of the cartlidge that attaches the rib cage together and it would eventually go away. Aside from the more obvious broken bones, this has been the only definitive diagnosis I have ever been offered by a doctor.

Anyway I do not apparently (touch wood) yet, have heart disease. The THUMP-thumpity- thump-thump-thump of my heart is apparently nothing to worry about, although there is a possibility that I may have either an overactive or possibly underactive thyroid and hence a fasting, full blood count is in order, sometime next week. I suppose doctors are good for 'tests'.

Anyway I'm glad about this news. Heart palpitations have been getting worse lately or at least more frequent, and over the last few weeks I've noticed that my ankles are a bit swollen. Last night I had myself dying an early death, or having heart surgery or scoring some dead person's heart, which up until last night was a prospect I had thought were it ever to present itself I would probably decline. Its probably just stress but I'm not entirely sure exactly how I can get myself any more relaxed. I have tried to observe whether heart palpitations are accompanied by anxious or negative thoughts and I must concede that they are, but am forced to note that I must be way, way, way too sensitive if the vaguest, slightest, tinciest bit of even the slightest most remote anxiety is going to be have such a profound effect on the very thing that keeps me plodding along. Sheesh. What kind of wimp am I? So I have tried to dispel such notions and that seems to work too. But Holy Willikins (my uncle used to say that. He has a stent. He is 77) wrap me up in cotton wool and protect me from the big bad world, but mostly from myself. I have begun the prayer, in quiet desperation, please God make it stop, and then quickly thought the better of issuing up such a request, viz a viz one's heart.

Anyway, I also mentioned the tendonitis in my arm, and was told as I might have suspected, not use it, and to buy some voltaren from the chemist and rub that in. Umph. I don't think so. Back to Dr Ying on Tuesday for some more acupuncture. He reckons my swollen ankles are because my 'ormones have gone baresque.

Its all good, its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,fuck i hate that,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,yeah right,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,its all good,


*attacks of severe pain in the lower chest. The slightest movement of the rib cage causes a sharp increase of pain, which makes it very difficult to breathe, and an attack is therefore quite a frightening experience, although it generally passes off before any actual harm occurs. The attacks are unpredictable and strike "out of the blue" with a feeling like an iron grip around the rib cage. The colloquial names for the disease reflect this symptom. Devil's Grip.

activ8me--on second thoughts. DON'T.

I have long complained about my satellite connection and for good reason. It is painfully slow and utterly frustrating. It continually refuses to connect with some sites in particular most of the time and all sites in general at least once or twice a session. Only by repeatedly clicking the re-load button--sometimes up to ten times, does it then decide it will take me to the page, but then loads it only in its most rudimentary style. I do realise, it is completely futile to scream expletives at the computer, but sheer frustration has driven me to once or twice resort to this. More often than not I am forced steele myself against doing so.

Unfortunately I am contracted to them--only 30 months to go.

Unbeknownst to me, (as I was told on signing the contract, that not one of their customers had ever gone over their monthly download/upload limit). (I now suspect this was a baldfaced lie) I have apparently been exceeding my limit by at least 100% every month from day one. A fact I was blithely unaware until I noticed these unscrupulous scoundrel bastards helping themselves to more than 100% of the agreed figure from the contents of my back account. For some reason after six or more months of supplying me with their service, they have only just begun to do this. Not wanting to pay even more for their pathetically lousy service, only to undoubtedly suffer more of the same and certainly not wanting to keep paying through the nose for illicit internet hours, I decided it was simpler and cheaper to re-connect my dial up account and use it for the greater part of the month.

Man. The dial up , it doth verily rocket along. It never simply point blank refuses to go to a site. It is quiet, no noisy modem/router/whatever, droning away in the background. I can upload and download to my heart's content with no limits attached. All for the princely some of ten bucks a month. Its as fast if not faster than the bloody satellite connection. Live and learn eh what? I may not be able to watch Clarke and Dawe terribly satisfactorily but reduced stress levels are worth it. I love dial up and I also quite like that is perhaps a tincy bit slow because at least it goes where its directed without argument.

YAY.

Three days

I was going to write about the merits of what I have decided to call 'paddock wood', but I think somewhere in the deep past of this blog I have already done that. Needless to say paddock wood has a lot going for it and it is now burning hotly and brightly keeping Oedipus warm.

I could write about the miles and miles and miles I walked yesterday looking for another abandoned house, only to discover that if it was once abandoned, it is now no longer. All magic and mystery gone, by virtue of it being once again inhabited. Dang.

The 'driveway' which to all intents and purposes looked like a public road on the topographic map, was about four miles long and descended down, down, down to a small creek. It was a long walk with many a promising bend, but alas ended only when I came across a strange assortment of abandoned cars next to shipping containers and my destination 'Rocklands' which to all intents and purposes on the topographic map was supposed to be Abandoned, but which clearly wasn't. Despite there being nobody there it was all terribly blokey and a bit creepy. (I drank some water from a tank--I'd badly misjudged the distance but curiosity had impelled me on), said hello to an old red horse and then trudged back out, with many stops to catch my breath.

I could also write about the piece I wrote for radio that I recorded today. But in the interests of trying to maintain my anonymity and because I will probably be suitably alarmed at how I sound when it does got to air, I think I'll just let that one slip by.

Suffice to say its been an interesting few days. So, I'll not write a post on the merits of paddock wood, the seeking out of abandoned farm houses or recording stuff for radio, I'll post some more photos from Saturday's King of the Ranges instead:
















Heavy Horse Display.

King of the Ranges.

The annual King of the Ranges at Murrurundi kicks off Scone Horse week. Horses, horses, everywhere. I'll post some more photographs through the week. I found myself volunteering in a sulky event, although I thought I was merely putting my hand up for leisurely amble.

A satisfactory day as I did what I set out to do and had fun and was unexpectedly very impressed with the courage, skill, strength and stamina of these two girls.

























No, she's not getting off, merely touching the ground, she then hoisted herself back on board

















The strength these girls had was amazing. They held these poses at speed. In this one, she swivelled herself around the pommel.




















This little pony, hammered along, keen as mustard, clearly quite a character. He and his rider/owner bared an uncanny resemblance to each other.

















And the grande finale, at a canter. Absolutely amazing balance.

Bat, cat, front door mat.

This morning I stepped out the front door, and found lying on the front porch a bat. Bad PussKat. So I picked up the little fella, who felt quite cold. His ears, which are huge, were very upright and his tiny little eyes, while not wide open, were open and looking both bright and beady. Aside from feeling quite cold, he didn’t’ ‘seem’ to be dead. There’s something about a dead animal that says, dead, life force gone, kaput, split and no longer present. But this little fella, while not moving and quite cold, didn’t suggest to me that he'd 'gone’. Shock, I therefore surmised. He’s in shock, (bad cat), that’s why he’s so cold. I wondered how to revive him and decided to tuck him into my brassiere. Warm and safe in the left cup with accompanying, if sometimes erratic heart rate, should be fine—must not forget about him.

Well I couldn’t forget about him, not for a second. I transported him, in his newly found snug environment, out to the clothesline to take the washing off the line, the whole time wondering if when he woke up he’d bite me and thereby cause me to contract some ghastly bat disease, like rabies, for instance. I brought in the washing and thought no, this is not going to work, it is not going to be possible to relax at all with a bat tucked in my bra. So I wrapped him in one of my possum-fur black socks and put him in the sun. If he wasn’t in shock before, (I thought as I cleaned my teeth), he’s sure going to be in shock now with the pungent smell of (egads no!) human suffusing his olfactory. Hopefully bats can’t smell very well. Or so I rationalised.

Several hours later while having a cup of tea I thought. Hmmm. Bat. Better go and check, he’s probably getting a bit hot wrapped up in the possum-fur, black sock in the sun. I unwrapped him and he looked a little frazzled and perhaps, or maybe that's undoubtedly dehydrated. And so I took him into the laundry and tried to drip a few drops of water off my fingers onto his mouth. He didn’t appear to swallow this, so I left him in the dark of the outside laundry, tucked into the folds of an old sloppy joe. He wasn’t showing any more signs of life, although his eyes had closed, or at least one of them had. He didn’t seem to have warmed up terribly much and ‘come to life’ as it were, but I still couldn’t believe he was dead. I was certainly prepared to concede he might be dead but he just sort of seemed somehow to still be extant--considering. I tried to feel for a heart beat, but think I only managed to sense a pulse in my fingers or maybe not. Rigamortis had definitely not set in as I gently squeezed him a bit.

Tonight I checked on him again--poor bat. I took the torch and inspected him again. Eyes opened this time, definitely not ‘lively’ but then probably not dead. Then the penny dropped and I came inside to look up ‘bat hibernation’, which of course they do, although its more correctly described as going into a torpor to conserve energy. Their (Little Forest Bat) body temperature drops to that of the surrounding air and they ‘sleep’. Hmmm. So this is probably what he's doing, or trying to do. I also read that its best not to disturb them, as the energy required to crank their little bodies up to operating temperature can fatally deprive them of that which they will need to ‘sleep’ their way through the next few months without food. Fortunately this little fella does not seem to have been roused at all by my proddings, and hopefully, fingers crossed, he has been entirely oblivious to my (ahem) ministrations. He can stay in the laundry. I might move him one more time to where he can definitely remain undisturbed. I'll keep you posted.

The chair 'sniffing' incident.

Bwaaaahaaaaaaaaaaahaaa!!!

Made all the funnier by . . . .



I love Australia.

Home on the range

Home on the Range (well its a creek flat actually)

Digitalised images, I am discovering, are not a patch on colour transparency film. I got a bit carried away with this one in photoshop. But upping the contrast certainly picks out the different grasses.

















Gimme Carrot Now!

Familiarity breeds contempt. Luke bangs on screen door, for a carrot. I have spoilt him.

















By the Dam

Three of the gang of five, by the dam. Sadly the neighbours have split up and one has moved out, taking with him his chestnut the black mare and a big red horse that belonged to a friend. Its a big bust up and everyone is a bit sad. The same day he fled Brokeback with his horses (and the contents of the house), the other remaining neighbour (who is hermit like myself), suggested I move Luke into the hill paddock where the grass is sweeter. Hmm thinks I, we could do with a break from each other, living in each other's pockets, Luke is becoming demanding and petulant. Horses need to live like horses. So big changes all took place on the one day. And confusion reined.

Once there was five now there are only two.

















Banished!

And not at all happy about it. As I suspected he would, he spent most of the day standing by the gate, looking longingly towards the house. Eventually he wandered off for a bit of pick, but refused to drink from the dam for fear of getting bogged. We got bogged once before, up to the arm pits, and it was terrifying and it was only Luke's very intinctually quick reactions that he unplugged himself in a panic driven burst of energy as I slid off. Not doing that again No Way. I bring him in at night for dinner and rugging. I have also buggerised around with this image.

Hot-air. (Balloons)

I have the hiccups now, for the third time today. So what is the scientific explanation for getting them thrice, exactly?

I had two completely unrelated ideas today. The first was while I was trying to get a photograph of my house and adjoining paddock. This was so I could upload it and describe why I need a ride-on mower (definitely) a chain-saw, (well not really) a blower-vac (definitely not) and a whipper snipper, (could come in handy). All of which are being offered as a prize in a competition, for which one need only upload a photograph of one's 'outdoor area' and explain why the above might come in useful while 'taming the great outdoors'. I have been fantasising about having a ride-on mower for a while now.

My idea and granted, its not altogether practical, flitted into my mind from somewhere out of the ether, when I wondered how I could get an aerial shot of my house without the expense of actually paying to fly over it, which I suspect, would probably disqualify me from any perceived need to be gifted with the above. Hmmm hot air balloon? Not that I could fly one, but were it permanently anchored to the ground and couldn't actually go anywhere horiztonal, (like smack into the hill behind), how hard could it be to simply go up? Just turn on the gas, more or less, from what I can gather. It could be the the perfect Saturday afternoon escape. Quiet hours hiding-out, far above the maddening crowd (where?) a few hundred feet in the air above the house. Hot air balloons however are undoubtedly expensive and rather big, which then led me to think of being able to hire one. I strongly suspect, in the cold hard light of the late evening that this idea (being able to hire a hot air balloon or having one permanently anchored off the house) is destined never to get off the ground, but it is precisely what I needed this afternoon.

My second idea which is not so much an idea as a sort of penny dropping, was while listening this evening, to Andrew Ford interviewing kd Lang on The Music Show. It was excruciating. But possibly only to me. While getting annoyed with his inability to empathise or connect with her, it occurred to me that we Australians are absolutely obsessed with comparing ourselves to others, especially Americans. (yes I know)

I have been struggling lately with not comparing myself to anyone and when successful, (and being a hermit makes this infinitely easier), I thoroughly recommend it as being truly emancipating. It wasn't anything Andrew Ford said in as much as it was, the way he said it. His questions whilst they seemed thoroughly reasonable, to me belied a sense of being threatened by a fundamental inability to understand kd's, Buddhism, or her success and he seemed to display a sort of prehensile need to get at the heart of her songwriting and recording techniques. The motive behind his questions seemed only so as to compare and contrast for no apparent benefit. It didn't seem that simple curiosity alone was impelling him on. I am probably being unfair, and to suggest that a tendency to compare ourselves with others is a particularly Australian preoccupation, is clearly erroneous in this case, given that Andrew Ford is a pom. However, for the few seconds that I considered this as an egregious national fault, I could also see how it may have come about. We are, or at least were, geographically isolated, we are young and we are in a very weird place compared to the northern hemisphere, living on a land where the indigenous culture is so different to any of our western traditions and is one we struggle to get our collective heads around. Its little wonder that we look towards more established cultures in the northern hemisphere and particularly America to come to grips with what exactly it is we are supposed to be doing down here. I think we do this obsessively and to our detriment. It distracts us from simply working on ourselves with a sense of confidence that we are in fact wholly legitimate in and of ourselves.

kd didn't seem to be at all interested in comparing her life with that of Andrew Ford's and I can't think of any examples where Americans (and she is not an American so this argument is really falling down) bother with this sort of cringe-inducing and particularly useless exercise. American are far too self-obsessed to compare themselves neurotically with others. (What others?) Continuous and neurotic comparisons, seems only to ever produce pendulum swings between self-abasement and self-exoneration, depending on the mood, while we compare what we do, or have, or how we behave with others who we suspect we should be either envious or pitying of.

I don' t think there is anything to be gained from comparing ourselves with others if the only result is that we feel either increasingly dejected or more obnoxiously smug. I think Americans by and large are very much more inclined to do what they want to do, be what they want to be. Yeah. (Which itself is obviously a comparison).

Personally, I'm discovering that comparing myself to others is a source of much unhappiness and I'm a much more encouraged and vibrant person when I can don't indulge in it.

(BTW, writing a blog post will cure you of the hiccups).